Harry lay on his bed, huge smile still on his face, mirror in his hand, just basking in this unexpected success for no more than ten minutes before the mirror started glowing.
Sitting up, Harry opened the mirror at once. “And?” Harry asked a visibly excited Tom and Barty, as both their heads were squeezed in the tiny frame.
“It’s magical!” Barty said with an enormous grin.
Tom looked equally chuffed but he obviously didn’t want to draw any permanent conclusions just yet. “All we know right now is that it’s definitely a magical artifact. Whether it’s the actual Philosopher’s Stone capable of creating the Elixir of Life remains to be seen.”
“Sure, sure,” Barty agreed with a few quick nods. “We’ll have to test it extensively, but the fact that it’s a magical artifact and not some transfigured rock is fascinating in and of itself.”
“How did you get it so quickly?” Tom asked, eyes widening enough that he actually looked a bit worried aside from pleasantly surprised.
Harry shrugged helplessly and then bent double as he was overcome with a bout of giggles once again. “I went to look for the Mirror of Erised,” Harry said once he caught his breath. “I remembered that in my first life I found it during the winter holidays.” Harry sobered a little and narrowed his eyes at the two other men. “That’s also probably why Dumbledore wanted me at Hogwarts. It was always his intention for me to accidentally discover the mirror, so I wouldn’t get caught by the magical illusion of it once I encountered it again during a confrontation with Voldemort.”
“Ah, that makes sense,” Barty agreed quietly while Tom got a chagrined look on his face.
“Even now, when there is no sign of me anywhere near Hogwarts, that old fool is determined to see his little schemes concerning you through,” Tom muttered with a dark frown.
“Yeah, but I’m not the naïve little idiot I was in my first life,” Harry felt compelled to point out. “Anyway, I found the mirror in an abandoned classroom, just like last time. And when I looked in it, my reflection was holding the stone and put it in his pocket. At that moment, the stone appeared in my pocket and I ran all the way back to my dorms and had Kreacher bring it straight to you.” Harry briefly pursed his lips while gathered his thoughts. “I always assumed that Dumbledore didn’t put the stone in the mirror until after he moved it, but it seems I was wrong about that.”
“Or maybe he put it in only very recently,” Barty said, which made sense to Harry. “And he was waiting for you to discover it the moment you got back from the holidays.”
“I wonder how long it will be before Dumbledore discovers it’s been stolen,” Tom said with a smirk that was full of dark satisfaction.
“I didn’t notice any charms or something that would have raised the alarm,” Harry pointed out with an equally satisfied grin. “Then again, I didn’t stick around the moment I realized I had the stone.”
“You’ll notice soon enough by the large amount of Aurors suddenly turning Hogwarts upside down,” Barty said, but Harry immediately shook his head.
“I doubt Dumbledore would involve the authorities,” Harry said while Tom nodded in agreement. “Then he’d have to explain why he was hiding the stone at Hogwarts in the first place.”
Barty seemed to ponder on that for a few seconds before he also nodded. “I suppose. At any rate, even if Aurors storm the castle, you’ll no longer have to worry about Alastor Moody.”
“Why not?” Harry asked, confused. He hadn’t heard anything about Moody since the man had tried to kidnap him right at the start of the holidays.
“Because he got fired from the Auror department,” Tom said, again looking like he’d already been installed as the new Minister for Magic. “Amelia Bones was well and truly fed up with the man for once again doing what Dumbledore told him to do without any regards for actual laws.”
“Why was he fired now and not two weeks ago?” Harry wondered out loud.
Barty actually laughed at that. “Because Fudge and most other ministry officials had the holidays off, naturally. So Moody got a brief respite but today Bones, Scrimgeour and Fudge had a little meeting and decided to just get rid of Moody altogether.”
“That is amazing news,” Harry said, his chest warming at the idea that Moody got punished for being Dumbledore’s attack dog.
“I told you I had need of Wormtail at the Ministry,” Tom said with a sly smile as he gave Harry a quick wink. “Without him we’d not be able to keep up with all the latest ministry news.”
“Yeah, fine,” Harry muttered, not really caring one way or the other. He’d decided some months ago that as long as he didn’t have to personally deal with Pettigrew he was happy to pretend the traitor didn’t exist.
“We should get back to work,” Barty said, eyes shining with eagerness. “See if we can’t get that stone to turn some metal into gold.”
“Yes, we’ll let you know as soon as we know for sure what the stone is,” Tom said with almost as eager a look as Barty had. “Keep the mirror close.”
“Will do. Have fun!” Harry waved at the two men before closing the mirror. He felt a very real pang of regret that he couldn’t be there to join Tom and Barty in their experiments. Then again, Harry knew nothing about alchemy, so he doubted he would understand anything of what those two would be doing, so perhaps it was for the best he was stuck at Hogwarts instead.
Harry placed the mirror beside his pillow and turned on his side. Sleep came quickly because Harry was tired from the long day he’d had.
A bright glow woke him up at the crack of dawn and while still drowsy with sleep, Harry barely sat up and flipped the mirror open.
“It’s real,” Tom said, holding up a lump of gold the size of a walnut. His smile was tired and there were dark spots under his eyes, but he also looked about as happy as Harry had ever seen him. Barty was jumping around in the background, cackling like a madman. “You actually stole the real Philosopher’s Stone, my dear.”
Harry fell down against his bed, overcome with laughter while Tom joined him, his head thrown back. “We stole the actual Philosopher’s Stone and all I had to do was stand in front of a mirror,” Harry was barely able to say as he couldn’t stop snickering. “And here Dumbledore created this whole obstacle course and all it took was a look in that fucking mirror.”
“We never have to worry about money ever again,” Tom said with a peculiar look in his eyes, that Harry recognized after a moment. It was the sheer relief a person who grew up poor feels once they realize they never have to fear poverty again.
Harry sighed, long and deep, and then offered Tom his warmest smile. “I know. We’re set for life, no matter what happens to us. We could become a couple of hermits who never leave their house and only experiment with fascinating magic all day long.”
“Tempting,” Tom said with a chuckle, his eyes crinkling with affection and amusement. “But I think we would both get sick of each other if we tried that.”
“Maybe,” Harry conceded with a crooked grin. “But it is nice to know that no matter what the future throws at us, we’ll always have enough money to eat and such.”
Tom swallowed and nodded while Barty finally calmed down in the background and joined Tom in front of the mirror.
“Our next goal is to extract the Elixir of Life,” Barty said, his voice breathless and his eyes bloodshot with exhaustion.
“Perhaps get some sleep first,” Harry suggested with a genuine burst of worry for Tom and Barty. Those two were definitely the types to get lost in academics to the point of self-neglect. “And have something to eat.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Barty said, waving Harry’s suggestions away as though they hardly mattered. “We’ll let you know when we can get the stone to give up its most valuable secret.”
“Talk to you soon,” Harry said while exchanging a fond smile with Tom, who at least seemed ready to go to bed, but who knew. The lure of the stone might prove to much even for him.
Just as Harry closed the mirror and opened the curtains, the other boys in the dormitory also started waking up and before long Harry got busy getting ready for a new day of classes while everyone else did the same.
It was a Thursday, which meant a full day of classes, with defence, history and double transfiguration. After the exuberant feast the previous night the students had apparently come to the realization that it was business as usual again and most were suitably subdued during breakfast at the thought of having to endure a whole day of classes again.
Harry enjoyed his eggy bread while Draco complained about the plebian food, insisting that eggs and bread should always be served separately.
“So what have you two been up to during the holidays,” Blaise asked in between bites.
Theo looked a bit constipated all of a sudden, but Harry easily answered the question. “Sirius got me a Nimbus 2001 for Yule, so Theo and I spent some quality time comparing both my Nimbus brooms.” And Theo quickly joined the conversation, explaining all the differences between the two brooms in detail. Blaise seemed interested enough in the subject that he never asked what else they’d done, which was probably for the best. Harry considered Blaise a good friend, but Blaise didn’t have a parent who was close to Tom. Blaise’s mother had never openly supported Voldemort, as far as Harry knew, even if she did subscribe to the usual pureblood ideals.
All this meant that Blaise didn’t have an adult who could control him should that need ever arise, like Dorus could take charge of Theo in case something ever went wrong. Plus secrecy contracts needed an adult’s approval when used on a minor. And therefore Harry wasn’t as eager just yet to share his most important secrets with Blaise. Someday he would, Harry was sure, but right now Blaise was an eleven-year-old child, and Harry didn’t feel as trusting of his friends as he’d once had done.
He’d been burned once already, when the people Harry was sure would never betray him had stood back and let him be executed.
Harry wasn’t about to trust a child with his life unless Tom had ways to make sure that child wouldn’t betray them. And so Blaise would be kept in the dark for now.
It was during defence, while Quirrell spent an hour lecturing about the pimple jinx, half an hour of which was spent on teaching them how to pronounce furnunculus, that Harry realized that the winter holidays had been both a blessing and a curse.
A blessing, because Harry had absolutely needed some time away from school to relax and recharge his battery.
And a curse, because spending two weeks amongst adults while Harry himself had been an adult for the majority of that time had spoiled Harry to the point that it was almost painful to be stuck in an eleven-year-old body again, surrounded by nothing but children.
Harry missed his adult body with an intensity that surprised him. Not to mention, Harry missed Tom. Which was silly, he knew, because he’d talked to the man just that morning and the night before, and he would talk to him again at the end of the day. And yet, Harry missed him so much it made his stomach ache for some reason.
Harry sincerely hoped that this sour mood he was suddenly stuck with was just a case of the post-holiday blues. He wasn’t the only one, thankfully, since Daphne was also frowning a lot more than usual and Millicent spent the whole of Quirrell’s lecture drawing doodles on her piece of parchment instead of taking notes, which she usually always did.
Yeah, it seemed everyone was having some trouble readjusting to Hogwarts life, but none of them had a soulmate they suddenly found themselves separated from.
Harry sighed and realized that Tom’s offer to simply stay with him instead of returning to Hogwarts was starting to sound more and more appealing. But no, Harry had plans for the coming years that needed him at Hogwarts, alas. Still, Harry was at least now convinced he would not be finishing all seven years at Hogwarts. In fact, Harry probably wouldn’t even make it to his OWLs, the way he felt now.
History was even worse than defence, with Binns needing an entire hour to drone on and on about one particular peace treaty signed back in 1312, and Harry spent that time writing a letter to Sirius and daydreaming about the spring holidays when he could see Tom again, which were still just about three months away.
Double transfiguration after lunch was also a disappointment, because McGonagall spent an hour lecturing, and the next hour they had to turn a ceramic cup into a crystal wine glass, which was harder than it seemed at first, because inevitably everyone ended up with glass instead of crystal. Of course, Harry was already familiar with this particular pitfall, but he still purposefully made the mistake so he wouldn’t stand out too much. He was still going for clever and talented, but not an actual genius.
After classes were finally done, Harry joined his friends in the library and it was nice to spend time with them again as they all got started on their defence and transfiguration essays. About twenty minutes later, Hermione came breezing into the library, going from table to table with a stack of pamphlets in her hands.
Inevitably, she ended up at Harry’s table. “Hi!” Hermione walked around their table, placing a pamphlet in front of everyone, whether they wanted one or not. Neville seemed politely interested, but Blaise had a look on his face as though Hermione had just placed a decomposing skunk on his defence book. “I’m started three clubs, if there’s enough interest,” Hermione said, beaming at all of them.
“What sort of clubs?” Susan asked, sounding just a bit wary but also a tiny bit intrigued.
“An official study club,” Hermione said with a pointed look at Harry. “Open to all first year students. And a wizarding law club, since it seems that the judicial system in the wizarding world is very different than the one in the muggle world. And a muggleborn appreciation club, which would focus on all the topics I tried to get Harry to incorporate into the Culture Club, but which he refused.”
Harry studiously ignored her, pretending to be absorbed in writing his defence essay. He was no longer filled with a sharp sense of betrayal every time he ran into Hermione, but he still couldn’t stand her and he doubted he ever would again. The immediate pain of Hermione’s betrayal might have softened, but he’d never forget that she wouldn’t fucking look at him when she helped to sentence him to death.
“Well, the best of luck to you with your clubs,” Daphne said with a polite but tiny smile.
“Thanks,” Hermione said as she gazed hopefully around the circle of students.
“We’ll consider it,” Ernie offered, his smile a little bigger but his tone suggesting he’d already made up his mind.
“Just let me know if anyone’s interested. Tomorrow evening during the Culture Club perhaps.” Hermione looked around the circle again, but when no one else said anything, she hurried towards the next table.
Harry hated to admit it, but he wizarding law club actually was a pretty good idea. Or perhaps not an entire club, but adding a few lessons about wizarding law to the Culture Club. If anything, it would force Harry to finally read up on the Wizengamot and how it really worked, something that had been on is to-do list since the start of the schoolyear but which Harry still hadn’t gotten to.
But the recent developments with Sirius and Dumbledore losing his position as Chief Warlock had made it clear that Harry couldn’t afford to be ignorant of such proceedings anymore. Harry made a little note to himself to add wizarding laws to some future Culture Club lessons.
After dinner Harry spent an hour playing exploding snap with Blaise and Theo in their dorms, and he was happy to see that after a bit of a rough start during breakfast, Theo was back to acting like himself again and didn’t clam up anymore whenever Blaise brought up the holidays.
Harry went to bed fairly early, because he was tired from attending a full day of classes again, but also because he was eager to talk to Tom.
“Soulmate!” Harry said with a grin to moment Tom answered, feeling as though some invisible weight had fallen off his chest now that he saw his boyfriend again. Wait…was that what he should call Tom? They were in a relationship now, after all. But boyfriend just seemed odd somehow. Maybe he should just stick to soulmate. It was a term uniquely theirs, after all, and it did suggest a certain level of intimacy at least comparable to boyfriend.
Tom looked a little dishevelled and there were still dark circles around his eyes. “Hello, my dear.”
“Did you get any sleep at all?” Harry asked with a suspicious frown, suddenly filled with worry for his soulmate.
“I did,” Tom answered quickly, his eyes widening as he tried to give Harry a look filled with pure innocence. “I slept for a few hours this morning.”
“Hm.” Harry wasn’t very convinced by that performance, but then again, Tom was a grown man who should, in theory, be able to take care of himself. He hardly needed a caretaker. “How far did you get with the stone today?”
Tom’s face broke out in a huge smile, eyes shining with excitement. “We’ve made very good progress. I think we’ll be able to produce the elixir within a few days.”
“I miss you,” Harry blurted out before he even knew what he was saying but he really did miss Tom, and seeing him in the mirror somehow made the ache in his stomach even worse.
Tom’s smile softened and he briefly closed his eyes while he released a quiet breath. “I miss you too, my dear.” Tom sat up a little and brought the mirror closer to his face. “I’ve missed you during the whole day, which made me realize that we never continued our duelling lessons.”
Harry’s heart hammered in his chest at hearing Tom confess he missed Harry as well. “We hardly had time,” Harry was quick to point out. He had enjoyed their duelling lesson very much, even if they’d mostly focused on breathing and positions so far, and Harry was well aware he really needed those lessons if he ever wanted to become truly good at duelling instead of relying on sheer dumb luck as he’d mostly done in his previous life.
“I do believe I’ve come up with a solution,” Tom said, smile turning into rather devilish grin which did things to Harry’s whole body. Warm, tingly things. “I can apparate straight into the Chamber of Secrets, as we now know.”
Harry sat up straight in bed, staring at the mirror in his hands while his mouth dropped open. “Oh, fuck me! We could meet in the chamber!”
“Exactly,” Tom said, looking like he thoroughly enjoyed Harry’s dramatic reaction. “Once or twice a week, as our schedules allow, we’ll get together in the chamber and I’ll teach you how to duel.”
“Yes, that’s perfect,” Harry said, ready to bounce in his bed from the sheer excitement he felt. He wouldn’t have to wait for almost three months to see Tom again. They’d be duelling, of course, but Harry was quite sure there would be some time for a nice snog as well.
“We could meet up tomorrow evening,” Tom suggested.
Harry shook his head, though it pained him to do so. “Tomorrow’s Friday, and we’ve got our house meeting and right after that the Culture Club.”
“Ah yes, I’d quite forgotten. How about Saturday? Morning or afternoon, whichever suits you best.”
“Probably the morning,” Harry said, disappointed he’d have to wait an extra day to see his soulmate, but also still very relieved he needn’t wait for months.
“Saturday at nine in the morning,” Tom said, his eyes briefly falling shut. He did look absolutely exhausted.
“Get some sleep,” Harry said in fond exasperation. “Before you fall over.”
Tom’s smile was adorably drowsy. “Yes, my dear. We’ll talk soon.”
“Good night!” Harry smiled long after he closed the mirror, feeling an enormous sense of peace at the idea of seeing Tom throughout the rest of his time at Hogwarts. It would make staying at Hogwarts for a few more years at least a bit more bearable.
The next morning, Harry was in noticeably better spirits as he added some slices of banana and a few spoons of honey to his warm bowl of oatmeal. They only had double potions in the morning and in the afternoon they’d finish their homework so Harry would have the whole weekend free to sneak off to duel Tom. And to snog him silly, because Harry knew that was going to be the first thing he did the moment he saw his soulmate the next day.
A loud voice suddenly called out, “Albus, where is our stone?”
Harry looked up in surprise, as did just about every other student, as an older man and woman marched inside the great hall. Everyone else seemed suitably confused as to what was going on, but Harry had a very good idea who those two people were.
Nicolas and Perenelle Flamel had come for their stolen treasure.