[From Samhain to the Solstice]: Living Well, Harry/Tom, R, 7/8

[lomonaaeren]

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Part Seven

“Harry? Are you all right?”

Harmon has been visibly uncomfortable without a last name to call him by, but Harry just ignored that, and it’s been working well so far. They’ve looked at some beautiful homes, including some that were too big for Harry, and now Harmon is showing him a small cottage that might do, on the edge of Hogsmeade. It has quiet blue rooms and a Floo whose default state is to be shut, which Harry favors.

And now he has a headache. One that seems deeper than any he’s ever had before, as if it’s coming from inside his brain. One that’s localized—

Right in his scar.

Harry straightens up. Harmon, who was coming towards him with her hand out, takes a step back, dark eyes studying him carefully. Her wand, a length of ash wood, is in her hand but aimed at the wall, not at him.

“I think Riddle’s in trouble,” Harry blurts.

“What?” Harmon blinks and lowers her wand further. “How could you possibly know, Mr.—Harry?”

“I don’t know.” Harry hesitates, wondering what to tell her, but then it comes to him. “But you know about that spell I saved him from, right? The one that would have kept him in a coma forever if I hadn’t?”

“I did not know that was you. The papers did not announce your name.”

“Well, it was me,” Harry snaps. “And it left some kind of connection between us, I think.” It’s as good an explanation as any, and it might even be true. “Now I’m feeling an ache in my head, the exact same kind of thing I felt when the spell connected us.” That part is bollocks, but Harry isn’t about to explain Horcruxes and curse scars and soul-connections that might come from them. “I feel—”

Frantic, that’s what he feels. As if a beast inside him so tame that he’s never felt it stir before is now awake and scratching at his ribs with claws.

“All right.” Harmon finally tucks her wand away and looks around for the Floo powder that brought them here. “I will take you to the Ministry.”

Harry swallows, feeling sick. Can he help Riddle if he’s incapacitated simply walking into the place where Riddle might be lying helpless?

He might be at St. Mungo’s instead, Harry thinks, and kind of hopes Riddle is, so he won’t be shaking like a fool when he walks into the building. The spell to wake him up should be simple, shouldn’t it? The same one Travers cast last time.

Harry pauses.

How did I know that he’s been hit with the Sleepless Soul Curse again?

Before he can do anything else, Riddle’s fear and rage overwhelm him. Harry digs his hands into the side of the fireplace to remain standing. Harmon utters a quick distressed sound and comes towards him.

“Mr—Harry, are you all right?”

“I need,” Harry says, swallowing and making his decision in a rush of his own fear that Riddle being afraid is not a good thing, “you to take me to Hogwarts.”

Harmon’s eyes widen, but maybe because he told her Riddle was in danger, she nods and reaches out to grasp his arm. Then they both have to leave the cottage to use the Apparition spot because of the anti-Apparition spells on the building, but that’s all right. It allows Harry some time to come to terms with his decision.

He knows very well why the chestnut wand hates him. He knows how lucky he was to find one that worked in the Knockturn Alley wand shop at all, and he knows that if he went to Ollivander’s, all of them would have rejected him at first touch, even the holly one if it exists in this world.

They can all sense that only one wand will work for him, and it’s not them. His holly wand in his old world served him well enough, but then, it had been repaired by his real one, hadn’t it?

Harry has no idea what’s going to happen as they appear outside the gates of Hogwarts, but just the way he knew Riddle has been stuck with the Sleepless Soul Curse again, he knows to lift his hand.

There’s a shrill, piercing whistle, which reminds Harry of phoenix song if someone managed to speed it up the way Muggle music sometimes is. Then a window shatters high on the side of the castle wall, and a slender shape speeds towards Harry, tumbling end over end and singing like a demon.

Harry grimaces as he clasps it. He expects it to sting him, or be hot, or otherwise exact some kind of punishment for his ignoring it for so long.

But it doesn’t. Instead, the minute Harry touches the Elder Wand, the demon’s song gets into his head and become a song of mad joy, and power rushes through his body as though it’s springing up from ashes.

The chestnut wand in his pocket bursts asunder. Harry is glad that the cloth of his new robes is thick enough that that didn’t hurt him, at least. He shakes out the splinters and turns to Harmon, who’s staring at him with round eyes.

“Can you get me to the Ministry entrance, quickly?”

“What was that?” Harmon looks back and forth between his wand hand and the splinters of his old wand on the ground.

Harry curbs his impatience. Telling her that it would take too long to explain will probably lead to her folding her arms and demanding an explanation anyway, and that will take up time they could be using to get to Tom.

“I couldn’t wield my chestnut wand very well because I had already been claimed by this wand,” he says, swinging his right hand. The Elder Wand showers sparks in response, making Harmon take a wary step back. “But I didn’t want to take it up because another person thought he was the rightful wielder. Now I have it, and now I can save Tom. Will you please take me to the Ministry entrance?” Harry would do it himself, but he doesn’t know if it looks like the one in his old world or not.

Harmon holds out her arm, but murmurs, as he clasps it, “I will want a full explanation at a later date.”

“If Tom says I can give it to you, then I will.”

Harmon scowls at him as they Disapparate, but Harry hardly notices. He’s mentally preparing himself to march into the Ministry again, which isn’t the same as the one at home, but looks an awful lot like it.

The Elder Wand warms and thrums in his hand, and a deep voice speaks directly to Harry in the silence of his mind.

There is nothing we cannot do.

Harry tightens his hold on the wand and hopes it’s right. There’s no telling what sort of trouble Riddle’s got himself into this time.

*

“Hello!”

Harry looks up sharply. He’s keeping strict control of himself, and he and Harmon got through the Atrium and to the lifts all right. But seeing an Auror hurrying towards him makes him raise his wand, tensing for battle.

Then he recognizes her, and relaxes. It’s Auror Yaxley, the one who was so nice to him when the Aurors came to Jenkins’s shop and managed to make him relax when they were escorting him through the Ministry. Harry trusts her as much as he can trust anyone in those scarlet robes.

“Are you here because of Mr. Riddle?” Yaxley asks, looking between Harry and Harmon. She looks more curiously at Harmon, probably because she doesn’t recognize her.

“You’ve heard something about him, then?” Harry keeps his voice low, his hand on the Elder Wand positioned as if tucked casually into a pocket in his robes. If they haven’t started spreading the word that Riddle’s had something happen to him yet, then Harry doesn’t want to do it and perhaps cause a panic.

Yaxley nods, her lips pursed. “Yes. I think he’s been cursed again, but I’m no expert on the conditions caused by such curses…”

She’s talking about something else, but Harry is distracted. The Elder Wand is trembling in his robe pocket, and the rising, ringing growl in Harry’s head sounds like that of a tiger getting ready to eat some prey.

She is our enemy.

Harry sighs. He assumes his own paranoia about Aurors has infected the Elder Wand. He hasn’t heard of that kind of thing happening before, but then again, no one should be able to have the allegiance of a Deathly Hallow transfer across worlds. No one should be able to survive a trip through the Veil.

No, she was nice to me before, Harry responds to the wand, pushing hard with his thoughts. He has no idea whether it can actually hear him, or whether the communication flows only one way. He doesn’t know anything about this. The only thing he’s experienced at is saving people, and he’ll do that if people will get out of the way!

She hurt your mate.

Harry frowns and glances at Yaxley, who seems to have noticed that he’s not paying attention. She gives him a faint smile. “You’re worried about Mr. Riddle, aren’t you? Don’t worry, he recovered from this curse once before. I think that he’ll do the same thing once we get you back to his side.”

Harry narrows his eyes as the lift finally comes and he and Harmon and Yaxley all pile into it. “It’s the same curse from before? The Sleepless Soul Curse?”

“As far as I can tell,” Yaxley says. “I’m not actually sure what spell Auror Travers cast to locate you or when you were in the same room with Mr. Riddle, but I’m sure that we can find her and make her tell us.”

“Make her?” Harmon asks sharply, before Harry can.

Yaxley hesitates, then sighs. “For the past few days, Mr. Riddle has been having me investigate Auror Travers. She was with him when he was cursed the first time, and it was interesting that she happened to know the countercurse to a spell as obscure as the Sleepless Soul. I haven’t found anything yet, but there’s no guarantee that that there isn’t something there, buried deep. I’m not as skilled an investigator as Mr. Riddle is.”

Harry actually can’t hear the next question Harmon asks, although he sees her mouth moving, because the Elder Wand’s voice is everywhere, filling his ears, clouding his hearing.

She lies! She is the one who cast the curse!

Harry does his best to hold his face as carefully still and neutral as possible. Even if the wand is right—and he can’t believe that’s a sentence he’s thinking to himself—he can’t do anything while they’re in the lift. He’ll have to wait until they arrive at a place with some open space where he can move. He fights best when he can run and dodge.

The lift reaches the floor for the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, and Harmon steps off first. Harry angles himself a little to the side as he follows, trying to make sure that Yaxley doesn’t have a clear shot at his back.

If the wand is right, which Harry has to admit is a big if. But then again, there’s no sense in letting an Auror get too close to him, even if she was one who was all right—or acted all right—before.

“Where is Mr. Riddle?” Harmon asks, looking around the wide office of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. Harry does, too, trying not to let his breathing get too fast and shallow. This is just an office, he reminds himself sternly, it can’t actually attack him or anything like that.

The Elder Wand twists and growls in his pocket, the growls seemingly reassurances about what they can do if someone does try to attack him, but Harry can’t actually hear words this time.

“This way,” Yaxley says, and walks towards the back of the large office.

It occurs to Harry that it’s very quiet. There should be more people around than the trainees he can see here and there, looking at things through magnifying lenses or practicing charms. He wonders for a second if everyone is gathered around Tom and paying attention to him.

That could be the truth. But as he hears a soft thump and whirls around to see Harmon lying Stunned on the floor, Harry doesn’t think it is.

Before the Elder Wand is even fully out of his pocket, a shield has formed in front of him, catching the Cutting Curse that Yaxley’s sent at him. Harry watches it fade away, and then watches her.

Yaxley studies him with a frown, and sighs. “No one reported any dueling skill in your past,” she says, and shakes her head. “But then again, you’re extraordinarily hard to track down. No record of OWLS or NEWTS that I could find, either.” She spins her wand casually in her hand.

Harry glances around, but all the trainees are ignoring them, and then he sees the shimmer of a ward that must be masking their actions and words. He turns to face Yaxley as she begins to circle to the left.

Harry steps along with her, making sure that he knows where Harmon’s body is so he won’t step on or trip over her. “You’re trying to kill me.”

“It’s nothing personal,” Yaxley says, and she sounds reassuring. “It’s just that we need an immortal man like Tom Riddle out of office, and we need to bring in people who can shake up the Ministry, not keep it stagnant. And you’re the only one who can wake him up from the Sleepless Soul Curse now. So you have to go. Dolor!”

The Elder Wand raises a shield against the pain curse, too. Harry can feel it trembling with eagerness in his hand, wanting to cast something else, but he doesn’t want to kill Yaxley. So nothing lethal.

“So you have a little skill at dueling,” Yaxley says, not sounding surprised, although her head cocks like a bird’s for a second. “Cor glaciei!”

Harry feels a brief, tight, cold pressure around his heart. Then it breaks apart in a shower of sparks as the Elder Wand reaches into his chest and casts a shield inside him. Which is—not something he really wants to experience again.

Fight her!

Harry takes a deep breath and sets his sights on Yaxley. No, he doesn’t want to kill her, not when he thinks Riddle is going to want her alive to answer questions. But there are plenty of spells he can use that won’t do that. And he has to shed his feeling that if he just stays quiet and plays along with what an Auror wants, that they won’t hurt him.

That was proven wrong when they threw him through the Veil.

“Confringo!” Harry casts on the nearest desk, but Yaxley dodges the explosion, although a shard of wood catches her on the hand and skins it open. She immediately casts back at him, a spell Harry has never seen before that collects her blood into a barbed chain and makes it lash out, trying to entangle his legs.

“Aguamenti!” Harry says, not knowing at first where the impulse to use that charm comes from. But the water slams into her chain and makes the blood back into liquid, flowing over the floor.

Yaxley’s eyes are bright as she laughs. Then she casts another silent spell at him, one that conjures whirling balls of light that look like Bludgers, which stream towards Harry—and slam straight through the shield he’s raised.

Harry wasn’t a Seeker once for nothing. He dodges and rolls, using the half-broken desk as shelter. The balls of light slam into it, and Harry sends a Jellylegs Jinx at Yaxley from under the desk.

Yaxley snorts as she removes it. “Is that something you truly expected to stop me? I—”

It was a good distraction, is what it was. And Harry thinks Yaxley likes running her mouth too much. He surfaces from behind the desk and yells, loudly enough that it might cut through the ward she’s raised around them, “EXPECTO PATRONUM!”

The air around them seems to grow bright and still for a second. Harry has enough time to worry that the spell won’t work with the Elder Wand for some reason before it trembles and gushes silver mist, a brilliant stag emerging.

One bigger and more solid than any stag that Harry’s ever summoned, too. It lowers its antlers as it charges and seizes the astonished Yaxley on the tips, tossing its head to throw her across the room.

That carries her through the ward and finally gets the trainees’ attention. But since they all gape like fish for the amount of time it takes Yaxley to rise to her feet, they’re no help. One of them does start shouting, but Harry is too busy paying attention to Yaxley to be sure about what they’re saying.

“Finite Incantatem! Frangere!!” And Yaxley casts after that, although silently, her wand weaving in a familiar enough pattern.

Prongs leaps into the path of the first two spells, not fading until what Harry thinks is the Breaking Curse is gone. And as for the last one, the Imperius Curse—

Harry lets himself stand there and permits it to wash over him. He smiles a little internally as he watches Yaxley stumble towards him, murmuring what sound like reassurances to the trainees.

“You are to go into Riddle’s office and kill him,” Yaxley says quietly when she’s close enough to be inside the ward again, and thus keep her voice away from the trainees’ ears.

Harry nods as if emptily agreeing, and then trains his wand on her and Disarms her. Yaxley is still staring when Harry casts a sharp, vicious Stunner that, amplified by the power of the Elder Wand, knocks Yaxley into what looks like a coma.

Good, Harry thinks, for the moment as vicious as his wand. Serves her right for what she did to Tom.

He looks up to find the trainees all still staring, and sighs. “She’s cursed Mr. Riddle,” he says, when one of them tentatively starts to draw his wand. “If you want to do something to help, make sure that she doesn’t wake.”

In the meantime, Harry gestures his Patronus into being again, and says, “Take this message to Lucinda Travers: Tom Riddle has been cursed again with the Sleepless Soul. I need to know the spell that wakes him. From the one with green eyes.”

Prongs scrapes his hoof against the floor and bows his antlers before turning and vanishing from sight. Harry turns and strides down the corridor towards what must be Riddle’s office door.

No one tries to stop him.

*

Tom is straining impatiently against the blindness that covers the eyes and the darkness that holds him motionless when he hears a whisper of a spell. He immediately goes still. If Yaxley is in the room, Tom doesn’t want to alert her that he has some awareness, even as limited as it is.

And then—

Then the music pours into his soul again.

Tom reaches out and grasps it this time, yanking it close to him. He hears a startled gasp, and redoubles his hold, until he feels something touch his skin. It feels like a hand, clasping and opening nervously on his arm.

Tom pours the music of his own soul into Harry’s, and this time, the flashes of memories he sees make more sense. Well, not the one of a wand flying towards Harry through a window on a tower that looks suspiciously like one at Hogwarts, but Tom isn’t going to question that.

Now. He will ask all sorts of questions later, of course. But right now his delight at having Harry by his side again overcomes even his curiosity over what Harry has been doing in the past few hours.

Harry trembles against Tom, and then relaxes in a surprising way. Tom pauses for a second, but Harry’s soul sings reassuringly to him, and he goes back to drinking it in.

Somehow, things are all right. Maybe Harry managed to avoid Yaxley, or defeat her. What matters is that he is here, and Tom will never let him go again. He has made decisions during what might have been the hours that he lay there helpless and listening.

He opens his eyes, and Harry smiles at him. From behind Harry’s shoulder, Lucinda Travers gives Tom an anxious nod, which reminds Tom of some apologies that he will need to make for suspecting her.

But he doesn’t want to make them now. “Auror Travers,” he says, “will you please give us some privacy?”

“Of course, sir,” Lucinda murmurs, bowing her head. “I am glad to see you well and not dead.”

Harry snorts a little as she goes out the door. “No wonder you suspected her at first. She’s kind of blunt, isn’t she?”

“I should have known that she wouldn’t have the subtlety to pull off what happened to me, though.” Tom can’t take his hands from Harry, or his attention from the clear-eyed look and smile Harry is offering him. “What happened?”

“I think I felt it when you were cursed. My scar started aching, and it felt as if something had started hurting inside my skull, too.” Harry rubs one thumb over the skin behind Tom’s ear, still staring at him in a pleasant but confusing way. “So I asked Harmon to take me to Hogwarts.”

“To Hogwarts?” Tom asks, feeling his face go blanker than it’s probably ever been. “Did you think I was there?”

“No.” Harry licks his lips. “I knew that if you were in trouble, I’d probably need a wand that worked for me.” He hesitates, and then takes out a wand from his pocket and lays it on the desk beside Tom. Someone must have moved him there, but he felt no hands, so perhaps it was Lucinda or Harry with a spell.

The first thing Tom sees when he turns to the wand is that it isn’t the chestnut one Harry has been carrying. He doesn’t recognize the wood that it’s made of, though. He frowns and reaches out towards it, but Harry catches his wrist.

“Um. It’s kind of temperamental right now. It’s irritated that I took so long to pick it up.”

Tom leans as subtly into Harry’s hold as he can, still beyond thrilled that Harry is touching him of his own free will. He doesn’t know what brought on the change, but it’s welcome. “How do you know that?”

“It speaks to me.”

Tom snaps his head back and stares at Harry’s face, but he doesn’t look sick or delusional. “You hear it?”

“Yes.” Harry ducks his head as though he’s embarrassed about something. “It’s the Elder Wand, Rid—Tom.”

Hearing his first name from Harry’s mouth makes Tom reach up and trace Harry’s lips for a moment. Harry continues gazing at him with wide, bright eyes, not backing away.

And then the words he said really catch up to Tom. He jerks back sharply and turns to stare at the wand, which vibrates and rolls in a circle. Tom isn’t sure if that’s smugness or a warning not to pick it up. Maybe both

“What did you say?”

“Um. I said it’s the Elder Wand.”

“Why are you wielding a Deathly Hallow?”

“I kind of—united them in my first world.” Harry ducks his head further and shrugs when Tom stares at him in shock. “I had no idea they would follow me across worlds.”

And that makes Tom’s Legilimency twist in the way that means someone is lying, Tom rolls his eyes and lifts Harry’s face so he can look him in the eyes again. “You knew. Why didn’t you go and claim the Elder Wand the moment you arrived in this world?”

Harry’s shoulders tense, and he shrugs a little. “It was one of the reasons I got arrested by my first Ministry. They wanted to use the wand, or maybe they wanted to experiment on it and create Elder Wands for all their people. Different Aurors said different things, and so did the Unspeakables who came and talked to me. I didn’t want the same thing to happen here. I don’t want to be the center of public attention, Tom.”

The current of deep unhappiness in his voice makes the decision Tom was pondering for him. But rather than talk about it yet, he runs a hand down Harry’s shoulder and murmurs, “But you took it up now?”

“Yes. For you.”

Not for himself.

Tom suspects that is the important difference for Harry, and probably always will be. He doesn’t say anything about that, either. He touches Harry’s cheek and says, “Then I am content. But won’t the Elder Wand’s prior wielder come looking for it?”

“Um. Yes. Probably. It’s Dumbledore. That’s the wand he took from Grindelwald when they dueled.”

Tom just stares. Then he throws his head back and laughs.

“Are you okay, Tom? Not worried about getting in trouble with Dumbledore?”

“No,” Tom says, still laughing, but managing to stop it when he sees how wide Harry’s eyes are. “Just picturing Dumbledore’s face when he finds out.” He reaches out and grips Harry’s shoulders. “You dueled Yaxley?”

“Yes, and Stunned her. Auror Travers confirmed that they have her in a holding cell now and that her wand was snapped.”

“Did you do that?”

“I stepped on something that broke under my foot earlier, when I went out to meet Auror Travers. I don’t know what it was.”

Harry looks so innocent that Tom wants to kiss him. He manages to restrain the impulse, and asks the question that is the most important. “Why is your attitude so different towards me now than it was yesterday?”

Harry takes a deep breath. “Because I felt your pain when you were attacked. In my scar, sure, but in my head and—and soul too. And then just now, when our souls connected for the spell, I heard the song of yours, too.”

It didn’t occur to Tom that Harry wouldn’t have shared the earlier song from the other spell. But then again, it was Lucinda who cast that spell, not Harry. Perhaps that made the difference.

Tom blinks. “And—”

“I don’t know exactly why you’re so obsessed with me, so devoted, but I saw that you were,” Harry admits quietly. “And I reckon that I can trust you even without the Unbreakable Vow.”

There’s still vulnerability in the eyes that meet Tom’s, but power thrums through Harry’s words that has nothing to do with the Elder Wand. Tom leans forwards and lets his lips brush over Harry’s, not even thinking through the action before he does it.

Harry gasps once, and then his hands grasp the back of Tom’s head, and he kisses him back.

It is the best kiss of Tom’s life, and even though it’s also the shortest, with Harry breaking away with flushed cheeks, it doesn’t matter. He basks in the sensation while Harry calls Lucinda back into the room.

His hand brushes against the Elder Wand briefly, and it snarls at him—he hears it in his head, too—and stings him. Tom retracts it swiftly, and Harry gives him a sheepish smile and picks up the wand that is, indeed, temperamental.

“Sorry about that,” he says.

“Do not apologize,” Tom says. “You do not understand how much I—wish to be with you.” Those words will stand in for all the things that he can’t express at the moment.

As Harry smiles at him and Lucinda enters, Tom knows he wants to see that smile every day of his life.

Which means not being the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement anymore.

The contentment that swamps him as he thinks about that only strengthens his conviction that he has made the right decision.