lomonaaeren

Part Five.

Part One.

Title: Iron and Sapphires (6/6)
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 7200
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 again for all the reviews! This is the last part of the story; I hope you enjoy it.

Part Six

"Are you sure that you want to do this?"

Harry shrugged a little, staring into the distance beyond the ward boundaries, where Remus hadn't appeared yet. "Tom gave us the permission to invite Remus over, and Remus said that he would come. That means I should meet him. He'd hardly like to meet Nyx," Harry added, and took a moment to daydream about how that would go.

"You don't have to meet Remus just because he said he would come, Harry."

Harry turned around and blinked at Sirius. "But I thought you said that you wanted to know what he was thinking."

"I could have invited him over and talked to him if that was the only thing I wanted." Sirius shook his head, his mouth set in a grim line. "I don't want you exposed to him if he's going to talk more bollocks about the way that he didn't know you were being condemned to death."

Harry touched his godfather on the shoulder, but rolled his eyes a little to himself. Yes, Sirius wanted to protect Harry, and that was admirable. But he refused to listen to what Harry thought was the plain truth. Everyone had been more than a little broken by living in a house that had deified Brandon. Remus had tried to be loyal to his friends, and he'd been more loyal to them than he was to Harry. Harry didn't like it, but he didn't think it was incomprehensible, the way Sirius seemed to.

"I want to talk to him, if he'll come," Harry said simply.

Sirius snorted and started to say something, but a crack of Apparition interrupted him. Harry turned around and smiled a little when he saw how anxious Remus's face was, before he started to hurry towards them.

"If he says one thing about how you should excuse James and Lily," Sirius muttered.

"He hasn't yet," Harry felt compelled to point out, and maybe the irritation did show in his voice, because Sirius shut up.

Remus slowed as he neared the ward boundary, and examined them both with long stares and careful sniffs. Then he relaxed and shut his eyes, shaking his head. "You ought to know that I thought you were dead," he whispered. "Harry first, and then both of you when Sirius didn't return."

"Would it even have bothered you if you thought Harry was dead?" Sirius demanded.

"Of course it would! Sirius--"

"Because you sure acted for years as if you didn't care, because it was his free will that he die." Sirius spat the words, leaning forwards over the hedge, and an answering light was kindling in Remus's eyes.

"Excuse me," Harry said loudly, before the argument could really get started. "I'm the one who has the right to question Remus. Sirius, you insisted that you could be here and you wouldn't get in the way of what I wanted to say. If you can't keep that promise, then go elsewhere."

Maybe it was slightly underhanded, to accuse Sirius of breaking promises when Harry knew that Sirius was still so unhappy about breaking promises to him in the past, but he flushed with shame and stepped back. Harry nodded to him, squeezed his shoulder for a second, and then turned to look at Remus.

"You really thought I'd put on the manacle of my own free will," he said. "That I'd agreed to die when I was ten years old?"

Remus swallowed. Then he mumbled, "I relied too much on your scent."

Harry blinked. "What do you mean?"

"I kept asking you whether you'd put it on of your own free will. And you said you had. And your scent agreed." Remus leaned towards him, searching Harry's face with an open gaze that made him look as if he was trying to suck all Harry's secrets out of him. "I asked you over years, and I tried to word the question differently each time, so that if you had secret doubts, I'd discover them. I never could. You answered with different words, and you smelled...as if it was true." He lowered his eyes. "The prospect of magical interference from the manacle never entered my brain. I'm sorry, Harry. I would have done something if I'd known."

Harry sighed. All the stories he had heard of Remus during his parents' Hogwarts years indicated that the one thing Remus feared most was to lose his friends. And he had probably thought that if he'd distrusted Harry's word and actually tried to kidnap him or take him out from under his parents' influence, he would lose contact with Harry and Amara forever. Hell, he might have been thrown in Azkaban. A wizard or witch taking a child because they thought the child's life was at risk might be looked at indulgently; a werewolf, never.

"You could have done something," Sirius muttered.

"Neither of you could have, without the kind of ritual circle that Tom set up," Harry snapped back at his godfather. "The manacle would have exploded at once and used the stored magic against me and anyone else in the immediate vicinity."

"Tom?" Remus asked delicately.

Harry discovered that he was still capable of blushing like a child, and cleared his throat to hopefully cover it up. "That's what I call Lord Gaunt. At his invitation," he added, not looking back at Sirius, who was snickering quietly. "I wouldn't do it unless he invites you, though."

"I have no intention of doing it," Remus said flatly. He stared at Sirius for a moment, and then back at Harry. "How could Sirius let you get into this?"

"He had no say." Harry rolled his eyes a little. "I'm glad to have you both on my side, if you want to be there, but I'm not a child now, and I need to learn how to live without the manacle and a constant sense of purpose driving me."

Remus nodded slowly. Then the pensive expression on his face flickered, and a fiercer one appeared. "I'm very interested in why Lily and James did this," he growled. "I know you don't want me to take revenge on them--"

"No. I'll do that myself."

"But I do want to be there when you have them explain. I'll be interested to see if any of it even makes sense." Remus's nails lengthened abruptly, and there was a sharp tearing sound as one of them caught on the cuff of his robe sleeve when he flexed his hands.

"We all need to be there," Sirius agreed. "Harry, and you, and me, and Gaunt."

Harry rolled his eyes a little, but honestly, he wanted them there, as long as they didn't interfere in his revenge. He touched the button on the front of his robes that Tom had offered him before they left to meet with Remus, and there was a small snap of magic in response. Harry held his hand out to Remus, who looked at it blankly.

"You're welcome through the wards, now," Harry said with a smile. "I just let Tom know that we can trust you."

"You could have sent a Patronus messenger, Sirius," Remus said chidingly, even as he accepted Harry's hand and climbed over the hedge. "No need to let Harry expend his own magic when he probably has to rest."

Sirius snorted. "Harry has a stronger Patronus than me right now. You ought to see it."

"Oh?"

Harry relaxed as they walked towards Tom's house, and Remus didn't faint at the sight of either Nyx or Erebus. At least he had one more person on his side, one more person convinced that his parents weren't right.

He wondered for a moment if Amara would be, too, and put it out of his head. For the moment, he didn't want to risk warning Lily and James if they intercepted an owl or the bird couldn't find Amara alone, and there was no way that he could risk a Patronus.

And by the time I see Amara again...

I should be in a place to know one way or the other.

*

"If you told me what revenge you're planning on your parents, I could help you with more of it."

Harry gave Tom a guileless blink and spent a moment stretching his arms above his head. He'd spent most of the morning in his ritual circle, as Tom was coming to think of it, with water filling the runes cut into the floor to ground any magical accidents he might have. What he was doing, exactly, wasn't visible to Tom. Harry could control his power now without dripping sparks or streams of light everywhere, but he also spent a lot of time doing that. It was driving Tom mad, trying to think of what revenge Harry could have decided on that would require both brute power and so much silent finesse.

"I'm sure you could," Harry said. "But your help would involve making it easier for me to kill them, and I don't want that. I want them alive."

Tom felt a sharp stab of disappointment under his breastbone, for all that he had also been sure that Harry wouldn't allow him a justified kill. "Why do you? They deserve death for all they've done to you."

Harry laughed and looked at him as he walked out of the circle, and the water stopped running in the channels. "You'd have me kill them instead of leaving them alive to suffer? I never thought you were so merciful."

Tom paused. That was another way of looking at the situation, he had to admit, and he also didn't know that Harry would have come up with it on his own. Maybe this was just his way of convincing Tom, instead of something he actually believed.

But if so, it just added to the temptation to use Legilimency on Harry now, so that he would know what Harry was planning. Tom shoved the thought away and turned to leave the room.

"Wow, you aren't going to ask me to your bed?"

Tom blinked and glanced over his shoulder. "I'd been given the impression that you would say no for the foreseeable future."

Harry rolled his eyes. "I see Remus cornered you to give you the gentle talk about what he thinks would be best for me. But I'm done letting someone else make decisions for me the way my parents did with the manacle. These are mine to make." He stepped up to Tom and let his fingers walk over Tom's chest to his throat, following the line of his buttons.

"And if it turns out to be a mistake?" Tom breathed, catching Harry's wrist. That had been the main theme of the lecture that the werewolf had indeed given him. Lupin had emphasized again and again how young Harry was, that he'd never been with anyone before, that he needed the time to explore and make choices that wouldn't be mistakes.

Harry actually snorted. "Remus means well, but he's also deathly afraid of just making mistakes in general because he's always thought that one error would get him kicked out of wizarding society or his best friends' house. This doesn't feel like a mistake."

"And if it is?"

Harry quirked his lip at Tom. "I'm sure that both of us will live past it," he murmured, and pulled Tom into a kiss.

Tom bent down and kissed him, rapidly, tenderly, before Harry could change his mind and back out. Knowing that Harry hadn't been too influenced by his godfather and family friend, and wouldn't back off, hit him with relief that felt like cool water.

Harry stretched up to put his arms around Tom's neck. His magic ran beneath his skin like hot wine as they kissed, and Tom let out a small hiss of satisfaction.

Tom dragged Harry close to him, once again regretting that they couldn't Apparate in this house, and kissed him hard, druggingly, until Harry was draped over Tom's arms and shaking with pleasure. And Harry gave back as good as he got, and Tom's head spun in a way it hadn't in years, and he thought and thought of his bed.

"Come on, take me there," Harry whispered.

Tom slid an arm around his shoulders and did, managing without looking up from the kiss once.

*

Harry wasn't surprised to find that Tom's bed was three-quarters the size of his bedroom, large and decadent, with carved ebony bedposts in the shape of curving snakes that rose halfway to the ceiling. The mattress yielded under them like owl feathers. Harry stretched out and rested his hands on the pillows as he watched Tom undressing.

Tom seemed caught between his desire to put on a show and the desire to be naked as soon as possible so that he could have sex with Harry. When he caught Harry's eye, he slowed down, teasing the white shirt he wore beneath his heavy robes up over his head with seductive motions. And then he began yanking at his trousers to get them down his legs, ignoring the way Harry laughed.

When he was naked, he glanced at Harry. "You aren't going to undress yourself?"

"I can do that easily enough," Harry said, and concentrated on the way he'd felt that morning before he got dressed for breakfast. Magic rushed across his skin, a few dark blue sparks dropped and burned themselves out before they hit the blanket, and a second later, his skin was bare.

"You destroyed your clothes?" Tom's eyebrows crept the rest of the way up his face, but Harry knew him by now, and he couldn't hide the hungry flash in his eyes at Harry's display of wandless power.

"I can resurrect them if I want," Harry admitted, holding his hand out. "And even if I don't, I know that you can give me more, equally rich ones any time you want."

Tom's eyes shone again, in a different way this time, and he stalked forwards to stand by the edge of the bed. "I don't know that you want this enough," he murmured, eyes skating for a moment across Harry's erection.

"I promise that I do." Harry pitched his voice low, and saw a gratifying stir of interest from Tom's own cock. "At least, if you come down here now and show me why I should stay with you instead of going elsewhere."

Tom snorted a little and knelt on the bed beside Harry, bending over to kiss him. Harry melted as he'd done earlier, reaching up to wind his hands around the back of Tom's neck, and Tom lay down on top of him so that their bodies were pressed together from hip to groin.

Harry groaned, and then gasped as Tom shifted back and forth a little. It was only a simple rocking motion, no more than that, but sweet Merlin, that felt good.

"How do you want to do this?" Tom breathed against his mouth.

Harry barely managed not to blink stupidly at the thought of Tom leaving it up to him. He had assumed that Tom would be in control of every aspect of their time in bed, just because he wouldn't tolerate anything else.

Then again, maybe that was a sign of how much Tom cared for Harry.

Trying not to be misty-eyed about something he was only speculating on, Harry cleared his throat. "I, ah."

"That's not an answer, my dear." Tom shifted back so that he was leaning on his elbow, while still draping most of his body across Harry in distracting warmth, and considered him from eyes that shone.

Harry licked his lips. "I want you to do it the way you said you would in front of Sirius. You deep inside, making me scream. That sounds good."

Tom's eyes blazed this time, and he nodded slowly, as if giving Harry's words the weight they deserved. "That is how it shall be," he whispered, and bowed his head to exchange another kiss with him.

*

Tom took his time preparing Harry, despite the impatient way that Harry shifted on the bed showing he was ready for more. Tom refused to be rushed, however. The important thing was that Harry enjoy it enough to let Tom back into his bed again, and again. Perhaps forever.

Impatience would be rewarded with pain, for both of them, even if it was different kinds. Tom ruthlessly exercised control over his own desire and slid his fingers slowly into Harry, watching the different expressions shift across his face.

The first time he was entered, Harry gave a curious gasp and then lay completely still. Tom practically had to nudge him from the inside with his fingers before Harry nodded and whispered, "It's odd. I can't forget that they're there. But it doesn't hurt."

"Well, it shouldn't, after all the potions that I've put on my hand," Tom muttered, and Harry laughed a little and spread his legs wider.

Tom found more entertainment in watching Harry's face than he'd expected. Of course, this was a new experience for him, completely. From the way his eyes fluttered shut and he tilted his head back, Harry hadn't even played with his arse in the past. But from the way he hitched his legs up and jerked his arse down, he liked it.

Tom smiled and pushed his fingers cautiously in a few directions until he hit the right one. Harry cried out and reached down as if to touch his cock, then pulled his hand back. Tom hoped that was because he had decided he wanted Tom to do it for him.

"What was that?" Harry hissed.

"Your prostate."

Tom was about to explain what that was, but Harry nodded slowly then. "Sirius said something about that once," he muttered. "When he was drunk and telling me about some of the things he used to do when he was younger."

Tom eased back from the stance he'd started to take. If Sirius Black had taken advantage of Harry when he was under the manacle, then he was going to die. There would be no discussions about it. That was simply what was going to happen.

But it seemed that he hadn't, and Tom could continue introducing Harry to pulses of pleasure simply by touching him in the right way. When he withdrew his fingers, Harry actually swore at him.

"It's time for me to put something bigger in," Tom murmured.

"Oh." Harry's eyes popped open, and he blinked around for a second before he looked at Tom and gave a small smile. "Yes. Please."

The request was open and honest in a way that Tom had rarely been with his lovers, but he found himself not minding. He stroked Harry's flank gently as he lined himself up with Harry's arse, and Harry stared at him and widened his legs some more.

I could be with only him for the rest of my life and never feel a loss.

Tom shuddered a little as he thrust shallowly into Harry, and not because of fear or disgust. Perhaps wonder, at the change and the circumstances that had fallen over him.

*

This is amazing.

Sirius had cornered Harry that morning to give him a long lecture about the wonderful diversity of magical sexuality, and ask him if he was sure that he was even with the right gender of lover. Perhaps he'd find more pleasure with a beautiful witch. Harry had only given him vague answers, because this felt like Sirius interfering where he didn't have a right to, no matter how silly that was when Sirius was his godfather.

But right now, Harry didn't think he needed to go find a witch just in case. He thought he'd never need anything except Tom up his arse.

Not that it would do to tell him that, when he's so conceited already, Harry thought, his breath locking for a moment in his chest as Tom came to rest inside him and showed him what it was like to be full.

Tom didn't move, and Harry finally opened his eyes to realize that Tom was waiting for him to look. Tom gave him a lazy smile and began to thrust, then. Either he was so conceited he needed the eye contact, or he was so concerned he wanted it.

Not that it matters, Harry thought, and his thoughts clouded away in a dazed thrill. Oh, God, this feels so good.

And Tom wanted to give this to him, and cause spirals of warmth to reach out through his body from his chest and his arse, and the feeling of someone moving inside him, thrusting and resting, falling back and pushing forwards...

Harry shuddered and clung to Tom's shoulders with sweaty hands. He wanted this. He wanted this to happen, and see what would happen at the end.

*

He's enjoying himself.

Tom had hoped it would be that way. He had never worked as hard with someone as he was working with Harry, controlling his own desire to thrust wildly and seek his pleasure, instead watching the soft shadows that flickered across Harry's face, and the corners and edges of Harry's pleasure.

Harry shuddered under him and gave a little helpless sound. Tom judged that he might thrust a little faster.

And he did, and Harry's face opened up like a flower.

He hissed fragments of nonsense in Parseltongue, and clung to Tom's shoulders and hips with hands that kept slipping down. He writhed and pushed himself down to be closer to Tom's cock. He tipped his head back and made little needy noises.

And he was doing this because of Tom. Not like other lovers he'd had who wanted to get close to Lord Gaunt, the powerful wizard and inventor of impressive spells. Harry just wanted to be with Tom, the man who made him feel good.

Harry doesn't care that I'm powerful. He's powerful, too. He cares that I'm the one here with him.

Tom found himself slowing down, and Harry uttered a short sound. Tom began to go faster again, although he still stared at Harry's face, enthralled.

The quickening of his own body came as a surprise, and so did the way Harry responded to it. His eyes flew open and he took a quick breath, and then he clamped down on Tom's cock and began to come.

The warmth and the tightness were better than anything Tom had felt in years, because it was Harry who was giving them to him. He rocked into Harry, trying to make this last as long as he could, to give Harry as much pleasure as possible, and Harry responded by clawing at his skin and driving Tom ever closer to his own completion.

When he was sure he had given Harry as much pleasure as he could, Tom surrendered to his own. He hissed as it burned out of him, and lingering heat hovered in his mind like a star. Then he crashed down on top of Harry, breathing through his open mouth almost exclusively. He felt seared by what had happened.

"Thank you," Harry whispered.

Tom turned his head. Harry was beaming up at him from the pillow, his hand reaching out, shaking, to stroke Tom's hair back from his forehead.

"I can't imagine a better first time," Harry said, and as quickly and easily as that he closed his eyes, and was asleep.

Tom would have stayed up. Most of the time, he did, because he hadn't slept with someone in decades, and this time, he would have liked to plan what would make future times even better for Harry.

But now, sleep claimed him almost as soon as he could wrap his arms around Harry, the slumber deep and simple and compelling.

*

Harry stood outside the boundaries of the wards he'd sheltered under for so many years, staring at the house. He knew that Lily wasn't inside right now, since she was visiting Brandon's grave. And the silence might have come from the fact that, as far as James and Amara were concerned, Harry had vanished, followed by Sirius and Remus.

But Harry didn't know if any of them except Amara had even noticed. James would be consumed with his political projects related to underage magic, and Lily with her necromancy.

They had no time for us. They gave everything to Brandon.

Harry swallowed--was that one of the things he had felt that had made him hurt Brandon?--and then shook the feeling away. Even if it had contributed to Brandon's accidental death, it wouldn't have excused what his parents had done to him since.

"Ready?" Remus whispered. He stirred restlessly next to Harry. "I wish you'd let us help you with this."

Harry turned his head and took in Tom and Sirius, standing behind him and Remus. Sirius smiled at him worriedly. Tom gave a deeper smile that seemed to reach into his skin and returned memories of making love to Harry so vividly that he flushed and turned away abruptly.

"I have to do this," Harry said. "They hurt you and Sirius separately, and you can claim those answers or avenge yourselves separately, if you want. But I have to do this myself. See," he added, as he watched Tom turn his head with a wicked smile, "Tom understands."

"Only because you used that line about how they'll suffer more if you let them live."

Harry sighed a little. It was unfortunate that Remus had been coming down the stairs to the dining room when he and Tom had had a second conversation about that, and had overheard. Ever since, Remus had stared at Harry with wide eyes, as if he didn't know him at all.

But that was part of the point. Harry hardly knew himself, after thirteen years of living under the manacle. He had to learn who he was, and other people would have to do the same thing, and not try to drag him back to who he had been.

Although Mum and Father won't enjoy the experience.

"Yes, but he's still letting me do this," Harry answered, and stepped across the ward boundary.

The instant he walked across the small expanse of grass towards the front door, it came flying open. Harry raised his hand, magic crackling around his fingers. All his senses were singing on high alert. Perhaps James had noticed something after all, and was prepared to confront them.

But it was Amara who came flying out, and who flung her arms around Harry before he could even decide whether or not to strike with his power. She grabbed him and held him and ignored Tom and Sirius and Remus as they caught up with Harry.

"You're alive," Amara said quietly, without looking up. "I was so afraid that I was wrong and you would die."

"Wrong about what?" Harry asked softly, holding her back. Even if his sister hated him for what he'd do tonight, he would still work to rebuild a relationship with her. Of all of them, Amara was the least to blame.

"I get--intuitions sometimes," Amara said haltingly, and went on when Harry just held her and didn't say anything. "What the right thing to do is. I knew when I asked you to get the other artifacts that you could do it, and that you wouldn't get caught. And this time, I knew you would get caught, but somehow I thought--it would all be all right. Things would turn out fine."

Harry blinked at her for a second, and then glanced back at Tom. Tom nodded slowly. Harry thought that came from him not wanting to admit that Amara might have a trace of a special gift rather than because Tom thought she was wrong.

And Harry wondered whether Amara might have, if not oneiromancy, something similar to it. Why not? Her magic had been under pressure, too, from the frankly strange environment inside the Potters' house. If her magic had done what it could to protect her or express itself when her parents wanted her to be involved in necromancy but also vigilantly watched her for any expression of underage magic...

"Will you take me with you when you leave?" Amara whispered. "I know you're going. I don't want to stay here with Mum and Dad, even if I'm going to be seventeen in just a month."

"You'll come with me," Harry said firmly, and ignored the way Tom scowled at him. He had put up with Sirius and Remus in his enormous house well enough. And the house was so big that they could all stay out of each other's ways easily. "But I'm going to have to punish Mum and Dad for hurting me, for hurting you, and trying to bring back Brandon. You might not want to watch that.

"I want to watch it all." Amara wiped away a few tears and stood back from Harry, crossing her arms. "I always wanted them to pay for it, but I was afraid of what they would do to me if they noticed me. They enslaved you, and you were older and stronger than I was."

"You knew it was enslavement, and you told no one?" Tom asked, one eyebrow cocked.

"I tried! No one listened to me!" Amara pointed one finger at Harry. "And it was obviously useless to talk to him!"

Harry snorted a little as he saw the considering look cross Tom's face. If he agreed with Amara, it wouldn't be that much of a surprise. He had probably felt the same while Harry still wore the manacle.

"Fine," Harry said. "But you're going to stay back and out of it. All of you. If you want to taunt Lily and James, do it on your own time."

Sirius and Remus nodded, although it looked like it was hard for Sirius to restrain himself. Amara shrugged when Harry looked at her. "I just want to see you punish them. I don't care about insulting them."

"Make it worthwhile, Harry," Tom breathed when Harry turned to him. "Or I will have to inflict some punishment myself."

Harry grimaced, but nodded and started towards the house. The others fell into stride behind him.

*

Tom stared around, his sense of style offended, as Harry ushered them through the front door. Not only were the pictures on the walls almost exclusively of the red-haired toddler who had died thirteen years ago, but the magical sense of the place was rooted in exaggerated reverence. Most of the time, Tom only felt that in the houses of rival scholars who had an inflated opinion of their own intellect.

And in those cases, the magic was turned inwards and narcissistic, but it wasn't actively hostile to the other inhabitants, the way this was. No one who didn't instinctively revere Brandon Potter would feel comfortable in this house.

"Who are you?"

Tom glanced up to see James Potter coming down the stairs. His attention was focused on Tom, but his eyes roamed to Sirius and Remus, and flickered to Amara.

He didn't give his son one glance. Rage stirred in Tom, and only his promise that Harry could handle his vengeance the way he thought fit held him back from lashing out.

"Tom Gaunt, at your service," Tom said. "But what you should really be asking is where the manacle on your son's wrist went."

Potter blinked at him. "What manacle?"

He doesn't know. Or he doesn't acknowledge it. Harry's contention that the loss of Brandon had utterly broken his parents and made them unable to acknowledge reality looked like it might be true.

Not that it made Tom want to spare them. Not that it lessened his longing to kill them.

"The thing you told me was a bracelet, Dad," Harry said, and Tom saw how the name made James stiffen and turn to face Harry at last. "But don't worry, it's gone, and I know my own self-worth now." He was smiling, but it was a bitter smile, self-mocking as much as it was anything. Again, it was only Tom's promise that kept his feet rooted to the floor.

"Are you," James whispered, and then shook his head. "I should have known you would prove selfish and unsuitable for redemption at the last, Harry. You were like that when you murdered Brandon."

"I did not murder him. It was an accident."

"You murdered him! Why would you suddenly lose control of your magic if you didn't hate him? You were controlling it up until that point!"

"I was a kid!" Harry yelled, and a few of the pictures on the shelves leaped up and down for a moment. "I was Levitating some of the rocks, and I called you to come out and watch me, and you shouted because you were worried about Brandon wandering up from the side, and I lost control of my magic because I was startled, and--"

"You killed him!"

"The rocks fell, and he was crushed," Harry said, his voice dull. Tom wondered if he had told the story over to himself often, and whether the words he had used had been the same or not. "Utterly smashed."

"You wouldn't have lost control of your magic if you didn't hate him." James's voice was absolutely unshakable. "If you weren't jealous of him and didn't hate the fact that he would grow up to be a more powerful wizard than you someday."

Tom opened his mouth, and Harry glanced at him and said, "Don't speak to my father."

Tom snarled in frustration as the silent hand clamped around him, and Harry turned back and faced James again.

*

Looking at his father, Harry found that his dimmed memories of the time under the manacle were blazingly clear again.

James had been Dad, the way he was with Amara, when Harry was little. He had played Quidditch with Harry, congratulated him on his achievements, called his stag Patronus to play with Harry, and speculated on how fast he would Sort into Gryffindor when he went to Hogwarts. Sure, he had been glad and happy when Amara and then Brandon were born, but he hadn't stopped being a dad to Harry until--

Until the accident.

Harry stared at James, and thought of the way he'd been forbidden to call James anything but Father. How sometimes he hadn't got to eat with the rest of the family or go to bed at the same time, because he had displayed some bit of uncontrolled magic that day. How James had repeated, over and over again, how much Brandon would have surpassed Harry, until he'd come to believe it himself.

James hadn't done the same thing to Amara, but he had raised her in the same environment of intense longing for his younger son and never looked at her as anything but a second-best "normal" child, who would somehow become a second mother to Brandon once he was resurrected.

Harry called the power of the Forbiddance to him, until his shoulders and hands shone with purple light. James just glared at him, trapped in his own brokenness, his conviction that everything in the last decade was the way he thought it should be.

Harry focused on his father, the man who had imprisoned him under a manacle because he'd been unable to face up to the fact that Brandon's death was a terrible accident, and said clearly, "Don't speak up against underage sorcery in any way ever again. Don't speak to any of your children ever again."

James gave a wounded cry and slumped over, his hands coming up to clutch at his heart as if it was breaking. It very well might, Harry thought, his own head ringing from the force of the power that had settled on his father. James had devoted himself to ideals more than his children--had used his children to support those ideals, in fact. Losing them would hurt more than losing Harry and Amara, the actual, flesh-and-blood beings who could never live up to idealized, idolized Brandon.

"James?"

Harry turned around. Lily stood in the doorway, the bone charms rattling in her hair, staring back and forth between James and the rest of them. Even then, her eyes sometimes rested on Brandon's pictures.

Harry swallowed. He felt more pity for his mother than his father. Lily had agreed to the manacle, and she had agreed to cut Harry's body up for the final ingredients in the resurrection rite, which Harry didn't think he could ever forgive her for.

But Lily hadn't abused her other children the way James had. She had simply withdrawn into what was essentially a dream world, convinced that everyone else was just as happy to help her bring Brandon back as she was to labor for that. She'd shown Harry and Amara more affection, not as much sternness.

She had her ideal, too, but at least it was being a mother to Brandon, rather than controlling her other children's magic.

Harry's voice was gentle enough to make Tom look at him sharply when he flicked his fingers at his mother and said, "Don't participate in necromancy anymore."

Lily bent at the waist, gasping. The bone charms turned black abruptly and fell out of her hair. She stood up, pushing her cheeks in with her fingers as if trying to keep herself from vomiting. Her eyes darted to Harry's wrist, then to his face.

"The rite," she whispered.

"Brandon's gone, Mum," Harry said as quietly as he could. "I broke free from the manacle, so it wouldn't have worked, anyway. And I'm not going to give you my body or anything else to bring Brandon back."

"My baby."

"I know," Harry said. "He died. I'm sorry. But I don't know if you ever even mourned. You were just too focused on getting him back, on thinking he might not be dead. I can't let you go on thinking that."

Lily shook her head. Harry didn't know if she was listening. Tears were forming in her eyes, and she turned and stared up at one of the pictures on the wall that showed Brandon standing on the grass in front of the house and waving, a laugh splitting his face.

"He's gone," Lily said.

"And he's not coming back," Harry said. "I'm sorry."

Lily sank to the floor, her arms wrapped around her head. The sob that came out of her was heart-ripping.

Harry took a deep breath, and reminded himself that, no matter how sorry he felt now, it hadn't kept his own mother from thinking that she would cut his body apart and use it to resurrect Brandon. It hadn't kept her from pursuing the path of an Art so Dark that even people like Tom flinched away from it.

He turned and found his father staring at him with deep-seated hatred. Harry shrugged a little. "I know that you probably haven't loved me since the day Brandon died," he said.

James turned so he was facing Sirius, since he couldn't speak to Harry directly. "The day he murdered him," James spat. "And Harry's so full of hatred that he'd ensure that more murders can happen in the future by forbidding my legal work!"

The last of Harry's regret for James vanished. Yes, he still thought his father was broken, too, like his mother, but Lily's brokenness hadn't done as much harm to him personally. He raised his eyebrows a little.

"I'm more than what you made me," he said. "But I am that, too."

And he left with the other four trailing behind him without waiting to see if James could think of a response.

*

"You think I could have done more."

Harry was standing near the wall of Tom's bedroom, staring out a real window at the figure of Erebus patrolling the gardens below. Tom came up to lean beside him on the windowsill and feel the slight breeze pushing back his hair. He noted the sleek lines of Erebus's horn and legs, the gleam of moonflowers in the distance, the way Harry's face was slightly averted.

"I think you did what you could live with," Tom answered him. "And they are not my parents. They are my lover's parents. I would have bound them to the walls in my dungeons with spiderwebs and let my pet suck them dry."

"Your pet." Harry eyed him warily. "I thought Nyx and Erebus were your pets."

Tom shook his head, a little amused that Harry had managed to misunderstand that. "They are my friends and companions. My experiments, when I first bred them. But my pet, which lives in the dungeons, is what killed Snape, Dumbledore, and Parkinson--"

"That was you. Why?"

"They would have been powerful enough to challenge me. I didn't want rivals."

Harry's eyes widened, and he stood more than still. Then he swallowed. "Why am I different?"

Tom smiled, glad that Harry at least understood that he was different. "Because you were interesting, and you didn't know you were powerful. I killed my rivals when I was younger and didn't understand how boring I was making the world for myself. I am mature enough now to accept you as an equal and a lover."

Harry nodded, although he seemed uneasy. "And your pet?"

"Sucks out someone's magic and essence, and rends their body apart," Tom said, with a shrug. "But depending on what I ask it to do, it can restore some of their soul, and heal some of their wounds. I could have kept them alive for years, Harry. Decades. Centuries." He sighed at the thought of how much Lily and James Potter could have suffered, had their fate been his to decide.

Harry stared at him. Then he stepped forwards and cupped Tom's cheek. "You're Darker than I thought you were," he murmured.

"Will you retreat because of it?" Tom whispered. He didn't intend to let Harry go, but he did want to know how far he might have to chase him because of this.

*

Harry swallowed. Tom might not know it, but Harry could see the sheen of vulnerability in his eyes, the tense, waiting expectation for the moment when Harry would reject him like anyone else would have.

But Harry wasn't anyone else. And Tom was still the one who had freed him from the manacle.

"No," Harry said. "I--I'm not a Dark wizard in the sense you are, but I'm powerful and I have these gifts I need to train and most people would still be afraid of me. I know how isolated you feel. I want to be with you, your lover. I want to trust you. Love you."

Tom relaxed, little by little. He turned his head so that his cheek rested fully against Harry's palm, and murmured, "If you ever change your mind on the matter of your parents, let me know."

"I will," Harry promised, and leaned forwards and kissed Tom, feeling him relax and hiss with pleasure.

Elsewhere in Tom's mansion, Amara was sleeping an exhausted sleep in a bedroom of her own, and Sirius and Remus might be arguing over him and Tom, or Remus's past mistakes. Harry found himself uninterested in speculating.

Here and now, there was him and Tom, and that was enough.

The End.