Chapter Text
Standing still like a wraith, silent and invisible, Harry Potter watches the ministry flow around him.
The constant chatter buzzes in his ear incessantly.
He breathes through the adrenaline and tries to stop the shaking in his hands.
This is a turning point. He will never be able to take this back. Whatever happens here today will shape the rest of his life. He could die. He could get everything he’s ever wished for, but the price for that is so steep he feels like he’s standing on the edge of a cliff overlooking his doom, overlooking hell itself. Damnation.
Harry has never considered himself the most moral person in this world. He’s done things that haunt him. He’s rejected religion and the concept of black and white, right and wrong. He lives in the gray area, he always has. But does this tip him to the other side? Does his soul turn black the moment he takes the first step forward?
Everytime he closes his eyes all he can see is Nick's face. His cold dead face, pale and cold to the touch. Even Harry cannot bring him back.
This is a gamble.
If his plan does not work he has wasted Nick’s life for his own damnation.
Is the risk worth the reward?
He spent days agonizing over it, choices, choices.
He takes his first step,
Death clinging to his coat tails.
Moving through the atrium without being noticed is the easy part. He pays no mind to the familiar faces or the occasional close calls. He has a plan. The plan will work.
As Harry moves deeper into the Ministry his steps become more sure, his gait more confident, and his mind more clear.
As Harry passes Bellatrix Lestrange he feels his heart yank in his chest, like someone is forcibly pulling him closer and closer to the end of the hall. The nearer he treks the less people he begins to see.
His heart falls still as he does at a door so familiar it's as if he’d dreamt of it his entire life.
He finds himself opening the door in a daze and stepping inside.
-
Tom had known Harry Potter would be something to behold.
The boy had always had a presence, even in his mind, in his dreams, and in his emotions.
He hadn't expected the power, however.
Tom has had powerful men and women pushed onto him for years now, bowing and begging for an ounce of approval, of acknowledgment. No one had been up to par.
Until now.
Harry walked into the room like death himself, Tom’s worst nightmare and most infuriating obsession, his hair sticking up like he’d been electrocuted, his eyes aglow with killing curse green, his skin as pale as a corpse, his brow furrowed with something dangerous. Plans and choices. Damnation and cruelty. Like a god of old. This boy knew something he should not.
Shadows clung to his skin like armor.
“Found you.” Harry smiled and Tom felt the axis of his world shift.
-
“Of course you have, Harry” Tom took a step forward and smiled “do we not share a soul?” he chuckled “we would always find eachother, in this life or the next, it would not matter”
“You make it sound so…intimate” Harry shakes his head.
“Is it not?”
“Perhaps” silence ebbs and flows and Harry fills it by puzzling at the odd feeling in his chest. Like his soul is alight. Like he needs to be closer. Like he needs to never leave. Like the beginning of a dependency.
How tragic.
“Did you enjoy my letter, Harry?” Tom watches him with a look so curious and wholly transfixed that Harry knows Tom feels it too. The tie between their souls that rings louder the closer they become.
“I guess that's one way to put it”
“You did not?” Tom tilts his head and Harry remembers that this man is a murdering psychopath with no mercy for anyone but himself. A chill travels down his spine and he remembers he has plans, he's here for a reason.
“Have you harmed him?” Harry asks and doesnt know which answer he would prefer more.
“Would you like me too?” Tom smirks and watches Harry like he wants to pick him apart to figure out how he ticks “because i will if you only ask”
“You’re very good at avoiding questions, Riddle.”
“Call me Tom”
“Tom, then.”
“I have not harmed your little boyfriend, however he did come to me rather damaged already.” Tom shrugs and leans back against his desk.
“What has he told you?” Harry braces for the impact but it hits him just the same.
“Everything we would need, I imagine.” Tom laughs like he has not a care in the world “he's told me where your guardians live, where all your friends could be found, he’s even told me your fears. The easiest ways to break you.” Tom grins and Harry knows he’s looking into the eyes of Lucifer himself. The devil hidden beneath the visage of beauty. The most dangerous weapon of all.
“How do you know he hasn't fed you lies?”
“Oh how I wish he had, my soul.” Tom smiles now but it's gentle in a way that is infinitely more terrifying than his cruelty.
“I haven't come here for your pity.” Harry scoffs “don't degrade me in such a way again unless you wish for me to leave and never return.”
“You think the threat of you leaving will affect me? Have you forgotten why you are here? I am the one with the power Harry Potter, it is not my lover in your cellar.” Tom shakes his head disappointed “and i had thought you intelligent”
“You forget something too, Tom” Harry smiles and it is so cruel it cuts just to look at “I know you down to your very shredded, blackened soul, and I have felt your boredom eat away at you for years.”
“And what of it”
“Do I bore you, Tom?” Harry asks with a knowing look in his eyes.
Silence reigns for a long time, until Tom starts shaking and very quietly Harry begins to hear him laugh. A shocked, true, and genuine laugh. It's so human that it startles. Tom’s face lights up and Harry tries to catch his breath from the beauty of it.
“You play with fire, Harry Potter”
“As do you, Tom Riddle.”
“Very well.” Tom calms his laughter and looks Harry in his eyes “you want something, yes?”
“Yes, why else would I be here?”
“Ouch.” Tom places an offended hand over his chest and smirks down at Harry playfully.
“I hadn't expected a sense of humor”
“And I thought you knew me down to my, how had you put it? My shredded blackened soul?”
“Bugger off.”
“No, i don't think i will”
“How disappointing,” Harry sighs.
“You want Nick, yes?”
“In a sense.”
“And that is?”
“I want him dead, do that for me and I will swear an unbreakable vow to never harm you, should you vow the same.”
“Oh how you know me, Lord Potter.” Tom smiles down at him and extends his hand.
Harry seals his fate with a handshake and as he feels his binds to Tom strengthen he steels himself to the future and reassures himself that this will work. Nick will not have to worry about any of Harry’s enemies ever again after this. He will be able to be normal once more, no matter his sins against Harry, Nick was never meant to be in this world. He was supposed to be safe and oblivious and bittersweet. He was not meant to die, but if that is the price to pay, Harry will pay it. All he has to do is make sure he doesnt stay dead long.
A deal with the Devil and a deal with Death, Harry lets go of Tom’s hand knowing nothing will ever be the same again.