Chapter Text
Tom had always prided himself on his own self-knowledge. On identifying and then facing down his weaknesses. He was scorned at Wool’s; he taught the others to fear him. He was bullied on his arrival in Slytherin; he then used those selfsame social cues to rise to the top. And, of course, he did not avoid the thought of death; he faced it down. He conquered it.
And yet, in those months, he would have flinched away from a boggart.
He would have been too afraid of it showing him an empty Chamber, an emptiness that had spread into his chest and throat until he’d been half-sure it was going to choke the breath out of him.
Panic. Panic like he’d not felt since those early years at Wool’s, before he’d realised his own strength. His own mastery of those around him. He had acted like a child again, rushing around the Chamber as though he might have simply been hiding around a corner. Casting find-me spells as though the twentieth time might miraculously work better than the first. His vaunted intellect, his ability to seize control of any situation, entirely deserted him for the first time in years.
And the vow, that unavoidable vow, his own cleverness coming back to claw his insides with the sure knowledge that Tom had led him to this. Tom had orchestrated the entire situation. He had been so sure of his own success.
And yet he had managed to disappear – disappear into danger, Tom’s mind kept telling him. Wandless and alone.
He had lost a lot of blood that day.
He would find time, later, to be glad that none of his Knights had seen him. His standing among them was secure, but this was a crucial phase. They were about to leave Hogwarts and enter a world in which they would go from being the most important figures in Slytherin to their parents’ children again, yet to forge their own path. Many of them would feel adrift, and Tom needed them to turn to him as an infallible source of knowledge and strength. As their Lord. He needed their adult selves to be forged upon their reliance on him.
They did not need the image of him lying on the Chamber floor, his hands reaching out to grasp the empty air, his blood pooling at the edge of the unfinished ritual circle. It would have been – counterproductive.
Tom refused to flinch away from that moment himself. He could not give it that power over him.
But it was only now, standing in the Blacks’ cottage garden, that Tom could finally relax. Could press Harry to him, feel his reassuring warmth, feel his heart thumping with wonderful fury. Could let his mind clear.
He wanted to hate Harry for this dependence. For the contortions the vow had put him through. He would hate him – were it not for the more important fact.
Harry was his.
His precious soul, as unlikely as the conclusion had been. His hidden horcrux. His, only his.
And so Tom was relaxed. He had what he needed now – time, and Harry, secure in his arms.
And he would be generous. He would not exact a price for the months Harry had been gone. He would not exact repayment for that clawing emptiness. For the blood.
After all, he could be just, and accept that he had miscalculated slightly. It had been an unavoidable conclusion, as the time had kept stretching and Harry had remained stubbornly out of sight, out of reach. Tom had underestimated his soul. Well, he would not do so a second time. He would not suffer Harry, this beautiful beating body beneath his hands, to disappear again.
He drew Harry a little closer, held him a little more securely. Perhaps he would tell Orion to leave the five-day spell intact. These scant few days had not yet satiated him, after those months.
He took a slow breath and let himself focus on Harry, on the sheer vitality of his presence, on the bond singing between them. Those months were over now.
And Tom would make sure nothing similar ever happened again.
There had been a number of positive aspects during that time, when looked at dispassionately. The first, and the one that still gave Tom a vicious glow of satisfaction thinking about it now, was Dumbledore’s demotion. He had paid the price for Harry’s disappearance – had brought it partly on himself with his overwrought sense of honour. Tom found time to encourage his followers with parents on the school board to put pressure on, and Dumbledore had not fought it. He had stepped down from his position as Deputy Headmaster in favour of a professor “more concerned with student welfare”. He was still teaching Transfiguration, but his role in the school had been strongly curtailed. Tom would do his best to see that it stayed that way.
The second was something that Tom could appreciate more clearly from his current position. His relentless drive to find Harry had led him to the truth – a truth so unexpected, so bright and unlikely, that Tom would otherwise have wasted much more time exhausting other avenues first. If he hadn’t been as – impelled has he had been, he would not have puzzled out Harry’s displacement in time so soon, nor the precise way he held Tom’s soul.
Now, though, he could move forwards with Harry on a firm foundation. He could be glad for that, if not for the impetus. If not for how remorselessly the vow had hollowed him out, before he instructed Orion to act more extensively.
And, of course, in the end, Tom’s Knights had not seen him behaving like the senseless child he had long since left behind, grasping helplessly for comfort that was clearly out of reach. They did not know of the bargains he might have considered, as the time ground on and Harry was not found. Tom could think of it calmly now, with Harry tucked against him, warm and solid, those reassuring marks on his wrists. Tom ran his hand down to encircle one set, indulging in the way Harry shivered beneath his touch.
His Knights had known something was amiss – the pressure of the vow had been too urgent to disguise – but they had enough trust in Tom for him to pass it off as being focused on preparations for their time post-Hogwarts. They accepted that he was looking for Harry but that most of his preoccupation was a bluff, hiding a more important plan. He would have to think of something concrete to explain what that plan was, but it would not be hard to come up with something to satisfy them. Not now he could think again, his mind untrammelled by the vow. He could already feel the difference – was already running through various options for testing his Knights, for keeping them together without the bonds provided by Hogwarts, even while the rest of his mind was preoccupied with Harry, with his wrist in Tom’s grasp and his breath on Tom’s neck.
And with Orion – the only person who had known something close to the truth.
That knowledge had changed Orion. He had always seemed a little too much the indulged Pureblood heir before. He was a very good student, yes, but he had an air of knowing that he could fall back on his riches and family connections. He did not need to strive, and so he had not. He had studied comfortably, achieved comfortably good results.
It had felt like a touch of madness when Tom had thrown himself blindly into Orion’s care. He would never have taken such a step before meeting Harry. But Tom knew Harry had been delivered to him for a reason, and Harry’s unorthodox methods had enabled him to wriggle out of Tom’s grasp when Tom had thought him entirely secure – and more than once. Tom would be a fool not to study success.
And so he had studied, and he had emulated. And it had paid off with the sweetest success yet. It had paid off with Harry.
It had paid off with Orion, too. It seemed so obvious in retrospect. Of course he had never been offered a chance to prove himself on his own terms, to succeed or fail based only on his own merit. Being entrusted with this – being given Tom’s explicit trust, for a task that he could not share with the other Knights or use his family’s connections for – had sparked something in him. A hunger to prove himself that it seemed Orion had not even known he possessed. With the exception of Tom, Orion was the first of their set to have truly outgrown his schoolboy self. He had performed exceptional magic here, had shouldered the responsibility of bringing Harry to Tom entirely alone.
And so he was Tom’s too, in a way he had not been before. Harry’s methods had bound Orion to Tom, where before he had been one of Tom’s more reluctant Knights. Tom would reward Harry for that in time.
Orion had taken the initiative, had worked for Tom beyond even what Tom had asked of him. His letter had explained – with an apology – how he had ensured they both slept for a week on their arrival in the cottage, the better to make sure Harry didn’t wriggle away before the six-month vow ended.
The binding spell he had found was also a very nice touch, though Tom would need to examine the specifics a little more closely. He would use some of his own subtle legilimency to be absolutely sure of what Orion had done. He needed to confirm that the ritual had not placed any compulsions on him with regards to Harry, only the reverse. He did not entirely trust that Orion wouldn’t have selected something with a safeguard for Harry; he had seemed to grow fond of Harry during the last of their time at Hogwarts, though it had not prevented him from carrying out Tom’s wishes. But Tom would not be coerced into ensuring Harry’s wellbeing at the cost of his own.
Because he did feel a strange echo of that, looking down at his Harry, thinking (now it was safe, now Harry was his) about how magnificent Harry had looked during their duel. About everything Tom had learned from him already. He felt proud; and he had surprised himself slightly by immediately discarding the option of keeping Harry tucked away here at the cottage.
He would need to renew the concealment charms that Orion had woven into the marks on Harry’s wrists. Because he was, after all, going to let Harry out into the world again.
Even a year ago, he would not have understood his own decision now. To not keep his horcrux safe, to not hide Harry away – but Tom was not one to stick blindly to old views when more promising ones presented themselves.
Harry had brought him so much already. And he would continue to do so, if given free rein. The essentials were complete. Harry would keep Tom’s secrets, and would come to him when Tom asked. Tom would have no compunction burning down a few buildings if Harry thought to call his bluff. Burning down more, even, if required. There was still so much to explore with his Harry. Much still to be revealed about the future Harry had come from, one in which he had – in a way still hidden from Tom – become a horcrux and gained this absurdly strong distrust of Tom. But now they had time. Tom was confident of being able to tease it all out of him eventually.
And he was equally confident that Harry’s insights would reinforce Tom’s path to power. He was already reconsidering how many horcruxes he would make. Harry had clearly been an accident – if a fateful one – and that suggested Tom’s original plan was not as stable as he had assumed. Perhaps he would make just one more, and take a leaf out of Harry’s book yet again. Make it an ordinary object to hide in plain sight, as Harry had done.
He clasped Harry a little tighter at the thought. He still felt shaken by the vow, its phantom claws digging in, though its power had dispersed. If it had been anyone but Harry, he would be under a crucio now. For disappearing like that – for causing Tom such pain –
Harry gasped as Tom gripped him almost viciously, and Tom made a deliberate effort to gentle his touch. Harry had returned. Harry was his. And he now had time to bring him over entirely to his side. He had wondered, on occasion, if the feelings Harry sparked in him would diminish over time, or once the mystery of them was unpicked. He did not wonder that now.
He thought again about his ring; the indescribable way it had felt to see it tighten on Harry’s finger, none of the protections he had laid on it kicking in. His horcrux had recognised its kin before Tom had. He would have to try it again, now that he had full knowledge of what Harry was. The exquisite anticipation of sliding it onto Harry’s finger, letting it tighten in incontrovertible proof of their bond – and after all, five hundred years ago, the ritual they had enacted would have counted as something close to a marriage.
He hid the involuntary smile that caused by leaning in to press a soft kiss to Harry’s temple. Harry didn’t try to turn away this time, and Tom rewarded him by letting his lips linger, a warm breath against Harry’s skin.
Harry was his.
All was well.