Chapter Thirty-Eight of 'His Darkest Devotion'- Unimagined

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Chapter Thirty-Eight—Unimagined

“Mr. Potter, do you have a moment to speak with me?”

Harry arranged his face in a polite smile as he turned to look at Madam Moonwell. He never felt as if he knew what she was going to say. Most of the time, she was supportive of him and Tom, but he had been at other Wizengamot sessions or conversations with her in the Ministry where she would abruptly start laughing at him, or claim that he was as witless as a Muggle, or argue fiercely with him about his opinions on Muggleborns (whom she didn’t seem to hate, but thought of as ignorant).

“Yes, Madam Moonwell?” he added, when she stood there with the staff she used to walk planted in front of her and stared at him. They were just outside the doors of the main Wizengamot chamber, and Harry wanted to get in there as soon as possible to support Tom. He’d only left because he had to use the loo.

“You’re involving my daughter in some kind of ritual research.”

“Yes.”

“And you’re friends with my granddaughter.”

Harry blinked, then nodded. It was still hard to think of dreamy Luna and the formidable Madam Moonwell being related in any way, but then he’d remember the way Luna had got angry about his keeping his soul-mark from her, and he could see the resemblance. “Yes.”

Madam Moonwell narrowed her eyes at him. “I want you to research a ritual that would allow her to find her soulmate.”

“I mean, I could do that,” Harry said, a little confused. “But there’s all sorts of rituals out there, and all sorts of answers you could find yourself. I’m sure Tom would let you have access to the Hogwarts library if you need some obscure books. Or Headmistress McGonagall.” It was still odd to call her that, when it had been Dumbledore for so long.

“There are rituals that can only be performed by Parselmouths that have a guaranteed chance of success,” Madam Moonwell said, her voice becoming as harsh as a raven’s for a second. “None of the ones I’ve tried have had any success.”

Harry blinked again, then nodded. “And in the meantime, will you withdraw your opposition to that proposed bill about facilitating Muggleborn adoptions?”

“I thought you would do this for me as Pandora’s client and Luna’s friend.”

Madam Moonwell made it sound as if she was totally surprised, but her eyes glittered. Harry ventured a snort. “There’s no free favors in politics. And the research for the Parselmouth ritual is going to take up time that I could use on other things Tom wants to do. Not to mention that I’m not a Parselmouth yet, and it’ll take time to become one.”

Madam Moonwell lost her uptight posture, and cackled. “You’ll do, Potter,” she said. “But I’m opposing that bill for a good reason, you know. There are purebloods who would take advantage of an easy adoption to actually steal Muggleborn children from their families.”

“The bill itself includes language to prevent that. If someone wants to adopt a Muggleborn child, they’d still need to prove either that the child was an orphan, there was abuse, or their parents had willingly given up their rights. The adoption just wouldn’t need to go through five departments in the Ministry anymore.”

“And you think that you can tell the difference between parents willingly giving up their rights and being charmed into doing so?”

Harry blinked at that. “Yes, of course.”

Madam Moonwell paused. “How? I don’t think you know enough about the Muggle world to be sure, not when you grew up in the magical one.”

Harry stared at her. Then he said, “Wait. Is this about the charms that might have persuaded a Muggle parent being impossible to detect?”

“Yes, of course!” Madam Moonwell’s staff thumped on the floor hard enough to turn a few heads from the people lingering around the entrance to the Wizengamot’s chamber. “Don’t tell me that you have a way to do something that’s impossible!”

“It’s not impossible for me,” Harry said, while his brain whirled. He hadn’t even considered that as a reason for a possible objection—but he’d forgotten, once again, that most people didn’t have access to the level of power that he and Tom did, even if they were soulmated to someone who loved them back. “I might have had the magic to do it on my own, I’m not sure, but now that I’m with Minister Riddle—”

“Harry?”

Tom had stepped out of the Wizengamot chamber, despite what Harry was sure was a spirited debate over the adoption bill. His face was smooth as he watched Harry with Madam Moonwell, but the bond snapped back and forth between them like a tree branch in high winds, and Harry thought that he was probably lucky he’d got as much time for a conversation with her as he had.

“I’m coming,” Harry said, and sent a gentle push of adoration down the bond that made Tom’s shoulders relax. He nodded to Madam Moonwell. “I hope that we’ve both acquired new information today, Madam.”

She watched him with quiet, narrowed eyes as he and Tom walked away. As the doors were about to close behind them, she called, “I want a demonstration.”

“Come along, then,” Harry called back without turning, and smiled as Tom put a hand on his arm.

“What was that about?”

She wants me to perform a Parselmouth ritual to find Luna’s soulmate. I told her I would if she would drop her opposition to the adoption bill, and told her I could detect the charms someone might cast on Muggle parents to make them give up their parental rights.

Tom’s eyes widened, and then he laughed, a soft, silky sound that made more than one person in the room jerk their heads around. Harry read fear in their faces as he watched out of the corner of his eye, and longing. There were people here who would have given anything to carry Tom Riddle’s soul-mark.

I wish I could have.

But Harry buried that thought. The point was that he did stand here, known and claimed, and he ignored the eyes of their audience to look at Tom.

“Then she should indeed come in,” Tom said, and drew Harry to his seat with an arm around his shoulders and the bond purring in the depths of his mind.

*

“You have not answered our objection as to how we would make sure that some people were not Confounding or otherwise charming Muggle parents into giving their children up, Minister Riddle.”

That was Kalinda Jones, a half-blood who played the game in much the same way Tom did, swaying back and forth to take advantage of the political winds, and using both words and actions as necessary to make sure she didn’t look like a hypocrite. She stood now with her dark eyes fixed on him, one hand toying with the coil of brown hair that fell down past her shoulders.

“My soulmate is going to talk about that,” Tom said. He sat back as Harry stood up beside him.

Jones blinked and refocused. Then she said, “With respect, Minister Riddle, your soulmate doesn’t hold an elected political position and doesn’t belong in this discussion.”

“But soulmates are considered, magically, part of their bonded’s elected position once the bond is completed.” Harry’s voice was soft and rich and full. Tom wished that Harry could see that some of the eyes in the chamber pointed straight at him. Harry might believe that purebloods would have given everything they had to be paired with Tom’s power, but Harry had power of his own, beauty, fascination. There were many who would find him the more attractive one.

Or rather, would have found him. Tom sat there now with his smile throbbing and the chant of Mine, mine, mine, in the background of the bond.

Harry sent a thought of amusement back at him, and walked forwards to stand in the middle of the patterned stone floor between the galleries of seats. “I am very willing to use my magic on any Muggles you suspect may have been charmed,” he said. “I can find the charms and reverse them. And if we found them before the adoption took place, well, it would be easy to prevent it from going forwards.”

“No one can see charms like that,” Jones said dismissively. Tom held back his cackle. She wasn’t being stupid, just reciting the accepted magical theory. “They’re not powerful enough. Even a Memory Charm can’t always be found by a skilled Leglimens, and this would be the Confundus and the like.”

“I can see them.” Harry smiled at her. “More, I can make them visible so that Aurors and the like can see them, too.”

A rustle of wonder and a murmur of discontent moved simultaneously through the chamber. Lestrange opened his mouth as if he would say something, and then clamped it shut. As he should, Tom thought, after losing the duel to Harry so badly. Few took him seriously anymore.

“I do not believe you can do such a thing,” Aelia Malfoy said. She was sitting down, not bothering to rise to her feet, but she stared at Harry and didn’t look away. “For the reason that Madam Jones stated, and others. No one is powerful enough to do that.”

“Do you want to volunteer as my test subject, Madam Malfoy?”

Malfoy took that as seriously as she did everything, and simply shook her head. “No. And you must find someone who is Muggleborn to have it performed on, or a Muggle, and then show us that you can detect and reverse the charms. Purebloods would be different, and if you chose someone who knew you, they might play along to prove your ridiculous argument.”

“I volunteer.”

Tom blinked at Jones. He hadn’t thought she would ever do something like that, and for a moment, he reached out to Harry to make sure that Harry hadn’t made a deal with her earlier or convinced her or “convinced” her.

No, of course not, Harry said snappishly back down the bond, which opened like a crocodile’s jaws in the back of Tom’s mind for a second. She thinks I’m going to fail, and then she can hold that failure over our heads.

That did sound rather more like Jones’s methods. Tom sat back and waved a lazy hand. “If you would like to, Madam Jones, then I have no objection.”

“I do,” said Malfoy again, her voice higher than it normally would have been. Ever since Harry had shattered her composure the first time, Tom thought, it had been easier and easier to do so. “Madam Jones is a half-blood. She would still confuse the results.”

“Really, Madam Malfoy?” Harry asked, and pinned Malfoy with a condescending look so pure that Tom was tempted to stand up and applaud. “You still think that there are noticeable differences between a half-blood’s and a pureblood’s mind and power? Or a half-blood’s and a Muggleborn’s? Knowing what you know, having learned what you’ve learnt?”

It was pretty hard to tell, but Tom was convinced that Malfoy had gone even paler than her normal snowy-white skin tone. She sat down hard and stared at Harry with blank eyes, her hands clenching beside her for a moment.

Harry waited as if he expected a real answer, and then sneered and turned towards Jones. “I thought not. Would you come down here, Madam Jones?”

Jones looked less certain than she had before, to Tom’s private delight. But she gave her head a toss and walked down the steps towards Harry, standing before him with her arms folded and her eyes level with his.

“Confundus,” Harry said loudly and carefully, keeping his wand movements slow enough that Tom was sure even the most inbred purebloods near the top rows could see what was going on.

Jones blinked, and her arms dropped to her sides. She looked like a resident of St. Mungo’s Janus Thickey Ward, Tom thought, privately delighted. He would have liked to see others put under a charm like that from Harry’s magic, even if it only lasted a few minutes each.

Harry raised his wand and spun it in a circle over Jones’s head. Tom knew that was as much for show as anything else. Harry was using the pooled magic of their bond to pull on the charm that was bubbling in Jones’s mind and force it into visibility, but the people in the room would react better if they had a process they understood.

The charm appeared, bright yellow streaks of light that crossed Jones’s face and burrowed into her hair. Someone else gasped. Madam Moonwell leaned forwards to demand, “And how do we know that that’s the Confundus and not some other spell she has on her?”

Harry rolled his eyes. “Do you want me to cast another spell and then match my magical signature from that to this one?”

Tom stood up. “They would only say that you could have placed some other charm than the Confundus,” he murmured. He looked straight at Madam Moonwell. “Do you have any evidence that Madam Jones had another spell on her before this?”

Madam Moonwell sat back, sulky as a bear with a wounded paw. Tom suspected it wasn’t true opposition to him or Harry; she simply disliked losing political games. “Magical theory says that charms like this can’t be revealed.”

“Well, yes, magical theory says quite a lot that turns out not to be true, Madam Moonwell. Or did you think that saving all of your lives when my friends tried to blow up the Wizengamot chamber with an Ultimate Destruction Curse buried in their bond was predicted by any sort of theory?”

Tom laughed aloud. Harry cast one sparkling-eyed glance back at him, and then turned to face Jones again.

“Watch what happens to the charm and her when I cast the counter. Finite Incantatem.”

The yellow light vanished, snapping up into the air as if an invisible hand had yanked on it and then shredded it. Jones shrieked and jumped, her wand snapping into her hand in turn. She glanced around, then turned to stare at Harry.

“You did that to me,” she whispered, her voice holding no small amount of fear. “You made me feel as if I was detached, drifting, as if nothing mattered at all but the contents of my own mind, which wasn’t my own…”

“Would you say that you were under the Confundus Charm then, Madam Jones?” Harry asked loudly, with one eye on their audience. Arcturus Black had joined Madam Moonwell in her scowling.

“Yes, of course I was! The bloody strongest one I ever felt, but still the Confundus! Who says I wasn’t?” Jones swung around, apparently looking for someone to duel who wasn’t Harry. Harry didn’t bother to hide his smile, or the affection he dumped down the bond, although someone would have had to be able to read Tom better than anyone else now alive could to notice that.

“Well, it was visible when Potter called on his magic to make it so,” Black muttered. “And current theory says that charms like that can’t be made visible—”

“If you don’t think it was, maybe you should volunteer to be his next test subject, Black.”

Black coughed and sat back hastily. “I didn’t say that I didn’t believe it, Kalinda, only what current theory says.”

Harry coughed himself to call attention back to him. “I can cast those charms,” he said simply. “I can make them visible. I believe I can also teach others how to see them, without my needing to be there. That should settle the issue of whether any Muggle parents have been charmed into letting their children go into adoptions when they don’t really want to let them go.”

“Yes, it should,” Jones said, taking a sliding step back from Harry. “I never want to feel that again,” she muttered, although she at least sounded as if she meant to say it to herself.

Tom concealed his amusement and nodded to Jones when she glanced at him. Jones sought her seat again with alacrity.

“Does anyone else have more questions about how this will work?” Tom asked, sweeping his gaze over the seats. Lestrange was sulking with his arms folded, but at least it didn’t seem like he wanted to say anything. “I am sure that Harry will be happy to arrange another demonstration—for instance, if anyone else wants to feel it for themselves.”

“What if we have ethical concerns?”

Tom hid his surprise as he inclined his head towards Amelia. She had fully recovered from what Dumbledore had inflicted on her with the tuning fork device and returned to her duties, although only recently to the Wizengamot. “Which ones are those, Madam Bones?”

“This procedure is not based on a spell that your soulmate can teach others, or a Ministry process that can be replicated.” Amelia frowned at him and pushed her hair behind one ear. “It is based solely on the strength of a single soulmated pair. What happens if we pass this bill now, and then, in the future, after the two of you have perished, no one else can figure out whether Muggleborns’ parents have been Confunded or not?”

“I can teach the reveal to any soulmated pair, I think,” Harry offered. “It just requires moving your magic in a certain way, not so much the strength.”

Tom nodded and put his hand on Harry’s shoulder. “And at least right now, Madam Bones, neither Harry nor I have any intention of perishing.”

The shock that ran around the Wizengamot was as pure and brilliant as lightning. Tom basked in it and smiled a little as he saw Lestrange sit up. He opened his mouth, caught Tom’s eye, and then slumped back even further.

What? Harry hissed down the bond, as full and furious as if he had been a Parselmouth himself already. We never discussed that!

Surely you did not think I was eager to die, and leave your company?

We still didn’t discuss it! Why did you announce it here and now? It’ll give people a reason to get upset at you! They don’t want an immortal Minister in office!

Tom bent his head and extended his hand for Harry’s, which he lifted to his lips. I have my reasons.

Tell me one good one.

I want you to be mine forever.

That’s not what I meant—

“Does this mean that you will not willingly leave the Minister’s office at the legal end of your term?” demanded Amelia, her hand gripping her wand as if she was about to draw it and cut Harry’s throat.

Tom would have loved to see her try, although only in the abstract, because it would have been annoying to have to destroy her for the attempt. He smiled at her instead, and watched as her eyes widened. “It means no such thing,” he said calmly. “It means that we will be immortal, and can keep showing people and soulmates how to perform the charm, which should settle your ethical objections.”

Amelia looked as if she would have loved to say something scathing and witty and entrenched in legal tradition all at once, but had no idea what.

“There has not been an immortal soulmated pair in centuries beyond centuries,” Arcturus Black decided to interrupt, because of course what the conversation lacked was his inestimable contribution. “I daresay that you will not break those rules and become one yourself with your lover, Minister.”

“I daresay that you have no idea what you’re talking about, Black.” Tom tightened his arm around Harry’s waist. “If we are a pair who can keep the Wizengamot and the molecules of everyone’s bodies flying apart—”

“Your soulmate did that, not you, Minister.”

“With our pooled magic, Black.”

“Can we stop talking like impatient schoolchildren?” Harry asked loudly, which made everyone blink and pay attention to him, which was probably what he had intended. Tom saw his soulmate’s cheeks flush, but he stood there under the glares instead of running away. “Regardless of whether we can be immortal or not, what matters now is whether we can dismiss some of the objections to the Muggleborn Adoption Bill.”

“I suppose we can,” said Tom with a long sigh, and rejoiced in the fury he was receiving down the bond. Harry agitated was better than any argument with Arcturus any day. He dropped his arm from around Harry’s waist and stepped back, looking around the Wizengamot chamber. “Is there anyone who wishes to continue to oppose it? Or to withdraw their objections?”

Tom wasn’t surprised when several wands went up to answer the last question, and he smiled smugly at the back of Harry’s neck.

We need to talk about this, Tom.

I believe you were the one who said we needed to talk about the Muggleborn Adoption Bill?

Harry sent a hiss in return that was nearly the mental equivalent of Parseltongue, and then broke away from him in order to speak about the reasons and ways that some Muggleborns might want to enter the wizarding world.

Tom leaned back in his seat and was pleased.

*

“Don’t ever do that to me again.”

“What particular aspect of it, my dearest?”

Harry glared at Tom. Tom continued to lounge on the bed in his room, looking Harry over with that brand of fond possessiveness Harry would never get tired of or used to. Harry shoved his discontent down the bond.

“That only tells me what you feel, not what particular aspect of today displeased you.”

“You announced to the Wizengamot that we both wanted to be immortal,” Harry said stiffly. Tom just kept looking and said nothing, so Harry sat down in the chair shoved almost under Tom’s desk. “That isn’t—Tom, we never discussed that. Let’s say that it’s theoretically possible for strong soulmated pairs. I don’t want it.”

“Is that because you would prefer not to outlive some of the people you love?” Tom asked. “Or because you are so young that you cannot conceive of death as more than a distant threat, and so you believe you could go quietly and peacefully when it is your time?”

Harry paused. “You’ve thought a lot about this.”

“Of course I have. Originally, I didn’t want to die before I had found my soulmate. Then I did not want to die before I had spent as much time with them as I should have had.” Tom sat up and swung his legs off the side of the bed. “And now I have found you, and I am so greedy of my time with you that I cannot accept calmly that it might end in a few years or decades.”

Harry stared at him. Tom simply stared back.

Harry took a long, difficult breath. “I—I know you’re older than me. I always knew that, because I always knew who you were. I still never thought about being immortal.”

“And you never thought about being with me, either.” Tom smiled at him, and the bond shifted as sleekly as a tiger. “I know you don’t think about this the same way I do, Harry, but you were also forbidden from thinking about it. Your own thoughts therefore make a weaker argument.”

Harry sighed through his nose. Yes, Tom was right in some ways. Harry had never thought about immortality one way or the other, and he wasn’t truly opposed to it because of some weak ideas about how death was the greatest gift or one lifetime should be enough. Part of him found it romantic that Tom had thought about it so deeply, had determined that the world owed him the time to spend with his soulmate.

From the way Tom smirked at him, he knew that part of Harry existed, and was pleased as fuck about it.

But that didn’t address the main objection Harry had. He dragged his mind back to the moments when he had stood in front of the Wizengamot and felt as if he would combust with embarrassment.

“You said that you wanted me to take an active role in politics. Challenge you. Make you defend your choices, or change them if it turned out that you couldn’t.”

“Yes, of course.”

“When you act as if I’m your lover to be indulged instead of a serious political player in the middle of the Wizengamot, it undermines any effort I make in that direction. And I don’t think you take me that seriously, either.”

Tom paused. Then he nodded slowly. “Yes. I can see that now. I’m sorry. I’ll—endeavor not to do it again.”

Harry supposed that was better than a promise not to do it again, which would probably be broken the next time that someone threatened Harry. He leaned back against the chair with a little sigh. “The other part is that we’ve never actually discussed immortality in any depth. I don’t know if I want to be immortal with you.”

“Are you against it?”

“I said I don’t know. But I do know that it would be probably fuck things up more than normal if Britain had an immortal Minister.”

Tom paused for longer this time. Harry could feel things shifting in the bond, but he couldn’t isolate any particular emotions. It was as if Tom were feeling so much at once the Harry only received the distant, muddied impression of the whole.

Finally, Tom murmured in Parseltongue, “Is this how it ends?”

Harry sternly clamped down on the bound of irrational panic that made his heart stutter. Tom wasn’t talking about ending their bond. Nothing Harry was aware of could make him do that. But he had to mean something. Maybe Harry should relax as much as he could and give Tom time to speak.

Only when he’d had the thought and he saw Tom’s lips curving a little did he realize how much his mind-voice sounded like Gerald’s.

“I did not mean our bond, Harry. I will never think of ending that until you order me to walk away, and then I would have you checked for the Imperius and Polyjuice first.”

Harry stared at him and tried not to show his reaction to that possessiveness, which would impress Tom, but in the wrong way. “Then what were you talking about?”

“I was wondering if this is how my tenure as Minister ends.”

Harry sucked in his breath so sharply that he began to cough. Tom started to stand up, but Harry filtered reassurance down the bond, so Tom sat down once more and watched him calmly, until Harry got his breathing under control.

“I never—I thought you enjoyed being Minister. I don’t want to make you give up something you enjoy.”

“It was a career that satisfied my need for power and being cleverer than other people,” Tom said, with a slight shrug. “It also allowed me to pass laws that gave me more oversight of the Ministry and more of a chance to find my soulmate. But now I have found you, and sometimes the games, I must admit, pall. People who see you as merely my lover and a pretty toy are boring to manipulate.”

Harry snorted despite himself. “But the next election isn’t for years. You were just reelected. Aren’t you going to serve out the term?”

“Why should I? Did not your parents and Dumbledore paint me to you as an arbitrary, tyrannical dictator? Why should I not follow my whims?”

“But you’ve pointed out before that you’re the only democratically-elected member of the Wizengamot. What happens to it and our world if you step down and someone like Arcturus Black takes over?”

“I neither know nor care. No, Harry, listen to me. You can ask me to change some of my politics, and then work with me on it. Or you can ask me to step down and remove myself from the political process. You cannot ask me to step down and remain involved with the arbitrary pureblood games.”

“But—I do want to work to keep the world safe.”

Tom stared at him. “Let me know when you’re speaking with your own tongue and not your parents’.”

Harry felt his face flare with heat. “I do.”

“Then tell me why it feels through the bond exactly as if you were telling a lie?”

Harry took a long, deep breath. He owed Tom honesty, if he owed it to anyone. And Tom was waiting and staring at him curiously, his head slightly ducked as if he thought catching Harry’s eye at this level would make him more likely to be honest.

“I should want that,” Harry whispered. “I should want to look beyond my own selfish desires and look out for the Muggleborns and Muggles that the wizarding world could punish.”

“But?”

“I spent most of my life playing the unselfish martyr. I don’t want to play it anymore.”

Tom’s smile was as bright and triumphant as the curve of the moon Harry could see outside the window. “That is all I wanted to hear, darling. That you are finally reconsidering how much your parents’ politics and Dumbledore’s have cost you. For that reason, I shall not be upset if you want to do something that is—not exactly saving the world, and not exactly the kinds of games we have been playing until this point. I think perhaps you will want to continue struggling to ensure Muggleborn rights, after you have had a chance to take some time for yourself.”

Harry nodded slowly. That sounded true, truer than almost anything had in a long time. He wouldn’t be able to simply sit back and watch someone like Black or Malfoy wreak havoc on Muggleborns or Muggles unopposed.

But he didn’t want to be right in the center of it, either, or feel as if he was responsible for stopping it as the only person who could. He wanted to do some of the work that Hermione and Ron would be doing on the Muggle side of things—useful work, the kind the Order had said they were doing, not what they’d actually practiced.

“I can feel everything you’re thinking. It sounds wonderful, darling.”

Harry took a deep breath and turned to Tom. “Then how soon can we transition out?”

“Let us ensure that Dumbledore is captured or neutralized first. Only then would I feel easy in stepping down.” Tom grimaced a little. “I don’t put it past him to try an attack on the Ministry, and in that case, our conjoined power might be the only thing that would keep my employees safe.”

Harry nodded and felt determination well up in him. Before, he had thought of Dumbledore’s eventual capture as something that he might figure in, but not a particular goal.

Now, he wanted it to happen as soon as possible. Or Dumbledore’s death or defeat, those would be all right, too.

I want to have a life with my soulmate, already.

*

Tom couldn’t have imagined the light pouring down the bond now, as Harry’s will and emotions, not merely his magic, shifted to match Tom’s. But it was all the more beautiful for having been unimaginable before.