Lightning and War

Blackthorn

Tom leaped to his feet, but he wasn’t fast enough to prevent the black serpent from wrapping around Harry’s throat. It was a weapon he had seen his mother use before, but not for years, and—

Never against someone he would have objected to losing. Which his mother ought to have known even if she didn’t know anything else.

Harry’s hand rose and grappled with the snake. It was already looped too tight for that to be an effective tactic, though. Tom hissed in alarm, “Let go!” but that cut across and clashed with his mother’s command to tighten.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Tom demanded, spinning around to stare at his mother, and trying to ignore the choking sounds from next to him. The blue gem in Harry’s diadem was flaring. It would protect him. It had to. Tom knew going closer and touching the snake himself would only result in it turning into a collar of dead wood, which would strangle Harry even more effectively.

“I don’t believe that he’s who he says he is. Someone who wields Parseltongue can challenge us in dangerous ways, and will draw even more attention than you using it by yourself. I don’t permit danger to threaten you, Tom.”

“Except when it comes from our own family!”

He had the impression his mother would have answered, but at that point, there was a dry snapping sound from behind them. Tom turned with his hand already on his wand. His first thought was that either Marvolo or Morfin had found a way to make themselves a nuisance.

Instead, Harry was holding the dead, cracked body of the serpent in his hand. He had broken it in half, even given the wood it would have become when he touched it. He drew in a sharp, whistling breath, and looked back and forth between Tom and his mother for a moment. Then he threw the halves away.

Tom went to him at once, running his hands tenderly, lightly over Harry’s bruised throat, but regretting it when he winced. “Are you all right?” he breathed.

“I’ll be all right.” Harry hadn’t looked at him, which would have made Tom bristle, except that Harry was sensibly watching the greater threat, Tom’s mother. “Why did you do that, Miss Gaunt?”

Mother flinched, as if the form of address held some kind of hidden poison for her. Tom wouldn’t be surprised if Harry knew something about her from his former world that would do that, but at the moment, he was hardly against it. He wanted to take Harry in his arms and remove him from the house, and he would have, if not for the glowing diadem on Harry’s forehead and the fact that he would have resisted.

“You…” Mother licked her lips. “You are encouraging my son into the open. It is dangerous for the reasons I explained to you. And I have no desire to share Slytherin’s artifacts or the glory that is still be to found in being a Parselmouth with you.”

“The glory to be found in being a Parselmouth. I see.”

Harry looked around the shack as he said it, not directly at Mother, but that only made it all the more insulting. Mother drew herself up and became the strong woman that Tom saw mostly when Morfin and Marvolo weren’t around. “You do not understand,” she hissed. “The snake that hides in his burrow during the winter and emerges again later is the one who survives. It has been winter for our family for a long, long time, but it will someday be spring again.”

“Tom is doing his best to bring that springtime.” Harry finally turned to face Tom again, his face gentle. “Do you want me to explain what you’re doing by facing Dumbledore, or would you rather have that honor?”

Tom traced his finger in a gentle, tickling line up Harry’s arm. Harry didn’t flinch or back away from him. His expression remained loving.

No one else in Tom’s life had given him that, even if he had known enough love from his mother to be incapable of making a Horcrux.