29th November, 1941
Hospital Wing, Hogwarts
While the students and Professors at Hogwarts began to stir from their fitful slumber, Harry was still lying unconscious in the Hospital Wing, trapped in the clutches of Morpheus and Phobetor, the latter of which was absolutely delighted to finally have unobstructed access to Harry's worst memories.
It wasn't every day that the slippery immortal was left vulnerable enough for them to mess with. They had no option but to make the most of this rare opportunity they've been given.
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Harry was having tea with Hermoine, and that would usually have been an enjoyable afternoon spent with his best friend. But as was often the case recently, their relaxing afternoon was rapidly turning sour.
"Harry," Hermoine sighed exasperatedly, blowing away a loose curl that had come undone from her otherwise perfectly styled bun. "I know that you've repeatedly said that you didn't want me looking into it for now, but don't you think you're being careless? Don't you find it at all odd that you haven't aged a day past seventeen?" she pressed, her lips pursed into a frown and her brows crinkled disapprovingly.
Harry groaned and looked away from Hermoine, feeling an irrational spike of anger coursing through his veins, which made his volatile magic react in kind, seeking to strike down the source of his ire.
He began clenching and unclenching his fist, trying to get a hold of his emotions and erratic magic, the latter of which he felt worryingly rippling along his taut skin, scorching him from the inside out.
It took all his self-control to keep his magic from lashing out, from jumping out of his skin—something which was, unfortunately, becoming a common occurrence of late—but somehow he managed not to rip his best friend to shreds.
It took a while, but after taking a few deep breaths he felt calm enough to let go of the tight grip he had on his magic, although his body didn't relax; his muscles were still coiled and his stance ready for a strike.
This, all this, was messed up.
His behaviour was irrational and much too aggressive. He knew that but knowing and understanding didn't stop him from conjuring a small thunderstorm storm whenever his mood began to take a nosedive.
He'd always had a short temper, which, laughably enough, he'd hoped would be cured with the removal of Voldemort's Horcrux. But as was rather typical for him, the exact opposite happened. Instead of calming, his temper had gotten immeasurably worse, even more so over the past few months.
He was a terror to be around. He knew that, and by Merlin, he'd tried so hard to fix himself. He'd tried talking to mind healers, had tried Occlumency and meditation, tried venting his rage and exhausting himself to sleep. He'd tried so many different potions that he's lost track of all their names. He'd even tried some muggle therapy and medication.
Nothing worked. His personality was as prickly as ever.
He couldn't really put what he was feeling into words, but the best explanation he had to offer was that he felt a change building within himself, felt it biding and building up to something, something dark and powerful, to something he'd rather not ponder for too long.
Whatever it was that he was building too was too significant for words, and he felt afraid, so afraid that he'll be ensnared by its intoxicating feeling and then never be able to escape from its clutches.
He couldn't even begin to start guessing why he felt this way—this restlessness and anger, this building sensation, this want—but what really had him baffled was the constant feeling he carried around with him of something missing, something vital, something that he instinctively knew would make him whole if found.
The fact that, as Hermoine so generously pointed out not a moment ago, he hadn't aged a day past seventeen was also weighing heavily on his mind and didn't help improve his mood.
While his friends didn't, by any stretch of the word, look old, they bore tells that they had grown past their teen years, whereas Harry could easily pass for a very mature looking seventh-year student at Hogwarts, and mature looking was stretching it.
Was his nonexistent ageing related to his recent change in mood and lack of control? His gut said yes, and his gut also told him that he didn't want to touch the truth with a ten-foot pole.
It was like this—he really wanted to know what the buggering fuck was going on with him, but he also really didn't want to know at all. He was at constant war with himself. He'd go to the library for a book, find something he thought relevant, then he'd spend hours reaching for it before quickly retracting his outstretched hand.
It was maddening.
So no, he'd really rather not discuss these helplessly contradicting thoughts with Hermione.
"I really don't want to talk about this, Hermoine, and I don't want to know," he told her.
When he saw her about to argue, his emerald eyes flashed angrily behind his fringe. "Drop it," he warned her.
She'd been pestering him for the past year, and he wasn't in the mood to hash out old arguments.
It's not that he didn't think that she was right, as was often the case with Hermoine; he simply wanted to live a normal life for as long as he possibly could. He didn't think that he was asking for much.
"So you're not the least bit curious as to why you haven't aged?" she pressed on, not noticing the way Harry's posture had stiffened defensively or the way his eyes had begun to glow in that creepy way that they now had a tendency of doing. Had she noticed, she may not have blurted out her next words. "Don't you see that it isn't normal, Harry? What if—"
"I think it's best you take your leave, Hermoine," he said in a deadly, calm voice that sent unpleasant shivers down Hermione's back.
"Harry? What...?" she obviously felt confused since Harry had tried very hard to never take that tone with her, but Harry didn't have any patience left.
"I said, get the fuck out of my house, Hermoine. Before I end up saying something I'll regret," he gritted out through clenched teeth in that same deadly tone.
"Harry—" she tried, sounding beyond baffled at her friend's harsh attitude.
"GET OUT!" he screamed, barely able to control the rage he felt building again. He felt it, felt it building stronger with every second that she stayed seated—he felt himself about to explode.
She needed to get out before he lost control and accidentally hurt her.
"FINE!" she screamed back, tears streaming down her anger-flushed cheeks. "Don't come crying to me when this all blows up in your face!"
Then she was finally gone and Harry could finally let go.
It rippled out of him, each wave stronger than the last.
The last thing he saw before passing out was his demolished living room.
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"Ginny," Harry sighed regretfully, knowing what he had to do and finally willing to go through with it.
"Don't, Harry," she begged him, her beautiful brown eyes already tinged red with the tears she was trying to hold back.
The sight broke his heart.
"You know that it's the only way for you to be happy, love. I can't give you what you want," he said before he could change his mind again.
"But I love you, Harry. Merlin, I love you so much. Why won't you try? Why don't you want a family with me?" she asked him, her questions frantic and desperate.
"I can't do it," he choked out almost inaudibly, swallowing down the acidic bile those words brought to his throat. It was the truth, but what a poisonous truth it was. "I can't have a child with you, Ginny. I can't watch them grow old and die. It's going to be hard enough with Teddy, but to watch my own flesh and blood die.... I can't do it. I can't go through that."
"So that's it?" she asked him, her tone glacial, as were her typically warm and beautiful brown eyes. "You're just going to throw away six years of marriage?"
"She does realise that you're immortal, right? Six years is hardly even a drop in the ocean for you."
Of course, Death decided that right then was the most appropriate time to just pop by for a quick visit.
Harry shot Death a glare that didn't go unnoticed by his wife.
"He's here, isn't he?" she practically hissed, her face turning a bright shade of angry-red. "Tell him to get the fuck out of my house!"
Only Ginny Potter-Weasley had the balls to basically tell Death to go fuck himself.
Harry scratched the back of his neck and sent Death a pointed look that he decidedly ignored.
"Just tell her I've left. It's not like she'll know that I didn't," Death told him nonchalantly.
Harry rolled his eyes but didn't press the matter. To be honest, he didn't want him to leave, because Death's presence, for some unfathomable reason, comforted him.
Yes, he did know how insane he sounded.
"Is he gone?" Ginny asked him with a pointed glare.
"Yes," he said, not even blinking at how easily the lie had rolled off his tongue.
Ginny narrowed her eyes suspiciously, but if she didn't believe him she made no mention of it.
"Is there nothing I can say to talk you out of this divorce?" she pleaded with as much dignity as that question allowed, but the resigned note in her voice told him that she already knew what his answer was going to be.
"It's the only way for you to be happy," he repeated, sounding defeated but resolute.
Even as the first tears began spilling down her pale cheeks, his strong, beautiful wife gave him a small, brave smile. "Always so selfless, Harry," she managed to gasp before she threw herself into his open arms and started sobbing into his chest.
As the relief of having finally gone through with it washed over him, Harry didn't feel particularly selfless.
Was not wanting children really the only reason why he wanted to divorce Ginny?
He'd wondered, once or twice, but he didn't want to think about it, not then when he had his arms full of his heartbroken wife.
"I'll always love you, Harry."
Harry closed his eyes and allowed a lone tear to escape.
"And I'll always love you, Ginny. You'll always have a place in my heart," he whispered into her hair.
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"He's gone, Harry," Death whispered gently from somewhere in the distance, but Harry was too grief-stricken to listen.
He couldn't be gone. Not his godson. Not his Teddykins.
"Wake up you miserable old man," he brokenly pleaded with his godson while he started desperately shaking his lifeless body. "I made you breakfast," he said through sharp gasps of breath. "Blueberry and chocolate chip pancakes with crispy bacon on the side. Now get up so I can complain about the sickening amount of honey you like to pour over your breakfast," he begged, voice thick with unshed tears.
"Harry-" Death sighed. "He's dead, Harry," he stated, not necessarily unsympathetically, but he didn't sound very consoling or compassionate either.
"Shut up!" Harry snapped, not looking away from Teddy's sleeping face. "It's not his time. He...he shouldn't be—he's not dead," he choked out. "Come on, Teddykins. Wake up," he begged. "Wake up. Wake up. Wake up!" he screamed before he finally collapsed to his knees and broke down into a blubbering mess.
His whole body shook with the heart-wrenching sobs tearing out of his chest, sobs that left him gasping for air and made him painfully clutch and claw at his chest.
Harry felt wrecked.
He'd lost everyone he'd ever held dear to him, and now he was completely alone.
Hermoine and Ron had died over thirty years ago, Ginny following quickly behind them. Their children had also recently passed away.
Many of his friends and acquaintances were gone, or too old to really do anything other than rest in the comfort of their home, waiting for death to finally take them.
Teddy had been the last person left who he'd felt a real connection too. He'd been the only one left that Harry truly loved and cherished. He'd been the last person he'd considered as his—his to care for, his to love.
He'd raised Teddy as his own son, bestowing him all the love he deserved and would have gotten from his parents had they survived the war.
He'd watched the infant in diapers grow into a young, thoughtful adolescent, and then he watched him grow into a man Remus and Dora would have been proud of. He'd watched Teddy, kind and spirited Teddy, grow old and weary but still keep his youthful playfulness.
And now he watched as the body of his godson lay in his bed, drained of his life and soul.
Teddy's first word had been 'Ree'.
He'd started walking at eleven months—running really. He'd been an absolute terror as a toddler.
Their first-ever argument had been about Teddy calling Harry 'Daddy'. He simply hadn't been able to stomach replacing Remus like that.
Teddy, with his childlike innocence, had been the one to console him when he'd divorced Ginny.
Teddy was the only person he'd told about being Master of Death who didn't make a big fuss about it. 'Well, that's convenient. Now I don't have to worry about you ever dying on me, you old fart,' he'd said, shrugging in a way only a teenager knew how.
Teddy had been the first person he'd confessed to being bisexual. He'd simply rolled his eyes and said, "Like I didn't already know that. It's not like you're subtle about it."
The first piece of magic Teddy had done when he turned seventeen was to prank Harry to say the opposite of what he meant to say for a whole week. Suffice it to say that he'd kept out of the office for the whole duration of that week.
Teddy had managed to improve the wolfsbane potion before the age of twenty-five.
Teddy—his beautiful baby boy whom he loved beyond anything else in the world, the one person that had given him purpose—was now gone far beyond his reach.
Teddy would never call him an old fart again.
He'd never call him a pervert again and send stinging hexes at him for looking at some young piece of ass.
He'd never prank him again.
He'd never get to hold Teddy again and tell him how proud of him he was, and how much he loved him.
Harry screamed—he screamed, and screamed, and screamed—his magic lashing out of him explosively.
That day, all of Britain felt the earthquaking grief of Harry Potter.
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Death had told him that it was futile to search, not that he'd listened.
But till now he'd been right.
Twenty-years of research and thirty-six complicatedly-executed suicide attempts later, Harry was still alive and kicking.
How fucking glorious.
He'd tried to keep his latest attempt from Death, but Harry had a feeling that he'd known about it anyway. It would explain the distance he'd kept from him this past week.
He knew that all these attempts to end his life hurt his friend, on some level—whichever level of hurt Death was capable of, in any case. But he had to try, had to try and end this utter madness.
There was probably a slew of psychological illness that he could be labelled with, but the easiest way Harry would describe himself without having to memorise several tongue-twisting medical terms, was batshit-fucking-crazy.
Humans weren't made to live this long. And while he was immortal, so fucking painfully immortal, he was still human—so very human.
In his long years alive, or, rather, existence was probably a more precise term to use, he finally understood the reason for death—wholly and painstakingly understood its necessity.
To enjoy life—to truly appreciate it—one must have an expiry date, which was something Harry lacked.
Every day was simply just another day in a long line of never-ending days.
Death said that he'd get used to it. He said that one day he'd wake up and living wouldn't be so fucking hard anymore.
Harry had his doubts.
What was there left to experience?
What was left for him to fight for?
The balance, of course. He was tasked with keeping the balance of magic and with it the whole world. But someone else could take on the job—anyone else would probably be delighted to. Harry always wanted to be just Harry. Harry, and not any other moniker the mortals and celestials had given him over the years.
What would his parents think? Having given birth to a son that was destined to shoulder such a heavy burden?
Would they have wept for him as he wept now?
Would they have known long before he did that all that had been waiting for him was a world of misery?
Death said he was chosen for a reason—that he'd been born solely for this role. He also said that Mother Magic made no mistakes.
Harry had his doubts.
He wanted to rest. He wanted to sleep and never wake up. He wanted to take the train and see what greater adventure lay in wait for him.
But he'd been denied entry—denied that great adventure—because he had more important responsibilities here on this plane of existence.
He understood—but he didn't understand at all.
At least he had Death.
Death would always be there to keep him company.
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Crack!
Fuck. That hurt. That fucking hurt.
'Breathe, Harry,' he thought to himself. 'Just breathe through the pain.'
Crack! Fuck.
Crack! Fuck.
CRACK!
Sweet mother of Merlin!
Unholy fucking hell!
It hurt.
His back was on fire, his skin and flesh savagely ripped apart.
He hadn't thought that the lashes would hurt this much. He'd endured pain before. But Merlin, this brand of turture was something else.
He felt it every time the leather sliced into him, hot, so hot and agonising, but then the leather was gone and it burned, burned, burned, and he'd rather feel the shock and pain of the leather slicing into him than this blinding agony.
"Are you ready to talk, sorcerer?" his captor asked him, sounding smug. Harry couldn't help but think that he had the ugliest voice he'd ever had the displeasure of hearing. It rather suited his ugly fucking mug.
He told him as much.
It earned him seven more sweetly torturous lashes.
His captor didn't know. He didn't know that the ugly steel he thought was binding his magic, the steel collar that was lying heavy around Harry's neck uncomfortably rubbing his skin raw, he didn't know that it was just a useless piece of steel.
Fucking Moron.
CRACK!
"Where is the stone!"
Merlin, would he ever stop asking?
Five days of this and he was already going mad.
But he needed to bide his time. He needed to wait for him to come.
He thought himself above death. Thought he could mess with the bridge Harry had been tasked to protect.
He thought wrong.
"Up yours, ratface," Harry choked out, and when the leather slid into his flesh once more he couldn't help the manic chuckle that escaped him.
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It couldn't be.
He's not dead.
Not him.
It simply couldn't be.
The fates weren't that cruel. They couldn't be.
"Harry! Please, Harry! You have to calm yourself!"
Their lover wasn't dead. Not now that they've found each other. Not now that Harry had finally found a new family to love and love him back.
"Harry!"
But he was. He was dead. Their beloved was dead. Gone from his reach like so many others he'd loved and cared for.
His choking grief was soon replaced by murderous rage.
His vision went red with fury—a blood-red as bright as the fresh blood he was about to shed.
The High Priestess would burn at his hand while he condemns her soul to an eternity of unimaginable torture, but not before he dug his hands into her skull and ripped her in half with his bare hands.
He'd do all that, but it won't be enough, because their beloved would still be dead.
Dead.
Dead and gone.
Harry sank to his knees.
All of Albion shook beneath his rage.
All of Albion heard the enraged roar that ripped out of the slighted immortal.
"Harry! Don't, Harry!" he heard the broken cry from behind him, but he ignored the plea.
No one took what was his.
Harry's deadly calm voice rang in echoes around the kingdom, heard by all its inhabitants.
"Morgana," he whispered. "Run, Morgana. Run. Run as fast as your treacherous feet can carry you because once I've caught up with you, your soul will burn in eternal hellfire. Run, little mouseling. Run and live your last hours knowing that the Master of Death is fast on your heels, ready to collect on his revenge."
Once his warning had been sent out, Harry dug his hand into the forest soil and wept. He sobbed so hard that the skies opened and wept alongside him.
"Get away from him, Merlin," Harry heard someone scream, but he paid them no mind.
He was dead. Dead by Morgana's hand.
Why?
Had she not loved him as her own, once? Did that mean nothing to her?
Suddenly, Harry felt a familiar hand tenderly cup his cheek. "Harry? Harry, my love, I'm begging you. Look at me."
How could he? How could he look at him after he'd failed to protect the most precious person in their lives?
Why did he have to be so stubborn?
Why couldn't he have just listened to Harry?
"He's dead," he choked out, the words slipping unbidden from his lips. "He's dead, Merlin."
Harry heard his lover gasp and he clenched his eyes shut tighter.
"No," Merlin whimpered, "She wouldn't—"
"She has," Harry growled, finally looking up, his green eyes glowing.
Merlin dropped his hand from Harry's cheek in shock, shaking his head in denial.
"She snapped Mordred's neck in a fit of jealous rage when he stood steadfast in his loyalty to us, and now he's gone. And you can thank your beloved king for his demise," Harry hissed.
Tears were now openly falling from Merlin's beautiful blue eyes.
"Is there nothing—"
Harry looked away from him and closed his eyes in shame.
Oh, how he wished he could. How he wished that it was that simple.
"You know of my oath, Merlin. Bringing back the dead is beyond even my capabilities," he whispered.
After a few moments, Harry felt his lover's hand return to his cheek and felt him rest his forehead against his.
"We'll avenge him, Harry. Together, we'll avenge our beloved Mordred."
Before Harry could say anything, he felt the knights of the round table moving around, forming a circle around them.
"Get away from the Sorcerer, Merlin," Arthur Pendragon, the supposed Once and Future King, ordered his manservant harshly, unsuccessfully trying to disguise his fear.
"Can I just Apparate us out of here?" Harry asked Merlin, voice hoarse and broken.
"Cat's already out of the bag, so you might as well."
That's all the permission Harry needed, and the next second they were gone, leaving a band of confused knights and a stumped king behind to gape at their empty spots.
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Death said that it was impossible for him to die.
He'd said that Harry's soul was bound to Death's for all eternity.
He'd said that Harry would never get to go to the realm of the dead.
Harry didn't believe him then. Didn't accept his fate.
He'd never thought that concept appealing. Not when he'd first heard of The Tales of Beedle the Bard, not when he'd realised that the Three Deathly Hallows were actually real and in his possession, not when Death had shown up and told him that he was Master of Death, and definitely not now after a couple of millennia of existence.
What had Voldemort been thinking? Wanting to live forever?
He envied the mortals.
He envied them their mortality—the simplicity of their lives.
They are born, they live, they die, they are judged, and then they are reborn—released to the world with a fresh slate.
While he was stuck.
Stuck with his memories. Stuck with this same face. Stuck with his immortality.
Stuck to forever being Harry Potter.
It didn't matter if he changed his name or his face, beneath it, he'd still be Harry Potter—The Master of Death—Chosen Son of Magic herself.
He loved his mother—loved her dearly—but he wanted to rest.
Why couldn't he just rest?
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.
He'd seen war before—both Muggle and Magical.
He'd been but a babe when he'd first been pulled into a war he'd wanted no part of—a war he'd won. Through the ages, he'd been part of several other battles and wars.
They were all different, yet so alike.
Blood. Death. Ashes. Fires. Screams. Battle cries. Famine. Decay. Swards. Guns. Wands.
It was always a travesty.
He'd seen the Roman Empire rise and fall.
He'd seen muggles fight and bleed for land and religion.
He'd seen wizards and witches fight for dominion and power over the whole world.
He'd averted apocalypses threatening to unleash hell on earth.
He'd battled to keep the balance between the living and the dead.
He'd seen it all, really.
But the trenches of World War One, as they would come to call it, was something else entirely.
He'd been here for months and months and months.
War was always long, even when the battle was short, but this time it was different. He'd forgone his magic—living as much like a muggle as was possible for an immortal being like him—and thus the war felt forever long.
He was hungry—starved, actually.
He was cold and wet and were he not a wizard he'd probably be suffering a bad case of trench foot.
He was sleep-deprived, so much so that he'd begun hallucinating.
And David was dead. That wasn't a hallucination—Death had been so kind as to point that out to him.
The muggle for whom he'd gone through the trouble of being a part of this dreadful muggle war, was now dead and gone like so many others before him.
Everyone died on him, leaving him lonelier than ever before—starved for a connection to the world he couldn't escape.
Everyone always died. Always.
So why couldn't he just die? Why couldn't he rest?
"I think it's time for us to ditch this place," he told Death, tone calm and devoid of any emotion.
"About bloody time," he heard Death's sarcastic reply. "Living like a muggle," he snorted. "I'm not letting you live this one down for a long time."
Harry didn't even spare him a glance.
The next second he was gone—far from the corpse of another dead lover and the trenches of World War One.
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Harry was lying haphazardly across his bed in his dorm room, with his curtains left carelessly open, unbothered by any possible disturbances.
He was looking up at the canopy with cloudy, unblinking eyes, his mind filled with numerous self-deprecating thoughts.
He hadn't done what he'd come to do.
He'd done the exact opposite of what he'd meant to do.
He was a coward.
He was repugnant.
He couldn't even broach the subject of Horcruxes with Tom.
He couldn't do anything but repeatedly fall into bed with his enemy.
Merlin, he was such a fucking disappointment.
It was time. He knew that it was time to try and stop Tom from becoming a monster . But he'd lose him—lose him completely.
He knew that Tom loved him, in his own dark, possessive, and twisted way—in the only way that he knew how. But it wasn't enough. Would never be enough. Not then. He'd come far too late. The damage was already done.
Tom would never choose him over his immortality.
However much he wished it weren't true, however in love with Tom he was, he wasn't blinded to the man he truly was. Just because Tom had somehow managed to form an attachment to Harry, it didn't mean that he'd drop his plans on Harry's say so.
And Harry was so afraid. So damn afraid to confirm what he already knew to be the truth.
He wasn't enough for Tom. Would never be enough for him.
Those sweet nothings Tom whispered to him in the dead of night meant nothing in the light of day, when even standing right beside him he felt forever away from him.
Those heady whispers of forever meant nothing when Harry knew that Tom would soon be turning his back on him.
Those possessive bruises of ownership Tom kept giving him meant nothing if Tom wasn't ready to be his as much as Harry was Tom's.
'Mine' meant nothing when the longed-for 'yours' never passed Tom's lips.
The harsh opening of the door and the sudden appearance of the subject of his thoughts momentarily jolted Harry out of his internal raging angst, but he kept himself still, eyes never breaking away from the green canopy above him.
He knew that Tom didn't like to be ignored, but at that moment, he really couldn't bring himself to care.
"You didn't come to my dorm last night," Tom said in that typical, silky-sleek tone of his, but Harry wasn't fooled. Tom was angry with him, mostly because he couldn't process the fact that he'd missed Harry, and because he was wholly incapable of recognising the inadequacy and self-consciousness he felt stirring in his chest at Harry's blatant avoidance. So he reverted to his default setting—anger and self-righteousness.
When it became apparent that Harry wasn't going to reply, Tom stepped further into the room, closing the door with excruciating gentleness.
"I don't have any patience for your childish moods today, Harry. You're going to tell me what your problem is and where you were last night, and you're going to tell me now," Tom ordered agitatedly, the air crackling with his repressed anger.
His petulance really made Harry want to roll his eyes, but he refrained from doing so.
He allowed a few anticipatory moments to tick by, sadistically enjoying the anger he could feel building in the room.
He wanted nothing more than to make Tom's perfect composure snap, but he refrained from doing that as well.
"I was in the Astronomy Tower," Harry finally relented, his voice controlled and monotone.
"All night?"
"All night," Harry repeated curtly.
There was a short pause, then, "Why didn't you come to my dorm?" he asked him, but perhaps ask was too kind a word. He forcefully demanded, as was typical for Tom.
Harry sighed and shrugged, emerald eyes still locked onto the mind-numbing pattern of his canopy, which, really, he'd only persisted on doing to raise Tom's hackles.
Huh. It seems like he was feeling a special brand of suicidal today.
"I needed to think," he replied shortly but honestly, biting back the urge to smirk as he felt the miasma of tension in the room thickening.
"What about?" Tom asked him expectantly, slightly accented. And without having to look, Harry knew that he'd just crossed his arms defensively over his chest. It was a habit that Tom had a hard time curbing, as with the cockney.
He wanted to comment. Tom absolutely hated it when anyone drew attention to his accent. But typically, and most disappointingly, the cockney only leaked out when he was angry, and no one wanted to mess with a pissed off Tom Riddle.
It also slipped in the throes of passion, but that's beside the point.
He decided to forgo antagonising him. "A lot of things," Harry snapped back instead.
"Name a couple," Tom suggested, sounding increasingly unimpressed by Harry's stubborn avoidance of his questions.
Without meaning to, the one word Harry had been dreading to bring up, unintentionally—most accidentally—slipped passed his lax lips.
"Horcruxes," he said, in a calm and unaffected tone he thought himself incapable of using while addressing those abominable creations.
There was another pause, longer this time—louder—deafening, really.
Had he just...?
The angry static in the air increased, causing the hair at the back of Harry's neck to rise, his instincts screaming at him that there was a threat in the room that needed to be eliminated.
But Harry still didn't move from his casual position on his bed, much too lost in his own shock.
Had he really just done that?
What the everloving fuck?
He really was a special brand of suicidal today. He must be. There was really no other explanation.
Tom, for his part, was stunned speechless, not quite able to believe what he'd just heard—what Harry had just alluded to.
Harry peeked at him from the corner of his eyes, and the expression on Tom's face would have been comical in any other instance—in truly any other instance that didn't involve Harry running his mouth about his knowledge of Horcruxes.
Tom's eyebrows were raised to his hairline, his grey eyes round and wide, and his jaw was slack, wide enough for any tiny insect to wander inside. He'd never seen Tom look so undignified. Merlin. It was priceless.
It obviously only lasted a second because the next moment, Tom looked as composed as ever and only slightly hostile, which wasn't very reassuring.
"Harry," Tom said, voice strained and harsher than Harry had ever heard directed towards him. At least, not in this timeline—not as Harry Stevenson. Harry Potter, on the other hand, had heard much worse directed at him.
"Yeah?" Harry said as casually as he could manage while feeling numbingly cold at the knowledge that he'd just signed the death certificate to their relationship.
"Why were you thinking about Horcruxes?" Tom asked him, his voice faint, barely above a whisper, but the simmering fury below was unmistakable.
Harry released a mirthless chuckle, feeling hollow and broken.
It was going to be one of those days then, was it? One of those life-altering days.
How quaint.
"Don't play coy, Tom. It doesn't suit you," he told him, suddenly feeling rather parched.
Harry's heart began pounding erratically in his chest, and he felt his palms gathering sweat. He felt a panic attack approaching, but if there was one time where he had to seem solid and unbreakable to Tom, it was then.
Tom narrowed his calculating eyes, his gaze burning a hole into Harry's face.
Tom was contemplating, Harry knew that. He was contemplating how far Harry's knowledge went. Did he know about Horcruxes in general, or did he know about his Horcruxes? Should he attack, or should he gather more information? Should he try Legilimency? Should he lie and avoid? Should he kill him?
Merlin, sometimes Harry really hated that he knew him so well.
"I don't know what you're talking—"
Ah, so he decided to lie and avoid. How surprising.
It was then that Harry sprung to his feet, finally turning around to face Tom.
"Don't fucking lie to me, Tom," Harry growled, his eyes flashing violently. "Stop lying, and stop treating me like a fucking imbecile. And while you're at it, quit pretending to be something you're clearly not," he spat through clenched teeth.
'Stop pretending you care,' screamed Harry's heart, 'it hurts too much.'
But Harry stood tall and proud in the face of Tom's tempestuous expression, however fractured he felt.
Strangely enough, Tom hadn't attacked him yet; neither had he tried to obliviate him, which was rather surprising considering Tom's impulsive nature.
Tom took a deep breath as if to brace himself. Then, calmer than Harry thought possible, Tom asked him, "What exactly is it that you want me to say, Harry? What are you asking?"
Harry immediately deflated, his anger replaced with a heavy sort of desperation that had his insides trembling.
He knew what he wanted Tom to say, knew what he wanted him to promise. Harry also knew that asking those things of Tom was futile.
So his words stayed painfully stuck in his throat because he was unable to voice them—he was unwilling to hear the rejection he knew would follow.
"It doesn't matter what I want, Tom," Harry said instead, defeatedly, dejectedly, because it was the truth. Tom had to decide for himself which path he wanted to walk, and Harry knew better than to try and change his mind.
Tom took a cautious step towards him but stopped when he noticed Harry's shoulders tense.
"Why are you being so dramatic about this?" Tom huffed, sounding annoyed, as if they weren't discussing Tom's Horcruxes, and that earned him an owlish blink from Harry.
How was Tom so calm about this? Harry wanted to ask, but he was sorta still trying to catch-up.
"What is it that bothers you about it? Is it the murder? Is it because I'm immortal?" he inquired, sounding unexpectedly confused and desperate.
Harry's brain short-circuited for a second before his gears started running into overdrive.
'Is it the murder?' he asked, in the same tone he'd use to ask 'Is this too casual?' while referring to his robes.
Harry fell short of a reply. What could he reply? 'No, Tom. Of course it's not the murder. However highly immoral and inappropriate I find the monstrous actions you've partaken in, the shredding of your soul has me a tad more concerned. Oh, and by the by, your lack of empathy is awe-inspiring.'
Somehow Harry didn't think that would go over very well, however casually he managed to word it.
Somehow, Tom took Harry's stunned silence to mean that it was, in fact, his immortality that he took issue with.
"We could make you one," Tom hurried to reassure him. He said 'we' like it wouldn't be Harry that would hypothetically have to go through the ritual.
"Nothing has to change, Harry. I'm willing to share my knowledge with you if it means that I'll have you by my side, always," he said, with a slight, almost undetectable, beseeching note to his typically calm and removed voice.
That offer had been...unexpected. Truth be told, he'd never even considered the possibility that Tom might want him to become immortal, that he was important enough to Tom to want him around, always.
It...it tore Harry even further apart.
Why did he have to say it like that?
Why did he have to sound so genuine?
How could he feel warm and tingly over Tom's suggestion of creating a Horcrux?
Harry gulped and tried to compose himself. "I- That's not a path I can follow you on," he told him, hating how broken and regretful he sounded. Hating how he couldn't tell him the truth.
Tom's reaction was instantaneous. His face closed off, and his grey eyes hardened and momentarily flashed red.
"And what does that mean for us?"
Harry sighed and ran his fingers through his hair.
"It means- It means that you get to decide if making more Horcruxes is more important than me—more important than us and our future. You get to decide if shredding your soul and your mind is worth losing me over," he whispered, softly but resolutely. "You get to decide if your fear of death is stronger than any feelings you have for me," he concluded with a weary smile.
There. He'd said it. He'd given Tom his ultimatum.
"I'm not planning on making any more Horcruxes. Why would you—"
"I told you not to lie to me, Tom," Harry snapped, unwilling to hear his manipulative words.
"How would you even know that? How do you even know about my Horcrux?" Tom hissed, slipping into Parseltongue.
"Tut-tut, darling. There you go again—thinking you can lie to me. Horcruxes, Tom. I know that you've already made two of them."
Harry wanted to press his luck, he wanted to say that he knew all about his diary and the Gaunt ring. But he didn't, because he was still foolishly hopeful that Tom would choose him.
Tom's composure faltered, showing Harry just how unsettled he felt.
"I masked myself," Tom mumbled, mostly to himself. "Your sight shouldn't have picked up on it."
Harry startled at his words. His sight? What sight? Then it clicked, and he couldn't help but stare at Tom incredulously.
"You think that I'm clairvoyant? That's how you think I know about your Horcruxes?"
That's what all those knowing glances he'd caught on Tom's face when he'd slipped up once or twice had been about? And those knowing smirks he sometimes gave him when he thought Harry wasn't looking? He thought Harry was psychic?
Well, it was an understandable conclusion to draw, he supposed. He just thought Tom was smarter than that. Not that Harry thought he'd ever be able to figure out that he was Master of Death....
If possible, Tom's expression turned even more perplexed. Eyebrows raised as if to ask 'you're not?'
Death was going to just love this.
And then, as if summoned by his thoughts, Death's distracting presence appeared behind Tom.
"He thinks you're a seer, Harry," Death snorted. "You're not that special," he said blandly, meaning for it to sound insulting, but it was quite the pitiful attempt on his end. Had he forgotten that Harry was the Master of Death? That he was the chosen fucking son of Magic? That was pretty damn special in Harry's book.
Harry wanted to roll his eyes at Death but clenched his jaw instead.
"By the way," Death said once he saw that he got no reaction out of Harry. "Kudos for finally addressing the Horcrux issue. Although, if you want my constructive criticism, I'd say that you could have handled this better—with more cunning and finesse, perhaps?"
If it were possible to strangle Death... Well, if it were possible, he'd have done it centuries ago.
"It doesn't really matter how I know, Tom. Just that I know," he said, focusing his attention back on the matter at hand. "The ball is in your court now."
Tom sneered and the muggle expression.
"You can't seriously mean to give me another ultimatum," Tom snarled, his anger back just as quickly as it had disappeared. "I'm offering you eternal life, Harry! I'm willing to give you what everyone else would sever several limbs for. And your answer is for me to choose between you and my Horcruxes?"
"I don't need nor want to be immortal, Tom. And I'm not asking you to get rid of your existing Horcruxes. All I'm asking is that you don't make any more of them," Harry clarified as if it would make an ounce of difference to him.
"You can't ask that of me," Tom spat, eyes rapidly flashing between red and grey.
Merlin, was that really so inconceivable to him?
Harry tilted his chin.
"I can and I have," he asserted. "Tom, you already made two Horcruxes. You've secured your immortality twice-over. Why is it so important to make six? Why can't you be content with what you've already achieved?"
Harry was on the verge of begging-and he'd do it, he'd get on his knees and beg if he thought that it'd make a difference. But he knew Tom too well and wouldn't waste time demeaning himself.
Tom was back to narrowing his eyes suspiciously.
"Six? Six is awfully specific, Harry. How do you know that when I haven't even decided on it yet?"
Thinking on his feet, Harry shrugged and said, "You're strangely superstitious for a wizard, but that's understandable given your upbringing. Seven is a powerful number, and I know you. It's not that big of a leap to make, to think that you'd want to have a total of seven pieces, that you'd want to go further than any wizard before you."
"Beautiful save, Harry," Death mocked him, but Harry paid him no mind, too focused on the myriad emotions that flitted across Tom's face. "But judging by the death glare on young Tommy's face you were better off leaving out that upbringing bit. Not exactly the best moment to remind the lad of the orphanage."
Tom closed his eyes and turned away from him, and that's when Harry's heart broke beyond repair. That's when he knew that Tom wouldn't choose him.
He wanted to flee the room—wanted to cry and scream and beg Tom to choose him.
But he stood tall and as unmoving as a statue, solid and unbending. He would not give in. He would stand by his choice because any other outcome was too disastrous to even contemplate.
If he fell any further under Tom's thrall.... No, the implications were too much to handle. He couldn't feel this way for the monster he knew Tom would become. He couldn't give Voldemort any power over the Master of Death.
"Why are you doing this to us, Harry?" Tom breathed, sounding lost.
"Because they will destroy you, Tom. And I can't stand by and watch that happening to you. I won't. I'll have no part in the mutilation of your soul."
Tom shook his head, already too far in denial for Harry to save him.
"I found nothing that indicated any impairment," Tom started, but Harry didn't have it in him to listen.
"They will destroy you," he repeated, stronger, more forcefully this time. "Trust me, Tom. Making any more Horcruxes will lead to the one outcome you're trying to avoid."
Tom's shoulders tensed, his body trembling almost indistinctly, but Harry saw it—saw the way Tom was trying to hold himself together.
"I- I need to think," Tom mumbled, still looking away from Harry.
Tom might think that he was undecided. He might even delude himself into thinking that he was honestly taking Harry's ultimatum under consideration. But Harry knew better.
He knew because of the way Tom's shoulders were set.
He knew because of the way Tom couldn't meet his eyes.
Knew because of the loss he suddenly felt washing over him.
Their bright and untamable connection was coming undone, hanging on a single thread that was waiting to be cut through.
The decision was already made. All that was left was for Tom to choose how to break it to him. All that was left was for Tom to decide how he was going to deliver the final blow.
Suddenly, all Harry wanted was to crawl into his bed and cry, cry and never stop crying.
"Alright," he managed to choke out, because what else was left to say?
Tom hovered next to the door as if he wanted to add something, but then he was gone without another word, and the first tears started spilling down Harry's cheeks.
Harry expected Death to say something hurtful and inappropriate, instead, in an uncharacteristic show of compassion, he appeared next to him and put a hand on his shoulder, silently lending him strength.
"I lost him," he mouthed, unable to make a sound.
Death simply squeezed his shoulder, internally rueing the day they'd ever decided to step foot into that decade.
.
.
.
"Did you hear that Riddle has finally dropped that mudblood? Ravenclaw Stacy said that she caught...."
"What was Tom thinking? Stevenson is sooo handsome. I'd give anything for him to...."
"You will never believe who Riddle was found snogging in the broom cupboard last night. Haymitch said that some Ravenclaw bint found him with his pants around his ankles. Do you reckon it's true? Stevenson must be taking it...."
"Poor Harry. I really thought that they'd last, you know? He must be devastated. Do you think we should try and cheer...."
"I reckon that Stevenson ended it. Did you not see the way Tom used to look at him?"
"...think that it's brilliant. They're both available now. Two boys as handsome as they are had no business seeing each other."
"...say yes if I ask him out? Maybe it's too soon? I don't want to step on Riddle's toes."
" I heard it from June, who heard it from Bethany, who overheard Stacy and Derek whispering at breakfast..."
Harry didn't know why he'd even bothered going to classes.
All he'd heard about all day was the way Tom had been caught with his pants around his ankles in a broom cupboard with some bird sucking his cock. On and on the gossip whirled, and pitying looks following him everywhere he went.
She'd probably been horrible at it.
He probably had to imagine it was Harry just to get his dick up, Harry thought viciously.
Tom hadn't looked at him once in the past week, not even today, after what he'd done, but why would he when he hadn't even bothered ending it with him like a decent fucking person?
No, instead he'd cheated on him, allowing the gossip mill to let Harry know that he'd made his decision.
He'd known that it was going to happen—had known that Tom would never choose him over his precious Horcruxes. He'd just thought that Tom had more respect for him than that.
How fucking delusional he'd been.
So it was done. They were done. They were over.
He was fucking pathetic.
Not even Voldemort wanted him.
Fuck, he was going to cry. He was going to cry. He was going to cry.
It hurt. It hurt so much he could barely breathe.
His chest hurt, his throat burned, his eyes stung, and his heart was shattered.
Broken.
Tom had managed to break him into a million little pieces—and Harry knew that the pieces would never fit together again.
Young Tom had done what Voldemort hadn't been able to do—what decades of fucking depression had not managed to do—he'd broken him.
It was over.
He'd never kiss him again.
He'd never feel his pianist fingers running through his hair.
He'd never wake up and watch Tom as he slept.
Tom would never make him eat his vegetables again.
He'd never feel that irreplaceable pleasure of being inside him—of moving in sync as they sought to fall off the edge.
He'd never argue with him for the sake of arguing.
He'd never give him that look again, that coy smile that promised him so much.
Merlin. It fucking hurt.
Voldemort had defeated him after all.
.
.
.
"I know what you're thinking, Harry. You must have completely lost your mind if you're truly considering that," Death scolded him rather harshly.
It had been a month since he and Tom had severed all ties to each other, and it didn't hurt any less than it did when the wound was still fresh.
How had he allowed himself to fall so deeply in love with such a monster? How could he have done this to himself?
"It's not like I'm going to do it," Harry told him without the usual bite in his tone. In fact, he sounded disturbingly subdued.
"Won't you?" Death asked him dubiously. "You've been thinking about it for the past week," he pointed out. "That's a lot of pondering for someone so sure they won't crawl back to their ex-lover."
Harry closed his eyes, a pained look coming over his face.
"He's a monster," is what he said, because what else was he to say?
"But you still love him." It wasn't a question.
Harry dropped his forehead to his bent knee and gulped. He could hardly deny that truth when it was written all over his face. "He made his choice," he said instead without looking up.
"And there is still time for you to change yours, although I would strongly advise you against it."
Harry's head suddenly shot up, and he looked pleadingly at his friend. "Don't I deserve to be happy, Death? Don't I deserve to be with the person I love?"
"And do you honestly believe that being with Lord Voldemort will make you happy? Not now, but in the long-run, do you truly see yourself being happy with the monster he's becoming?"
Harry clenched his jaw and turned away from him and stayed silent for a long time.
"I have to obliviate him—everyone," Harry declared after a while, more decisive than he'd felt in months. "I just wish I could obliviate him from my own memories."
Death probably wanted to point out that he could easily remove his memories for him if he asked nicely enough. But he didn't, because he knew that Harry didn't want to forget the boy that he'd fallen in love with.
"That's a solid plan," Death said instead. "Are we time-jumping or...?"
"No," Harry said, his tone hard and cold. "I'm done messing with time."
.
.
.
Harry was frantically pacing back and forth in their spacious living-room, his features twisted in an eerie mixture of fury and panic, while his idiot husband, Sirius Orion Black, watched him with a weary, and irritatingly stubborn expression.
It would have all been fairly amusing were it not for the situation itself, and the fact that Harry's eyes were glowing a terrifying shade of green.
Sirius tried to shrug off the guilt that was quickly building inside his chest, clutching cuttingly around his conscience, but the rough state Harry was in made that rather hard for him to accomplish.
Sirius ran a hand through his long, dishevelled hair and sighed.
"Harry—" he started to say, but Harry shot him a glare that swiftly shut his mouth, rendering him silent once more.
Suddenly, Harry stopped pacing and turned to Sirius with a heartbroken expression on his handsome face.
"Why are you doing this to me?" he asked him in a broken whisper, his voice hoarse and thick with unrestrained distress.
Sirius flinched and wrung his bottom lip between his sharp teeth.
"This has nothing to do with you, Harry," he mumbled, looking apologetic even as he said it.
Harry chuckled humorlessly and shook his head in disbelief. "Nothing to do with me?" he asked him. "I'm your fucking husband, Sirius," he snapped, his eyes hard and accusing. "Or have you conveniently forgotten that small detail?"
Sirius closed his eyes and took a deep breath, trying to calm down the war raging in his heart.
Harry knew that Sirius didn't want to let this get between them, but what was he to do? Should he just let him walk to his death out of a misguided sense of loyalty to the Order?
Harry also knew that this wasn't a fight Sirius could back out of, not when all his friends were at risk. He would never be able to forgive himself if something happened to them while he was hiding away.
Once Sirius opened his eyes, Harry instantly knew that he'd already lost the argument. Sirius had that stubborn, resolved look in his eyes—steel encased in a roaring fire—that Harry knew was absolute. No amount of persuasion would be enough to change his mind.
Harry wanted to rage and scream, he wanted to break down and cry, and maybe he also wanted to bind Sirius with some heavy chains and lock him in their basement.
Instead, Harry glared hatefully at his reckless husband and waited for him to continue spilling his pitiful excuses.
Sirius cleared his throat and glanced shiftily away from him, before allowing his gaze to rest determinedly on Harry's face.
"I understand that you're worried about me and that you're scared for my-" Sirius started to say but Harry cut him off with a harsh scoff.
"Scared?" Harry growled. "You understand that I'm scared for you? For your safety?" he clarified mockingly. "Well, that's alright then, isn't it Siri? Because you understand that I'm fucking terrified—that I'm absofuckinglutly terrified," he snarled. "You understand that, do you? And does your selfish brain also comprehend that I'm going absolutely mad? Do you understand the constant fear and distress I endure, day in and day out, at the possibility that you won't come back to me from some buggered up mission?"
Sirius winced, feeling ashamed of himself for putting the man he loved through this horrible pain, but he grit his teeth together and gathered all the resolve he could muster to make his husband see reason.
"We're at war, Harry," he told him calmly. "Am I supposed to sit at home twiddling my thumbs while I let all my friends fight Voldemort on their own?" he asked, his tone turning frustrated. "That's not who I am," he said with more conviction.
"You know that's not what I'm asking," Harry shot back, thinking of his father and pregnant mother. "But this mission is suicidal, you must see that," he pleaded assertively. "Neither of you should be going, especially not with Lily being in the condition she's in."
Sirius clenched his jaw and looked away from him. "Dumbledore assigned us this mission for a reason, Harry. Who else do you suppose we send in?"
"Fuck Dumbledore!" he hissed. "None of you should be going! I already told you that it's a fucking trap, Sirius. Why won't you listen to me? If you're going to keep on insisting that you want to keep your trice damned mortality, then the least you can do is make sure that you don't place yourself in life-threatening situations. If not for your own sake, then at least for mine!"
Sirius groaned and had to bite his tongue to keep from snapping at him.
"You know that we know it's a trap, Harry. But what else are we meant to do? We can't pass up this opportunity simply because we're scared of getting captured or dying," he said condescendingly, and that was about all of Harry's patience used up.
"Godric's buggering impotent cock!" Harry exclaimed, rather loudly, his frustration evident not only because of his colourful choice of words but also because of the dangerous pulse of magic he'd just released, which rattled their whole house.
Sirius gulped and took an unconscious step back while his inner beast cowed and whined submissively.
"You're such a fucking Gryffindor!" Harry screamed accusingly, which was unmistakably meant as an insult.
Sirius was tempted to point out that Harry had been sorted into Gryffindor twice, which technically made Harry more Gryffindor than Sirius, but he wisely held his tongue.
"Do you expect to waltz in there and get a fair duel?" Harry asked him, absolutely incensed. "Are you all so naive and mad that you don't believe that Voldemort will have ensured your demise, one way or another? Besides Dumbledore, you're his number one enemies, and he wants you all in the fucking ground, Sirius—desperately. You're trying to outwit a Dark Lord who is known to have five extra contingency plans! So yes, I'm asking you not to go because you're all going to fucking die!" he shrieked very much unlike himself, leaving his chest heaving with heavy breaths and unrestrained fury.
It was better to be angry because if Harry gave in to the sadness and worry he'd break down and he won't be able to pick himself back up again.
Dark grey eyes narrowed angrily and flashed with resentment and jealousy.
"Godric fucking Gryffindor! Even after all these years, you still think that the sun shines out of his arse," Sirius spat venomously. "Sometimes I wonder whose side you're actually on."
Harry's eyes widened before they narrowed into unforgiving slits. "I'm on no one's fucking side, Black. Especially not Tom's," he growled, his eyes dancing with an unspoken warning as his magic started swirling around the room, ready to strike.
Sirius ignored the familiar magic pressing against him and released a sinister chuckle. "There it is again, calling him Tom like he's not a raving-mad Dark Wizard that needs to be put down. Do you even want him to be defeated?" he asked him evenly, smoothly, much too smoothly. "We both know that you're more than capable of doing the deed yourself, but you just won't do it, will you? You'd rather let our world rot than draw your wand at your precious Tom."
Harry sucked in a sharp breath, and the magic oozing out of him swiftly became oppressive, causing Sirius to shift uncomfortably in his spot. But Sirius knew that his husband wasn't going to hurt him so he stood his ground.
Harry grit his teeth together and tried to calm his temper.
"I know you're picking an argument because it makes it easier for you to run off to your death, but I'd watch my next words very carefully if I were you," Harry warned him in that voice that belonged to the Master of Death.
"No, I mean it," Sirius insisted, rather foolishly. "You and Death have the power to end all this by morning light, but instead you watch the horror happening around us as if it were some entertaining muggle T.V show," Sirius accused without an ounce of regret.
If Sirius was acting, he was putting on a pretty good fucking show.
The next second, all the glass within close vicinity shattered into teeny-tiny shards, causing Sirius to duck and cover his face.
"Yes, sure," Harry hissed through his teeth. "Let's explain to the world how the nobody Harry Black single-handedly defeated Voldemort and his Death Eaters. Let's play around with the balance of things and let the Master of Death and Death himself solve all the problems mortals create for themselves," Harry mocked with a dangerous glint in his eyes.
Harry's magic swirled erratically around the room, just barely contained enough to not destroy their whole house.
"So now you're blaming us for everything Voldemort is doing?" Sirius spat.
"I blame the leader of your precious Light faction, Black. I blame the whole fucking wizarding system," he growled. "Who do you think created the monster that you all rally against? Or do you suppose that he was simply born this rotten?"
For a brief moment, Sirius seemed taken aback. Harry never spoke about Voldemort, and even when he'd informed him of their sordid history, all he'd said was, 'We were in love once, Tom and I, but it hadn't been enough for him and in the end he still betrayed me'.
To hear Harry suddenly revealing any sort of information about Voldemort was probably rather surprising to his husband, especially since they had both avoided all mentions of him since the day Harry had revealed their past to him.
"If he's such a fucking victim than why didn't you save him, Harry?"
Harry took in a sharp breath and Sirius winced inwardly at the blow he'd just dealt his husband, knowing that he'd gone too far.
Instead of getting angry, Harry smirked, his eyes gaining a tint of blackness around his glowing irises.
"You should know better than to try and manipulate me, darling," he drawled lazily. "I think you forgot who you're married to," he said as he took a step towards Sirius, who found himself unable to move.
Growing slightly wary of his uncontrolled husband, Sirius tried to back-track. "Harry, I didn't mean that," he told him sincerely, putting his plan to enrage his husband on hold. He knew that it wasn't Harry's fault that Voldemort hadn't been able to be saved. Whatever had been between them had been genuine, on Harry's side, at least. It had been Voldemort's choice to walk the path that he was on.
"Oh, I know that, Siri," he assured him with an amused chuckle that sent shivers of dread down Sirius' spine. "But I'm quite done with you idolising the floor that old coot walks on," he said, taking another step toward Sirius, then another, until he was standing right in front of him, their faces only inches apart.
"Do you want to know who Dumbledore really is, Sirius?" he breathed seductively, the temperature in the room turning cold. "Do you want to know what hides behind grandfatherly smiles and twinkling eyes? Do you want me to tell you who Voldemort really is? Not the disfigured monster Dumbledore has made you believe in, but the person beneath the serpentine mask he wears? Would you like me to wreck everything you believe in, dear husband mine?" he asked him, his soft tone a harsh contrast against his cruel and cutting words.
Sirius gulped and tried to look away from those dangerous eyes he loved so much but found himself captivated.
"Did you know that your beloved leader used to practice the dark arts with his lover Grindelwald before an argument between them led to his sister's death?" he asked him, his smirk growing ever wider. "Of course, no one knew whose spell it was that hit poor Ariana, but it is an indisputable fact that young Albus was responsible for his sister after their mother's passing, and he failed her rather spectacularly, if I may say so myself. First, he abandoned her to go gallivanting around Europe with his lover in search of immortality—yes, I see how perfectly selfless that was of him—and then he killed her. Indirectly or not, Dumbledore was responsible for Ariana's death."
Sirius's breath hitched and his eyes grew wide.
"But you didn't know that, did you? Oh no, Albus wouldn't want his perfectly crafted image to get tarnished. He went through great—and very questionable—lengths, to ensure no one finds out about his shady past."
Sirius sighed, not knowing what to think.
"Everyone's allowed to make mistakes, Harry," Sirius said, thinking back on all the mistakes he's made himself, some of which he'd never be able to atone for.
"I agree with you," Harry allowed. "One should not be judged for the errors of their youth. But did you know that Dumbledore purposefully waited to defeat his old lover until Grindelwald was in his peak? Why? Why because that way Dumbles would receive more recognition and power. Defeating a Dark Lord before he'd destroyed the world wouldn't get him the recognition he wanted, the recognition and power he misguidedly thought he was the only one capable of wielding. Like a snake, he manipulated his way into power, just like any other one of those slimy politicians you hate so much. Yes, how very humble of him to reject the position of a puppet Minister but graciously accepting the positions of Headmaster, Supreme Mugwump, and Chief Warlock," he listed with heavy sarcasm.
Sirius frowned, torn between wanting to believe his husband and his blind loyalty towards his former Headmaster.
Could Dumbledore really have allowed a war to go on just to further his position in the world? Was the man he'd always idolized capable of such damaging manipulations?
It was sickening to even think about.
"Beware, Sirius. Albus Dumbledore is nothing more than a conniving, master manipulator who lost himself in the game a few decades back. I assure you that individually you mean absolutely nothing to him. You are all but pawns for him to move around as he pleases. In his eyes, your life doesn't even come close to comparing to his 'greater good'," he hissed, spitting out the words as if they were poison on his tongue.
Alright, so maybe Harry had some deeply buried resentment towards the Headmaster, but could you blame him?
"Tell me, has he given you vague details about where and how to attack, without offering you a way out of there if you're in a pinch? Hoping you would miraculously make your way back, victorious? Tell me, is the old man joining you on this most important suicide mission? Did he even deign to inform you why this mission is so important, besides getting to take down some inner circle followers that will be replaced by morning? Do you really believe that there isn't another reason behind why he's sending you there?" Harry asked him somewhat jeeringly.
"Think, Sirius," he insisted. "Really think about it. Do you know why you're going on this mission? Think about the way he changes the subject or the way he outright dismisses you when you ask for details on what's happening. He says something along the lines of, 'You don't have to worry yourself with such details just yet, my dear boy. All will be revealed in due time,'" Harry mocked in what he thought was a rather impressive imitation of Dumbledore. "Or how about, 'I do not wish to burden you with such dark matters, my boy'."
Sirius didn't know what to say. In truth, he didn't know why this mission was so important to Dumbledore. He had avoided answering any enquiries. In fact, he'd said something rather similar to what Harry had just parroted. 'Sirius, my dear boy,' Dumbledore had said. 'I do not wish to burden you with the darker details. When the time is right, all will be revealed. I know you won't disappoint me.'
Sirius swallowed the bitter bile that rose in his throat and went lax against his husband's magic.
"I don't know," he admitted shamefully. "I don't know anything at all it seems."
But Harry wasn't done tearing into Dumbledore.
"Do you want to know what kind of man Dumbledore really is? If he is so great, then why did he abandon a twelve-year-old boy to an abusive orphanage that was located in the middle of a muggle war zone, ensuring that he would further traumatise an already unstable child? Why did he send him there even after the boy begged and pleaded with him to be sent anywhere else? Why did your precious Light leader treat said boy with such suspicion and derision throughout his early years at Hogwarts simply because he could speak to snakes and had stolen a few items from his bullies? Why did he condemn a lonely child who was only seeking affection and a semblance of justice? Who was he to decide that small child was unredeemable? And in what world did he think that treating someone with his particular attributes like an abomination wouldn't make him strive to prove to him just how abominable he could become? Why did Dumbledore blacklist him after he graduated Hogwarts, ensuring that even with his connections and record-breaking N.E.W.T.S he couldn't find any respectable employment? And that's not even touching on the fact that the bastard purposely placed me in an abusive household so that I'd be moulded into the perfect sacrificial lamb. That's not touching on the fact that he left you to rot in Azkaban for twelve years just so that I'd be sure to stay in the aforementioned abusive household. And please, do not get me started on all the dangers I faced throughout my first time at Hogwarts."
Sirius's mind was reeling with all the new information he'd just received, hardly able to keep up with Harry's tangent.
"Tell me, Sirius, what did your precious Light faction ever do for Tom?" he asked him rhetorically because it was quite clear what the answer was.
"Tom was first shunned by the Muggles for being different. Then he was shunned by most of our magical community for being a Slytherin, and then, he was shunned within his own house for being a muggle-born. No one has ever simply cared for him for who he was."
Sirius sighed and briefly closed his eyes, before wearily opening them again to show grey orbs filled with a renewed fight.
"Maybe that's all true, Harry, but I'm not fighting in this war for Dumbledore, and everything you've said, while horrible, does not excuse what Voldemort has become and has done to our world."
"Maybe so," Harry said through gritted teeth, "but do you know what it is you're fighting for? Beyond simply being against Voldemort, that is."
Sirius once again looked beyond confused, causing Harry to roll his eyes.
"While Tom's methods are wrong and I wish beyond anything else that he'd chosen a different path to accomplish his goals, at least he cares for Magic—all Magic—which cannot be said for the Light faction you've allied yourself with, a faction who are doing everything in their power to suppress large branches of Magic that are essential to the balance of our world," he growled, his calm demeanour quickly turning aggressive again as he thought of all the damage they would cause in the near future.
Not knowing what to say, and not quite ready to admit that Harry was making a lot of sense, Sirius settled for his typical misguided cheek. "All that- You never mention anything before, and now you say all that just so you wouldn't have to admit that you don't want to kill Voldemort?"
"I don't!" Harry exploded. "Excuse me for not wanting to kill the man I used to love. Excuse me for not wanting to kill him—again. Excuse me for not wanting to be the damned saviour of the world—again! Excuse me for not wanting you to Apparate into a Merlin fucking damned trap and die—again! Excuse me for loving my arsehole of a husband!"
Before Sirius knew what he was doing, an unexpected choice of words came tumbling out of his mouth. "After this mission is done, I'll quit the Order," he told Harry, surprising him with how sincere he sounded. "I promise," he vowed, pleading with his eyes for Harry to believe him. "After this mission, we'll talk to Jamie and Lily and we'll hightail it to the U.S or to Timbuktu, or somewhere equally as exotic. We can even go save koala bears and build them an impenetrable forest, that's what you told Minnie you wanted to do after graduation, right?"
All the fury and indignity Harry had felt only seconds before melted away from him, unable to ignore his husband's puppy eyes and that ridiculous reminder of the excuse he'd dead-panned when his Head of House had asked him to join the Oder.
'While I feel rather flattered by your invitation, Professor,' he'd said, not sounding in the least bit flattered. 'I have made plans to save the Koalas and several other non-magical species from extinction by building them a safe haven.'
It's safe to assume that old Minny's friendly-but-always-stern looking face had faltered and she'd started blinking owlishly at him. She'd looked between him and Sirius, sputtered something about Voldemort being a more pressing concern, to which Harry had just shrugged and replied. 'Now that's rather unfair of you, Professor. If you asked the koalas, they would argue that their plight is just as pressing, if not more so. I must say that I'm disappointed in you, Professor. I'd never have taken you for the discriminating type.'
Suffice it to say that good ol' Minny had never bothered recruiting him again.
Harry's lips twitched into an involuntary half-smile at the memory, and that caused Sirius's face to light up like a Merlin damned Yule tree.
While on any other occasion Harry would have appreciated his husband's attempt at a compromise, it didn't change the fact that he had a bad feeling about this mission, and if he'd learned anything at all, it was to always trust his gut.
Sirius must have noticed the direction his thoughts had taken because he released a long sigh and ran an agitated hand through his hair, a horrible habit he'd picked up from him.
"I know you don't want me to go, and now that you've pointed out a few things I've been too thick to realise, I don't fancy walking into a trap myself. But there is no way your parents are going to abandon this mission, and that means I can't abandon them."
Harry looked at him for a long stretch of time, so long that Sirius probably thought that he wouldn't get any answer at all, but then Harry suddenly closed his eyes and gave him an understanding nod.
"Alright then," he said as he opened his eyes, which were once again back to their normal emerald shade. "But if you die, I'll resurrect you just so that I can send you back into the grave."
.
.
.
Sirius had gone on the mission just like he said he would, and it was Death's turn to watch Harry anxiously pace across his living room.
To Death, the solution was rather obvious. If Harry was so worried about his bonded husband, he should simply Apparate over there, and Apparate Sirius out of the death-zone. As far as he was concerned, Harry had gone through the gruesome trouble of branding the Transportation Rune onto his ribcage for precisely such an occasion.
But it was becoming more apparent that Harry wasn't going to rescue his beloved husband, and while Death usually understood Harry's mind better than him, he couldn't quite follow his reasoning on this one.
"I don't get it," Death said with his unique attempt at a conversational tone.
Harry ignored him because he really did not want to have the conversation hurtling his way.
Obviously, Death wasn't deterred by his silence.
"Why don't you just go and get him instead of walking a hole into your floor? Or better yet, why don't you kill off Riddle yourself? You could find a way to do it without drawing attention to yourself. You don't have to go after the Horcruxes. Killing him at this point in time won't alter anything too drastically. You know that."
And there it was, that conversation.'
"Can we please not do this right now?" Harry begged him.
Death tilted his head. "And when do you want to do this? When your husband is dead and gone?"
Harry shot him a glare that would have had lesser beings bearing their neck submissively.
"He's not going to die," Harry growled defensively.
Death sighed and shook his head at his friend's denial. "And now you're back to lying to yourself. I thought you were over that phase of yours. Darling, when Death tells you that your husband is going to die, you believe him," he intoned as if he were talking to a child.
Harry's face went chalk white, not exactly a complexion that did him any favours.
Suddenly it dawned on Death—the reason for Harry's reluctance—and he couldn't quite believe it.
"No," Death gasped, beautiful azure eyes wide behind his hood. "You're not still in love with that wretch, are you?" he asked him, the question coming out as an exasperated groan.
What was it about Tom fucking Riddle that had Harry so damn devoted to him? How is it that he couldn't let him go?
Harry had mourned lovers before, but he always picked himself up. So what was so different about Tom fucking Riddle?
Harry looked like a niffler who'd been caught stealing some precious treasures.
"I- I-" he stuttered, words failing him, and that was all the answer Death really needed.
"Harry," Death said with the patience of a saint. "Sirius is not a David or any other lover you've had. You won't simply be able to apparate away from his corpse and forget about him. Do you remember when you lost Mordred? Do you remember that grief? That's what you're about to face, Harry—years and years of unending grief and guilt. Losing Mordred broke a part of you that you've still not recovered, and I dread the moment you'll lose your Sirius, because I don't know that your heart can take any more pain, not after Tom broke all that was left of you. Don't do this, Harry. Not because you're too cowardly to face the monster your heart still longs for."
He was right. Of course, he was.
That didn't change the fact that he was petrified of facing Tom.
He'd gone through great lengths to seem ordinary to the world—had even gone so far as to place a permanent but mild notice-me-not on himself so that people would dismiss him even if he did somehow slip in his act.
Was staying hidden in his hole really worth losing Sirius?
No. No, it wasn't.
But it was too late.
He'd arrived just in time to watch Bellatrix Lestrange fire the Killing Curse towards his husband.
He was too late to save Sirius. Too late to save himself from a lifetime of misery and grief.
He couldn't move—couldn't tear his eyes away from his husband's falling corpse.
This was it—the moment Death had just warned him about.
He could distantly hear Lily and James screaming, could hear Bellatrix's mad laughter, could hear some of the Death Eaters cheering.
Damn Dumbledore and his manipulations.
Damn Sirius for his loyalty.
Damn Tom for his need for control and power.
Damn himself for being a coward.
The next second all the Death Eaters screamed as they burned up in purple flames.
Sirius was gone. Just like before. Just like Ron, Ginny, Hermoine and Teddy. Just like Mordred and Merlin. Just like so many other people he's loved and lost.
Once all the Death Eaters turned to ashes, Harry turned around and walked away without having uttered a single sound.
He was numb.
He heard his parents shout for him to stop, but he ignored them.
Sirius was dead and his parents would soon follow—and he'd be left alone once more.
It was best to leave. It was best not to witness.
He was done. Once and for all.
He couldn't take any more loss.
But then, before he could leave that tomb, the Dark Lord himself appeared before him in all his temporary immortal glory.
He'd dreamt about the moment when he'd face Tom again. Dreamt about it so often that he'd gone weeks without sleep just to avoid those specific thoughts.
He'd imagined it differently—thought he'd feel more fury and longing—but all he felt was numb, a numbness that threatened to swallow him back into the empty pit he'd only just crawled out of.
Tom's red eyes were assessing him, curious and not at all enraged that he'd just cost him a couple of good Death Eaters. He knew that his appearance would have triggered something in Tom, an itching sense of slipping remembrance.
Harry knew Tom well enough to know that since he'd been blessed with perfect recollection, such a feeling would irritate him to no end. And Tom was smart enough to realise that there was magic in play.
"Harry Black. Sirius Black's bonded, I presume?"
His voice was dark, a silken hiss that would have usually driven Harry mad with need—but all Harry felt was numb.
"I go by many names," he heard himself say with an empty tone that was all too familiar to him.
He was hollow—numb—dead in the only way he could be.
Tom chuckled, and it was probably the only genuine sound of humour he'd released in a very long time.
"I suppose I cannot blame you for my loyal Death Eater's demise. Bellatrix had just murdered your husband," he said conversationally. "But I am rather curious as to how you managed to do it so beautifully, or how you got past my wards, for that matter. I also wonder why I've not heard much of you besides your regrettable nuptials with that blood traitor."
Harry looked at him blankly, his emerald eyes devoid of life, just like his husband's corpse.
"I'm not yours to know about, Tom. That privilege has been lost to you a long time ago," he said, earning him the slight widening of Tom's red eyes.
Before anything else could be said, Harry was gone, together with Sirius' corpse, but not before he'd sent the rest of the order back to their headquarters, including his parents.
They may all die soon, but they would not die today.