The Darkening of Your Soul

Chapter 54

Tom stared at Harry as though he wasn't exactly sure at that moment why he associated with Harry in the first place. "You're going to have to give me a bit more than that, my dear. I sincerely doubt even I am powerful enough to convince Severus to put up with Black in any way, shape or form."

Sighing, Harry threw himself down on the bed, stretching out on his back while he held the mirror up over his face. "Moody cursed Draco and now we need a tutor and Sirius has agreed to do it, but now Snape refuses to cooperate."

"Moody cursed Draco?" Tom looked as though he sincerely doubted Harry's intelligence at that moment.

"Oh, right, you didn't even know yet," Harry pushed himself up on an elbow so he could inhale a deep breath and rattle off what had happened. "Apparently, Quirrell had an accident or something, so Dumbledore got Moody to teach Defence. In class this morning, Moody cursed Draco for no reason at all, and me and Neville stopped him. We're allowed to hire our own tutor if there exists a hostile relationship with any member of staff, but our Head of House has to sign off on it."

"I see." Tom's brow furrowed for a moment and then he gave Harry a smile that promised everything would soon be all right again. "I'll contact Quirrell after this talk to see what happened to him. Why don't you just have Neville ask Minnie for permission. As far as I'm aware, she was always very fond of Black, so I doubt she'll refuse him for a tutoring position."

"Huh." Harry stared at his boyfriend in amazement. "That's bloody brilliant. I'd been worrying for hours about how to get Snape to agree to let Sirius teach us, but this passes him by entirely."

"And it allows me to keep the cordial working relationship I have developed with Severus over the past few months." Tom pulled one corner of his lips up in a half-smile. "If I were to get my Dark Lord on, as you call it, and order Severus to cooperate with Black, I'll lose whatever fragile balance we've established between ourselves."

"Yeah," Harry agreed quickly. "This works just fine. I'll have Neville talk to McGonagall tomorrow." Biting his bottom lip, Harry considered telling Tom the other news he had. Part of him wanted to wait to tell him in person, but their next meeting in the Chamber of Secrets was still almost a week away. And Harry sincerely doubted he could wait that long, because now that he'd made a decision, he was ridiculously excited about it. "I've got more news."

"Oh?" Tom quirked an eyebrow at Harry, clearly waiting for him to go on.

For some reason, Harry's cheeks suddenly felt like they were on fire. "Good news. Well, I mean, I think it's good news. I'm sure you will be happy with it as well--"

"Harry," Tom said with an exasperated sigh. "What is the news?"

"I'm quitting Hogwarts," Harry blurted, barely able to breathe. "I mean, I'll finish this year, but I won't come back for my second year."

"Ah." For a few long moments, Tom's face remained almost suspiciously blank. But then his eyes narrowed and his face split open with a wide grin. "Finally got tired of the old man's manipulations, did you?"

"Yeah," Harry said with a rather bitter sigh. "I just realized that Dumbledore is never going to stop coming after me, trying to control me. Now that he's no longer allowed to approach me by himself, he's not above cursing a member of his own staff to insert a flunky to do the dirty work for him."

Tom nodded a few times, the mirror bobbing up and down in his hand as he shifted his position. "I'm so glad to hear you've finally figured that out."

"Sirius is going to apply for custody of me," Harry added, his whole chest feeling as though it was filled with fizzing whizzbees. "I figured I can spend weekdays with him, to keep up appearances, and on the weekends we can get together."