[From Litha to Lammas]: Iron and Sapphires, Harry/Tom Riddle, R, 5/6

[lomonaaeren]

Part Four.

Part One.

Title: Iron and Sapphires (5/6)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Harry/Tom Riddle, background Lily/James
Content Notes: Massive AU, angst, depression, unreliable narrator, past child death, suicidal thoughts, passive suicide attempt, dysfunctional relationships, child abuse, mindfuck, mental instability, dubious consent, past minor character deaths, violence, gore, Dark Arts, disturbing content.
Wordcount: This part 3800
Rating: R
Summary: After what he did to his brother when he was ten years old, Harry has devoted himself to atoning for it and to doing whatever he can for his younger sister, Amara. When she asks him to steal an artifact for her from the powerful Lord Gaunt, Harry agrees. He doesn’t know what’s waiting for him, or how thoroughly it will end his world.
Author’s Notes: This is one of my “From Litha to Lammas” fics, being posted between the summer solstice and the first of August this year. It should have four parts. Please look at the warnings; this is an extremely dark and disturbing fic.

Thank you for all the reviews! My apologies for no post yesterday; a massive power outage meant I couldn’t post or work on the story.

Part Five

“There was something I wanted to ask you.”

Harry opened his eyes and glanced up at Tom. He’d been sitting in the middle of the ritual circle practicing controlling his magic. It resulted in incredibly beautiful sparks of light fluttering around him that Tom could have watched for hours. But he had done that yesterday, and now his mind moved restlessly to a conclusion he wished to achieve.

“If you’re going to ask me what my revenge on my parents is going to be,” Harry said, stretching and absently stopping a cascade of green from pouring over his head to the other side, “then my answer is still: You have to wait to find out, the same way Sirius does.”

Tom narrowed his eyes a little, disliking being compared to Black, but he let it go. “No. This is something else.”

He let silence speak for him until Harry turned around in place and stared at him. “It isn’t like you to be shy with what you want. What is it?”

Tom let his eyes wander and linger on Harry’s exultant face and slim shoulders and lithe body and magic-guiding hands. But Harry said nothing, in turn, so Tom looked him in the eye and said, “You, in my bed, tonight.”

Harry’s mouth opened, and stayed open. Tom watched him, admiring even the line of his dropped jaw. His own desire had gone deeper than it had in years, but so what? He had Harry here in front of him, and it was a waste not to ask. The Potters had wasted enough of Harry’s life.

“I—I don’t even know what to say.” Harry ran a hand through his hair. For a moment, his magic sparked around him again, and then disappeared.

“You don’t need to say anything special,” Tom said. “This isn’t ritual magic that demands a certain kind of response and pattern. Refuse or accept. That is all.”

“I’ve never had sex before.”

“I know. You told me that when you told me how you got past Erebus.”

Harry closed his eyes. “I mean, I wouldn’t have any idea how to make it good for you.” A glowing blush that Tom had thought gone with the last few days edged its way into Harry’s cheeks again.

“Let me assure you,” Tom purred, “I have never left my lovers unsatisfied or gone away unsatisfied myself. Your part wouldn’t be to make an immense effort to please me. Your part would be to enjoy yourself.”

Harry stared at him some more. Tom tilted his head. It was obvious that Harry was going to refuse, but he did want to know why, so that he might have better success the next time he made this proposal.

And he already knew that he would make it. Harry intrigued him as no one had in decades. Tom did want to bed him. But he wanted Harry to be swept away by passion and pleasure when that happened, not uncertain. He would have Harry, and he would have him laughing and open-mouthed and wide-eyed, not just rebelling against his parents, which Tom thought might have been behind too quick an agreement.

“I,” Harry said, and shook his head. “It wouldn’t be a satisfying time for you, and that would kill my enjoyment.”

“Then does that mean you will never come to me?” Tom asked quietly. “Since I cannot go back and change my previous experience, and you cannot change your lack of it without sleeping with someone.”

Harry hesitated, then shook his head. “Look, Gaunt, just a few days ago I thought I would never have sex because I would be dead by the end of summer. It takes longer to switch everything over. I can engage with my magic because it was imprisoned by the manacle. All the other stuff, the stuff I imprisoned...” He waved his hand a bit. “It has to wait.”

Slowly, Tom nodded. That was a more complex reason than he had thought Harry might have for waiting, and also harder to get past. He would have to think about it, and see if he could become what Harry wanted.

“Then I respect your choice,” Tom said, half-bowing his head. “And I hope that when you decide to grace someone’s bed, that it will be mine and not someone else’s.” He started to turn away, to walk towards his bedroom and plan the next seduction attempt he would make on the morrow.

“What if it is someone else’s?”

Tom turned and glanced over his shoulder. He wasn’t sure what Harry saw in his eyes, but Harry’s own eyes widened, and he stood up as though he thought he would need to defend himself.

“Then I do hope that you’ll realize I take competition seriously,” Tom said gently.

And he left the room, reveling in the stare that burned into the middle of his back. He had enjoyed being surprised by Harry in the past week, but he wanted to do some of the surprising, too.

*

“Harry? Are you all right?”

Sirius’s voice sounded so concerned that Harry blinked and forced himself to look up and smile at his godfather. They were sitting in the small dining room where they’d eaten all their meals since Sirius joined them, although Gaunt hadn’t put in an appearance yet this morning.

“Yes,” Harry said blankly, and ran his hand through his hair. Then he took a deep breath and decided that, since he hadn’t ever troubled Sirius with the usual questions a boy might ask his godfather when he was younger, he could ask an embarrassing one now. “How did you decide that you wanted to sleep with someone, Sirius?”

Sirius looked as if someone had slapped him around the head for a second, and then laughed aloud and said, “Oh, someone caught your eye and you realized that you could have them because you wouldn’t be—No.”

“What?” Harry widened his eyes innocently, because he couldn’t help himself, and it certainly wasn’t a trick that would work with Gaunt.

Sirius pointed a finger at him. “You are not sleeping with Lord Gaunt.”

“What, you don’t think he’s rather attractive with the way he stares murderously at you and that silver in his hair—”

Sirius clapped his hands over his ears and began to hum loudly. Harry laughed and sat back, glad that for once, his interaction with his godfather could be playful instead of Sirius swearing at him and begging him to remove the manacle. It wasn’t the same as the playfulness they’d had when Harry was young, before the accident, but it didn’t have to be.

“What have I missed?” Gaunt glided into the dining room, wearing yet another pair of fancy robes edged with silver and gold.

Harry watched him from the corner of his eye, for the first time consciously considering Gaunt as a prospective lover. He’d thought Gaunt was handsome, before, and of course he was brilliant, and Harry owed him a debt of gratitude for freeing Harry from the manacle. But he hadn’t thought of him seriously in the sense of being with him, because why would he? Gaunt was older and had a reputation. He wouldn’t want a virgin who had been suicidal for years.

Now, he let himself watch the way Gaunt glided to the chair, and the way his wrist turned as he picked up his cup of tea, and the way that his eyes had a jeweled sheen to them as he considered Harry and Sirius in turn. Harry shivered a little, and of course Gaunt noticed (Sirius was still humming with his hands over his ears).

“Well?” Gaunt prompted when Sirius didn’t answer him, and Harry continued with his staring, that he was trying to keep as secret as possible.

“My godfather is scandalized at the thought of you and me sleeping together,” Harry said casually.

“He can go be scandalized elsewhere anytime he likes,” Gaunt murmured, raising his cup to his lips. “I do not tolerate interference with my personal choices.”

“Well, it’s Harry’s choice, too, and I’m his godfather,” Sirius said, dropping his hands from his ears and proving that he’d been listening after all.

“Of course. But I will not tolerate discouragement.”

Sirius stared at him. “You would tolerate encouragement?”

“Of course.” Gaunt reached down into his robe pocket and took out a small silver flask with a ruby capping it. Harry couldn’t even imagine what rare and precious ingredients rode in that kind of flask. Gaunt uncapped it, dripped a few drops into his cup, drank, cocked his head to the side, shook it, and then added more from the flask. “Why wouldn’t I? If you were unaware that I wanted Harry before, you know now that I do.”

“Did Harry already know?” Sirius leaned over the table to frown at Harry as if he thought he was a traitor for some reason.

“I told him last night, if he did not already.” Gaunt sipped from his tea again and nodded, putting the flask away. Harry watched the graceful gesture and bit his lip, but he also wondered whether he would really fit into the life of a man who carried something that costly simply to add a few drops of something (a potion?) to his tea.

Harry’s hair was unruly, and his magic undisciplined, and his temper unrestrained, and now that he was out of the manacle, he sometimes felt as if he had no self-control at all—

“And you’re considering this?” Apparently it was Harry’s turn to have Sirius squawk at him now.

Harry nodded. “I am,” he said, and realized it was true. It didn’t mean he had to say yes. And Gaunt’s smug satisfaction that practically radiated off him like heat was annoying. But not annoying enough for Harry to reject him altogether. “He is handsome, Sirius, I told you. And powerful. And smart.”

“And you are not afraid of me,” Gaunt said. “Even when you came to break into my sanctum, you were not afraid of me.”

“I imagine that must be pretty rare,” Harry said, and held the man’s gaze for a moment. Gaunt nodded a second later, his expression calm except for the brilliance in his eyes.

“But let’s look at the downsides here!” Sirius waved his hands around. “He’s a lot older than you are, Harry. And you could find someone nice who wants to sleep with you, around you age. And you could find someone who doesn’t see you as a sort of magical experiment. And you could find someone who wants to marry you—”

“Marriage would not be out of the question if we are compatible in other areas,” Gaunt murmured.

“Why, thank you for thinking of me, Gaunt.” Harry bowed mockingly to him across the table.

“And that’s another reason!” Sirius waved his hand nearly hard enough to upset Gaunt’s teacup. “You don’t even call him by his first name, Harry! How can you sleep with someone like that?”

“I would be most honored to have Harry call me whatever he wants.” Gaunt looked at Harry and did that raking thing with his eyes that made it seem as if he was calculating the value of Harry’s every body part again. Or the attractiveness, Harry thought, staring back. “Preferably screaming it when I’m deep in—”

Sirius jumped up and ran away from the table with his hands plastered against his ears.

Harry snorted and shook his head. “He acts as though this is the worst thing he’s ever heard, instead of what my parents were planning.”

“He regarded them as friends for a long time. Give him time to accept that they are indeed worse people than he thought. And that the feared Lord Gaunt of Great Britain, Parselmouth and Dark wizard, is a better one.”

Harry nibbled on a piece of toast, the perfect temperature as always. He didn’t know what Gaunt’s house-elves did to the food, but it worked. It tasted a lot better than the food he’d eaten at home any time since the manacle.

And before then, well, he couldn’t really remember.

He took a deep breath. “What would you say to a demonstration before the being buried deep inside part?”

Gaunt paused for a long moment, and then set his teacup gently down. His eyes were bright as he bent towards Harry and extended one hand, although he was sitting far enough from Harry not to touch him. “What did you have in mind?” he breathed.

*

Tom actually wouldn’t be surprised if Harry had nothing in mind and had thrown out the words as a challenge. But the heat stirring in the back of Harry’s eyes convinced him that Harry intended to come up with something now.

Harry stood up and sauntered slowly around the table towards Tom. His eyes were critical, assessing. Tom found himself holding his breath for a second, and released it slowly. It was one thing for Harry to have power over him, another for him to know that he did.

Harry reached his chair and stood there staring down at him. Tom waited, letting him have the moment when he might seem to dominate Tom physically. That challenge would not pass unanswered.

“You haven’t shown me so far that you’re capable of anything interesting,” Harry murmured, his voice the more provocative for being bland. “Why don’t we start with a kiss? And no tongue.”

“Why not?” Tom asked, fascinated now by Harry’s logic the way he had been by his power.

“Because that would make it too easy. Show me what you have when it’s chaste lips pressed to chaste lips.”

Tom half-smiled and stood up. “I will kiss you with lips only, but that is not the same as its being chaste,” he murmured, and laid a hand on Harry’s shoulder, and leaned in, and touched his mouth to Harry’s.

Harry gave a harsh gasp that, for a moment, seemed likely to violate his own rules. But he clenched his hands into fists at his side and stood there, trembling, his whole body vibrating to a tune that Tom had played before, but never so well as this.

Then again, he had never had so superior an instrument to play upon.

Harry was gasping aloud long before the end, although he kept his mouth mostly closed, taking shallow sips of air as Tom gently, softly worked their lips together. One hand remained on Harry’s shoulder. The other cupped the back of his head, and roamed up the nape of his neck, and did long, slow pulls through his hair.

Harry edged back at last, his eyes a little wild. “I didn’t specify that you could use your hands,” he croaked.

“Why, that’s true,” Tom said, in a faux-startled tone that made Harry narrow his eyes at him. “Shall I clasp them behind my back and try again?” He did move his hands as he’d suggested and stood there, blinking at Harry and waiting to see what would he would next.

“I don’t trust you,” Harry said. “What are you up to?”

Tom half-laughed. “Unlike you, I’ve used a wand all my life since I turned eleven, and I’m not proficient at wandless magic. If I don’t have my wand, and if my hands are locked behind my back and I can’t touch you, what can I use on you but my mouth?”

Harry gazed at him, but if he’d found a flaw in Tom’s logic, he seemed intent on keeping to himself. He moved forwards again, and this time, he was the one who initiated the kiss, his hands hovering over Tom’s shoulders for a second before he seemed to decide he would be violating his own rules that way and moving them down to his sides.

Tom moved his mouth back and forth, as gentle and soft as before, and soon Harry was fighting his gasps again.

*

Banning him from using his tongue didn’t make a difference.

The most infuriating thing was that Harry still didn’t know what would. Gaunt with his hands behind his back, his tongue sealed firmly behind his lips, still kissed him in a way that made Harry’s skin pulse and pound with leaping blood.

It’s because he’s kissing me like he wants to kiss me.

It sounded stupid even in his head, but Harry knew it was true. Gaunt desired him, and he saw no reason to hold back on that desire when he kissed Harry, and the fact that Gaunt sincerely wanted him in his bed made Harry tremble with the effort of holding back and sparked desire in him, too.

He still didn’t trust Gaunt enough to call him by his first name, and yet Harry was considering going to bed with him.

Do I want him, or do I want to be wanted?

It was a question that made Harry shudder abruptly and pull back from the kiss, panting. Gaunt regarded him with the same kind of self-satisfied smirk that he seemed to carry about everywhere and that had made Harry wonder if he wanted what Gaunt was offering, but the heat in his eyes was open, and new.

Harry swallowed, and knew that if he didn’t want to go to bed with Gaunt, he wasn’t going to say no to the demonstration that he had encouraged in the first place.

“So show me what else you’ve got while we’re both standing upright,” he whispered.

Gaunt laughed in a low way that made it seem as if he was laughing in Parseltongue, although Harry thought you could only talk in it. He guided Harry abruptly back to the wall, gripping his shoulders and holding him in place while staring directly into his eyes. Then he said, “Hold the wall. Put your hands up and keep them there. Move them once so that you can touch me, and I’ll stop.”

“Who says that I have to do what you order?”

“You don’t.” Gaunt’s eyes were full of an odd mirth now, as well as that desire that made Harry want to start panting. “But this is what I want to do to you right now, and you can take it or leave it.”

Harry swallowed, and thought about it, and decided. He moved his hands up so they were flat against the wall. The wall was pure stone, and there was really nothing to grip except a few protruding shelves.

“All right,” he whispered.

Gaunt smiled at Harry, and sank to his knees.

Harry opened his mouth, and gave a soft gasp, and nothing else came out. This hadn’t been when he’d thought Gaunt would do. He’d anticipated a hand on his cock, or maybe Gaunt playing the Lord and having Harry rut against him and do all the work. Not—

Not Gaunt’s open mouth, the warmth of it around him already the best thing Harry had ever felt. Harry shut his eyes, and still the heat shot up to his spine and made him feel as if he was going to come right away and spoil everything.

Gaunt gave an especially smug suck, as if he could sense that possibility in Harry’s magic and it was all right with him. Harry bent his spine and arched his hips forwards, wondering for a moment if Gaunt would count that as Harry touching his face, and stop.

He didn’t, and he didn’t. Harry’s head spun and his spine melted and he thrust a few times and he came.

No, this was the best thing he’d ever felt. It burned and sliced through him like a healing sword stroke and left him panting and dizzy and weak and clean.

Harry opened his eyes after a long moment and stared down at Gaunt, who was thoughtfully licking a smear of white from the corners of his lips as if contemplating the taste. He tilted his head at Harry’s stare.

“Did you need something?” he asked. “I would have thought not, after my more than impressive performance.”

“You are such a git,” Harry murmured, and reached out to clasp Gaunt’s shoulders and draw him to his feet. “Come here.”

Gaunt leaned in, every line of his body still radiating smugness, the way his sucks had managed to. And Harry lifted his knee, carefully angled it, and rubbed against Gaunt’s groin with a long, swift movement.

Gaunt gasped, and his eyes looked wild for a moment, as though he was trying to deal with and absorb the sensation. Harry moved his knee back and forth, twisting it a little in a motion that would have made him fall if he wasn’t hanging onto Gaunt. But he was, and he saw the moment when Gaunt chose to surrender to the pleasure that Harry hoped was swamping his body.

His hiss between clamped teeth was all that Harry had hoped for, not Parseltongue but still an expression of helpless bliss. He leaned heavily on Harry for a moment, panting, and then straightened up and stared at him with half-lidded eyes, twisting his head a little back and forth. Harry wondered if Gaunt was literally looking at him from different angles.

“I don’t know if that can be considered a favor,” Gaunt murmured, “when we both did it to each other.”

Harry smiled. “I wasn’t aware we were trading favors. I thought we were showing each other what we could do.”

Gaunt half-bowed his head, eyes so bright that Harry basked in their light the way he had in the compliments Gaunt had offered him on his magic. “So we were. I would beg you to do me a favor, then, if you were pleased by what I did.”

“You know very well I was pleased,” Harry murmured, playing with the edge of Gaunt’s robes for a moment. “What’s the favor?”

“Use my first name.”

Harry paused, and then nodded slowly. He still didn’t trust Gaunt completely, and it might take years before he did, but it seemed silly not to use someone’s first name when they’d just had sex. “All right. Tom.”

Gaunt gave a quiet moan, not at all the reaction Harry had thought he’d get, and spent a moment leaning more heavily against Harry, staring at him as if he was the center of Gaunt’s universe and the pivot of his stars.

“Thank you, Harry,” Gaunt whispered, and stepped back, and left him.

Harry stood there for long seconds before going over to pick up his teacup. He sipped from it slowly, and ate the last crust of toast, and watched the plate vanish into the hands of Gaunt’s ever-attentive house-elves, before smiling and then stretching.

The feeling of warm, languid satisfaction in his muscles was welcome to linger for as long as it wanted, Harry thought.

And in the meantime, he had another part of his future to look forward to.