Chapter Nineteen of ‘The Onyx in Radiance’- Bright as Divinity

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Chapter Nineteen—Bright as Divinity

Harry thought he would wait longer between his demonstration of Parseltongue and his next step towards baiting Riddle into the duel that would make him surrender his Knights. He couldn’t show his hand too openly, or everyone would guess what was going on, some people would mark him down as not subtle enough to be worth paying attention to, and Riddle would refuse to enter the trap.

But that ended when Harry told Alphard Black, a third-year Slytherin, that the boy didn’t have to follow him, and Alphard responded, “I know I have a choice. And I know that I hate you, and won’t swear to you!”

Harry had never spoken to Alphard before, not even to ask him to pass something at the table in the Great Hall. And when he looked closely enough, he could make out the glazed eyes of an Imperius victim.

Rage filled Harry, the kind nothing had provoked since Sirius had died. Even when Crouch had cast the Imperius on them in the classroom with Dumbledore’s approval, they had been older than this.

And Alphard had done nothing to Riddle other than be born a Black, and be weaker and younger than Riddle was. How dare the bastard hurt Alphard.

Harry flicked his wand at the boy and said, “Finite Incantatem.”

Alphard put his hands over his eyes as if they hurt, and gasped like he’d run a race. Then he dashed back to Orion’s side and curled into it. Orion put an arm around his shoulders and looked at Harry like he expected Harry to solve all the problems in the world.

Well, I can’t do that, but I can do this.

Harry turned to the stairs up to the boys’ bedrooms, where he knew Riddle was likely lurking, and didn’t bother to lower his voice or change the flat tone. He wanted everyone to know what they were dealing with. “Imperius Curse. You’re good, Riddle, to cast it silently. Are you going to come down here and show us what you’re made of instead of mentally assaulting a third-year?”

Someone gasped, and Harry supposed he could have framed it in a way that was less antagonistic to Riddle. But frankly, he didn’t want to. It was mental assault, and there was no guarantee that Riddle wouldn’t have renewed the curse later if Harry hadn’t announced what it was now.

And he’d cast it on a third-year.

Harry’s rage was still blowing through him like winter wind when Riddle came down the stairs.

“You are the most irritating person here, Potter,” Riddle said. It sounded like he was exaggerating his s’s to make it closer to Parseltongue, which was just stupid as far as Harry was concerned. Hadn’t they already proven that they were both Parselmouths?

Harry laughed, not something he’d really planned on. He thought it sounded strained and fake. But at least Riddle was focusing on him now as Harry stepped forwards, and not little kids. “I’m not the one who has to control people with the Imperius Curse in a clumsy ploy to get what I want, Riddle.”

“Shut up, Potter.”

Oh, dear. Affected, are we?

Harry smiled this time, and maybe it was for everyone else, but it was mostly for Riddle He was more in control now than he had been when he’d first realized Alphard was under the Imperius. He was ready to keep taunting Riddle and pushing him down the path Harry wanted him to walk. “I don’t have to control people with that curse for them to like me, Riddle. In fact, I think that it makes you a pretty pathetic wizard to hide behind the Unforgivables instead of facing your enemies head-on like a wizard should.”

“I will end you, Potter. I will make you crawl at my feet.”

That sounds familiar, too. As much as Riddle had changed when he became Voldemort, it seemed his pathetic insults really hadn’t.

And it had given Harry a new idea. He had to demonstrate a power that Riddle didn’t have? Harry had assumed that meant he’d have to take something away that Riddle did have, but it could also mean that he could show other people Riddle couldn’t control him.

“Oh?” Harry asked, as obnoxiously as possible, and lifted his chin like he was baring his throat. “You couldn’t do that even with the Imperius.”

And because Riddle was impulsive under all the Slytherin cunning, he fell for it right away. He practically screamed “Imperio! Bow before me!”, and flourished his wand like it was going to go flying out of his hand and murder Harry that way.

Harry felt the pressure of Riddle’s incredible will bearing down on him. It hurt to resist, but he also wanted to roll his eyes. Behind that will was weakness, the same kind of weakness that had convinced Riddle to use the curse on a thirteen-year-old. Harry broke it like he was punching through rotten ice.

Of course, no one else would necessarily know that when they weren’t in Harry’s head. So he chose to show a visible sign, and laughed aloud.

People squirmed and writhed and gasped like Harry had shown off his Parseltongue all over again. Harry held in his sigh. After all, this was what he’d wanted to happen, to show other people that Riddle wasn’t the all-powerful Heir of Slytherin.

He also wasn’t foolish enough to look away from Riddle, who was staring at him, so maybe the reaction was less dramatic than it sounded like.

And now, the speech. Harry had already decided to say some things that would only make sense to him, just because they sounded so dramatic.

“You can’t make me bow,” Harry said, and he let his lip curl. “You could never make me bow to you, Tom Marvolo Riddle. I can resist the Imperius. It doesn’t matter how strongly it’s cast.” He reached out with his magic as he took a step towards Riddle, and woke a snake carved on the mantel to make it climb down the fireplace after him. That would be all creepy and dramatic, too. “I can resist you, no matter what you do, no matter what you say.”

Riddle was staring at him with wide eyes, which Harry had to admit felt pretty good. He only felt better when Riddle hissed, “I can find something that will make you bow, no matter how long it takes me.”

Harry held up a hand and the carved snake halted. Harry wasn’t sure how he had known it would. Or why it was now swaying back and forth in time to Harry’s breathing, but then again, Salazar Slytherin had also been a pretty dramatic bastard, what with the basilisk and all. “Good fucking luck,” Harry hissed back.

Riddle finally turned and stalked towards the door of the common room, probably intending to look less like a scared little boy running for his life. Harry sighed and relaxed, turning his mind from defiance of Riddle back to what really mattered. “Are you all right?” he asked Alphard, who was still standing next to Orion and blinking a little.

“I’m—fine.”

Damn, Imperius side-effects. At least Harry had a ready-made solution that would also make it seem as if he were acting like a leader for Orion and satisfy Harry’s own protective instinct. He’d escort Alphard to the hospital wing himself, but he thought there was too much chance that Riddle might attack again and really injure the boy this time.

“Can you take him to the hospital wing?” he asked Orion. “I know that we can’t really say what happened—” because none of the professors would believe that Riddle was using an Unforgivable, except possibly Dumbledore “—but if you tell Madam Eldiss that someone cast a powerful Confundus on him, she’ll be able to use some of the same treatments.”

“Yes, I’ll do that,” Orion said, while Alphard stared at Harry with the kind of big cow’s eyes Harry had last seen on Colin Creevey. Orion just looked smug as he patted Alphard’s shoulder and smiled at Harry. Probably thinking that Harry was a Lord and going to turn around and cast a Dark spell any minute now.

Harry managed to smile even though he really wanted to roll his eyes. He could understand displays of power making people wary or breathless, but not turning them into mindless little dogs who wanted to follow him. “Thank you.”

Orion led Alphard out of the common room. Harry turned to look at the other Slytherins, working hard to keep a sneer from his face. They ended up not coming over to talk to him, although maybe that was because Abraxas Malfoy strolled up and sat pointedly in a chair at Harry’s left side.

Harry went back to doing his homework and plotting Riddle’s downfall. In that respect, being at Hogwarts fifty years in the past was really pretty similar.

*


“Orion?”

Orion licks his lips and turns around slowly. He’s been walking along the side of the Malfoys’ Quidditch pitch for the last half-hour, trying to sort out the chaos in his head. And now Harry is back again, hovering on his broom a few feet above the ground and watching him anxiously.

“Why did you just dump that all on me?” Orion asks. He’s been thinking of the different ways that Harry could have told him the truth—

(Because it is the truth, Orion is certain of that in a way that feels like he used Legilimency on Harry).

“Because I’ve lied enough to you.” Harry grimaces and shakes his head. “Keeping anything back felt like another kind of lie. And it meant you wouldn’t be able to use the truth to make up your mind.”

“What kind of decision do you expect me to make?”

“I told you that already.” Harry’s hands are tight around his broom handle, but his voice is calmer than Orion would have expected. He wonders abruptly how hard Harry is working to control the chaos in his own head, the kind that would spring up when he started to tell Orion the truth. “I’ll just ask that you wait until the end of the holidays, like I said—”

“Why did you expect me to reject you?”

“Because I’m a bloody time traveler who fucking lied to you!”

Harry’s words ring out across the pitch, and he flushes. Then he sits back and clears his throat. “But I meant it, Orion. I—I like you, a lot, and I couldn’t let you just go on thinking I was some ordinary person from this time who didn’t want to discuss his past because it was painful. I don’t have a past with the Potter family. I didn’t take on Riddle out of purely noble motives. It was partially personal revenge, too. And I’ve destroyed the future you might have had. So I know I have no place in your life. Almost nothing about me is true or like you thought it was.”

Harry takes a deep breath at the end of all that, and looks at Orion as if expecting him to make things easier. Orion moves a step or two closer. Harry braces himself, his wand hand twitching, and then deliberately folds it down at his side.

“You absolute idiot,” Orion says, and frowns a little at the amount of affection in his voice. He did mean to say that more sternly, for starters.

Harry stares at him. “What?”

“I’m glad you told me the truth,” Orion says, because he is more glad than not. “Too many things about you just didn’t make sense. And I know that you haven’t told anyone else in this timeline the truth, no matter how much you like them.” He’s close enough now to reach out and dig his fingers into Harry’s hair. Harry makes a startled noise and tilts his head back, forcing Orion’s hand deeper.

“N-no,” Harry says, breathless, and Orion gently strokes Harry’s collarbone. The breathless quotient in his next words increases. “O-Orion?”

“Nothing about my feelings for you has changed,” Orion whispers, and pulls him closer. Harry comes, caught somewhere in between trying to stay on the broom and stumbling off it, and finally choosing stumbling off. Orion catches him before he can hit the ground. This close, Harry’s scent, warmth, breathing, reality is overwhelming. Orion tilts his head back and kisses him.

Harry makes a soft, desperate sound and draws him closer. Orion goes with it, stroking Harry’s back, cupping his arse, urging him gently and steadily downwards until they’re lying in the grass side-by-side. It’s no large matter to wave his wand and clear away the snow and cast Warming Charms, or to make sure that he does that without letting go of Harry. If he does, he’s sure Harry will bolt.

“Why, though?” Harry does recover the breath and reason to ask, when Orion is leaning over him and using his wand to charm their robes open. Harry’s eyes are wide, but so are his legs, and he’s hard.

For Orion. He told Orion the truth. He trusted him that much. He thought he should set Orion free to seek whatever kind of life he could, not because he got tired of him, but because he loves Orion more than to keep him close under a lie.

Orion never thought that would happen. He never thought he would inspire that kind of affection. He’s not even sure his parents have. Mother and Father love each other so possessively that they could easily lie to keep each other.

But Harry’s not like that, no matter how much he might seem to be at times. Orion will just have to be possessive enough for the both of them.

“Orion, please,” Harry says in a desperate tone, reaching up to touch his chin, his neck, his chest. “Have you thought about this? Have you—”

“Not all of it,” Orion says, and rolls on top of Harry. Harry could use his magic to blast Orion off if he really wanted to get away, so Orion is confident that when Harry blinks and stares at him, he’s staying because he wants to.

No matter how much he thinks he shouldn’t want to.

“I don’t know how to come to terms with all of it yet,” Orion says, and he’s only telling the truth. “But what I know is that I still want you. Someone who trusts me like this, who’s so incredible that he would offer me the chance to walk away even when it’s obvious he doesn’t want to? Someone so Slytherin and so Gryffindor at the same time? Harry.” He clenches his fingers against Harry’s neck and draws them down, raking lightly with his nails. Harry gives a ragged gasp that sounds almost like one of pain, but doesn’t try to draw away. “I want you. I love you.”

Harry shakes beneath him as if that’s the last thing he expected, no matter how obvious Orion has been. “But I meant what I said about not knowing how I came to this time, either. I could still disappear someday—”

“So could anybody,” Orion says, and mouths at Harry’s neck until he flings back his head with an expression of startled pleasure on his face. “Lucretia taught me that, dying the way she did. Father could die of a heart attack tomorrow. Mother could misjudge how much magic she uses on her illusions and die of exhaustion. You could vanish. I could fall off a broom or get eaten by a plant in Herbology. All we ever have is here and now. Stay with me, Harry. Be with me.”

“Orion…”

But it’s a sigh of surrender, not resistance. And Orion curls his hand lightly around Harry’s throat and catches his eye.

Harry nods frantically.

Orion bends over and claims his mouth.

*

Harry is so desperate underneath him. It’s beyond obvious that he’s never done this before.

Or perhaps part of that comes from the fact that he’s in another time and doing this with his godfather’s father, Orion has to admit.

At any rate, Harry writhes and makes all sorts of surprised noises when their chests touch, and when Orion slips a hand into his trousers. Then Harry nearly dislocates his own arm trying to return the favor. Orion aligns his cock with Harry’s thigh and begins to rub fiercely, and Harry’s noise this time sounds questioning.

“This is enough,” Orion gasps, surrounded by heat and the one person he trusts the most. Harry shifts and spreads his legs again, and Orion falls between them. His eyes cross, and it’s all he can do to keep his hand moving on Harry’s cock. In the end, he has to time his hand with his thrusts.

“This is more than enough,” Orion says, moments before he comes.

It’s messy and warm and sticky and so pleasant that Orion loses track of where and who he is for a few seconds. When he returns to himself, it’s to find his hand still wrapped around Harry, who’s bucking against it, soft urgency in his movements and the grunts working their way out of his throat.

Orion bows his head and kisses the side of Harry’s neck, the easiest thing to reach from this position.

Harry comes, too.

It’s more satisfying than his own orgasm, to watch Harry pant and twist through his, and come down at the end with a bump and a cry. He curls towards Orion, shaking. Orion keeps one hand positioned on the back of Harry’s neck, turning his fingers to rub soft skin with his knuckles.

*

“I told you for another reason, too,” Harry whispers some endless amount of time later, when they’ve drifted through enough clouds of warmth for Orion to feel that they’re flying the way they originally came to the pitch to do.

“What?” Orion would raise his head, open his eyes, and let Harry go, but he doesn’t particularly want to.

“I told you for another reason than just because I didn’t want to lie to you.”

That seems like he has to raise his head, regrettably. Orion blinks and licks his lips, finding salt there he doesn’t remember. “What was it?”

Harry is stripped bare beneath him, and never mind that he still wears his trousers and his pants beneath them. His eyes are wide open and a bright burning green, and he reaches up and puts his hand on Orion’s shoulder with a tremor in it.

For the first time, Orion is sure that he’s seeing Harry in all the different ways he really is.

“Because I wanted to,” Harry whispers. “I wanted someone to bear this burden with me, someone I could trust. I—I think it was kind of selfish, but I can’t regret it.”

“You never need to regret anything that you choose to do with me,” Orion says, and he can’t believe this deep purring voice is his own. It sounds more like Father’s. “You’re mine, Harry. For as long as I can hold onto you.” Orion does plan for that to be forever, but he should sound less like he’s trying to imprison Harry in a tower and keep him there. “I love you.”

Harry shivers like a thestral’s wing is caressing him. “I love you, too.”

Orion never remembers the next and extremely warm moments that closely, but he doesn’t need to. He’s lying in Harry’s arms. He’s trusted. He’s safe. He has time to consider the fact that Harry is from another future entirely, and build the one that they can have together.

He’s so much in love.