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Tom Riddle stood alone in the grass, waiting.
He’d been standing for a few hours and could feel his bones aching, but he refused to sit down. Just one distraction and he could miss it. The items of his ritual sat before him, organised to perfection, each ingredient serving a vital purpose. Everything was ready, and now all he could do was wait.
No longer would he feel this pain in his chest, no longer would he stand alone. Soon, Harry would be at his side once again.
He could not find the words to describe the loathing he felt for himself when he realised that it was his fault. That it was his wand that drained the life force from his Harry, and that it was him that started the petty argument that would lead to Harry’s untimely demise. He realised now that the other boy had only been protecting Tom, and in return he had murdered him.
Because that’s what it was. Murder.
Tom was not shocked over the fact that he had killed. He knew that sooner or later his control would slip, and he would end the life of another. But never had he thought it would be Harry. He had promised that he would never harm the other teenager, and he had intended to keep that promise - for he did not make promises often, but when he did, he made sure they were fulfilled.
He knew that Harry wouldn’t blame him, that it was irrational to fear that he would. Because Harry had always been too forgiving for his own good, even when they were children. Tom and the other children were harsh to him - Harry was another kind of Different, and the others didn’t like Different. Tom was mean because he saw Harry as a threat; he had enjoyed the power he held over the inhabitants of the orphanage, he relished in their fear. But Harry never feared him. He would stay impossibly still and blank-faced when Tom - or anyone - insulted him, displaying nothing but an unbothered calmness on his face as he stared at the bully with those green eyes of his.
Tom had waited back then, too, but Harry never used his Different abilities on the others. He used it to clean his clothes, or to repair them when they ripped as he was pushed, or he would use it to conjure glasses as his vision slowly deteriorated. In all meaning of the word, him and Tom were opposites.
Except that they were the same.
Tom had soon decided that the boy was not a threat, and instead a useful ally and companion. So he proposed a friendship with Harry.
And Harry declined.
Tom remembered being so shocked that someone had denied him, so angry that this boy had dared defy him. He also remembered feeling an aching sense of rejection, of sadness that the first person he had ever reached out to without ill-intent had turned him away. But then Harry had told him that he was already Tom’s friend, Tom just hadn’t known it yet. This offended Tom, because he knew everything , and he told Harry so.
Harry laughed.
Though it didn’t sound cruel nor mocking, only fond and happy. He told Tom that of course he knew everything, and he was the smartest boy Harry had ever met.
Harry knew how to get on Tom’s good side.
Tom soon learned that Harry knew how to get on everyone’s good side. Harry was incredibly charming when he had wanted to be, and was capable of getting what he wanted when ever he wanted. He didn’t let this get in the way of working to obtain his desires, however. Harry despised how easy it was to fool people into doing his bidding, and so he hardly ever used his gift. He was dedicated to paving his own way in the world, alongside Tom.
Tom had always admired Harry for his ability to ignore temptation.
Tom had always admired Harry.
All he needed was time, enough time to tell Harry that he admired him, enough time to tell Harry that he was sorry, and that he loved him.
This thought sent him crashing back to reality, where he stood waiting in the field. The grass was long, nearly to his thigh, and it brushed against the material of his slacks lightly, small fingers caressing the fabric. A circle of flattened grass held the ritual, and he continued to wait.
He waited, waited, waited.
Until a startling flash of brilliant light shot across the sky, and his waiting was over.
It was time.
He spoke the words of a language long forgotten, sprinkled the ashes of his fallen friend over the ritual, and shed his blood in the small bowl at his feet. Soon Harry would be with him.
He finished the incantation, and waved his wand in the lightning bolt shape that was mocking of the movement for the killing curse. Where the Avada Kedavra spell’s bolt veered to the right, this ritual required the opposite. Life and death. Left and right. Opposite sides of the same coin.
“...Tom?”
A shimmering, gradually appearing boy materialised within the circle of flattened greenery, seeming to phase in and out of existence like a flickering muggle light bulb. A boy with messy black hair and shocking green eyes - even in death, they were abnormally bright. A boy too small to be healthy from years of malnutrition and mistreatment, a boy who didn’t fear Tom Riddle.
A boy who owned Tom’s heart.
“Harry…” he gasped.
He knew that he could not enter the ritual circle, or else Harry would fade away once again, but Tom was seriously starting to question his own self-control.
Harry looked down at the many illegal ingredients of the ritual around him, as well as Tom’s own blood.
“Merlin, Tom! What did you do ?” he shook his head in exasperation, and Tom knew that it was not a question to be answered. But the question sounded like so much more to Tom. What had he done…
“Hey, I’m here now. Don’t mope.” Harry demanded, recognising Tom’s expression and picking up on his mood instantly, as if he could read his mind.
“I’m not moping,” Tom insisted, and Harry grinned; the expression was so full of life that Tom wondered how on earth it was that he was dead.
But he knew how, and he knew why. Tom killed him.
“I’m so sorry, Harry,” he choked out, and wasn’t ashamed to let out the tears he’d been holding back since the funeral. He’d felt like crying every hour of every day that Harry had been gone, but he still had a reputation to uphold, and so he locked the emotions away for a later date. Now, however, they all came crashing back at once, the stifling waves of remorse and grief almost drowning him.
Harry smiled sadly, and reached out, though he knew they couldn’t touch. Tom reached out too, both their hands stopping just inches away from each other.
“I know, Tom. I know. And I forgive you.” he whispered, but the words only made Tom sob harder.
“You’re too forgiving, Harry. Any one of these days, someone’s going to take advantage of you.” Tom told him, voice hoarse, repeating the words he’d said in their first year of Hogwarts after Malfoy had apologised for taking his glasses. Harry had forgiven him then, and he was forgiving Tom now.
Harry smiled again, and huffed a small laugh that sounded strangled and mid-way between a cry. “I miss you, Tom.” he said, voice strained and full of longing.
Tom tried a watery smile, tears streaming down his cheeks, the skin seeming to be a papery white in the pale moonlight.
“I miss you too, Harry.” he replied in a cracked whisper.
They stood in silence, standing so close yet feeling so far away from each other, and they were. Harry wasn’t even here. It was his consciousness, extracted from Harry’s resting soul and delivered here tonight so that Tom could say what had to be said - what they never got a chance to say.
“Harry, I-” he stopped, cleared his throat, and averted his gaze down to the floor. “I love you.”
Harry smiled again, his green eyes filled with happiness, and Tom had to look up at him again. “I love you, Tom.” he murmured back.
Tom’s heart soared, and then plummeted yet again. What did it matter if Harry loved him, if he can’t be here to show Tom? If he can’t reach out and touch him with real hands, and warm skin, alive with the blood pumping through his veins.
That could never happen.
Harry seemed to know what Tom was thinking, but he didn’t comment on it. “How long do I have?” he asked instead.
Tom looked up to the stars, then down to the book resting at the edge of the circle. “Until the next comet. Which should be roughly about a minute.” he replied, and the realisation that Harry would go soon caused a choking panic to creep into his throat, and he found himself wanting so bad to hug his Harry, to kiss him, to touch him, one last time before he was alone again.
Harry’s eyes held a helpless concern as Tom gasped in his breaths, unable to take in enough oxygen for his scattered brain to be sated. Harry sat, cross-legged on his side of the circle, and Tom knew he was to do the same.
“Breathe.” Harry whispered. “Slowly. In, out. In through your nose, out through your mouth.” he instructed, and Tom complied. This wasn’t his first panic attack since Harry’s death, and he wasn’t foolish enough to believe it would be his last. Tom tried to get a hold of himself as quickly as possible, so as not to waste his limited time with Harry on stupid reasons such as emotions.
“I don’t want you to leave,” he choked out, and Harry grimaced slightly.
“Me neither,” he admitted.
They sat in silence, waiting for their time to be up. They had nothing left to say. Anything of importance had already been spoken of, and so they used this time to bask in the presence of the other, Tom still trying desperately to get a hold on his breathing. His plans of immortality seemed pointless now that he had no one to share it with. He’d rather die, and be with his Harry.
“I hate not being able to touch you.” Harry huffed, his ghostly hands reaching toward him slightly before pulling back again. Tom nodded sullenly. “You know what? I don’t care.” Harry nearly shouted. Tom watched in surprise as Harry leaned forward, the top half of his body completely out of the circle, and kissed Tom right on the mouth.
It was… strange. Tom had expected Harry to go right through him, but he hadn’t. He could feel the others’ skin on his, the cold wispy hands holding his face, the soft mouth on his own. But it also felt like Harry was flickering in and out of this world, his body not quite solid but still there, still touchable…
And then he was gone.
Tom didn’t think he’d ever be able to smile again.