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lomonaaerenTitle: How Tom Got Dangled Off the Astronomy Tower
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Harry/Tom Riddle
Content Notes: Time travel, dysfunctional relationship, obsessive Tom Riddle, jealousy, angst, brief violence, outsider POV
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 3700
Summary: Harry might have accepted that he’ll never be able to return to his own time. He might have accepted that Tom Riddle will never leave him alone. But he doesn’t have to accept Tom being a jealous, controlling git. The story, as told by Tom’s minions.
Author’s Notes: This is one of my “Songs of the Stormy Season,” shorter fics being posted between Halloween and the winter solstice. Severus_divides_into_H requested a story about Tom starting to suffocate Harry with jealous and controlling behavior. Hope you enjoy.
How Tom Got Dangled Off the Astronomy Tower
Abraxas Malfoy shook his head slowly as he watched Harry slouch into a chair near the fire. Tom was sitting in the chair next to Harry, as was usual, but the way he bent over Harry, looming over him even while they were sitting, wasn’t.
“See Harry and Riddle?” muttered Barca Avery next to him, putting a hand briefly on Abraxas’s chair arm.
“Yes,” Abraxas said as softly. Watching Harry too closely wasn’t a good idea. Tom was likely to get it into his head that that person wanted to take Harry away from him, and make sure to approach with a smile on his face. Abraxas hated Tom’s smiles. “He wasn’t doing that this morning. Wonder what it’s all about.”
“I heard a fourth-year Hufflepuff smiled at Harry in the corridor.”
Orion Black was a total gossip and not someone Abraxas would have associated with if they weren’t in the same House, year, and group together. But he couldn’t openly disdain a fellow Knight of Walpurgis. “Oh? Who?”
Orion leaned a little closer. “April Prewett,” he whispered.
Abraxas didn’t whistle, which would have attracted more scornful attention than it was worth, but it was a near thing. Harry had a thing about the Prewetts and Weasleys, spending more time with them than anyone else outside Slytherin, and Tom had a thing about keeping Harry away from them.
“Does she want to die?” Barca asked.
“Harry got in between Riddle and the girl when Riddle tried to hex her. Yelled something about how Riddle was perverse and suffocating and he’d never want to see him again if Riddle hurt Prewett.” Orion settled back in his chair and flicked his hair over his shoulder, smug with knowing something no one else did.
“And Tom just took that?” Abraxas couldn’t imagine it.
“He got this peculiar smile and said something about how Harry’s courage would do credit to a Gryffindor.” Orion grinned, which meant the best part of the story was still upcoming. “Then he said if Harry didn’t want him hexing people, he’d just have to keep Harry with him at all times to make sure they didn’t talk to Harry, either.”
“And Harry…took that?”
Orion flickered his eyes more than jerked his head to the side, where Harry was pulling away from Tom’s proximity as best he could without getting up. “He would do anything to save someone else. Haven’t you figured that out by now?”
Abraxas frowned and said nothing. It was true, Harry would do that. Which made it all the stranger that their lord seemed obsessed with him. Tom Riddle was nothing if not practical, nothing if not devoted to his own safety and prestige. Why he would put up with someone who could put both in jeopardy—
“Oh, yeah? I don’t have to talk to you, either.”
Abraxas watched open-mouthed as Harry finally stood up with a sneer and whirled around to face Tom. Their lord was sitting up with a blank face, but fire in his eyes. Abraxas shuddered. Good things never happened when that expression was involved.
“Harry,” Tom began, his voice smooth and low. Abraxas shivered this time. Once he had dreamed of certain things involving him, and that voice, and beds.
And then he had opened his eyes and seen the kind of beast Tom Riddle was beneath the skin. Not the kind that you wanted in your bed. He had ducked his head and hadn’t truly raised it in Tom’s presence after that.
“No,” Harry said, and his lips pulled up in an uglier sneer yet. “See if you can ignore me, Riddle. See if you can try.”
“I will never ignore you, Harry.”
Harry turned around and walked away. Clearly he had decided that his silent treatment of Tom should start now.
Tom sighed a little and settled back in his chair. Abraxas immediately stared down at his hands, although it would have worked better if he had managed to supply himself with a book or class notes or something other than his empty fingers.
“Abraxas.”
“Yes, my lord?” Abraxas asked at once, turning towards Tom’s chair but keeping his head ducked. Let Tom take it for reverence if he would.
Although, come to think of it, Tom would probably accept it just as well if it was absolute terror.
“Keep an eye on Harry for the next few days, would you? He most likely won’t let me near him, and I would be…displeased if he were to come to harm.”
Abraxas bowed lower still, remembering some of the consequences of that displeasure for other people. “Of course, my lord.”
“Good. Now, Marius…”
And Abraxas sighed and sat back in his seat, not convinced that was the end of the storm, but convinced that he had weathered it. And that was all that mattered for now.
*
Orion Black absolutely did not believe that Harry Potter could go three hours without speaking to Tom Riddle, let alone three days. If someone had asked him, he would have wagered at least ten Galleons on the silent treatment lasting three minutes at most.
But the impossible had happened, and Harry had utterly refused to speak to their lord for three weeks.
It was fascinating, Orion had to admit. Especially since Riddle still sat near Harry in classes and at meals—the ones that Harry didn’t take somewhere else, probably the kitchens—and spoke to him. He had tried every tone of voice Orion had ever heard from him: coaxing, silkily threatening, cold with rage, bright and cheerful, even the politeness that Riddle usually reserved for professors.
None of it made a dent. Harry kept his head stubbornly turned away and his mouth closed.
This morning, the feel of Riddle’s magic had told Orion that his patience was at an end. He meant to force Harry to speak, to acknowledge him, and that meant high drama.
In other words, high entertainment.
Orion had worked for the last few days on perfecting his Disillusionment Charm. Most of the time, he wouldn’t have bothered, because Riddle had the most damnable trick of seeing through them. But Orion would also have wagered that Riddle would be too furious in the moment to look around for someone under one, and he intended to witness this confrontation.
“Potter!”
Orion leaned over the banister. Riddle had searched the dungeons for Harry before seeming to conclude that he wasn’t anywhere in them—which Orion could already have told him—and so he’d taken off for some of the upper floors, with Orion following him. Riddle hadn’t found Harry there, either, but now Riddle had caught up with him on a staircase directly beneath the one Orion was standing on. Hanging a little over the railing like this gave Orion a perfect view.
Harry kept walking, presenting Riddle with a stolid back that refused to be marked. Orion’s lips twitched.
“Pay attention to me when I’m talking to you, Potter.”
Riddle dropped into Parseltongue then, which rather disappointed Orion. He’d spent enough time around Riddle in the last few years that it no longer frightened him the way it still did some of the first-years. It just made it harder to understand what it was saying.
Harry had revealed that he spoke Parseltongue some time ago. It had been the final seal of Riddle’s interest in him.
Now, he just kept walking, walking, walking.
“Potter!”
Riddle shot a curse at him. Orion held his breath. This was it. Harry would have to respond now—
A shield flared into being above Harry’s back. Orion blinked. The shield overlapped all of Harry himself, and seemed to be rooted into his robes, but covered his neck and head and ankles. It burned with intense, smokeless, golden fire, and also burned away Riddle’s curse as if he had never cast it.
A Phoenix Shield, Orion thought. Damn. Impressive.
And one of the spells that Riddle had never been able to cast, any more than he had been able to successfully cast a Patronus. This was going to enrage him even more. Orion leaned over until the banister under his fingers creaked.
Riddle was swearing. Harry kept walking, and reached the bottom of the staircase and turned the corner towards the Great Hall. Riddle went after him.
Orion waited until he was sure Riddle was gone to start cackling.
*
“Marius.”
Marius Lestrange sighed and turned carefully around. He did everything carefully around Tom Riddle. He resisted the temptation to push up his glasses, when he knew they were already perfectly in place on his nose, and bowed his head. “Yes, my lord?” They were in a deserted corner of the dungeons where Marius had his brewing station; respect was demanded in private.
“I want you to brew a Compulsion Draught.”
Marius couldn’t keep his eyes from widening, but he could work on keeping his face from changing, so he did. “Yes, my lord. I will need parameters such as desired duration, strength, target—”
“It’s for Harry.”
Marius again kept his face from changing. “With respect, my lord, I believe he would be able to throw off a Compulsion Draught.”
Tom had opened his mouth to continue, but he paused. “Why do you say that?”
“He can throw off the Imperius Curse,” Marius replied, carefully neutral as always. “The Compulsion Draught is the Imperius Curse in liquid form. I do not believe I could brew one strong enough to have any effect on him, at least not without increasing the amount of foxglove to the point that it would poison him.”
Tom stared over Marius’s head at the dungeon wall, frowning. Marius stood there and waited.
“Could you weaken it?” Tom asked abruptly. “Dilute it enough to mix it with food and pumpkin juice so that Harry would drink it over a long period of time and become more malleable and suggestible that way?”
“If he were a Gryffindor or not otherwise in a situation where is constantly suspicious and on his guard, that would work, my lord,” Marius said. In fact, it was an intriguing experiment that he would probably try himself at some point in the future. “But I cannot do that with someone who is both on their guard and strong enough to resist the Imperius.”
“A weakness in your craft, Marius?” Tom’s tone had gained the spiky kind of anger that always meant danger.
“Say rather a strength in the human body and constitution, my lord.” Marius knew better than to say it was a weakness in Harry’s suspicion. Tom tolerated no one getting angry at Harry or disparaging him save himself. “The Compulsion Draught, diluted, can only build on comfort and suggestibility that already exists. It cannot induce it.”
“I see,” said Tom, and turned away abruptly.
Marius remained waiting until he was sure that Tom was gone. Then he turned and continued towards his brewing station.
In truth, because the dilution of a Compulsion Draught Tom had suggested was something that had never been tried before, as far as Marius knew, the “explanation” he had just fed Tom was bollocks. But Tom had got too used to relying on Marius for Potions theory even though he was capable of astonishing feats in the subject himself.
Marius planned to brew some potions that would make sure Tom never worked that out.
*
Walburga Black decided that someone had to say it. She waited until Harry had left the Slytherin common room after another silent staring contest with Tom, and stood up to walk over to Tom.
She drew attention at once. Not many people in Slytherin without the last name Potter stood up to Tom Riddle, lord of so many of them here. Walburga caught a glimpse of her cousin and betrothed Orion with his hand over his mouth to conceal his laughter, no doubt rejoicing in the drama that hadn’t even happened yet.
Walburga met Tom’s gaze and waited. Tom raked her once with his dark eyes before he nodded for her to speak.
“You are making a fool of yourself over this half-blood bastard, my lord,” she said bluntly.
Tom’s eyes widened. Walburga saw the danger come into them, but she ignored that. She had known it would happen.
She was far more interested in the fact that Tom was so taken aback by her suggestion that he hadn’t defended himself. Walburga nodded. Potter was making him weak. If Tom hadn’t seen that himself, then it was worth a few rounds under his Cruciatus to bring this to his attention.
“What did you say?” Tom whispered.
“You have never had hearing problems, my lord. You know what I said.”
Several people gasped. Walburga ignored them, keeping her steady gaze on Tom. She saw him stand. She saw him reach for his wand. She braced herself.
And she saw him pause.
Walburga blinked with astonishment as Tom turned and left the common room with a quick stride. She spun around on one heel, about to follow him, but Orion grabbed her wrist. Walburga hadn’t even realized that he’d stood up and come over.
“He spared you,” Orion whispered. “Leave it alone, Walburga.”
“But that just proves—”
“Leave it alone, Walburga. Please.”
It was the first time Orion had said “please” to her since they were small children. Walburga ended up nodding and walking beside him to a sheltered place in the shadow of the stairs that led down to the girls’ dormitories. It was a pitiful hiding place if Tom came back in a temper, but it was better than sitting openly in the middle of the common room.
Now that she was sitting down, Walburga began to shake. Orion reached out and drew her against him, stroking her hair.
Even he, who loved gossip and drama, was pale, and kept shooting the door to the common room frightened looks.
Caught up in the completely unexpected aftermath of what she had attempted—and her survival after attempting to provoke her lord—it took Walburga a while to notice that Abraxas was missing.
*
Abraxas did not want to be here.
He said that over and over again in his head as he and Tom raced up the steps to the Astronomy Tower, the sight of Harry’s latest brooding session. Just in case there were some gods listening out there who would take pity on him.
Tom raised his hand as they came to a halt on the last steps. Abraxas froze, trying to control his heavy panting. Maybe Tom would tell him to wait behind because he was too noisy. That would be the kind of reprieve Abraxas had been hoping for.
“Stand behind me, and be ready to nod,” Tom said, which made no sense, and then strode out onto the roof of the Tower before Abraxas could say “Yes, my lord.”
Abraxas braced himself—and tried his best to ignore the pain in his side from running that felt as though something was gnawing through his ribs—and followed.
Tom was standing not far from Harry. Harry perched on the edge of the Tower and stared out over Hogwarts’s grounds. A wind blew a lock of black hair back from his face. Abraxas would have suspected him of arranging this pose on purpose if he didn’t know that Harry thought prestige and influence were for plebians. But he did permit himself a single roll of his eyes, since neither Tom nor Harry was looking.
“Harry.”
Harry ignored Tom utterly, just as he had since that day in the Slytherin common room when he’d told Tom he wouldn’t be talking to him anymore. Tom didn’t seem discouraged. He simply cleared his throat and said, “Walburga Black insulted me just now, and I didn’t put her under the Cruciatus. Aren’t you proud of me?”
Harry moved.
Abraxas gaped. He didn’t know exactly what had happened, except that Harry was fast and Tom wasn’t used to defending himself from Harry anymore, not when he had done his best to act as though he trusted Harry and then Harry hadn’t given Tom a chance to duel him for the last several weeks. In seconds, Tom was flung against the stones of the Tower, and Harry was leaning over him, chest to chest.
It didn’t escape Abraxas’s notice that Tom’s eyes had glazed. He wanted to shake his head, but he was too busy feeling as though his throat had frozen and his heart would leap out of it.
“No!” Harry screamed in Tom’s face. “Because you’re fucking mental and refraining from torturing people is not something you should be proud of!”
He drew back, face contorted with hate, and pushed Tom between two of the parapets.
Tom screamed. Abraxas charged onto the top of the Tower. He saw Harry kneeling down, wand twisting in his hand. In a second, a long rope had grown around Harry’s arm and down around Tom, cradling him in a kind of swing, while Harry knelt there and glared hatred.
Tom still gripped Harry’s arm.
“I can drop you,” Harry said.
Abraxas stood there and tried to look as though he had no idea about interfering. Sure, Tom might murder him for not doing so, assuming Harry ever hauled him up. But even moving towards Tom could startle Harry and make Abraxas party to murder.
He’d rather be murdered than be a party to murder.
“And I will,” Harry said, and laughed, a hard, peculiar sound. “The boy who’s more afraid of death than anyone else in this bloody school. You’re screaming so loudly in your mind right now I’m amazed you can hear anything I’m saying.”
Abraxas jumped. It seemed that several memories collided in his head at once, and he knew suddenly that Harry was absolutely, incredibly right. Tom was afraid of death. The way he had laughed with a shrill note in his voice when someone mentioned it, the way that he had never let anyone else see his Boggart, the way he had spoken in second year of living “as long as he wanted” with burning eyes…
“I can hear you,” Tom whispered.
His voice was soft with fear and not rage, Abraxas thought. And Harry seemed to hear the difference, because he didn’t laugh again, but sprawled on the stone and stared down at Tom.
“If I let you back up,” Harry said, “you will refrain from stalking me.”
“Yes,” Tom whispered.
“You will refrain from torturing and killing other Hogwarts students.”
“Yes.”
Abraxas wondered why Harry hadn’t just forbidden Tom from torturing or killing anyone ever, and then grimaced. Harry probably knew Tom’s limits, even when he was dangling inches from his death like this.
“You will refrain from experimenting any more with objects like that diary that you’re keeping under your pillow.”
Abraxas nearly stopped breathing. How did Harry know about that? Abraxas didn’t know about that, and he’d shared Tom’s room for six years!
(And Orion didn’t know, either, because if he had, it would have been all over the school).
Tom paused long enough this time that Abraxas though Harry really would run out of strength in his arms, and drop him. But then he whispered, “Yes.”
Harry cast another spell, muttering the incantation so softly that Abraxas couldn’t hear it, and then whipped his wand upwards. The rope with Tom wrapped in it came flying up and crashed on the roof. Harry might have cast a Cushioning Charm underneath it, but if so, no trace of it was visible. He had at least cast a charm that strengthened his arms and shoulders; he must have done.
Tom landed and lay there, panting, making no sound other than that.
Harry knelt next to Tom and turned his face with a faux-gentle touch on his cheek. Tom stared at him with quiet, dazed eyes.
“Keep your promises,” Harry said. “Or I’ll do worse.”
And he stood up and walked off the Tower as though none of this had ever happened.
Abraxas blinked, unnerved, and moved over to kneel beside Tom, clearing his throat. “Are you all right, my lord?”
Tom looked at the stones for a long time. Then he glanced up, and Abraxas braced himself against what must surely be murderous rage.
Instead, Tom wore an expression Abraxas had never seen on his face before, although it seemed vaguely familiar otherwise. For some reason, it reminded Abraxas of Walburga Black, but he didn’t know why.
“Did you hear him?” Tom whispered.
“Yes, my lord. I—I heard him.”
Abraxas wondered if Tom would Obliviate him so that no one but Tom and Harry would know Tom had made those promises. But Tom made no motion towards his wand. Instead, he continued wearing the strange expression as he turned to stare in the direction Harry had gone.
“He is such a challenge,” Tom breathed.
The familiarity of that expression slammed into Abraxas then. It was the way Walburga looked at Tom, sometimes, when she thought no one else was watching. Stunned, covetous, yearning…
Overwhelmed.
Oh, shit. Tom thinks Harry is—
“An equal,” Tom said, and he sounded dreamy. “I never imagined that I would have an equal, Abraxas. But I do.”
“You do, my lord?” Abraxas worked to hide his incredulity. Dangling someone over the edge of the Astronomy Tower was such a Gryffindor tactic that he had to wonder anew about Harry’s Sorting.
“Yes. Someone as ruthless and powerful as I am. Someone who isn’t intimidated by me. Someone I have to court instead of simply frightening into compliance.”
Oh, shit.
Abraxas trailed behind Tom as Tom stood up and wandered in a dazed way down the stairs back into the school. Tom was muttering under his breath, seemingly oblivious of his surroundings in a way Abraxas had never seen him be, and all the mutters seemed to relate to ways to gain Harry’s attention in ways that didn’t involve pain or violence.
Well, Harry, you changed him, Abraxas thought glumly as he followed Tom.
I just don’t know if Tom dreaming of catching your attention is much better than his planning world domination.
The End.
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Harry/Tom Riddle
Content Notes: Time travel, dysfunctional relationship, obsessive Tom Riddle, jealousy, angst, brief violence, outsider POV
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 3700
Summary: Harry might have accepted that he’ll never be able to return to his own time. He might have accepted that Tom Riddle will never leave him alone. But he doesn’t have to accept Tom being a jealous, controlling git. The story, as told by Tom’s minions.
Author’s Notes: This is one of my “Songs of the Stormy Season,” shorter fics being posted between Halloween and the winter solstice. Severus_divides_into_H requested a story about Tom starting to suffocate Harry with jealous and controlling behavior. Hope you enjoy.
How Tom Got Dangled Off the Astronomy Tower
Abraxas Malfoy shook his head slowly as he watched Harry slouch into a chair near the fire. Tom was sitting in the chair next to Harry, as was usual, but the way he bent over Harry, looming over him even while they were sitting, wasn’t.
“See Harry and Riddle?” muttered Barca Avery next to him, putting a hand briefly on Abraxas’s chair arm.
“Yes,” Abraxas said as softly. Watching Harry too closely wasn’t a good idea. Tom was likely to get it into his head that that person wanted to take Harry away from him, and make sure to approach with a smile on his face. Abraxas hated Tom’s smiles. “He wasn’t doing that this morning. Wonder what it’s all about.”
“I heard a fourth-year Hufflepuff smiled at Harry in the corridor.”
Orion Black was a total gossip and not someone Abraxas would have associated with if they weren’t in the same House, year, and group together. But he couldn’t openly disdain a fellow Knight of Walpurgis. “Oh? Who?”
Orion leaned a little closer. “April Prewett,” he whispered.
Abraxas didn’t whistle, which would have attracted more scornful attention than it was worth, but it was a near thing. Harry had a thing about the Prewetts and Weasleys, spending more time with them than anyone else outside Slytherin, and Tom had a thing about keeping Harry away from them.
“Does she want to die?” Barca asked.
“Harry got in between Riddle and the girl when Riddle tried to hex her. Yelled something about how Riddle was perverse and suffocating and he’d never want to see him again if Riddle hurt Prewett.” Orion settled back in his chair and flicked his hair over his shoulder, smug with knowing something no one else did.
“And Tom just took that?” Abraxas couldn’t imagine it.
“He got this peculiar smile and said something about how Harry’s courage would do credit to a Gryffindor.” Orion grinned, which meant the best part of the story was still upcoming. “Then he said if Harry didn’t want him hexing people, he’d just have to keep Harry with him at all times to make sure they didn’t talk to Harry, either.”
“And Harry…took that?”
Orion flickered his eyes more than jerked his head to the side, where Harry was pulling away from Tom’s proximity as best he could without getting up. “He would do anything to save someone else. Haven’t you figured that out by now?”
Abraxas frowned and said nothing. It was true, Harry would do that. Which made it all the stranger that their lord seemed obsessed with him. Tom Riddle was nothing if not practical, nothing if not devoted to his own safety and prestige. Why he would put up with someone who could put both in jeopardy—
“Oh, yeah? I don’t have to talk to you, either.”
Abraxas watched open-mouthed as Harry finally stood up with a sneer and whirled around to face Tom. Their lord was sitting up with a blank face, but fire in his eyes. Abraxas shuddered. Good things never happened when that expression was involved.
“Harry,” Tom began, his voice smooth and low. Abraxas shivered this time. Once he had dreamed of certain things involving him, and that voice, and beds.
And then he had opened his eyes and seen the kind of beast Tom Riddle was beneath the skin. Not the kind that you wanted in your bed. He had ducked his head and hadn’t truly raised it in Tom’s presence after that.
“No,” Harry said, and his lips pulled up in an uglier sneer yet. “See if you can ignore me, Riddle. See if you can try.”
“I will never ignore you, Harry.”
Harry turned around and walked away. Clearly he had decided that his silent treatment of Tom should start now.
Tom sighed a little and settled back in his chair. Abraxas immediately stared down at his hands, although it would have worked better if he had managed to supply himself with a book or class notes or something other than his empty fingers.
“Abraxas.”
“Yes, my lord?” Abraxas asked at once, turning towards Tom’s chair but keeping his head ducked. Let Tom take it for reverence if he would.
Although, come to think of it, Tom would probably accept it just as well if it was absolute terror.
“Keep an eye on Harry for the next few days, would you? He most likely won’t let me near him, and I would be…displeased if he were to come to harm.”
Abraxas bowed lower still, remembering some of the consequences of that displeasure for other people. “Of course, my lord.”
“Good. Now, Marius…”
And Abraxas sighed and sat back in his seat, not convinced that was the end of the storm, but convinced that he had weathered it. And that was all that mattered for now.
*
Orion Black absolutely did not believe that Harry Potter could go three hours without speaking to Tom Riddle, let alone three days. If someone had asked him, he would have wagered at least ten Galleons on the silent treatment lasting three minutes at most.
But the impossible had happened, and Harry had utterly refused to speak to their lord for three weeks.
It was fascinating, Orion had to admit. Especially since Riddle still sat near Harry in classes and at meals—the ones that Harry didn’t take somewhere else, probably the kitchens—and spoke to him. He had tried every tone of voice Orion had ever heard from him: coaxing, silkily threatening, cold with rage, bright and cheerful, even the politeness that Riddle usually reserved for professors.
None of it made a dent. Harry kept his head stubbornly turned away and his mouth closed.
This morning, the feel of Riddle’s magic had told Orion that his patience was at an end. He meant to force Harry to speak, to acknowledge him, and that meant high drama.
In other words, high entertainment.
Orion had worked for the last few days on perfecting his Disillusionment Charm. Most of the time, he wouldn’t have bothered, because Riddle had the most damnable trick of seeing through them. But Orion would also have wagered that Riddle would be too furious in the moment to look around for someone under one, and he intended to witness this confrontation.
“Potter!”
Orion leaned over the banister. Riddle had searched the dungeons for Harry before seeming to conclude that he wasn’t anywhere in them—which Orion could already have told him—and so he’d taken off for some of the upper floors, with Orion following him. Riddle hadn’t found Harry there, either, but now Riddle had caught up with him on a staircase directly beneath the one Orion was standing on. Hanging a little over the railing like this gave Orion a perfect view.
Harry kept walking, presenting Riddle with a stolid back that refused to be marked. Orion’s lips twitched.
“Pay attention to me when I’m talking to you, Potter.”
Riddle dropped into Parseltongue then, which rather disappointed Orion. He’d spent enough time around Riddle in the last few years that it no longer frightened him the way it still did some of the first-years. It just made it harder to understand what it was saying.
Harry had revealed that he spoke Parseltongue some time ago. It had been the final seal of Riddle’s interest in him.
Now, he just kept walking, walking, walking.
“Potter!”
Riddle shot a curse at him. Orion held his breath. This was it. Harry would have to respond now—
A shield flared into being above Harry’s back. Orion blinked. The shield overlapped all of Harry himself, and seemed to be rooted into his robes, but covered his neck and head and ankles. It burned with intense, smokeless, golden fire, and also burned away Riddle’s curse as if he had never cast it.
A Phoenix Shield, Orion thought. Damn. Impressive.
And one of the spells that Riddle had never been able to cast, any more than he had been able to successfully cast a Patronus. This was going to enrage him even more. Orion leaned over until the banister under his fingers creaked.
Riddle was swearing. Harry kept walking, and reached the bottom of the staircase and turned the corner towards the Great Hall. Riddle went after him.
Orion waited until he was sure Riddle was gone to start cackling.
*
“Marius.”
Marius Lestrange sighed and turned carefully around. He did everything carefully around Tom Riddle. He resisted the temptation to push up his glasses, when he knew they were already perfectly in place on his nose, and bowed his head. “Yes, my lord?” They were in a deserted corner of the dungeons where Marius had his brewing station; respect was demanded in private.
“I want you to brew a Compulsion Draught.”
Marius couldn’t keep his eyes from widening, but he could work on keeping his face from changing, so he did. “Yes, my lord. I will need parameters such as desired duration, strength, target—”
“It’s for Harry.”
Marius again kept his face from changing. “With respect, my lord, I believe he would be able to throw off a Compulsion Draught.”
Tom had opened his mouth to continue, but he paused. “Why do you say that?”
“He can throw off the Imperius Curse,” Marius replied, carefully neutral as always. “The Compulsion Draught is the Imperius Curse in liquid form. I do not believe I could brew one strong enough to have any effect on him, at least not without increasing the amount of foxglove to the point that it would poison him.”
Tom stared over Marius’s head at the dungeon wall, frowning. Marius stood there and waited.
“Could you weaken it?” Tom asked abruptly. “Dilute it enough to mix it with food and pumpkin juice so that Harry would drink it over a long period of time and become more malleable and suggestible that way?”
“If he were a Gryffindor or not otherwise in a situation where is constantly suspicious and on his guard, that would work, my lord,” Marius said. In fact, it was an intriguing experiment that he would probably try himself at some point in the future. “But I cannot do that with someone who is both on their guard and strong enough to resist the Imperius.”
“A weakness in your craft, Marius?” Tom’s tone had gained the spiky kind of anger that always meant danger.
“Say rather a strength in the human body and constitution, my lord.” Marius knew better than to say it was a weakness in Harry’s suspicion. Tom tolerated no one getting angry at Harry or disparaging him save himself. “The Compulsion Draught, diluted, can only build on comfort and suggestibility that already exists. It cannot induce it.”
“I see,” said Tom, and turned away abruptly.
Marius remained waiting until he was sure that Tom was gone. Then he turned and continued towards his brewing station.
In truth, because the dilution of a Compulsion Draught Tom had suggested was something that had never been tried before, as far as Marius knew, the “explanation” he had just fed Tom was bollocks. But Tom had got too used to relying on Marius for Potions theory even though he was capable of astonishing feats in the subject himself.
Marius planned to brew some potions that would make sure Tom never worked that out.
*
Walburga Black decided that someone had to say it. She waited until Harry had left the Slytherin common room after another silent staring contest with Tom, and stood up to walk over to Tom.
She drew attention at once. Not many people in Slytherin without the last name Potter stood up to Tom Riddle, lord of so many of them here. Walburga caught a glimpse of her cousin and betrothed Orion with his hand over his mouth to conceal his laughter, no doubt rejoicing in the drama that hadn’t even happened yet.
Walburga met Tom’s gaze and waited. Tom raked her once with his dark eyes before he nodded for her to speak.
“You are making a fool of yourself over this half-blood bastard, my lord,” she said bluntly.
Tom’s eyes widened. Walburga saw the danger come into them, but she ignored that. She had known it would happen.
She was far more interested in the fact that Tom was so taken aback by her suggestion that he hadn’t defended himself. Walburga nodded. Potter was making him weak. If Tom hadn’t seen that himself, then it was worth a few rounds under his Cruciatus to bring this to his attention.
“What did you say?” Tom whispered.
“You have never had hearing problems, my lord. You know what I said.”
Several people gasped. Walburga ignored them, keeping her steady gaze on Tom. She saw him stand. She saw him reach for his wand. She braced herself.
And she saw him pause.
Walburga blinked with astonishment as Tom turned and left the common room with a quick stride. She spun around on one heel, about to follow him, but Orion grabbed her wrist. Walburga hadn’t even realized that he’d stood up and come over.
“He spared you,” Orion whispered. “Leave it alone, Walburga.”
“But that just proves—”
“Leave it alone, Walburga. Please.”
It was the first time Orion had said “please” to her since they were small children. Walburga ended up nodding and walking beside him to a sheltered place in the shadow of the stairs that led down to the girls’ dormitories. It was a pitiful hiding place if Tom came back in a temper, but it was better than sitting openly in the middle of the common room.
Now that she was sitting down, Walburga began to shake. Orion reached out and drew her against him, stroking her hair.
Even he, who loved gossip and drama, was pale, and kept shooting the door to the common room frightened looks.
Caught up in the completely unexpected aftermath of what she had attempted—and her survival after attempting to provoke her lord—it took Walburga a while to notice that Abraxas was missing.
*
Abraxas did not want to be here.
He said that over and over again in his head as he and Tom raced up the steps to the Astronomy Tower, the sight of Harry’s latest brooding session. Just in case there were some gods listening out there who would take pity on him.
Tom raised his hand as they came to a halt on the last steps. Abraxas froze, trying to control his heavy panting. Maybe Tom would tell him to wait behind because he was too noisy. That would be the kind of reprieve Abraxas had been hoping for.
“Stand behind me, and be ready to nod,” Tom said, which made no sense, and then strode out onto the roof of the Tower before Abraxas could say “Yes, my lord.”
Abraxas braced himself—and tried his best to ignore the pain in his side from running that felt as though something was gnawing through his ribs—and followed.
Tom was standing not far from Harry. Harry perched on the edge of the Tower and stared out over Hogwarts’s grounds. A wind blew a lock of black hair back from his face. Abraxas would have suspected him of arranging this pose on purpose if he didn’t know that Harry thought prestige and influence were for plebians. But he did permit himself a single roll of his eyes, since neither Tom nor Harry was looking.
“Harry.”
Harry ignored Tom utterly, just as he had since that day in the Slytherin common room when he’d told Tom he wouldn’t be talking to him anymore. Tom didn’t seem discouraged. He simply cleared his throat and said, “Walburga Black insulted me just now, and I didn’t put her under the Cruciatus. Aren’t you proud of me?”
Harry moved.
Abraxas gaped. He didn’t know exactly what had happened, except that Harry was fast and Tom wasn’t used to defending himself from Harry anymore, not when he had done his best to act as though he trusted Harry and then Harry hadn’t given Tom a chance to duel him for the last several weeks. In seconds, Tom was flung against the stones of the Tower, and Harry was leaning over him, chest to chest.
It didn’t escape Abraxas’s notice that Tom’s eyes had glazed. He wanted to shake his head, but he was too busy feeling as though his throat had frozen and his heart would leap out of it.
“No!” Harry screamed in Tom’s face. “Because you’re fucking mental and refraining from torturing people is not something you should be proud of!”
He drew back, face contorted with hate, and pushed Tom between two of the parapets.
Tom screamed. Abraxas charged onto the top of the Tower. He saw Harry kneeling down, wand twisting in his hand. In a second, a long rope had grown around Harry’s arm and down around Tom, cradling him in a kind of swing, while Harry knelt there and glared hatred.
Tom still gripped Harry’s arm.
“I can drop you,” Harry said.
Abraxas stood there and tried to look as though he had no idea about interfering. Sure, Tom might murder him for not doing so, assuming Harry ever hauled him up. But even moving towards Tom could startle Harry and make Abraxas party to murder.
He’d rather be murdered than be a party to murder.
“And I will,” Harry said, and laughed, a hard, peculiar sound. “The boy who’s more afraid of death than anyone else in this bloody school. You’re screaming so loudly in your mind right now I’m amazed you can hear anything I’m saying.”
Abraxas jumped. It seemed that several memories collided in his head at once, and he knew suddenly that Harry was absolutely, incredibly right. Tom was afraid of death. The way he had laughed with a shrill note in his voice when someone mentioned it, the way that he had never let anyone else see his Boggart, the way he had spoken in second year of living “as long as he wanted” with burning eyes…
“I can hear you,” Tom whispered.
His voice was soft with fear and not rage, Abraxas thought. And Harry seemed to hear the difference, because he didn’t laugh again, but sprawled on the stone and stared down at Tom.
“If I let you back up,” Harry said, “you will refrain from stalking me.”
“Yes,” Tom whispered.
“You will refrain from torturing and killing other Hogwarts students.”
“Yes.”
Abraxas wondered why Harry hadn’t just forbidden Tom from torturing or killing anyone ever, and then grimaced. Harry probably knew Tom’s limits, even when he was dangling inches from his death like this.
“You will refrain from experimenting any more with objects like that diary that you’re keeping under your pillow.”
Abraxas nearly stopped breathing. How did Harry know about that? Abraxas didn’t know about that, and he’d shared Tom’s room for six years!
(And Orion didn’t know, either, because if he had, it would have been all over the school).
Tom paused long enough this time that Abraxas though Harry really would run out of strength in his arms, and drop him. But then he whispered, “Yes.”
Harry cast another spell, muttering the incantation so softly that Abraxas couldn’t hear it, and then whipped his wand upwards. The rope with Tom wrapped in it came flying up and crashed on the roof. Harry might have cast a Cushioning Charm underneath it, but if so, no trace of it was visible. He had at least cast a charm that strengthened his arms and shoulders; he must have done.
Tom landed and lay there, panting, making no sound other than that.
Harry knelt next to Tom and turned his face with a faux-gentle touch on his cheek. Tom stared at him with quiet, dazed eyes.
“Keep your promises,” Harry said. “Or I’ll do worse.”
And he stood up and walked off the Tower as though none of this had ever happened.
Abraxas blinked, unnerved, and moved over to kneel beside Tom, clearing his throat. “Are you all right, my lord?”
Tom looked at the stones for a long time. Then he glanced up, and Abraxas braced himself against what must surely be murderous rage.
Instead, Tom wore an expression Abraxas had never seen on his face before, although it seemed vaguely familiar otherwise. For some reason, it reminded Abraxas of Walburga Black, but he didn’t know why.
“Did you hear him?” Tom whispered.
“Yes, my lord. I—I heard him.”
Abraxas wondered if Tom would Obliviate him so that no one but Tom and Harry would know Tom had made those promises. But Tom made no motion towards his wand. Instead, he continued wearing the strange expression as he turned to stare in the direction Harry had gone.
“He is such a challenge,” Tom breathed.
The familiarity of that expression slammed into Abraxas then. It was the way Walburga looked at Tom, sometimes, when she thought no one else was watching. Stunned, covetous, yearning…
Overwhelmed.
Oh, shit. Tom thinks Harry is—
“An equal,” Tom said, and he sounded dreamy. “I never imagined that I would have an equal, Abraxas. But I do.”
“You do, my lord?” Abraxas worked to hide his incredulity. Dangling someone over the edge of the Astronomy Tower was such a Gryffindor tactic that he had to wonder anew about Harry’s Sorting.
“Yes. Someone as ruthless and powerful as I am. Someone who isn’t intimidated by me. Someone I have to court instead of simply frightening into compliance.”
Oh, shit.
Abraxas trailed behind Tom as Tom stood up and wandered in a dazed way down the stairs back into the school. Tom was muttering under his breath, seemingly oblivious of his surroundings in a way Abraxas had never seen him be, and all the mutters seemed to relate to ways to gain Harry’s attention in ways that didn’t involve pain or violence.
Well, Harry, you changed him, Abraxas thought glumly as he followed Tom.
I just don’t know if Tom dreaming of catching your attention is much better than his planning world domination.
The End.
