Chapter Text
As the sun fell from the sky, Aurelius waited for them at the Hog's Head in a private room, where his father (Dumbledore's brother? he hadn't known there were more of them, yet he felt ridiculously suspicious of the old man with the beard) guided them to.
The room had a single window that looked to the river, almost frozen as the days grew shorter and shorter, and the nights grew colder. Tom spied the edge of the wooden pier, where he had sat with Harry not long ago during one of their visits to Hogsmeade, sharing a chocolate and warmth between them.
His magic burned.
Aurelius Dumbledore was a decrepit looking man, far too thin to be standing on his own two feet without aid, clothes falling off his frame in a way that clearly indicated they had once fitted him and now they did not. He was dressed in muted tones, from head to toe from deep purples to greys and blacks. His hair hanged limply and greasy over his forehead, and his skin had a sickly tint to it. But his eyes.
The look on his eyes was something fierce and angry.
Tom had only heard of him from Harry's loving stories, of his awkward posture and limited knowledge with a wand, and so he had dismissed the man as non threatening in the recesses of his mind. If Harry liked him so much, surely he could do no harm.
But as soon as Tom Riddle was through the threshold of the room he was on guard.
An Obscurial, he remembered distantly, a fact that had so easily slipped his mind. This man played home to a magical parasite. Harry himself had found that book, even if he hadn't outright told Tom so in as many words.
This man. He was far more dangerous than any of them combined, Tom included. He was man enough to admit that.
And yet.
And yet, he was wasting away before their very eyes, the creature eating away at his magic and life force with gusto, for years and years on end.
And yet, he fiercely clung to life with tooth and bloodied nails. Yet, he stood before them ready for battle.
The Phoenix at his side didn't look much better, by contrast. It sat prettily on a perch, close enough to Aurelius to touch, one dull eye trained on them.
On the table below lay countless feathers, withered and dull.
Tom took a deep breath and let his magic go wild through the room, looking for any ears that could be listening in by any means, and let his magic build walls behind walls of wards. Tom, in hindsight, didn't have much knowledge on warding, but he let his magic do the job as it willed and trusted it would be more than enough.
He would know if anyone neared the room.
Aurelius waved for them to sit, a rectangular wooden table off to the side of the room with enough chairs to hold all of them.
Cassiopeia, Lucretia and Orion Black, Mirabel Garlick, Horace Slughorn and Abraxas Malfoy. And Tom, of course.
The unnamed Dumbledore remained standing, a grimace pulling at his face.
All of them swore an oath of secrecy just by entering the room. No one outside would know what was about to happen. And it would stay that way. Far easier to cut loose the ends if he could see where the thread had unraveled from.
Tom and Aurelius sat on opposite ends of the table and measured each other up.
"Lay it on me." He had an American accent. Harry had not mentioned that.
Tom sighed, and looked at Orion. He nodded.
They told him everything.
The plan was rather simple: get in, get out.
No need for a show of heroics, no need for shows of strength. No need to be there for longer than absolutely necessary.
Evander Rosier (finally, one of his), had come through with invaluable information, grinning with pride at a job well done.
An envelope saturated in Dark Magic nestled in Tom's cloak. An invitation for tonight's dark gathering.
Two more hours.
Orion and Cassiopeia locked eyes from each side of the table, gazes silver and hard. A single picture lay between them, a man with greying hair that liked to goad at Lord Black in each and every ball they happened to attend together. He was far removed from the main branch of the House of Lestrange, and as such had no real claim to any titles or lands to call his own, and yet he charmed people into believing he would be the next Head, the next Lord to sit at the Wizengamot, and surely Lord Black had better watch his crooked back, for he was coming for his votes.
Well. With the way House Lestrange seemed to tilt like a rather dangerous pendulum at the edge of a precipice, from back stabbings to poisonings to mysterious disappearances... perhaps he was not that off the mark. But, by the time that man made it to the top of the tree there would be no Family left to rule, with the way things were going.
But the man served their purpose now. He was an Acolyte. Not close enough to be one of Grindewald's most trusted, and yet not a mere dog underlying either.
He sat trapped like a fly on Tom's web now, tied up and shoved into a trunk in Lord Blacks office like a discarded marionette. The man's own invitation sat beside his picture on the table. No one would miss the fact that a new Lestrenge had gone missing.
They went missing by the tenths, that retched family, from the Main Family to the far off Branches. Looking for one missing man would be like looking for a needle in a haystack.
Cassiopeia knew the man well enough. It made things easier for her.
She took a deep breath and held it. She coiled her magic close to her chest. Her skin rippled and changed, like the water on a lake, disturbed by a single point of contact. Her nose elongated, and her cheeks hollowed out a bit. Her skin sagged and her hair greyed. She grew more than a fair few inches, her back broadened and her skin deepened in colour.
She became Callum Lestrenge as the last feather on Serenity's tail fell on the table top. Changing, for Cassiopeia, was as easy as breathing.
She let her breath go, and her magic uncoiled, filling in the spaces where there was skin now where earlier there was not.
No one would be able to sniff out a Metamorphmagus. It was simply impossible. Their magic too took the shape of the subject of their choosing, in stark contrast to Polyjuice Potion, that while it allowed the drinker to assume the form of another person, it also left traces of the wearer's magic still on the surface.
Mirabel had kindly, kindly put together robes for a man much taller than her wife, runed from one stitch to the next by Lucretia's careful hands.
They were ready.
And now, to wait.
Albus Dumbledore could feel the pull of tiredness weighting him down.
With a student being taken in such a public, such a violent attack, parents had called to question the security of their children, both in and outside Hogwarts. After all, what was meant to be a simple excursion out of the Castle had turned in tragedy.
Aurors had been called in, yet again, into the safety of Hogwarts wards.
They had turned every stone, every leaf to be found in search of anything that might point them North.
They had searched, and as such, they had found.
And it pointed to Susie Sooth, the Divinations teacher.
Magical compasses lead them like dogs behind a particularly juicy treat to her rooms within the Castle.
It was... certainly eye opening, to say the least.
Letters (love letters, and didn't that make something ugly turn in his stomach) lay scattered carelessly about, open for anyone to read behind the most embarrassing set of traps on her door. A simple first year would have been able to step through.
Correspondence, symbols of the Alliance, dark magical artifacs so drenched in Dark Magic it made more than a couple of the people present gag in response to their foulness, amongst other things.
Pictures.
Pictures of his students. Children beneath Dumbledore's care had been spied on, and even possibly predated on. That, more than anything, made the Transfigurations Professor step outside and loose his dinner all in one go.
To think... to think, he had almost joined this man in his crusade for power. To think he had at one point, stood by his side and by his ways.
But no more.
With multiple eyes roaming the halls and passageways and in's and out's of the Castle it was only a matter of time before someone set a pair of eyes over the Hogwarts registry and found the incongruencies.
Only one person at a time was allowed in the Room, and no notes were permitted to be taken, for the safety of the children that resided in it's walls, and the ones who would come along in the Future. The Auror in question had to be accompanied by a member of the staff, looking closely at each movement and ready to protect what was theirs. They had sworn oaths to the School, for the safety of it's children. They would upkeep them.
It so happened to be Dumbledore's turn to look over the shoulder of a small witch, reading through the entries for the last year.
The first one to notice the slip was not Albus, but the witch.
Harry Evans name had been added. He had never been on the registry. After all, no boy by the name of Harry Evans had been born on british land on the last sixteen years.
Things started to add up.
The witch would not remember ever reading the Registry after she left the room. He made sure of that.
He would have, at first, mistaken the slip for treason. He would have, in the past months, looked over his shoulder and not seen the short green eyed boy, but rather the shadow of Gellert on his shoes. He would have mistaken one misguided boy for another.
The slip in the Registry would have been enough to push past Dumbledore to a Board's meeting, on grounds of expulsion for a boy who was surely a spy.
But now.
Now he recounted the countless memories he had grabbed from people on the street on the day Harry Evans had been taken. Now, he remembered the panic, the franticness of his spells as he both played offence and defense with no wand on sight, and as no one on the crowd stepped up to help. His cane fallen, discarded on the floor.
He could recall the little boy running for his mother on the other end of the Alley, in the path of multiple spells, and how Harry had taken him in under his cloak.
Now, he remembered Tom Riddle's look of horror as he cut through people to get to the boy, uncaring of the magic he unleashed on his enemies, his eyes only focused on Harry.
Harry was Tom Riddle's root to earth. He held the leash to a powerful monster that lurked beneath the surface.
Now, Dumbledore knew better than to act without holding all the cards. He was seeing the small frame, as muggles say. He needed to see the whole picture.
Serenity took them as close to the Castle as he could without alerting the lookouts of the presence of an uninvited Phoenix in the middle of a blizzard.
Cold gripped Tom from all sides, bitting and unforgiving.
They were in the middle of a valley covered in snow, white from each side and each corner he could see. And more falling down on them.
He could see the Castle in the distance, dark and imposing, carved right out of the mountain face. He could also spot the apparition point.
He grabbed onto Cassiopeia without waiting for her to stand on her own two feet, disoriented as she was by the suddenness of the travel, and Apareted them with a turn of his heel.
It was near.
He could feel his own magic pulsing, the ring calling back to him.
He hadn't felt it for days and days on end.
Harry was alive and breathing, otherwise his own Magic would have come back to him after leaving the ring. It was the only thing that let him sleep, that let him rest before coming for his love.
The spells woven around the ring would only let Harry take it off, willingly and without pressure. Otherwise the stubborn dragon would not move a single inch to part with it's hoard. Dragons were terribly possessive creatures, after all. Tom could understand.
And now the ring called back to Tom, and Tom in turn, let it's magic free.
Harry startled as the ring in his hand warmed. It was still baffling to feel it move and sigh and pout about. He wondered if Tom had found the way to recreate his own gift from Harry.
He was sitting in the far corner of the room he was given, away from the hearth and as away from the door as he could get.
He hurt and ached in some places, and yet no traces of bruises or cuts would be found on his skin. The ones on his flesh had been healed over, and the ones on his mind were invisible to the eye.
He watched, transfixed, as the dragon on his finger stretched, yawned, before it slithered around his hand, coming to rest at his palm.
A single wing flapped, dusting itself off, before it split to two with a faint clinking sound.
Harry startled as the little dragon let out a rather mechanical but non the less delighted yip.
A single stone eye became two.
It's scales grew in number at first, it's body elongating before his very eyes. Then they started to change size too. The dragon grew, from the size of his small ring, to a mouse, then a cat, a small dog, and kept growing. It fell from his hands, too big to hold, to his laps and then to the floor.
The metal dragon contorted, and roled around as magic pulled at it.
He knew this magic. Knew this pull.
Finally, when the dragon could barely fit in the room, pushing furniture and wood aside with a wave of its tail, and no less than fifteen meters long and tightly coiled around itself, it lifted a metal head to look at Harry.
It looked like something out of a fantasy.
Big, huge really, and made entirely of metal. The tiny runes Harry had so foolishly thought had been engrained with the outmost care into it's wings when it was a ring, impossibly tiny and illegible to normal eyes, became full sized, big ritualistic runes etched into every single scale, every single inch of the dragon, covered in magic and blood.
At the center of it's chest, inlaid into the metal scales where it's heart should be, was a tiny black stone, surrounded by melted gold. The whole dragon pulsed with magic and love.
It's breath was warm, as it smelled him curiously, eyes glowing red (red? hadn't they been green) stones gazing back at him.
A puff of smoke left it's snout, and Harry laughed as he felt warmth for the first time since he had been dragged to this blasted winter nightmare.
"Take me to him." The dragon apparently understood, as inanimate as it seemed to be, as the lips of it's snout stretched to form a smile full of teeth.
He got on it's back, and the dragon broke through wards, stone and wood on it's way out the windows.
Harry's shivered as the bitting cold gripped him from all sides, and desperately tried to hold on to the warm metal beneath his hands.
Perhaps Tom Riddle had not meant for the dragon to be flown.
Oh, well. Too late for that.
There were more people than Tom thought possible, standing close together and gathered both in the outside courtyard, where there was still some room to breathe even if he had lost the feeling in his hands, and inside the entrence room where even more people had gathered, stuck like sardines, hoping to see Grindewald emerge from it's depths.
Their invitations acted as a token to pass through the wards, and so far they had no trouble.
Cassiopeia lowered her head to speak in his ear.
"How will you know?" He had not informed anyone, not even Abraxas and Orion about the ring. His ring and Harry's, that is. All they knew, is that Tom would be able to locate him anywhere in the Castle. If things had... unraveled and stretched correctly, Harry would be coming to them, and not the other way around. (So much for trying to go in and out discreetly. He supposed a little white lie would hurt no one. No one at his side, that is.)
"Oh, don't you worry. You'll know too." Tom looked through the masked strangers standing close together. He saw an opening near the edge of the Courtyard. "Come, closer to the edge of the wards. I think we can peal away some layers from here."
He felt the dragon ring sing along with his magic, and knew Harry was on his way.
Grindewald made an appearance not long after, on an elevated platform.
He gave a rather long speech, in fact.
Tom lay in wait. He has already laid all his traps. Or, rather, a small metal snake had.
There were hundreds of men and women standing at the steps of the Castle.
Harry gazed at them from above, freezing as he was but safe hiding in the clouds.
The metal beneath his body remained warm. The constant flap of the wings lulled him to a sense of safety.
He could not enhance his sight with magic, and as such, he relied completely and utterly on the dragon.
They would have only one chance. There were too many wands available for shooting spells for them to miss their opportunity.
The dragon knew exactly where Tom Riddle stood, hidden between blood red and masked as they all were.
"Okay." Harry whispered in the cold air. He was fucking freezing, barely hanging on to the metal. "Okay, then. Bring it on."
A big piece of metal dropped out of the sky.
A big piece of metal dropped out of the sky and fried at least twenty people on it's way.
A big fucking dragon dove in right into the crowd.
A lone figure sat on it's back, wrapped in a red stained blanket.
Cassiopeia suspected it could only be her child.
Tom Riddle had broken into a run before she could even process what was happening.
But she was not the Lady Black for nothing.
Shields rose to protect Harry, spell after spell cutting down people on her way.
Nothing short of death would stop her from taking that boy home.
The Dragon breathed fire, and Tom Riddle blasted anyone within a twenty meter radio to bits.
When Harry finally looked into his eyes, he despaired a little. That was the eye of a Dark Lord in the making.
Oh, well. He had been warned.
Tom Riddle was grinning with too much teeth for it to be called a smile, and yet his expression was one of joy and triumph.
He scaled the dragon with practiced movements, like he had done it a million times already and met Harry in the middle.
The dragon rose it's metal wings from it's side, covering them from the onslaught of lights coming their way, spells falling off its metal like water, if only to give them a temporary reprieve.
"Darling." He breathed into his lips, into his lungs and his skin. Harry felt his magic like his own, and kissed him with as much ferocity as he allowed himself. "I'm getting you out of here even if it's by the skin off my bones."
"Macabre. But oddly romantic." He couldn't help the besotted smile even if he tried.
"You know me."
A man caught up to them, having lost his mask in the way.
Harry cringed back as he stepped foot on the dragon, who seemed to be too preoccupied burning the cloaks off wizards off to the side to bother shaking off a lone man.
Tom turned, but didn't seem startled either at finding the man within their bubble.
"Who—" He whispered to Tom with alarm, only interrupted by the intruder.
"Harry Evans. By Mordred must you get yourself into this situations?" Harry gaped at him, astounded. Then he caught sight of yellow beneath the brown of the man's eyes, and looked beyond the suit of flesh to find Cassiopeia smiling at him.
"I'm— I have. Some many questions."
"Questions later, escaping now. Grindewald for sure got rid of—"
Just as Cassiopeia had swung a leg over the back of the ridiculously big dragon, a door somewhere deep in the Castle was blasted to bits. The shockwaves were enough for the dragon to stumble, and the majority of the wizards standing fell to their knees.
The Castle tilted dangerously to one side.
"Time to go." Tom grabbed onto the metal from around Harry's hips, somehow finding a slot to hold on to where he had not.
"Wait a minute." Harry craned his head back, looking towards the entrence. He was still missing one thing.
"What? Harry, there really is no time do dally darling–!"
Grindewald stood on the threshold, bodily pushing people aside and wand pointed at them at the ready. He looked unhinged, hair singed and eyes manic as he gazed at them.
The dragon beneath them breathed in, coiling magic and air and ready to fire.
"You prance about the Deathly Hallows like they belong to you!" Harry screamed, voice carrying through the cold air. The Acolytes stood silent, in wait.
"Harry what are you doing? We need to go!" Cassiopeia whispered from behind them urgently, panic raising in her male voice.
"You want to guess who is Death's favorite child?" Harry screamed again. He knew. He knew, logically, that he could pull no magic from himself as he was. Shackled on both wrists and his throat.
He put his hand out anyways.
The wand flew out of the Dark Lords grip before anyone could think to try and stop it.
The dragon took that as it's cue to leave, powerful wings carrying them off into the air.
The shock spread between the Dark Lords followers, much too stunned to think about firing at their backs.
Had that boy stolen the legendary wand out of the Dark Lords hand?
They landed in a frozen forest in a heap of limbs and metal.
Harry was cold to the bone, past shivering and feeling his fingers at that point.
They were safe for the moment.
Cassiopeia jumped off the back of the dragon as her skin rippled and fell away, leaving behind a familiar looking face with cat like eyes.
"Sit Harry, we'll get you warm and— by Morgana. Gods be good! Is that... shackles on your wrist?" Her voice trembled as she asked, wand already in her hand and horrified at the sight of the metal on his skin.
Tom turned violently from where he had stood before the dragon, seemly trying to coax it back into a ring with no success.
"Shackles?" He repeated back, voice low and dangerous. He dropped his wand arm from where it had been grazing the heated metal and started walking around towards them.
Harry shrunk his shoulders a little.
"I mean. They are certainly magical."
"You cannot reach your magic?" Her expression was a little wild. A little mad. "At all?"
"No."
"Then how did you—" Tom was gazing at him with furrowed brows.
"Let's get them out of you then, and out of those wet clothes. The last thing we need right now is for one of us to fall sick. Get that dragon under control, Tom Riddle. You'll need to get us to the aparating point, and as powerful as you think you are I hardly think you'll be able to carry around a twenty meter metal dragon without splinching us all." Cassiopeia had taken off her gloves and started to cast, uncaring of the bitting cold nipping at her fingers.
"Fifteen." Both Tom and Harry cut unison. Cassiopeia lifted a single eyebrow at them.
Tom cleared his throat.
"The dragon is fifteen feet, Madam."
"I don't care how bloody long or short that thing is, and see if I care for honorifics now, after you've cursed me out more times than you have eaten these past two days. Get us out of here, Riddle."
Tom went back to the task at hand, and Harry let himself be strong armed into winter appropriate clothes for the first time since he had apparently left the British Isles.
Feeling his magic running through his veins was like getting the feeling back on a limb after it had fallen asleep. It was painful at first, then gradually, slowly, magic filled every pore and every cell on his body and he felt alive and warm and whole.
"Fuck." He couldn't help but cuss, wincing as the magic reached every crevice of himself and cleared it out of any residual foreign magic that might've clung to him.
Tom finally, blessedly, convinced his own Soul into retreating back into it's smaller form. It was a nightmare and a half, trying to fight with himself while also keeping an eye out for Harry, while also keeping them safe behind a shield of magic. It was alright. Tom could multitask.
By the time he had the dragon on his palm, warm and reaching towards Harry, Cassiopeia had gotten the shackles out of him and bundled his beloved in layer after layer of clothes.
Tom breathed out. It felt like he had been holding his breath since Harry had been taken.
His magic reached out, attaching like a second skin beneath his beloved's clothes, settling in like a heavy warm blanket.
"Let's get you home, darling." He stretched out a hand towards him, palm up and inviting.
Harry smiled tiredly back, and rather than take his hands he walked right into Tom and made himself home in his arms.
"I'm right where I want to be now."
Two jumps across two countries seemed like an impossible feat for any normal Wizard. Two jumps, plus two passengers seemed astronomical for anyone, period.
But Tom was not normal, in any way.
Their first jump was from Austria to Switzerland, made easier by the fact that the metal dragon had left them close to it's borders.
The second jump was harder. Right into the heart of France, to a place Tom had only visited once.
Black Manor.
Tom blacked out as soon as they landed, confident, at least, that he had not splinched anyone.
Harry himself fell as soon as Tom did, as he had been supporting much of his weight.
Cassiopeia cursed as he rushed to the gates and waved her wand before the metal.
Harry struggled to sit, moving to take Tom's head into his lap. There were circles underneath his eyes, deep and purple as he traced them with the pad of his fingers. His skin was as pale as the snow surrounding them.
"Is he alright?" He couldn't help but ask. He had never seen... Tom so vulnerable. So lifeless. He was always on guard, ready to fight back with tooth and nail.
The dragon ring on his finger pulsed with warmth. He suspected what it was, already.
"He'll be fine, Harry. Magical exhaustion and lack of proper rest was surely going to make him run into a wall. Why the fuck is no one opening the fucking door?" She answer distractedly, wand still in her hand, knocking on the wards of her Lord's home.
Finally, what seemed to be an eternity later (Tom was still breathing, his skin was still pale and his pulse had not slowed nor sped up) a rather tall man appeared behind the gates.
He spoke to Cassiopeia in french, and she straighted and responed in kind.
The man nodded and opened the doors with a wave of his wand.
He looked right at Harry as he approached, grey eyes piercing and black and grey hair slicked back.
"Harry Evans, at last."
Lord Arcturus Black smiled down at him, and some of the severeness of the situation crushed down on Harry like a particularly heavy stone.
He lowered his head to Tom's chest, and felt him breathe.
"Hi." He mumbled back. For once, just this once, he didn't faint.
He fell asleep.
Harry, to the surprise of absolutely no one, awoke first.
He slept curled on his side, holding hurts no one else would be able to see close to his body and snuggled deeper into the blankets.
He was deliciously warm and cozy, and he didn't want to move a single muscle in the wrong direction for fear of losing his comfortable position.
When he opened a single green eye, he found out why.
Tom Riddle lay on his back, head slightly turned his way and curls scattered around the white pillow beneath him.
He breathed slowly, deeply in his sleep and his eyes moved behind closed lids.
Harry thought for a moment about staying still right where he was comfortable, before deciding that he would be even better snuggled up to Tom.
He slithered across the space between them and laid his head in the crook of his partners neck, sighing deeply and closing his eyes once more.
He wouldn't be able to fall asleep again, but this was enough.
The familiar smell of Tom, something dark with bits of sandalwood along with the heat of his body, and the warm blanket of his magic lulled him somewhere closer to dreams, a state between awake and asleep without really tipping the scale every which way.
After what felt like minutes, but could have possibly been hours, Tom grunted by his side and cursed.
Harry hid a smile against the fabric of Tom's sweater, strangely endeared by the whole thing.
Then Tom tried to stretch, and bumped his head into Harry's, making then both groan in pain.
A laugh escaped his throat before he could think to stop it.
"You always laugh at the weirdest times, Harry." Tom's voice was deeper than normal and scratchy from disuse. It made an unwelcome blush crawl it's way from Harry's chest all the way up his neck and to his cheeks. He snuggled further into the boy's neck. "Hello, darling."
"Hi, Tom." He breathed in one last time, before retreating back a bit. It had to be said face to face, after all. "Thank you. For coming for me." Something like anguish caught on his throat. "And for the ring. I know what it is."
I know what you've given me, he didn't say.
I will protect it as you have protected me, went implied.
Tom smiled sleepily back at him.
A kiss was placed on his brow before arms wrapped around him, cradling him close.
"You're welcome, darling."
A beat passed between them, laying still in each other's arms.
Then.
"Harry." Tom whispered against his hair.
"Hmm?"
"I took your wand."
And, to be fair, Harry had known. Deep down, when he had felt the pull and the panic and the despair as he run through Diagon Alley in search for Tom Riddle. He had suspected what might've happened.
It didn't make the blow any sweeter.
Harry ripped away from Tom and looked down at him.
"You lied to me." He spat.
"I did."
"You told me we were going out for last Christmas shopping—!"
"I know."
A frustrated scream lodged itself on his throat.
He turned away, grabbing onto his head.
"You can't pull shit like this and not expect consequences, Tom!" He yelled onto his hands. He couldn't look at him right now. He might do something he might regret. "You can't go behind my back just because you want to satisfy some obscure curiosity and leave me fucking defenseless in the process! Do you have any idea what I've been through in the last few days?!"
"You weren't meant to be alone, that's why I left Lucretia and Abr—"
"I don't care!" He turned still, even if he didn't want to look. Tom had sat by his side, blue eyes wide open and pleading. "I don't care what you planned. You promised me, Tom Riddle. Never again."
Tom looked like he was about to argue on that statement for a single second, before his eyes moved up and down Harry's frame.
"I did. I will not." His mouth set on a grim line, magic pulling on Harry's ring as the unspoken oath settled on his skin. Harry's breath caught on his throat. "I promise, Harry. Nothing will ever touch you with the intent to harm you ever again. Nothing will ever come even close. Not while I breathe." He leaned forward and rested his forehead on Harry's shoulder, a long arm sneaked around his waist. "This I promise you." His voice came out muffled against his borrowed clothes, but non the less clear enough for him to hear. "I'm sorry."
Harry went limp against him.
Lord Black sat before them in his Office, severe face gentled somewhat by the sight of his (favourite) niece cooing over an adolescent boy her cousin's age like it was her own flesh and blood.
Cassiopeia had gone and adopted a child without consulting him, it seemed.
The other child, he watched from the corner of his eye at all times. A powerful wizard in the making, if there ever was. Slightly unhinged from what little Cassiopeia had been able to piece together.
He had planned the whole rescue on his own, from the inside out, to their escape rutes, to their landings.
A bright child in mind, even if his hands were soaked in blood and his magic pulled at the deepest, most darkest corners of his mind and rang alarm bells.
Someone to look out for. He would do great things. Terrible, perhaps, but great.
Hogwarts during Christmas was Harry's favourite time of the year.
To be fair, Hogwarts in general was Harry's favourite time of the year.
Abraxas waited for him with open arms as he stumbled and fell out of the Floo, from Black Manor to Professor Slughorn's Office. He swooped in and lifted him around his middle and spun him around the room, never mind that Harry was still dizzy from the floo powder.
They laughed as they spun, hugging closer together.
Finally, Abraxas set him down.
"Oh! How I've missed that lovely face!" He received a kiss on each cheek for his troubles, before being passed on to Orion and Lucretia, who hugged him briefly but fiercely, to Slughorn who patted him on the back while he cried on a rather lumpy piece of cloth that might've once passed as a coat and finally found himself before Professor Mirabel.
There were no tears in her eyes, just the gentle security and joy at finding him alive and well.
She hugged him close, gently as one would a flame, and let him go once he was ready. She took his head between her warm hands and tilted it every which way.
"I know Cass couldn't possibly let you travel through that awful Floo without looking for any possible and impossible injury, but somehow I know you are just hurting, dear. Are you okay?" Something like guilt clenched at his heart.
He did hurt.
He hurt just about everywhere.
He didn't think it was the kind of hurt that simply went away with potions.
Something must have crossed his face, as Mirabel held him close again and murmured against his hair.
"We'll figure it out, Harry. Don't you worry."
Dumbledore stared, baffled, at the assembled students (and teachers!) before him.
Harry Evans was sat in the middle of the chaos, as if he had not vanished not a few days prior behind the Dark Lords shadow.
The Aurors had been recalled by the Ministry following a Wizengamot meeting, where Lord Black had more or less told all the Lord's before him that Harry has been rescued by a private party, and they didn't much need the Ministry's (useless) help anymore, thank you very much.
Maybe in not as many words.
And now, there he sat, beside his friends, enjoying bits and pieces of foods and drinks, while the House Elves kept bringing more and more food to their table, plates already stacked one on top of the other.
No one had, perhaps, been more worried for Harry's health than the faithful little creatures.
Perhaps. Dumbledore's beard twitched. But perhaps Tom Riddle came to a close second.
Harry didn't talk much about the days he had been missing. And the others left it well alone.
Not Tom though.
He didn't ask, exactly. But his gaze grew worried and taunt around the edges each time Harry pulled away from them, each time he smiled and tried to mean it while it came off as nothing more than a grimace.
On those moments, even if he physically wouldn't cradle him close, his magic did, resonating with the ring curled around his finger.
He hated the winter. But, perhaps, he could get behind Christmas.
Christmas in the Castle was spent between the working House Elves in the kitchen and the greenhouses where Mirabel kept talking to her baby plants, urging them to grow now or they would miss their New Year.
They obeyed reluctantly.
Christmas was spent in Tom Riddle's embrace, his body warm with sleep and heavy where they laid together. At some point in the night Tom had crawled between the three beds pushed together, bodily moved Abraxas off to his own side of the bed and settled himself at Harry's back. Orion had startled awake in a tangle of curls and silver eyes when he had heard Abraxas groan from the other side of the bed, only to find himself on the end of Tom Riddle's glare, daring him to make a single noise to wake Harry and find out the consequences.
Harry, of course, had been awake the whole time.
Somewhere between Christmas and New Year's, the twins decided to give them at least New Year's Eve (Tom's birthday) to celebrate by themselves.
Harry was forever grateful. If they kept looking at him like he might break, he might actually break something.
They had convinced Abraxas to go back to his Manor for the day, and they all agreed to reunite in Malfoy Manor before midnight, as it was the closest one.
Someone, at some point, would have to pick Aurelius on the way.
Two twin storms barely contained behind two blue, blue eyes followed him from across the room. They were alone, at long last.
Harry sighed, shoulders dropping and posture relaxing as he tilted his head back to look at the ceiling. He was acutely aware he was being watched.
He turned his head to look back at Tom.
The tilt to his eyebrows was amused, the curve of his lip indulging as he tilted and leaned his head on his hand, reclining his weight towards the armrest of a loveseat by the fire.
A tall stack of papers lay on the coffee table in front of him begging to be thumbed through, and yet. And yet, his attention remained solely on Harry's form as he moved around the office.
His hair was shorter than Harry had ever seen it, cut somewhere between Christmas and the long days after, when Mirabele had gotten a pair of scissors out of her working apron and declared his hair a tad bit too long, even if the curls fought their way around his head to fall midway to his forehead, a single act of defiance against the otherwise perfectly poised figure he cut through the night.
His eyes were dark, barely a hint of blue surrounding a sea of black, unforgiving, a pit so dark it left no chance for the light to filter in.
His magic was pulling Harry towards him, seductively, carefully, a lover's caress across his skin, warming him up in a single touch.
Tom shifted in his seat, and Harry looked right through him, through his very being, to his very core and knew without a hint of doubt exactly what he wanted, and what he would do in the next five, ten, fifteen minutes.
He moved without rush, following the push and pull of the dark magic around him, approaching the fireplace with silent steps.
Tom leaned an arm on the back of the loveseat, wordlessly inviting him to sit by his side.
Harry knew this dance.
They've had it a couple of times already.
He forgoed the seat in favour of sliding onto Tom's lap, his legs spread to accommodate him without complaint.
A hand settled behind his back, curving around his waist possessively and holding on. He was terribly warm.
"Darling." The arm around him tugged him impossibly closer, trying and failing to merge them together as one by sheer proximity alone.
"Happy Birthday, Tom." He brought his own arms around his partners neck, fingers carding through the short hairs at his nape, unaccustomed to the lack of longer curls there to hold on to. He settled for lightly digging the blunt of his nails through his scalp. Tom let out a long sigh of contentment, eyes closing briefly before settling back on him with laser focus.
"Happy New Years Eve for you, my love." He leaned forward, overbalancing them towards the fireplace and making Harry let out a laugh as he scrambled to hold on, fingers tightening on his thick winter robes in an attempt to not fall backwards.
Both arms cradled him against a firm chest, and a mouth found it's way down his throat, pulling the delicate skin with sharp teeth, leaving a path of purple and pink downwards, making him gasp in both pain and pleasure, alternating bites and kisses like the pulling of waves. The sensations mixed together as one, and his whole body shuddered as he tried to both lean back and take a deep breath.
Tom mumbled words of love against his skin, hugging him close and not letting him up for a single moment. He pressed magic and affection and intention into his very being, something he had taken to doing as of late, whenever they found themselves a moment for each other in the chaos of their lives.
"Tom." He gasped as a particulary hard bite grazed the skin on his artery, blood pumped rapidly through his veins, making him dizzy and pink and so, so in love.
When he looked down at Tom he didn't, for one second, see the man that was sat right in front of him. The partner with careful touches and loving hands, the warm magic that touched his skin like a cloak everytime they are within reach of each other.
He saw what could have been. What once was.
And what would never be, here and now, on this Universe.
Harry made sure of that.
The hands around his waist tugged him up, making him loose enough concentration to slam back on the present, on his Tom.
"Your focus on me, sweetheart." He growled against his neck, teeth digging in painfully.
The hands guided him up and helped him spread his legs, settling his knees on each side of Tom's hips and they brought him down and forward, pulling a moan right out of Harry's lungs as their crotches brushed together.
Green, green eyes gazed down at two twin storms, so dark they threatened to swallow him whole.
A tingle of magic down his spine made him arch his back, a silent gasp leaving his lips as he was prompted to move against Tom by the pull of his playful magic.
The smirk pulling at the man's lips would be terribly infuriating if Harry wasn't so turned on.
He was, however, a brat at his core.
"Asshole." He whispered as he leaned down to kiss him, open mouthed and hot as their breaths mingled together.
"You like it." Was all he received in response as Tom tilted them once again, this time towards the loveseat as he set Harry down on his back, pressing all his body weight down on him, grinding with purpose.
He was going to drive Harry mad. He might've done it already.
"I love you." Harry breathed into his skin, words laced in magic laced in love.
Tom pulled back enough to look at him in the eye.
"I know." Harry tilted an offended eyebrow at him, waiting. "I love you too." He leaned down so their foreheads touched. "I got your gift."
"My—? Oh! Gods be good! I thought for sure they were gone—!"
"You left them on the pockets of your robes, and you gave the robes to little Alphard Black. I got them." Tom breathed out against his cheek, long and hard. "Thank you, Harry. I don't think anyone has— I don't think I've ever received something so thoughtful."
"I was just giving you back what was yours."
Tom smiled gently at him.
"Exactly like that."