Remembering Love (Tomarry) (HP)

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Hermione's cat bumbles about in the common room and Harry's taken to glaring at it and occasionally considers hurling quills at it. It's not done much wrong, except be loyal to a traitor, but Harry thinks he needs an outlet before he snaps an or loses his mind. The redheaded beast doesn't mind him, so it's a win-win, really.

The cat's been chasing something since they've arrived at Hogwarts, now that he thinks about it. The thing "doesn't mind" anything except the insolate beast it's chasing. Harry would love to help because he's still a petty child at heart and it'd probably freak Granger out, but he doesn't know what it's after.

Until he gets a glimpse of the rat.

It's Ron's, passed down from the Weasly family. And something clicks within Harry. He calls, during his summer break, one of the dreams he shared with Voldemort. The Dark Lord said he'd returned because the Weasly's rat had ran away for a week.

This, thought Harry, is the pathetic creature that brought back the man who killed my parents?

And if, before he's off to bed, Harry captures the rat and gives it to Hermione's cat to use as a chewtoy, then can you really blame him?

Harry closes the curtains around his bed with a smug sense of satisfaction. Tom transforms into his physical form (the ring on Harry's finger glowing dimly) and waits until Harry casts a privacy wars around the bed to greet him.

Tom doesn't talk about his day, because his day is the nothingness of his soul tether, and listens fondly as Harry describes his.

"Care of Magical Creatures sucks," Harry groaned. "The book keeps trying to bite my face, no matter how much I pet it, and I'm starting to think someone cursed it. And for tomorrow's lesson we're doing Hippogriffs."

"Hippogriffs?" hums Tom. "That's a bit advanced for third years."

"I know," sighed Harry, running a hand through his hair. "And Hagrid's gunna single me out like he always does."

"The git."

"Yeah," says Harry. "He's been acting so weird nowdays. Like he's not himself-- and I'm not just saying that because he hates me now, or whatever."

"He," suggests Tom, "could be under an Imperio."

"A what now?"

"Mind control dark spell," explained Tom. "An Unforgivable. Dumbledore's probably the one to have cast it, of I'm right."

Harry frowns. "I wouldn't peg Dumbledore as the sort of guy to cast Unforgivables. He's not that sort of guy."

"And you thought he wasn't the sort of guy to abandon you in your time of need, didn't you?"

"Touché," sighed Harry.

"He's senile. And plotting. I jus wish we knew what."

"Mhm."

"Get to bed, Harry."

"Goodnight, Tom."

It'll appear, in the morning, that Crookshank did a lot more than use Pettigrew as a chewtoy. It'll also appear that there's a lot about Animagus transformation Harry didn't know about, like how one returns to their human form if killed.

There, in the middle of the Gryffindor common room, lies the corpse of Peter Pettigrew.