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“Tom.”
There was something different in his tone. He glanced over at him, curious, when he saw what Harry was seeing.
At the lakefront, stood two small figures, one dressed in red and another dressed in green. They appeared to be first years.
And the snake was heading straight for them.
“Monty—” breathed Harry, before he tore into a run. He sprinted towards the kids and towards the snake.
“Harry!” shouted Tom. He found himself rushing after Harry, cursing under his breath. “Nagini, come!”
“I was already on my way. You do realize I was warning you so you could stay away from the big mean snake, right? Nestlings. Never have much in their heads.”
He didn’t know what he was doing any more, but he was running after Harry, trying to keep up with him, but Harry was just a touch faster than him. Must be those athletic skills.
“Harry, you stupid—”
But Harry rushed to the kids, grabbing both Monty and Effie by the arm and shoving them back. He was just in time of getting in between them and the attacking snake.
A runespoor.
Tom’s heart leapt into his throat. The runespoor only had one head left. One of the heads- the leftmost one -had been cut off cleanly at the base of the neck, while the middle head appeared to have been bitten off with part of the neck flopping around lifelessly as the runespoor moved across the grounds.
“Stop!” shouted Harry, putting up a hand. “Please, stop, you look hurt. Dear Merlin, what’s happened to you? Listen—listen, I can help you. Please calm down. I know someone who can heal you.”
“Egg stealers!” the runespoor screamed. “Children of thieves! I’ll take from them what they’ve taken from me.”
“I’m not them. I haven’t done anything to hurt you. We haven’t. We don’t even know who hurt you, but I can help you. I know someone who can heal you.”
But the runespoor wasn’t listening. It launched forward, blood spraying through the air. Harry shoved the kids back, both crying out with fright. The runespoor struck, fangs wide, and bit Harry on the forearm.
“Shit!” cried Harry, going down.
Fear was not something Tom ever really felt in his life, except during those months at the orphanage during the blitz. He’d never feared for another’s life though.
Until today.
“Nagini!”
She lunged forward, drawing herself up to her full height, engaging the runespoor, who hissed furiously at her, drawing back briefly.
Tom dropped to Harry’s side, who was struggling to get back on his feet. “Stop, you’ve been bitten—you could be poisoned.”
“Oh, definitely poisoned,” said Harry in a slur. “Shit. Ah, fuck, that hurts. That’s the venomous head, yeah?”
Tom whipped his head back to the children. “Get Professor Scamander! Go!”
Just as Tom turned his head, multiple things happened at once. Nagini screamed. A furious hissing filled the air. And Harry moved, shoving Tom back.
Harry cried out in pain. He pitched forward and Tom caught him in arms, dropping to the ground with him. A new bite was on Harry’s shoulder now.
Blood was pouring out, slick, red, covering Tom’s hands, tainting them with copper warmth. There was no stopping it. The blood of life was pouring out of Harry at a dangerous speed. Everything felt useless. Magic was useless. How to stop it? Make it stop.
“Riddle!”
Tom’s head whipped up. Newt Scamander was sprinting across the grounds with determination on his face. He didn’t pause and ran right in front of the runespoor.
Tom stared in horror, watching Professor Scamander do almost the exact same thing that Harry had just done. He couldn’t bear to see the same scene play out in front of him, but he was paralyzed, helpless to stop it.
“Sir-” he choked out, but the man held up a hand to silence him, his gaze never wavering from the snake. Tom noticed how he stood with an almost unnatural stillness; in a way that was practiced. He’d seen it in class before, too, it was clearly a skill the man had honed to perfection. He moved with the creatures he looked after, matching their body language to get across his intentions to them, even without verbally communicating. There was an awful tension in the air as the two stared each other down. Whoever struck first would surely be victorious. The runespoor was still hissing and cursing, vowing to disembowel all three of them if it was the last thing she did. She was utterly deranged, but even still Professor Scammander was steady, waiting.
Faster than Tom could blink, the runespoor struck out, aiming for the man’s neck like she had with Harry. Tom flinched back, seeing a splatter of blood. There was a cry caught in his throat.
Before he could even register what had happened, Professor Scamander dropped the snake on the ground, where she landed with a heavy thud, and he stepped over her, rushing to Harry. Blinking stupidly, Tom realized what had just transpired.
Professor Scamander had caught the runespoor bare handed, and cut her throat with his other hand, (either with a spell or a knife, Tom didn’t know) ending her suffering before she could sink her fangs into him. She wouldn’t have even felt it. He let out a shuddering gasp, unable to process it all at once.
“Riddle!” The professor’s voice rang out with authority and Tom jumped to obey, before he’d even heard an order to follow. He felt so overwhelmed, so out of sorts in the worst possible way, that he desperately wanted someone else to take charge. Take control of this out-of-control situation and take care of everything. For once, Tom wanted someone else to take the lead, to tell him what to do and how to handle this.
The last time he’d felt so out of his depth had been when Grindelwald attacked.
Professor Scamander had gathered Harry up off of the ground, drawing his wand and producing a patronus. “Horace, a student has been bitten by a runespoor, meet me in the antichamber in the Great Hall immediately, we have less than an hour to create an antivenom.” The great silver thunderbird soared off at once towards the castle. He flicked his wand again and the body of the snake was bundled up in fabric, a handkerchief that flew from Scamander’s pocket and enlarged itself. “Tom, grab the runespoor and follow me, quickly,” the man commanded. Tom numbly hurried to do as he was told, although touching the dead snake even indirectly made bile rise up in his throat.
Tom was carrying death in his hands. Harry’s death.
He focused on running after his professor, actually struggling to keep up. They reached the Great Hall at the same time as Professor Slughorn, who was carrying a potions kit under his arm.
“Here, quickly!” their Head of House said, pushing together some stray desks for Professor Scamander to put Harry down on.
“Harry, stay awake, do you understand me?” the magizoologist said firmly, as if telling a child to stay in their room for a time out. “I need you to stay awake, just hold on for me a little longer. Tom-” he reached out to Tom, barely looking at him as he took the dead runespoor from his hands and pulled him over to Harry “-put pressure here, hold off the bleeding, and try to talk to Harry to keep him focused. Can you do that for me?”
Tom was in too much shock to answer, numbly putting his shaking hands over Harry’s wound. Professor Scamander gripped his shoulder a little tighter, jarring him slightly.
“Tom, do you understand me? Can you do this?”
Tom nodded frantically. “Pressure on the wound, keep talking to him, y’sir.”
Another affirming squeeze. “Good lad.”
At once the two men were at work at another set of desks pushed together, getting venom from the dead snake and preparing a potion base. They worked quickly, with practiced ease. Tom tried to keep focused on his task, pressing down on the bleeding wound. He couldn’t stand the feel of Harry’s blood on his skin, and barely kept himself from throwing up.
“Harry?” he asked with urgency, remembering the second half of his task. Harry’s green eyes were glassy, and his face was pale except for two bright red blotches on his cheeks. “Harry? Can you hear me? You need to stay awake; the professors are going to get you an antivenom but you need to stay awake!”
Sweat poured from Harry’s temples. He grimaced under the pain, mouth twisted open in a low sound of agony.
“Come on, Harry,” said Tom, breathless with some kind of emotion he couldn’t identify. “Don’t you want to know what happened to the kids? You have to stay awake, all right? Stay awake.”
“Nagini…”
Tom’s breath caught in his throat. Harry’s voice was weak, barely above a whisper. “Yes, Harry, Nagini is fine. She helped hold the runespoor off.”
“It’s her… shit.”
The light in Harry’s eyes seemed distant. He groaned, growing more pale by the second. He shifted on the desks; the blood slicked beneath Tom’s hands.
“Harry, stop, stay awake. Don’t--”
Harry’s eyes popped open, fear bright within those glassy green eyes. “We have to go-we have to get out of here. I should’ve known--stupid--Hermione--”
Harry screamed.
Tom lurched closer, hands still trying to hold over the wound on his shoulder. He leaned over, strangely at a loss for the first time in his life. Harry’s eyes locked with Tom’s and without entirely meaning to, Tom slipped through.
The images were flashes; the emotions were all consuming. Tom couldn’t breathe and he couldn’t escape; he was locked within Harry’s mind.
A snake lunged at Tom so fast he couldn’t tell what it was, but it was enormous. It pinned him to the floor, heavy and powerful. ‘No!’ It was Harry’s voice.
‘Yes… yes… hold you… hold you.’
‘Accio--Accio wand!’
Pain surged through him, in his head, in his scar - Harry’s scar.
‘He’s coming! Hermione, he’s coming!’
The images were blurred, but the fear was palpable. The urgency and the terror to get away from the snake because her master was coming. They had to go. Get out. Or all would be lost. They could not be caught by him.
The pain twisted and new images flooded through Tom. He was stepping inside a gated yard in front of a little cottage, walking towards the door, lifting a strange wand.
The door burst open.
A man sprinted towards him.
How foolish.
‘It’s him. Lily, take Harry and go!’
The wand lifted. A flash of green light and the man crumpled to the ground. Tom hadn’t seen death like this, not like this. He’d known of the killing curse, knew he could use it whenever he wanted to, but he’d never seen it used on someone defenseless like this.
Without his wand.
But he couldn’t break himself out of the vision. No matter how hard he tried.
And he was walking through the house again, walking up the stairs, blasting open the door to the nursery. There was a flare of red hair as the woman whirled around, facing him, her arms held out protectively.
‘Not Harry, please not Harry!’
‘Stand aside, silly girl.’
The woman begged over and over again for her child and yet her pleas were denied. In a flash of green, she fell, too. Tom stepped over her body and stood in front of the crib, where a baby looked up at him with bright green eyes.
That’s Harry--HARRY!
A wand raised, pointing at the child’s forehead.
No!
‘Avada Kedavra!’
Tom was wrenched from the vision. What it truly was, he didn’t know. Hands were on him, steadying him.
“Tom? Tom, what’s going on? Are you all right?”
He shook his head. He stumbled back, his body and mind too wrapped up in the pain and emotions that he’d felt firsthand within Harry’s mind. Tom barely had a moment to connect gazes with Professor Scamander, when he doubled over. Professor Scamander was fast, conjuring a bucket in time for Tom to throw up in.
“Well, aren’t we all just a mess today,” murmured the man. “Are you with me, Tom?”
“S-sir,” Tom gasped. “What’s Harry seeing? Is he hallucinating?” How else could Harry see such memories that clearly weren’t his? Couldn’t be his?
“Bad memories,” the man explained, holding Tom steady. Memories? “Runespoor venom has a tendency to trigger them, particularly if there are any similar to the runespoor’s attack, like if you’ve been bitten by a snake before, or were attacked by some other creature. There are no hallucinogenic properties to it, though, so unfortunately whatever Evans is reliving at the moment isn’t new to him.”
“How?” Tom whispered to himself as Professor Scamander sat him down in a chair and then went back to work over Harry. Tom watched in a daze, his mind trying to put together puzzle pieces that fit but didn’t match.
Nagini appeared, slithering up onto Tom’s lap, winding herself up over his shoulders. Her weight was grounding, and familiar to Tom. It helped him steady himself.
Professor Scamander removed Harry’s shirt, cleaning the wounds with practiced hands, murmuring the correct healing charms to stitch the skin back together. It wasn’t easy going- the venom wouldn’t let them hold for long.
“Here-” said Professor Slughorn, coming over quickly with a small dish, steam still rising from the potion inside. Professor Scamander lifted Harry’s upper body, sitting him up with his head tipped back. Harry was still sweating, crying out with pain, but the man held him firmly, murmuring hushed words of comfort.
“Come on, Harry, just hold on for me…. Swallow this…. There you go, there’s a good lad…”
As soon as they’d emptied the potion down his throat, Harry began to relax, the lines of pain in his face fading away. Professor Scamander laid him back down and finished dressing his wounds, which would now hold shut more firmly.
“Haven’t got any blood replenishing potions with me,” Professor Slughorn said, seeming out of breath. “We’ll have to take him up to the Hospital Wing for that.”
“Give him a moment,” Professor Scamander said softly. “Let him lay still while the antivenom finishes working. He’s stable, now, at least.”
“What I want to know is what the devil a runespoor is doing here! They’re native to Africa!” said Professor Slughorn. “Scamander, you wouldn’t happen to be responsible-?”
“Of course not!” the man snapped back, his gaze sharp. He stopped himself, taking a deep breath. “I’m sorry- I understand why you would ask. No, she’s here thanks to black market poachers, no doubt.”
“Poachers?” Tom asked softly, barely finding his voice. Both men turned to acknowledge him, then looked at the remains of the snake on the other desks. She was a very sorry sight, and Tom felt the urge to throw up again, still hearing her deranged screams in his head.
“I’ve seen it before,” Professor Scamander continued, clear pain in his voice. “They’re popular these days as pets for those who fancy themselves Dark Wizards. They’re intimidating; people are superstitious enough about regular snakes, let alone magical ones. Basilisks are too dangerous, but runespoors are much easier to keep in comparison.
“I’m sure you know, Horace, how valued their eggs are as well, for certain potions. This one, she was used for breeding eggs, likely until her esophagus collapsed. After she couldn’t spit up anymore, they cut off her head, here,” he traced a finger over the clean cut on the neck on the far side of her body. “They salvage whatever eggs are left in the throat, and after that she will produce no more, so they throw her out into the wild to slowly die.
“In this case the middle and right heads were the ones left to die- the middle one is what’s called the dreamer, while the right one is the critical, aggressive one. The third is the logical one, the one who plans and directs them, but without that head, the other two had no hope of surviving. The middle head was bitten off, either by the right one out of frustration or another predator,” he traced his finger over the jagged flesh of the middle neck. “And the third is left alone, traumatized and thousands of miles away from her natural habitat. Even disregarding her wounds there would be no way for her to survive.”
“You killed her out of mercy, then?” Tom asked, staring at the gash in the throat of the last head.
“Partly,” Professor Scamander said. “There was also no way to get you and Evans to safety without her attacking. I did it as quickly and cleanly as I could, so she wouldn’t suffer.”
“A noble act indeed,” Professor Slughorn said grimly. “Poor thing… It’s incredibly lucky that you were there to help.”
Newt was re-wrapping the body of the snake. His movements were gentle and reverent- he didn’t show disgust or disdain for the creature. He seemed somewhat sorrowful.
“A student, Rubeus Hagrid, told me that he’d seen what he thought was runespoor blood near the edge of the forest. I was out on the grounds to investigate and no sooner had I confirmed that it was runespoor blood than a pair of first years had come running up, telling me that Evans had been bitten trying to shield them from a large snake.”
Tom was barely listening; he could hardly hear them speaking over the sound of blood rushing in his ears. Salazar- If Professor Scamander hadn’t been nearby….
He couldn’t stand to think of it.
Harry started to stir again, and all three of them turned their attention back to him. Tom felt the urge to rush up, grab him by the shoulders and make sure he was really okay. But he was frozen in place, and just watched as their professors tended to him.
“Gave us quite the scare, Mr. Evans,” Professor Slughorn said, trying to keep his tone light.
“Easy,” said Professor Scamander as he helped Harry sit back up. “Let’s get you upstairs to the Hospital Wing.”
“Is everyone okay?” Harry croaked, looking around.
“No one was hurt but you,” Professor Scamander said with some chagrin. Harry’s gaze found Tom and locked on to him, seeming relieved. Tom couldn’t share in that relief- he was still too shaken by the experience.
((They can make a chair into a ‘wheelchair’, Newt asks Tom to push it to give him something to do and to let him lean his weight on something in case he’s still lightheaded. Chair can be floated up the stairs. Harry gets treated for blood loss, Newt insists that Tom is treated for shock and Slughorn agrees. Euphie and Monty are around, making sure that Harry is okay, asking about him talking to the runespoor.))
“Are you sure you don’t want to go back to your dorm?” asked Scamander.
Tom shook his head. “A night in the hospital wing will do me good, professor.” He tried to be convincing, but from the look on Scamander's face he knew the man didn’t believe he needed to be here for health reasons. There was a quick glance between Tom and Harry. Scamander put a hand onto his shoulder. Warmth entered Tom’s chest, but from where, he didn’t understand.
“Be there for him.”
Scamander left the room. Tom’s mouth had gone dry. He could still feel the weight of the man’s touch against his flesh. He was trembling and he couldn’t control it. He gritted his teeth and clenched his hands together in his lap.
“Tom…”
“What were you thinking?” whispered Tom.
Harry grimaced. “I couldn’t let it hurt Monty and Effie.”
“It’s not your job to protect them—”
“The hell it isn’t!” snapped Harry. “Look, I know I got hurt, but it could’ve killed them. Better me than them.”
Tom stared at him, shaking. This lack of self preservation wasn’t a Slytherin trait. He’d seen enough in Harry to know he had plenty of Slytherin qualities, but there was this awful, terrible self sacrificing side to Harry that Tom needed to crush out of him. He was going to get himself killed at this rate.
“I suppose it’s something we’ll work on,” said Tom, more to himself than he realized. “This self sacrificing nature of yours needs to stop at once.”
Harry laughed. “Tom… This is me. I’ve been told before that I have a… people saving thing.”
Tom stood and slammed his hands at either side of Harry’s head. Harry blinked, eyes widening. Tom hovered over him, fury rushing through every part of his body. He didn’t know what to say completely or how to voice everything he was feeling. It was a mixture of too many things.
“Tom?”
“I saw something.”
“Saw… something?”
“In your mind.”
The blood drained from Harry’s complexion. “Wh-what?” His Adam’s apple bobbed. “Saw what?”
“Why do you have a memory that isn’t your own? Where did it come from? Who planted it in your head?”
It seemed too real to be fake. The feelings within the memory had been true and powerful. If Harry hadn’t told him that he’d lost his parents when he’d been a baby, Tom would’ve dismissed the memory as fake. But it matched with Harry’s story. Almost too well. Almost as if…
The memory… was the murderer’s memory.
“How did you obtain the memory of your parents murder?” whispered Tom. “From the murderer himself? Grindelwald?”
Harry’s skin was sickly. The fear in his eyes was too strong. If he’d been strong enough, Tom knew he’d be bolting away somehow. Harry would fight back, until certain pressure points were pushed.
He’d found one.
“I…” Harry gasped, chest expanding as if he were drowning for air. “I can’t—” He gasped for breath again. He shook his head, squeezing his eyes shut. “I can’t, Tom. Don’t make me.”
“Why would Grindelwald give you this memory? To torture you?” asked Tom, his voice soft.
Harry turned his head to the side. His lips were thin, pressed tightly together. Tom could feel his fear, the terror of being forced to tell his secrets against his will. Tom could do it. He could pry Harry’s eyes open. He could whisper the spell. He could dive into his mind, rip the answers he so desperately wanted right from his weakened grip.
Tom’s hand slipped downward. It lightly brushed against Harry’s forehead, fingers carding through the damp fringe. His hand touched the beginning of the scar that was splayed across part of his forehead. Harry’s eyes opened at the touch; they glanced over at him, a glimmer of an unknown emotion within them.
“Get some rest,” whispered Tom.
He withdrew to the other bed. He didn’t look back at Harry as he slipped beneath the covers and turned onto his side. There was a long pause.
“I’ll tell you someday.”
Harry’s voice was soft, almost broken.
“I’ll wait for that day.”
And he meant it.