Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Harry spat a glob of blood. It landed on the dirt and expanded, popping like a bubble. The air around him was electric, his hair standing up on end as if he’d been struck by lightning.

“Something’s gone wrong,” he croaked, licking his lips to rewet them as the cold wind stung his cheeks. Nausea swam through him. Harry dry heaved, vision swaying. Hermione was screaming for him somewhere, but he couldn’t make sense of where her voice was coming from or how far away it was. All he could see was Voldemort’s hazy silhouette, slowly approaching him through the cloud of dust and snow.

“Don’t hurt her,” he pleaded weakly. “Just let her go. It’s me you want.” 

Voldemort emerged from the plume, slowly stalking towards Harry and the Machine. The Dark Lord’s expression told him everything.

“How foolish you are, Harry Potter.” He shook his head, laughing deeply. Harry’s stomach churned. There was an almost imperceivable heat around his midsection. His ears were beginning to ring. Something was tugging at him, grasping, pulling. Voldemort stopped just shy of the Machine, his shadow blanketing Harry’s trapped form.

“What is this… thing you’ve trapped yourself in, my horcrux? Cease this foolishness at once.”

Cold hands gripped his shoulders and began to tug. Harry thrashed against the man’s touch, slamming his mouth into the crook of Voldemort’s neck and biting down. The Dark Lord cursed and tried to yank back, but before either of them could react, the Machine reached out and wrapped its metal wires around him, pinning him in place. Harry let out a wet, gurgling cackle. Maybe this was the way to victory. The Death Eaters would be disoriented and confused without their great leader. Let them scramble to find him.

The heat was building, burning up his oesophagus, spreading out through his lungs. The earth began to shake, screams echoing from the surrounding woodlands.

“Stop—stop this at once!” Voldemort tried to wriggle free, but the damage was done. Harry shook his head as the ground began to crack open below them.

“It’s too late, Voldemort. The Machine can’t be stopped.” The Dark Lord’s pale skin was hot like fire under his cheek. It started to melt away as the world around them crumbled. Pieces of the sky fell and shattered against the writhing earth.

“C’mon then, you old bastard. Let’s do it all over again!”

Voldemort screamed. The Machine creaked and groaned. Harry let his eyes slowly slip shut.

Chapter Text

Tom Riddle’s flesh was porcelain.

His eyes were hooded and dark, with irises so black that they seemed almost beyond life and living, such to a point that he appeared more like a ghost than a man. He was tall and lanky but elegant and sturdy—he was somehow simultaneously too much and too little—a conundrum that made him appear entirely too inhuman to possibly be so charming.

He was sitting in a chair, one arm draped over the back of it and the other clutching a book supremely close to his face. Whatever the old tome was about, he appeared so entranced by it that the rest of the world could have disappeared out from under him and he would’ve been none the wiser. Opposite him sat three Slytherin girls who were whispering very excitedly to each other and glancing towards him every few seconds, hoping that he would suddenly spark up an interest in them.

And, several chairs to the left of them sat a single, lone Gryffindor.

Fleamont supposed it must have been something he did as a child. He had been rambunctious and malevolent and had given his mother one too many kicks to the shin. Yes, that was it. He had built up enough bad karma to kill a small cow. This situation couldn’t be anything other than cosmic intervention.

Tom Riddle shifted slightly. The three girls gasped. He let out a breath and turned the page. The girls simpered and whispered quietly about what they’d like from him. Their words were hushed, but not hushed enough. Fleamont could hear every word.

Brilliant, he thought to himself, sighing through his teeth as he tried and failed to focus on completing his Arithmancy essay due the next day. Riddle licked his thumb and used it to turn the page. One of the girls let out a short, sharp squeak. Fleamont thought he might just toss himself off the Astronomy Tower. Death would be preferable to sitting three chairs away from the trio of lovesick admirers.

And Tom Riddle.

Three Slytherin girls and Tom Bloody Riddle.

Fleamont took another cautious peek at the prefect, who hadn’t moved an inch, save for his eyes glancing across the old, worn parchment. Fleamont’s fingers twitched. He quickly looked away.

Arithmancy. He had to focus on Arithmancy.

Riddle let out another soft sigh. The girls swooned.

The Arithmancy book blurred around the edges, complex symbols and numbers going cross-wired in his head as Riddle made a few more slight movements, and the girls nearly came in their knickers. He thought he was going to lose it—surely one man could only take so much? 

Riddle’s book slammed shut. Fleamont couldn’t help but turn his head, eyes wide as he followed the other boy’s figure with his gaze. In three quick movements, Riddle stood, threw his satchel over his shoulder, and strode away. The girls sighed longingly.

Fleamont let out a relieved breath and turned back to his essay. Now that the distraction was gone he would be able to focus. He assumed the Slytherins would do the same, but instead they began loudly discussing every molecule of Tom Riddle’s perfect face. As quickly as he settled, Fleamont stood and began packing his things. The Slytherin girls didn’t even notice as he slung his satchel over his shoulder and quickly escaped the library, grumbling obscenities under his breath. He would write in the common room, or maybe an abandoned classroom. Anywhere was good, so long as it didn’t have more handsome Slytherin prefects in it.

“Potter.” Fleamont nearly jumped out of his skin as Tom Riddle materialised from the shadows of an alcove. “I’d like to speak with you.”

There was an uncomfortable beat of silence.

“Right,” he muttered, jerkily shifting from foot to foot. “Brilliant—yeah, sure, Riddle.”

“Into the hall, Potter, if you would,” the prefect muttered, ushering him down a conjoining corridor from the library. Fleamont marched mechanically, his feet moving as slowly as he could manage as he searched through his memory for something he had done wrong. Was it because of what he called Dolohov the other day? The crazy bint deserved it, in his opinion, and Riddle wasn’t exactly chivalrous enough to get on another bloke for saying a mean word. No, that couldn’t be it, so what—

Stony-faced and impractically insipid, Tom Riddle grabbed Fleamont by the collar of his robes and dragged him around a corner, yanking him along like an improperly shaped trunk while Fleamont staggered to keep up. Arms waving wildly, he cursed, trying to grasp onto the corner of a wall to halt Riddle’s unyielding march. His fingers slipped from the stone like it was made of oil.

“Wh—ompf!”

Riddle shoved him into a shadowy alcove. Fleamont's back slammed against the cold wall as the prefect got up within an inch of his face and just… stared. Fleamont blinked erratically, craning his head back further against the stone to create distance. They were standing eye to eye—Fleamont hadn’t realized he and Riddle were so close in height—the other boy always held himself quite high, though, he realized, and Fleamont himself had a tendency to slouch, so he supposed—

“Potter.”

Riddle’s voice was heavy and… rough. Callous almost. Fleamont thought he might just piss himself. 

“Have I… uhm, done something wrong, Riddle?” Fleamont chuckled uneasily, squinting through the darkness as Riddle’s breath splashed across his face. The older boy stared down at him, his ghostly skin all but illuminated by the low light of the corridor.

“Harry Potter…” Riddle muttered, his black eyes blending in with the darkness around them. Fleamont blinked in confusion as Riddle raised a hand and delicately lifted the hair off Fleamont’s forehead. He examined the skin carefully, and then scoffed. 

“No scar. How disappointing.”

The prefect abruptly retreated, grumbling vindictive nonsense under his breath as he retrieved his wand from his robes. “It seems your machine was more piteous than I expected. How could it have sent us both here, but only my memories are intact?”

“Uh… what?” Fleamont blinked rapidly, unsure if he was hallucinating or if Riddle had finally gone off the deep end. “What machine?”

Riddle sat back, crossing his arms over his chest as he lowered his chin at Fleamont. They regarded each other silently for a moment, as Fleamont readjusted his ever-frumpled uniform and Riddle sought to burn a hole through it.

“Your name, Potter, what is it?” Riddle snapped his fingers at him. Fleamont blinked.

“We’ve… been classmates for almost seven years, Riddle,” he replied flatly. “And you’ve always called me Potter—you didn’t know my bloody name for that whole time?”

“I know your name, you dunce. ” Riddle pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’ve got to make sure you know your name.”

“What the hell are you on?”

Riddle stared at him for an uncomfortable moment of silence before shaking his head, pocketing the wand.

“Five points from Gryffindor for dress code violation.”

“Wh—”

Before he could blink, Riddle was gone, the clack of his leather shoes echoing through the corridor. Fleamont stood there, frozen, as he tried to wrack his brain for an explanation of what just happened, but nothing occurred to him.

Reaching down, he picked up his satchel from where it had fallen to the floor. Beside it was a second, much older one, the leather grungy and dulled in the low light.

“Oi, Riddle!” he called out, picking up the second satchel as he moved out of the alcove. “You forgot your bloody… ah, hell.”

But the other boy was gone. Fleamont was alone in the corridor, a satchel on each shoulder and an irritated look on his face.

“What a load of shite,” he grunted, kicking the wall half-heartedly.

Chapter Text

Riddle’s satchel was a threadbare, muggle travesty.  

With an old leather strap, several suspicious stains and a half-broken latch, Fleamont was surprised he hadn’t noticed the state of it before. He flipped the ratty thing over in his hands as he sat on his dorm room bed and contemplated what to do. On one hand, Riddle was a prefect and could punish him for stealing if he didn’t clear things up quickly. On the other hand….

Fleamont was a little bit curious.

Tom Riddle, the handsome muggleborn of Slytherin: who exactly was he? There had to be someone beyond his unnatural parlour and alluring eyes. What exactly did he do with his time? How did he have perfect grades despite never really studying? Was he really a muggleborn, or was that some weird front, and he was actually the bastard child of a high-ranking noble?

Fleamont fiddled with the strap for a moment, before ripping the satchel open. The first thing he found was the book Riddle had been reading, as well as a handful of quills and an inkwell. He shoved them all aside and started digging through the shadowy rubbish beneath.

“What do we have here… aha!”

Gleeful, Fleamont withdrew a suspicious black book from the depths of the old satchel. Flipping it open, he was immediately disappointed to find that there weren’t any diary entries or secret ponderings. Every page was blank.

“A shame,” he muttered, grabbing for some of the ink and quill. “I’d have loved to see what he thinks about.”

Sticking out his tongue, Fleamont wrote, “A Gryffindor was here!” across the first page in a long, scrawling text. He tried to make it look like Septimus’ handwriting to throw Riddle off, but it ended up as an odd cross between block letters and a child’s cursive. Fleamont considered that good enough and tossed the book to the side, contented. He shoved another arm in the satchel and started wiggling it around, pulling out another book—it was their Herbology textbook. He lobbed it back in with a sigh.

Glancing back at the journal, he frowned.

The ink’s running a lot. Can you even read that? he wondered, leaning down to squint at the paper. Fleamont almost shat himself when the ink began to move, the drooping letters swirling around like little cyclones, until they smoothed out into a completely new sentence.

Which Gryffindor?

Fleamont slowly reached out and slammed the book shut.

“Not a chance,” he muttered, tossing the likely extremely jinxed journal back into Riddle’s satchel. He had moments of poor judgment every so often—everyone did—but Fleamont wasn’t that foolish. He clipped the satchel shut and tossed it to the end of his bed before flopping back with a disgruntled curse.

What a waste. Is he really just perfect?

Fleamont lay there silently, his pillow puffed up around his ears, muffling the world around him. In the morning, he would take the satchel back to Riddle and explain what happened. Maybe he’d get a few points off for daring to exist near the other man’s belongings, but that would be the end of it. He would wash his hands of the whole affair and call it solved.

The canopy above his bed swayed with the breeze that was coming in from the open window.

Fleamont lay for a moment before letting out a curse.

Okay, so he was a little foolish.

Sitting up, he grabbed the bag and yanked the journal out again. Turning back to the first page, he picked up his quill.

“Who’s asking?” he wrote, eyes squinting suspiciously as the ink shifted around, deliberating. It was strange. He wondered if Riddle had been messing about with charms and managed to create a sentient diary, or if it was just a cheap trick you had to solve to get at his real journal.

A prefect, the journal finally replied. Fleamont quirked a brow.

“Which one? Which house?” he pressed.

Tom Riddle, Slytherin, it replied immediately. Fleamont whistled lowly, impressed by the charm’s thoroughness. Not only did it reply with intelligent responses, but it replicated Riddle’s elegant scrawl remarkably well—not that Fleamont paid attention to that sort of thing.  

So, who is it I’m writing to? the ink pried.

“ Are you a charmed parchment or a cursed object? ” he interrogated instead. The ink seemed to swim experimentally.

It depends on your definition of cursed, it eventually conceded. Fleamont threw up his hands. What was “definition of cursed” even supposed to mean? 

“You’re cursed, then,” he scribbled down jerkily, smacking his lips. “Everything with a curse on it is cursed. That’s the whole point of it being a cursed object. Weren’t you made by a muggleborn prodigy? How didn’t you know that?”

So you’re a pureblooded Gryfindor, the cursed journal bemused. Fleamont pulled back slightly, nose wrinkling at the strangely hostile observation.

“How’d you reckon that?” he wrote back.

Only purebloods point out that Tom Riddle is a muggleborn.

Fleamont didn’t know how to respond to that, so instead he slowly shut the journal and stared at it, frowning. 

“I shouldn’t have done that,” he murmured, rubbing his cheek as he mulled over what to do with the blasted thing. It was a cursed object. He really should take it to a professor, but Riddle didn’t deserve expulsion. Even if he did have a cursed object, Riddle didn’t have anywhere in the magical world to run to. He’d have to go back to the Muggle world, which would just be a waste of his talents. Just because he creeped Fleamont out with his strange beauty didn’t mean Fleamont had any right to ruin his life.

“Right,” he muttered, shoving the journal back into Riddle’s satchel. “That’s enough of that.”

Chapter Text

It was at the crack of dawn the next day that Fleamont approached Riddle. The sun was beginning to peek over the hills; he was barely awake enough to dress himself. He was loath to wake up so early, but he had heard rumours that Riddle sat out on the lawn reading a book and looking gorgeous each morning, and assumed it would be better to catch him unawares than approach him during a meal.

Sure enough, when he trudged out to the rolling hills separating the Dark Forest from Hogwarts, Riddle was out there on a bloody blanket, mist dancing across his dark hair and along his brows. In the morning light, the other boy looked ghostly, near-translucent in the haze of daybreak. The carefully painted structure of his features came forward strikingly—Fleamont could almost see the brush strokes that had breathed him to life. 

Riddle’s hand came up to his mouth, and he licked a slow line across the pad of his thumb, before reaching out and carefully turning the page.

Fleamont scrunched up his face in an effort to hide a blush, and dragged his feet the last few metres. Riddle swayed slightly at Fleamont’s approach, but seemed either too caught up in his book or too rude to greet him.

“Mornin’,” Fleamont muttered sourly, tossing the satchel into the damp grass beside the prefect. “You forgot this after accosting me yesterday. You could have just told me off in the library instead of dragging me halfway across the school, you know.”

Riddle’s head turned a fraction of an inch—just enough for him to lock his black eyes with Fleamont’s. He studied him long enough to make the atmosphere uncomfortable before silently returning to his book.

“Charmed,” Riddle muttered, turning to the next page. Fleamont raised his gaze to the sky above and wondered if the universe was playing some sort of sick joke on him.

Chapter Text

Whatever the joke was supposed to be, Fleamont didn’t think anyone was still laughing.

Their seventh year was almost over—just a month remained until their NEWTs, and he had hardly enough time to contemplate what he wanted to eat that morning, let alone whatever Riddle had gotten shoved up his pale arse. Regardless of his opinion on the matter, however, there seemed to be a strange magnet pulling him and Riddle towards each other. He usually only had to deal with the other boy during their shared Potions and Arithmancy classes, but it felt like nowadays each corner he turned had Riddle hiding behind it.

Why is it always Arithmancy? Fleamont wondered to himself, glancing between his textbook and Riddle, who had just sat down across from him and opened his own book. The other man was even more radiant than normal today—almost holy. Strands of midday sun blazed in and fell across his dark hair like a shock of gold in dark water. His eyes absorbed even more golden brilliance, shimmering with so much heat it made his black eyes look almost red. Fleamont couldn’t understand how even the sun’s rays were working in Riddle’s favor.

The three Slytherin girls were whispering to each other again. Their bright red cheeks and occasional glances at Riddle were lost on the prefect, who’s eyes were pinned to his textbook. Fleamont tried his best to ignore them, their chirpy laughter and obnoxious inflections notwithstanding. He didn’t even think they were in that arithmancy class.

“What chapter?”

His head shot up. “Pardon?”

Riddle quirked a brow. “What chapter are you on?” he repeated. 

Fleamont blinked owlishly. 

“In the textbook, Potter,” the prefect articulated slowly, as if speaking to a child.

“Ever heard of ‘please’ before, wanker?” Fleamont shot back, flipping the bird. “Eighty-seven. You?”

“I finished it last week,” Riddle retorted, tapping his finger against the heavily annotated book in front of him. “You should already be in the reviewing stage, Potter. Keep going as you are, and you’ll only have a few weeks to review all the material for the final exam.”

Fleamont fought back the urge to stare down Riddle with every ounce of dislike he could muster.

“Riddle,” he finally ground out, “you’re an uptight prick.”

The man’s dark eyes flashed. Like sand shifting across a beach, Riddle’s stony expression slowly lifted into an intense keenness that immediately set Fleamont on edge. It was as if Riddle had suddenly noticed that he was a human capable of emotion.

“Is that so…” he muttered, the barest flickers of a smile dancing across his cheeks. "I suppose you're right."

“You’re mad.” Fleamont flicked the pages in his textbook back to where he had left off, intent on ignoring whatever bizarre exchange he had bumbled his way into.

“For giving studying advice, Potter? As a prefect, I have a duty to raise our school’s academic average.”

“Suck a lemon.”

Riddle’s right pinkie finger twitched. Fleamont pretended he didn’t notice. He flipped to the next page. He was barely comprehending the language in front of him, his eyes dancing jerkily across each unfocused line. Riddle sat back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest, staring Fleamont down with an unreadably stony expression.

“… Suck a lemon?”

“May I read?”

The trio of admirers gasped. Riddle’s pinkie twitched again.

“… Be my guest,” the tall boy murmured, finally turning to face the front of the classroom. Fleamont slouched over his desk, burying his face into the pages of his textbook as the girls started whispering to each other in hushed, feverish voices, their voices intermingling into one vague blur of torrid gossip.

Chapter Text

Riddle was everywhere.

It felt like each time he turned around, Slytherin’s perfect prefect was somewhere within earshot. He went to the library, and Riddle had already been there for two hours. He had Quidditch practice with Minnie in the wee hours of the morning, and Riddle would somehow just happen to be doing his weird morning picnics in the field beside the pitch. Fleamont didn’t think he would be startled if the other boy somehow found a reason to be in the Gryffindor common room. He even saw the freaky bastard in the bloody loo more often than not . Was he really not even allowed to piss without the damned Slytherin prefect breathing down his neck?

“Monty, you’re overreacting,” Minnie insisted sharply, her lips pursed as she stared out at him from behind her thick, cat eye glasses. “You’re overreacting, and you’re crazy. Tom is one of the most pleasant Slytherins I’ve ever met.”

“I never should have asked you,” Fleamont grumbled, picking at his pudding as he spoke. “Your infatuation blurs your judgement.”

“I am not infatuated,” she shot back curtly, glancing between him and her breakfast as she took fretful bites. “I don’t act infatuated, do I?”

“I reckon he’s doing it to torture you,” Septimus interjected. 

Fleamont rolled his eyes, shrugging off the boy’s words with a wave of his hand. “I haven’t done anything to him, you prat.”

“Yeah, but you called Dolohov a fat cow and a proper London skank last Tuesday,” the ginger reminded him politely, causing Fleamont to grimace. Minnie’s neck nearly snapped from the speed she turned her head.

“I beg your pardon? Fleamont Linfred Potter!”

“Oh, now look at what you’ve done!” he hissed to the other boy, standing from his seat just as Minnie threw down her fork. “I have to miss the rest of breakfast because of you.”

“Fleamont Potter, don’t you dare—!”

Snatching up his satchel, Fleamont was off like a bolt of lightning, scrambling around the corner before Minnie managed to send a jinx after him. Looping around the exterior of the Great Hall, he took off towards his charms class. If he was going to leave early, he wasn’t just going to muck about in the corridors.

“The Great Hall is behind you.”

“Good Merlin! Riddle, what the hell?”

Screeching to a halt, Fleamont turned on his heel, patience bending like a frail tree branch as Riddle slowly leaned out of the alcove he had been skulking in. Fleamont crossed his arms over his chest, puffing up slightly as the prefect sauntered out of his hiding place and stopped within two very uncomfortable inches of Fleamont’s face.

“How are your dreams, Potter?” the other boy murmured casually, as if asking about the weather. His voice was as mechanical as always, but there was something else in there—something frightening. Fleamont felt his skin crawl.

“They’re… fine?” he stepped back slightly. Riddle immediately refilled the gap. Fleamont fought the urge to visibly shudder.

“Any strange… visions of the future?” Riddle mused coldly. “How about some passing memories from another era?”

“Why do you keep following me?” Fleamont squinted at him, stepping back another few paces.

Riddle raised an eyebrow, copying his motions in reverse. “I didn’t know you were the paranoid type, Potter. We have many classes together.”

“Don’t talk nonsense at me, wanker,” Fleamont spat, backing up another several metres. “There’s two hours in a week that we share in class.”

Riddle’s face suddenly turned stormy, the stone in his eyes falling away to reveal a dark, glassy heat. Fleamont continued retreating, but Riddle persisted forward for each step Fleamont took backward. Their song and dance didn’t stop until Fleamont’s back hit a wall. Riddle threw his satchel to the side and descended, slamming his palms against the cold stone beside Fleamont’s head.

“Potter,” he hissed, hot breath searing across Fleamont's skin, “you’re testing my patience.”

The hair on the back of Fleamont’s neck stood up on end, his shoulder’s twitching as Riddle loomed ever closer. Something was different. Riddle was different. 

“And you're getting on my nerves ,” he countered hurriedly, fingers itching along the cracks in the stone wall. Riddle’s eyes narrowed, dark lashes and darker iris.

“Mon-ty.” Riddle articulated slowly, as if he were speaking to a child. “There. Satisfied?”

Fleamont squinted, blitheringly confused. His heart was racing, sweat dripping from his palms. There wasn’t anyone else in the corridor—why wasn’t there anyone? He needed a saviour and fast. Riddle looked alarmingly close to pulling out his wand and hexing Fleamont’s balls off.

“I… uh…?” he replied stupidly.

“I forgot your name,” was the curt elaboration, dark eyes roaming Fleamont’s face. Riddle seemed to be searching for something that wasn’t there. “I admit it. I’m to blame. Does my apology not satisfy you?”

Was he hallucinating? Riddle was so close they were sharing body heat. He could see freckles along Riddle’s nose that he’d never noticed before. 

“Not particularly.” Fleamont didn’t know what he was saying. “I didn’t hear much in the way of apologies. And, besides, only my friends call me Monty. To everyone else—to you— it’s Fleamont.”

Riddle sucked in a breath, his eye twitching as he abruptly withdrew. Fleamont scampered to the right, putting several paces of distance between them. Riddle stayed stock-still, his eyes following Fleamont’s every muscle twitch as he seemed to consider the best way to dispose of a body.

“Fine.” Riddle’s tone was like ice. Fleamont felt a sharp shiver zap down his spine. “I’m sorry for forgetting your name, Fleamont. Is that sufficient?”

It felt more like a threat than an apology. The other boy’s eyes were narrowed and harsh, his gaze seeming to stare past Fleamont’s eyes and into the nebulous area beyond it. 

“Is there a point to this?” Fleamont asked, fatigued.

“A point?” Riddle’s eyes flashed, and then he drew back, working his jaw in tandem with his shoulders—as if he was trying to reorient his bones somehow. Fleamont straightened, swaying to the side another half a step as Riddle began off towards him again. “Yes, Potter, there’s always a bloody point.”

Bending down, Riddle snatched up his ratty bag with a snarl before tossing it over his shoulder and shoving past Fleamont, robes billowing as his footsteps receded behind him. Fleamont made a rather crass hand motion towards the other boy’s back before turning on his heel and making off in the opposite direction as fast as his feet could carry him.

"He's mad," Fleamont hissed to himself, "absolutely, stark raving mad!"

Chapter Text

“Despite this, it is commonly believed that Minister Albert Boot resigned due to the mismanaged goblin rebellion, though it is also often stated that the real reason for his departure was his unrequited love for his secretary’s husband—”

Fleamont yawned, bleary-eyed and half-asleep as Professor Binns droned on about nonsense. He could never seem to keep himself from getting sluggish in History class, especially since the professor’s aid had graduated the year before, leaving the position of their actual history professor vacant. Fleamont couldn’t help but wonder why they didn’t just move the classroom location to someplace different. His History NEWTs depended on him actually staying awake for the material, as it did for everyone else in the seventh-year class.

“Of course, this has never been fully proven, though the fact of Minister Boot’s secretary’s divorce does frequently raise suspicions—”

“Oi, Minnie,” Fleamont whispered, nudging the girl with his elbow.

“Huh?” She jolted awake, blinking hurriedly as she gathered her bearings. “Oh. Yes?”

“Do you reckon we could appeal to the headmaster to get another aid?” he muttered, eyeing the ghostly apparition of their professor as the spectre floated aimlessly at the front of the room. “You know, so we can actually pass our NEWTs?”

She stared at him bitterly. “Don’t be ridiculous. Professor Binns is a perfectly adequate teacher.”

Fleamont glared sourly at her as she turned back to the front, her eyes already half-lidded as Professor Binns continued to drone on about Ministers and their propensity for their secretaries’ husbands. Fleamont sat back in his chair and sighed, dragging his eyes up till he was staring blankly at the ceiling. 

“History tends to repeat itself, you see. The moment one minister fell for his secretary’s husband, the next was sure to do it too. This tradition has so far been unbreaking, and is frequently brought up during elections. This will be on the exam.”

A few people around him were roused by the ghost's words. The scratch of quills against parchment lasted no longer than a few fleeting moments before everyone immediately fell back to sleep. Fleamont grimaced at the ceiling, pondering if it would be worth joining them in sleep. His class rank would certainly take a hit if he did—his history grade was the only thing keeping him above Minnie in the ranks, and if he accidentally let her surpass him he would never hear the end of it—but he hadn’t been sleeping well since Riddle had started stalking him.

“Ugh….” He slowly dragged himself forward. Grabbing for his quill, he made a show of jolting down notes half-heartedly.

Knock knock.

Absentmindedly glancing towards the door as it creaked open, Fleamont jolted to attention as Riddle’s unmistakable silhouette peered back at him from the corridor. Fleamont glanced between the door and Binns before slowly pushing his chair back and creeping out of the room. The door creaked shut behind him.

“I have a question, Potter.” Riddle’s face was alarmingly close again, his dark eyes glimmering from the sunlight streaming through the foggy windows. Fleamont found himself shoved up against the wall for what had to be the third time, his spine prickling from the old stone bricks as he slouched against them.

“I have a question, too. Have I wronged you?” he snapped back, a single eyebrow lifted as he pressed a finger against Riddle’s chest and pushed back. The other man glowered.

“Yes, in fact, you have,” Riddle hissed, reaching into his ratty satchel and pulling out a familiar journal. Fleamont bit down on his tongue. “Does this look familiar to you?”

Fleamont didn’t reply immediately, his mind tumbling arduously through the millions of possible excuses and lies he could tell. Riddle didn’t seem patient enough for that, however, and smacked Fleamont’s shoulder with the leather cover.

“This is masochism. Potter, did you write in the damned journal or not?”

“How cursed is it?”

Riddle let out a muffled, strangled groan. “It’s not cursed,” he over-enunciated, gripping the journal between his fingers. “It's… nebulous.”

“Nebulous,” Fleamont repeated, squinting suspiciously at the other boy as Riddle seemed to fight back obscenities.

“Yes, Potter. Nebulous.” Riddle doubled down, smacking the back of his hand against the “nebulous” book as emphasis.

“In what way is it nebulous?”

“In the same way your heart is nebulous to your throat.”

The sentence was so absurd that Fleamont couldn’t help but let out an incredulous scoff. Riddle didn’t seem to find it nearly as funny as he did.

“This book, Potter, understands me just as well as my heart understands the uses of my oesophagus in bringing it air,” he articulated sharply, his eyes filled with an unnatural sort of reverence as he held the book up to the hazy sunlight, the blurred rays dancing across the smooth surface. “And, if this book is my heart, then I myself am my lungs. I don’t know why I breathe. I just do. This book, however, knows how I breathe, how I think, and why I do. It knows—”

“What’s your point?”

Riddle was halfway through the point, as it were, his mouth drawn back in the hiss of an “s”. His eye twitched before he drew back slightly, working his mouth around whatever words he was debating letting escape.

“The point,” Riddle finally managed, his face eternally pinched and tinged with a seething red, “is that you wrote a few words to my heart, and I want to know what it told you.”

“Oh.” Fleamont thought for a moment. “When I asked if it was cursed, it asked what the definition of ‘cursed’ is.”

There was a pause.

“And?”

“That’s about it.”

Riddle glowered. “Do you think I’m stupid?” 

“Well…” Fleamont blinked, considering, before the barest hints of a grin inched up his cheeks. 

“I don’t know the diary, but I know myself well enough, Potter,” Riddle hissed. “Now, what did it tell you?”

“Oh, piss off, Riddle, you artistic schmuck.” Fleamont rolled his eyes, pushing off from the wall. Riddle blinked and drew back, surprised enough that he let Fleamont walk out from his cornered position.

“I… you… schmuck?” Riddle blinked furiously at him. Fleamont pretended the other boy hadn’t spoken.

“Whatever shite you’re getting up to with that journal is none of my business,” he continued, “If it's really that important, I wrote three vague sentences in that thing and then called it a day. Now, if you’d be half-arsed to pick your knickers out of your arsecrack–”

“Did you introduce yourself?”

Fleamont clicked his tongue.

“No.”

There was such a bizarrely foreign expression on the prefect’s face at that moment; Fleamont couldn’t describe it if he tried. It was like a pleasant memory crossed the path of a nightmare—like constipation had intersected the nebulousness of humour.

“That… would explain it,” Riddle finally muttered—more to himself than anything—his shoulders drawing downwards as he relaxed slightly. “Good… then take it.”

Riddle held the journal out to Fleamont, who immediately vacated the radius around Riddle’s wingspan.

“No way.” he shook his head. “Keep me out of your illegal happenings.”

“It’s not illegal.” Riddle hesitated, before amending, “No one would recognise it as illegal.”

“Oh, they wouldn’t recognise—“

“Potter.”

Riddle’s gaze was thunderous. Fleamont was suddenly aware of every speck of dust in the corridor around them; every stray hair falling deftly along Riddle’s brow; every glint of deep browns in the other boy’s eyes.

“Take the diary,” Riddle muttered, near-silent in his stillness. “Please.”

Fleamont breathed in sharply. The world stood still.

He stretched out his hand. Riddle slapped the leather book smartly into his palm.

“That wasn’t so hard, now was it?” he murmured under his breath, eyes alight with a fire his skin’s blue tone lacked.

Like a statue, Fleamont thought, roughly stuffing the journal under his arm. He immediately implored himself to forget the idea, his mind churning as Riddle mechanically turned on his heel and left, striding off into the haze of mid-morning fog as if nothing had happened between them.

Chapter Text

Fleamont opened the journal to the first page and dipped his quill in ink.

“What are you?” he scratched into the parchment.

The Gryffindor common room was quiet in the dead of night. A fire crackled gently in the hearth as rain pattered against the window panes. Fleamont was folded over the desk, shoulders hunched as he tapped the quill tip impatiently against the inkwell.

I’d rather not say. Who are you?

Fleamont tsked.

“Fleamont Potter. Happy now?”

Only partially. I’m searching for a different Potter.

He frowned at the page. The ink swam around the parchment for a moment before spelling out a new sentence.

Do you know of a man called Harry James Potter? It's imperative that I find him.

“Barmy,” Fleamont muttered, leaning back in his chair thoughtfully. His father Henry went by Harry on occasion, but his middle name wasn’t James, nor did he have any reason to be acquainted with Tom Riddle’s nebulously cursed journal of all things. But, now that he was thinking about it, Riddle had said something similar when he’d first started acting strangely.

Fleamont shot forward. “What is the Machine?” he scrawled hurriedly, a sudden, inexplicable unease creeping up his spine. Something about this all felt familiar, but he couldn't quite grasp it—there was something he was missing.

How do you know about the Machine, Fleamont Potter? The journal mused. Only Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, would know anything about that.

The second he read the words, a horrible spike of pain shot through Fleamont’s forehead. He winced, pressing his thumb and forefinger into the space between his eyebrows and massaging it delicately. Something was off, though. There was something right between his fingers. He pressed his thumb into it and traced the rough skin. It was almost like a scar. He felt up and along his forehead and found that the rough skin made an arching, lightning-bolt motion to his hairline.

“The Boy Who Lived,” he whispered. It was right there behind the scar tissue, itching to get out, bursting at the seams of his flesh.

His vision swam. The journal started writing more, but the pain was quadrupling and Fleamont could barely make sense of his own skin. His flesh was numb, his brain throbbing, his eyes vibrating. Through the haze, only four inky words on the page were obvious.

The Boy Who Lived.

The Boy Who Lived.

Cursing, Fleamont stumbled out of his chair, pressing the heels of both hands into his temples to try and quiet the horrible pain screaming through his brain. His efforts were useless, though, and the agony only grew greater. It was as if his skull was splitting open from the inside out. He dropped to his knees with a pained gasp, feeling along the fissure. It was wet and… and steaming. Fleamont brought his hand away to find hot blood dripping along the digits of his fingers. He groaned and bowled over, holding his head in both hands. Globs of blood dripped out of the break in his skull and onto the carpet, where they began to expand and pop like the fizzy bubbles at the top of a butterbeer glass. Slowly, the droplets began to move, reforming into the shape of letters. He could barely see them as more blood streamed out of his head, but somehow he knew what they said.

The Boy Who Lived.

Bring me Harry James Potter.

With a sudden, guttural crack his forehead split open, a literal wave of blood escaping him like a waterfall. It splashed onto the carpet and spread out, quickly flooding the common room with a pool of blood that rose to his elbows in a matter of seconds. He tried pressing his hands against the fissure to stop the bleeding, but it just kept gushing out of him, faster and faster, too fast to stop—inhuman quantities of hot, fizzing, bubbling blood. It was up to his shoulders, then the tip of his nose. Fleamont gagged as it swept into his lungs. Within seconds, he was enveloped completely, the flood of blood filling the entire common room like a fish bowl.

All was still. Fleamont floated there, transfixed, in a thick, red haze. He had no concept of up or down—left or right. He was everywhere and nowhere. He was everything, and he was nothing.

Somewhere within the murky fluid, a voice began calling out to him. Fleamont didn't have to wonder who it was. He already knew.

"I'm here," he told the Boy Who Lived. "Come find me."

And then it all came flooding back.

Chapter Text

“Do you really think this will work?” Harry questioned, squinting at Hermione’s strange machine with skepticism. The witch flew about the place in a flurry of frizzy hair, muttering complex arithmancy under her breath.

“The maths are right,” she replied breathlessly, “I think. Do you have any better ideas?”

Harry grimaced. Voldemort was quickly closing in on their location. When he and the Death Eaters arrived, they would kill Hermione and take Harry captive. The war would end. Voldemort would win—not that he hadn’t already. All of Britain was captured under his thumb. The only thing left for him to conquer was Hermione, the last muggleborn in the UK, and Harry, his only remaining Horcrux.

They were running out of time. They had hours—a day, maybe, if they were lucky—until their location was found. That wasn’t enough wiggle room to come up with another plan. 

“It’ll work,” Harry muttered, gazing at the machine. “It has to.”

In the center of the contraption was a time turner, and branching out around that was the largest conglomeration of wires and gears Harry had ever seen. Many people hadn’t realised it yet, but time turners could turn back indefinitely, so long as you had the muscular ability and the patience to turn the knob for however many hours you needed. No one tended to try, since their fingers would cramp up long before they had turned it any reasonable amount of months or days backwards, but Hermione had used muggle technology to create a time-turner-turning machine, which just might take them far enough back to fix everything. It was a long shot, but they had to try. It was that, or die with their heads in the sand like a pair of cowards. The memory of the resistance deserved a better end than that. Their friends’ legacies, their families’ sacrifice—the people who had died in the pursuit of freedom deserved more than that. They had to keep fighting for a better future, even if it meant disappearing into the haze of the past.

A sudden, low rumble broke Harry from his thoughts. Whipping around, wand in hand, he pointed it towards the door, backing up slowly.

“Hermione…” he warned, keeping his eyes trained to the door as the rumbling grew louder and louder. “Hermione, we’re running out of time!”

“Thirty seconds!” she shouted, scrambling to solder the last few wires into place.

"We don't have thirty seconds!" he bellowed. The rumbling had become a roar. The floorboards of the Shrieking Shack were clattering like teeth in a snow storm. Harry cursed, turning and sprinting to his friend.

“It’s good enough." He yanked Hermione up from her place on the floor. “We have to go, now!”

Just as he spoke, an explosion ripped the walls off the shack. The force of the impact threw Harry into the machine, which came to life, metal pipes wrapping around his midsection to keep him pinned just below the time turner. With a great, creaking moan the ceiling collapsed around them. Harry groaned, his vision swimming. Separated from him by the blast, Hermione let out a blood-curdling scream as marching boots crunched through the wreckage of their final hideout. 

There was nowhere left to run.

“Ah… here you are, my horcrux.”

Harry spit a glob of blood. It landed on the dirt and expanded, popping like a bubble. The air around him was electric, his hair standing up on end as if he’d been struck by lightning. Behind him, the time-turner-turning machine had started turning the time-turner faster than human fingers were capable of turning a time-turner. It was working, but….

“Something’s gone wrong,” Harry croaked, licking his lips to rewet them as the cold wind stung his cheeks. The Machine was working. Harry could feel each creak of the arms as they spun back as fast as the gears could move, but was the air supposed to feel so… charged? So electric?

Nausea swam through him. Harry dry heaved, vision swaying. Hermione was screaming for him somewhere, but he couldn’t make sense of where her voice was coming from or how far away it was. All he could see was Voldemort’s hazy silhouette, slowly approaching him through the cloud of dust and snow.

“Don’t hurt her,” he pleaded weakly. “Just let her go. It’s me you want.” 

Voldemort emerged from the plume, slowly stalking towards Harry and the Machine. The Dark Lord’s expression told him everything.

“How foolish you are, Harry Potter.” He shook his head, laughing deeply. Harry’s stomach churned. There was an almost imperceivable heat around his midsection. His ears were beginning to ring. Something was tugging on him—grasping, pulling desperately. Voldemort stopped just shy of the Machine, his shadow blanketing Harry’s trapped form.

“What is this… thing you’ve cocooned yourself in, my horcrux? Cease this foolishness at once.”

Cold hands gripped Harry’s shoulders and began to tug. He thrashed against the man’s touch, slamming his mouth into the crook of Voldemort’s neck and biting down. The Dark Lord cursed and tried to yank back, but before either of them could react, the Machine reached out and wrapped its metal wires around him as well, pinning them both in place. Harry let out a wet, gurgled cackle. Maybe this was the way to victory. The Death Eaters would be disoriented and confused without their great leader; let them scramble to find him.

The heat was building, burning up his oesophagus, spreading out through his lungs. The earth began to shake, screams echoing from the surrounding woodlands.

“Stop—stop this at once!” Voldemort tried to wriggle free, but the damage was done. Harry shook his head as the ground began to crack open below them.

“It’s too late, Voldemort. The Machine can’t be stopped.” The Dark Lord’s pale skin was hot like fire under his cheek. It started to melt away as the world around them crumbled. Pieces of the sky fell and shattered against the writhing earth. “C’mon then, you old bastard. Let’s do it all over again!”

Voldemort screamed. The Machine creaked and groaned. Harry let his eyes slowly slip shut.

“This time, I’ll kill you first.”

Chapter Text

“Monty, dearest, I had the most perplexing dream last night,” Minnie told him, her hands gripping her satchel strap as they made off towards the mossy courtyard at the end of the walkway. “I was old and very snappish, and I was teaching your grandson Transfiguration. Isn’t that odd?”

“Obviously,” he replied, brows furrowed and lips half-pursed as they walked through the humid spring air. “How’d you reckon it was my grandson? Could’ve been anyone.”

“I mean, I’m fine enough at Transfiguration, but I prefer—well, of course it was your grandson, I called him Mister Potter,” she insisted, an odd glint to her eye as they passed over a bridge, buttresses climbing up on either side of them. “And he looked awfully like you, too—or, well, he was quite a bit paler. And short.”

“You need to lay off the Firewhiskey,” he muttered, yawning as they came out on the other side of the long bridge and onto another raised platform.

“Oh, you’re one to talk.” She clicked her tongue, lips pursed as she flipped open her satchel and pulled out a small crystal ball. “Dreams are never just dreams. It must be a premonition of some kind—that’s what my divination tutor tells me—maybe I’ve finally sorted out how to use this thing? Hm… say, have you fallen in love recently? My tutor says I have an affinity for sorting out who fancies who.”

“Who’s this tutor again? He’s got odd principles.”

“Hm? Ah, it's… something something Urquart.” She shrugged. “I forget.”

Harry James Potter paused his stride to stare out at the grand expanse of rolling hills in front of them. Hogwarts was beautiful. His last memory of it was as a pile of rubble slowly being overtaken by magical plants after the greenhouses had caved in. Today, it was a century younger and gleaming, teeming with life and magic. His dear professor, Minerva McGonagall, who had taken dozens of Death Eaters down with her during the Battle of Hogwarts, was now young and brilliant and alive, teeming with excitement for her future. Septimus Weasley was almost a carbon copy of Percy, though glassesless, and had the same relaxed personality as Bill. Each time Harry looked at him, he could see the spark that would one day bring his descendants to life.

When Harry had awoken the night before in a blood-free common room, the first thing he felt was the sting of a familiar lightning bolt-shaped scar cutting across his forehead. The splitting headache made him want to stay there and sink into the carpet, but Fleamont Potter’s memories of a bright, warless world had relit something inside him that had been nothing but dying embers for years. He wondered if his dormant memories had somehow influenced how Fleamont had picked his companions, or if it were mere coincidence. Either way, Harry found it a warm comfort to wake up in this time and know that they were his friends. If he had come to his senses last night with no familiar faces or names to ground him, he wasn’t sure he’d have been able to pick himself off the floor.

Harry reached underneath his fringe and ran his fingers along the scar tissue in a long, practised motion. It wasn’t a fluke; it was real. He was real. He’d gone back in time, to a world unknowing of the horrors that awaited it.

Minnie muttered to the crystal ball beside him as he closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. The Machine had done something strange. He was supposed to be himself, not Fleamont Potter, eldest son of Henry Potter and heir to the Potter lordship. This body, these memories—they weren’t his own. They belonged to a pureblood who’d barely heard whispers of the Muggle world, let alone seen it with his own two eyes. Living with Fleamont’s memories of a pureblooded, magic-filled childhood alongside Harry’s own was… overwhelming. As much as he was thankful for the body he inhabited, he felt like a foreigner in his own skin.

“Potter!”

“Merlin be with me,” he breathed, glancing over his shoulder as a familiar voice met his ears. Sure enough, Tom Riddle was fast approaching, his perfectly coiffed hair and beautifully pressed robes swaying in the breeze as he crossed the long bridge to meet them. Harry squared his shoulders.

“I’ll be seeing you, Minnie,” he muttered to the girl before cutting around her and striding towards the approaching doom. Riddle’s stony features twitched slightly as Harry walked past him. The other man paused, seemingly caught off guard, before spinning on his heel and following Harry at a brisk pace. Silently, they walked off the main platform and down a conjoining bridge towards an abandoned look-out tower. No one appeared to notice the pair as Harry opened the door and slipped inside.

He had his wand out and levelled it at Riddle’s neck before the other boy even stepped through the threshold. Riddle grinned broadly, his eyes flashing a deep red as he sidestepped the wand and shut the door behind them, bathing the abandoned room in darkness.

“~It worked,~” Tom Riddle breathed, Parseltongue slithering out of his throat. Harry winced as a familiar stab of pain raced through his forehead. He pressed a finger to the scar, massaging the tender flesh. Riddle’s eyes narrowed onto the spot hungrily. He seemed to know what it meant just as much as Harry did. “~You’ve remembered.~”

“~You’re a massive pain in my arse, Voldemort,~” he retorted sharply, poking his wand into the pale flesh of Riddle’s neck. The other man’s grin broadened.

“~You truly thought you could get rid of me so easily?~” he taunted, delicately moving Harry’s wand aside with the tip of his pointer finger. “~I told you, Harry Potter. I’ll chase you to the ends of the earth and beyond.~”

Harry cursed. “~What did your goons do to Hermione?~”

“~I don’t have the faintest idea. Not that it matters at this time anyhow. Her parents haven’t even been born.~” Harry opened his mouth, but Riddle continued on, undeterred. “~Now, I’m not going to hurt you, my dear horcrux. You can put that little thing away.~”

Harry narrowed his eyes and took a step forward, pressing his wand into the tender area just below Riddle’s voicebox. Even still, the other man made no movements to reach for his own wand. They both knew why. As much as Harry wanted to kill the bastard, he couldn’t. Tom Riddle was already immortal.

The Machine hadn’t worked correctly, simply put. It was supposed to send him back before Voldemort had made any horcruxes, but—as the diary in his satchel could attest—he had arrived too late for that. 

“What a bloody nightmare,” Harry muttered, leaning against the wall and reexamining Riddle from his perspective rather than Fleamont’s. The weak visage of young Voldemort he had seen in the Chamber of Secrets couldn’t hold a candle to the real thing. Tom Riddle’s skin was pale like a wax carving. He had an aristocratic jaw that hinted at the Riddle family’s noble Muggle heritage, though there was a slight uniqueness to his nose that stood out to Harry: long and Roman-esque—Gaunt and magical. The uniqueness made Riddle’s face stand out in a crowd, Harry supposed. He could begrudgingly admit that Fleamont Potter wasn’t unreasonable for being uncomfortably infatuated with him.

“A nightmare for you, I’m sure,” Riddle mused, tapping a perfectly manicured finger against his jaw as he gazed at Harry with an equal amount of scrutiny. “But I really can’t thank you enough, Harry Potter. All my foolish mistakes have vanished into thin air. I can start over from the very beginning.”

“Ah, yeah?” Harry scoffed. “And you think I’ll let you just… carry on?”

Riddle stalked forward and closed the space between them, stepping so that his shoes braced the outside of Harry’s polished Oxfords. Leaning forward, he pressed his forehead into the rough flesh of Harry’s scar.

“~My dear horcrux… I think you’ll help me,~” Riddle murmured. His eyes were wide and alight with fire. “~Once you hear my plan, you’ll have no choice.~”

“I didn’t take you as a comedian, Riddle,” Harry snarled, refusing to entertain the Parseltongue for a moment longer. Riddle merely shrugged his shoulders.

“~You’ll see soon enough that I’m more than serious, my dear~” he mused, picking a piece of lint off Harry’s blazer. “~But we can’t speak here. Meet me in the Chamber of Secrets tonight after supper.~”

“No.”

“~I insist.~”

“Not happening.”

“~I have your Machine.~”

Harry worked his jaw for a moment. It was completely possible that Riddle was lying, but if he wasn’t, Harry might be able to free the time turner from the Machine and turn back farther in time, to before Riddle made his horcrux. It was a long shot, but at the moment, it was quite literally all Harry had.

“Fine, but I’m keeping your diary,” he finally replied, clutching his satchel closer to himself. “Consider it leverage.”

Riddle nodded agreeably. “~I’d prefer my horcruxes stay together, anyway.~”

Harry scowled.

Riddle stepped back, sweeping his hair into place and adjusting his robes. In an instant, the red, glassy fire fell away into stony black. It was as if all hints of the Dark Lord had vanished, leaving behind no trace of who he would one day become. 

“Well then, Potter,” he drawled. “I’ll be seeing you.”

With that, Tom Riddle exited the watchtower and strode back the way he came. Harry watched him leave with narrowed eyes, his gaze unwavering until Riddle disappeared into the castle. Only then did he turn to the window and gaze out at the rolling hills surrounding Hogwarts. For years, he had dreamed of being back in this place: Hogwarts, in all its glory, unencumbered by the scars of war. His home. It had taken them a decade of running and months of planning to construct Hermione’s Machine. Even if it hadn’t worked as intended, Harry wasn’t going to let this opportunity slip through his fingers. He had one shot to make things right—a single opportunity to save them. All of them. 

Harry pressed his forehead against the window.

“I’ll do it,” he promised them—the innocent, the martyrs, and the fallen—the good people, many not born yet, who had died trying to protect the world. “I’ll save all of you, no matter what.”

Chapter Text

Either Riddle had cleaned the slide, or it had gotten truly filthy in its disuse by the time Harry had reopened the Chamber in his second year. Either way, when he hissed the password to the pipes, the sink slid away to reveal a glistening interior, devoid of grime. Harry admired it begrudgingly as he threw his legs over the lip of the slide and pushed off, plummeting into the darkness below. Interestingly, he felt his body begin to slow as he got closer to the bottom, coming to a complete stop just before his feet met the lip of the slide. 

Riddle must have cast a slowing charm to negate any rough landings, he thought to himself as he awkwardly scooted the rest of the way down.

Standing, he adjusted his trousers before setting off down the cavern. He found it relatively unchanged from his memories. However, when he hissed the password to the large circular door at the end, he was surprised to find a very different Chamber of Secrets behind it. The broken pipes that had flooded the grand space in his time were intact, the moss-covered black stones he remembered were now pristine and white like the rest of the school. It seemed that Riddle had also nabbed various pieces of furniture from the Slytherin commons to place down there for his personal pleasure, as there was a scattering of couches and armchairs, as well as a single desk resting below the statue of Salazar Slytherin. He stepped through the entrance, gazing around contemplatively.

“You destroyed half of my soul in this chamber, once upon a time.” 

“Bloody—” Startled, Harry whipped around, eyes narrowing onto Riddle as he materialised out of the shadows. “Where’s the Machine?” he demanded sharply.

“Ah, ah.” Riddle held up his hand in a shush motion. “Listen to my plans and agree to help me, and I’ll consider showing it to you.”

“That wasn’t the agreement, Voldemort ,” Harry snarled, reaching for his wand.

“Oh, there was an agreement?” Riddle contorted his stony features into an expression of innocent surprise. “Hm. I don’t recall. Now, sit down.”

Riddle’s pale wand was already in his hand. He flicked it, sending Harry flying back into one of the couches. His wand was ripped from his hands as he made a surprisingly soft landing, bouncing against the couch with a surprised “Oompf!” The young Dark Lord settled down beside him, casually crossing an ankle over his knee before summoning a platter of tea.

“You wouldn’t understand how miraculous it is to be sent back to the very beginning of your life,” Riddle started, flicking his wand again. The kettle lifted and began to fill two cups with piping hot tea. Harry struggled against the invisible bonds that held him, grumbling obscenities. “I spent so many years bumbling through trial and error in my pursuit of overwhelming power. ‘Oh, does this dark magic ritual work? No, and now I’ve lost my nose.’”  He floated one of the cups to his lips and took a slow sip, contemplating the taste. “I was twenty-eight then. Can you imagine how deeply it wounded my pride? To be disfigured in such a manner? I’ll avoid all of that nonsense now.”

“How uncharacteristically sensible of you,” Harry retorted glumly, glaring at the untouched second cup. “I wonder, did the rituals take your common sense too, or does insanity just run in the family?”

“Cheeky,” Riddle muttered, running his finger around the rim of his cup absentmindedly. “But, yes, most likely. The second I woke up in this body—this time—my mind cleared and the truth was suddenly so… obvious.”

Harry quirked a brow. “Obvious?”

Riddle was staring off at the far wall with a dazed look, his dark eyes lost to the shadows. From Harry’s perspective, this young Voldemort was certainly more sensible, but he was still undoubtedly mad. Sure, dark magic could have been responsible for making him a blood-thirsty, snake-human hybrid, but Harry imagined that the blood-thirsty part had always existed. He reminded himself that Riddle had already killed Myrtle at this point in time. Dumbledore would argue that he’d passed his final opportunity for redemption long ago.

“Yes, dear horcrux,” Riddle finally spoke, taking a pensive sip of his tea. “ Obvious. I had begun and ended my quest for immortality by halving my soul in two. All the agony that came after my diary’s creation was purposeless.”

Harry shrugged in half-arsed agreement. “I suppose you’ve seen some sense—”

“What I should have been doing all that time was finding a way to make my body immortal as well.”

“...I beg your pardon?”

“It's really quite simple,” Riddle droned. “See, you killed my body with that first rebounded killing curse, but if my body had been as immortal as my soul, such a thing wouldn’t have happened.”

Harry stared at the young Dark Lord blankly.

“What?” he hissed.

Riddle’s dark gaze finally shifted to him. The unnatural pallor of his skin made the deep, burning darkness in his eyes stand out in stark contrast. The man was monstrous. The man was… hypnotic.

“I always failed to kill you, my dear Harry Potter, because your body is a horcrux. My horcrux.” He set down his tea and shifted to face Harry fully. His eyes were blacker than black. It was as if they swallowed all the light they touched. “A horcrux cannot die to anything but the three great killers: Basilisk venom, the Sword of Godric Gryffindor, and Fiendfyre. I have command over the first, I have stolen the second—” he reached around the couch and yanked a frumpled-looking sorting hat from behind it. The object coughed weakly before it was casually tossed aside. “And the last… I will find a solution for that soon enough. All that is left is for me to become a horcrux. To become immortal in both soul and body, and you are going to help me.”

Harry’s blood ran cold.

“You… you want me…” Harry stammered, the truth behind Riddle’s words slowly dawning on him. The other man nodded, his grin broadening.

“Yes. Yes, exactly that.” Riddle slowly rose from his seat. His eyes were wide and crazed. He looked at Harry as if he held all the world’s solutions in the palm of his hand. “Make me into your horcrux, Harry Potter. Rule this world with me in perpetuity. You are already nigh-unkillable as a horcrux, but with one of your own, you will not grow old, you will not wither. You will persist till the end of time itself!”

“You’re mad,” Harry whispered. “You’re mad!”

“I’m a genius, Harry Potter,” Riddle hissed. “Emeric the Evil, Herpo the Foul, Voldemort the Great—we all sought the same thing—perfect, unblemished immortality! Where we failed was in never realising that creating a horcrux is only half of true immortality. You must become a horcrux yourself. You must find an accomplice.”

He gazed at Harry with what could only be described as insane enamorment.

“You are my accomplice, Harry James Potter. You brought me back to this time, before all my foolish mistakes, my inane seeking for a truth that was right in front of me. You restored the majority of my soul to its proper place. I have you to thank for all of this. Let me help you ascend beyond this mortal shell. Become one with me in infinity. Give me a piece of your glorious soul. I covet it!”

“No!” Harry shook his head, thrashing in his binds as Riddle began to approach him with a terrifying expression of… of obsessed insanity . “Never! You’re insane. You’ve killed everyone I ever loved. Why would I spend eternity with you?”

“You don’t have a choice,” Riddle replied simply. He climbed onto the couch, setting his knees on either side of Harry’s thighs, straddling him. He pressed their foreheads together, forcing Harry to stare back into his black, empty eyes. “Either you make me into your horcrux, or I destroy the world. I know exactly what to do to make the future repeat itself. I’ll replicate my actions to the letter. I’ll bide my time until the future versions of you and Hermione Granger recreate your Machine, and then I’ll let it capture me again. I’ll have it bring us back here, to this moment. And if you refuse again, I will do it once more. I will destroy Britain over and over again until you agree.”

“You’re a monster,” Harry breathed shakily. Riddle sniffed the air as if tasting Harry’s exhaled breath.

“Maybe I’ve already done it,” he whispered, eyes half-lidded. His usually porcelain-white skin was tinted pink. “Maybe this is the fifth, sixth, tenth time we’ve had this conversation. You have no way of knowing. It would be easy to dispose of you like this, wandless and at my mercy.” He trailed a hand down from Harry’s shoulder to rest above his heart. “It would pain me, dear horcrux, but not enough to shake my resolve. You are the only way to eternity. I will try as many times as I need to finally get my yes.”

“I’ll never do it,” Harry snapped, defiantly keeping his spine rigid despite Riddle’s wandering hands. “There’s nothing you could do to convince me. You’ll slip up eventually. The Order will defeat you eventually.”

“Do you want to risk it?” Riddle murmured, pointer finger circling Harry’s heart. “Knowing you, that is always a possibility. Perhaps…. What if I swore an unbreakable vow to never kill again?”

Riddle stuck his tongue out between his teeth in the ghost of a hiss, tapping his finger against Harry’s chest. “What if we left Hogwarts and constructed a tower in the sky, where we’d live out our eternity together? You’d fly that broom of yours through clouds as I experiment with the boundaries of magic. I’ll develop my intellect without violence. You’ll explore the skies without worry. No war, no fighting. Your future self will never be orphaned. Your loved ones will be born happy and live long, fulfilling lives. All you have to do is give half your soul and the rest of your eternity…” He pushed his finger into Harry’s skin and twisted, as if trying to dig all the way to his heart. “...to me.”

There was silence.

Harry couldn’t move. He didn’t know what to do. His hesitance seemed to excite Tom Riddle, who pressed their bodies closer together, his breath coming out in uneven puffs against Harry’s cheek.

“Yes… that’s a compelling trade, isn’t it, my dear horcrux? I’ll even let you leave the tower if you desire, so long as you swear to return. You could travel the world. I could join you. Egypt to Japan to Brazil. There is beauty beyond Britain that you have never imagined.”

“I… I would get bored,” Harry managed to spit out.

“Kill a dark wizard or two,” Riddle countered, eyes gleaming. His lips brushed faintly against the shell of Harry’s ear. “I would help you if you wished. Yes, I would do it. I would expunge this world of dark magic just to keep you. I would chase out every shadow of evil in the land. The Dark Arts would belong to us alone.”

Harry breathed slow, shaky breaths. No matter how much he tried to steel his nerves, he’d never been more terrified in his life. Not when he fought the Basilisk, not when he ran from a dragon, not even when he lost everyone but Hermione in the Battle of Hogwarts. Nothing could compare to the look in Tom Riddle’s eyes as he spoke of exorcising the world of the Dark Arts just to keep Harry under his thumb.

“I… I…” he stammered foolishly.

“It's hard to say yes, isn’t it?” Riddle observed smugly. Harry clenched his fists. The bastard was acting as if he’d already won. “That’s fine. That’s good. Sleep on it. I already know your answer, but I will let you keep it for the night. You will give it to me in the morning after our Arithmancy class, and not a moment later.”

With that, he suddenly withdrew. Harry felt the binds holding him disappear, but he remained rooted in place. Tom Riddle adjusted his blazer and smoothed out his hair. Any hint of his deranged actions had suddenly disappeared as if they never were.

“Well then,” Riddle muttered, giving Harry a restrained once-over. “The night is still young. You should take this time to study for our quiz tomorrow morning. Best of luck with it.” He bowed his head, but kept his gaze locked with Harry’s own. “Au revoir.”

Chapter Text

Harry lay on his bed and stared at the canopy. Septimus was sitting at the foot of the bed with his back braced against the bedpost. His quill scratched hurriedly against parchment as he penned a letter to his secret lover. It was the only sound in the dormroom, as the other inhabitants were either already asleep or out in the common room having a laugh with their mates.

“Monty,” Septimus started, “do you think Cedrella looks more like hydrangeas or peonies?”

“You’re proper whipped, mate,” Harry responded absentmindedly, his gaze following the outline of his canopy around and around in circles. “Just ask her to marry you already. You know she’ll say yes.”

“Where’s your sense of romance?” the ginger questioned incredulously. “I can’t just ask her to marry me in a letter , that’s not classy enough for a noble lady like her. See, this is why you’ve never courted anyone,” he said, pointing at Harry. “You’ve got not one clue on how to woo a woman.”

Harry hummed, not having heard anything really, and stretched his arms back behind his head. Septimus was a lovesick fool, but his logic was consistently solid, if persistently focused on how Fleamont couldn’t get a date if he tried. Of all the people in the world, he would be the most honest in his advice.

“If you could save the world, but you had to give up your life in exchange, would you do it?”

The sound of quill against parchment ceased.

“Come again?”

“Let’s say that a dark wizard approaches you and says he’ll destroy all the evil in the world and swear off doing any more harm to others, but you have to kill someone in exchange and then live in a floating castle in the sky with him for the rest of eternity,” Harry elaborated, shifting up onto his elbows to look his friend in the eye. “Would you do it?”

“Uh…” Septimus had his face scrunched up in a vague expression of constipation. “I suppose it depends on which dark wizard we’re talking about. Is this some random bloke or the Dark Lord?”

Fleamont’s memories suddenly surged to the forefront of his mind. That’s right, Harry remembered, it’s 1944. Grindelwald hasn’t been defeated yet.

“No, it's the Dark Lord,” he replied, sitting up properly. “Grindelwald and his army show up at your door and offer you the proposition. Yes or no?”

“Ah.”

Septimus looked down in thought, biting the tip of his quill. Harry appreciated how seriously he was taking such an absurd question.

“I mean, is there any reason for me to be the one to do it?” Septimus probed, gnawing on the bit of feather in his teeth. “Wouldn’t he rather a nice noble lady or—”

“All other far more logical choices are out of the picture. It has to be you,” Harry snapped, pointing at Septimus. “He insists on it. No wiggle room. Either you do it or he kills everyone you love.”

Septimus made a disgruntled noise. “Not a very fair bargain, then, is it? Though, I suppose he’s the Dark Lord, so it makes sense.”

“Just get on with it,” Harry groaned, falling back against his pillow with a dull thump.

“Well, there’s a lot to consider! Can I still wed Cedrella? Can she join us in the castle in the sky?”

“No,” Harry drawled sourly. “But he lets you go on vacations whenever you want, you just have to promise to come back to the castle each time. Oh… and you’re allowed a broom.”

“Hm… a broom.” Septimus tapped his quill on the edge of the inkwell and started writing again. “Well, I’d miss Cedrella, I’d miss mum and dad, I’d miss you and Minnie, but I’d miss you lot far more if you were all dead b’cus of me.”

It was silent. Harry wasn’t sure how to respond.

“You reckon the Dark Lord can bake?” Septimus wondered aloud. “Cedrella is the perfect woman. She can cook, bake, and garden. You should see her in the greenhouses during herbology. She’s so beautiful when she’s covered in mud and wrestling a Devil’s Snare. Aha! That’s it, she’s as beautiful as Hydrangeas and Peonies, but her true beauty is powerful, like a Devil’s Snare! Thanks for the inspiration, mate.”

“Anytime,” Harry grumbled, flipping over on his side. He stared at the wall as Septimus took his thoughts to parchment. Far below them in the common room, there was a sudden, great ruckus. Someone shouted for a broom. Another called out for someone to get a professor.

“What about the murder part?”

“Huh?”

Harry turned over again. “You also have to kill someone.”

Septimus squinted at him strangely.

“Mate, are you planning a novel or something? You know there’s a creative writing club that meets every Wednesday in the Charms classroom. They’ve helped me with my poetry a lot—Cedrella loves everything I have them edit for me.”

Harry frowned at him sourly, then sighed. It wasn’t Septimus’ fault. Harry’s situation needed more than an eighteen-year-old's advice. It needed an army. Hell, it needed Dumbledore, but Fleamont’s memories were clear on that front: The Headmaster was currently overseas, at war with Grindelwald. He wouldn’t succeed in beating the Dark Lord until the end of the school year, and by then it would be far too late. Riddle was making him choose now. It was either death to himself and everyone he knew infinity forever, a loop of tragedy that would go on in perpetuity until he said yes, or… saying yes.

“I’m heading out,” Harry muttered, shuffling off his bed and throwing on his bedrobe. 

“Eh?” Septimus jumped to attention. “Do you need the… uh, you-know-what?”

He stopped and stared at Septimus for a moment, blinking.

“Wait,” Fleamont suddenly reared up. “You stole my invisibility cloak? You twat! That’s a family heirloom!”

“I was gonna give it back!” Septimus insisted, scrambling over to his trunk and rooting around. “Here! See? Not a stain to be seen.”

He held the cloak out to Fleamont, who snatched it back with a grumble. 

“Bloody twat.”

Harry shook himself, frowning at the sudden possession. It was as if Fleamont’s personality had woken up from sleep for just a few, sparse seconds before falling back away into his subconscious.

“Right,” he muttered, throwing the invisibility cloak over his shoulders. “Just ask permission next time, alright?”

“Oh, like you’d let me,” Septimus shot back, already returning to his letter. “Grab me a bottle of Firewhiskey while you’re in Hogsmeade, yeah? Minnie drank the last of mine.”

“How’d you reckon I’m going to Hogsmeade?”

“Why else do you sneak out other than to drink?”

Chapter Text

Harry sat at the bar in The Three Broomsticks and glared at the wall. Fleamont’s habits were Harry’s own, it seemed. The oppositional identities were beginning to swim together inside him, blurring the lines between where Harry ended and Fleamont began. If there was any distinction between the two of them, Harry could barely sparse it anymore. He imagined that there never was a difference, though, just a wall—his memories must’ve been hidden alongside the dormant horcrux, waiting to be released by a familiar word. At least, that’s what he hoped. He didn’t know enough about the inner workings of Hermione’s Machine to know for sure, just that it was a time-turner-turning machine and  it had done its job almost perfectly.

Harry sniffed, and took another swig of whiskey. Madame Sirona tsked at him but did nothing more. At this point, she was used to Fleamont’s near-nightly drinking.

“There you are.” There was a creaking next to him, and then a sigh. Minnie patted the rollers in her hair to make sure they were all still in place before motioning to the Madame to pour her the usual. “You’re out early tonight. Any particular reason?”

“I’m in over my head and Septimus is no help,” he grumbled into his glass. She snorted.

“Well, that’s no surprise. What is it this time? Have you dueled someone important again? Got your knickers in a twist over them making fun of your name?” she jibed goodnaturedly, tapping her glass to his own before gulping down the liquid fire. Not to be outdone, Harry swallowed his shot as well and set it onto the table, grimacing slightly. 

“Worse. Tom Riddle is propositioning me.”

Minnie slammed down her glass, hacking up smoke.

“He’s what?!”

“Keep it down, will you?” Harry hissed, hunching his shoulders conspiratorially. She glanced around at the nearly-empty bar suspiciously before huddling closer to him.

“How? When? Why?”

“That isn’t important.”

“I disagree!”

“What should I do?”

Minnie suddenly got very serious.

“Well, you’ll just have to sleep with him.”

“Wh—I didn’t mean that kind of proposition!”

“Well, what other propositioning is there?”

Harry groaned, burying his face in his hands. Minnie tsked and waved down Madame Sirona, who placed two very full glasses of firewhiskey in front of them. Harry gazed at them wearily.

“You have to promise not to tell a soul—not until I figure out what I’m going to do,” he started. Minnie nodded readily, sipping from her glass as if it were a warm cup of milk before bed. Harry sighed, trying to mentally translate the reality of his situation into a more palatable version for his friend to digest. “He wants me to murder someone so he can assure us world peace, and then he wants me to fuck off to a castle in the sky with him for the rest of our days.”

Minnie blinked at him.

“Murder who?”

“I don’t think he’s decided yet. What should I do?”

“Well….” She lapped at her firewhiskey like a cat before setting it aside and primly adjusting her skirts. “I think the murder is metaphorical.”

“It most certainly is not.”

“A castle in the sky sounds awfully romantic.”

Harry downed his glass in one gulp.

“Another,” he called, turning back to Minnie. “Ignore the castle. Focus on the murder.”

“It could be a philosophical question,” she reasoned. “Kill one man to save the whole world. Maybe it's a metaphor for how he wants you to put aside your virginity and come to bed with him.”

“He doesn’t want in my pants,” Harry insisted. “And the murder is very much literal. He was very precise and clear about that, I assure you.”

“Madmen are awfully sexy when you open your heart to them, Monty,” she sighed, pressing her cheek into her palm. “I’m quite jealous, really.”

“Minerva, be serious,” he dead-panned. She scoffed.

“Don’t you Minerva me, Fleamont, and I’m completely serious.”

“And that’s what worries me.”

Madame Sirona poured him another double. Harry thanked her and took the glass.

“Let’s try something different. Imagine you’re me,” he started, elbow on his knee as he swirled his drink at her. Minnie nodded stoically. “You don’t want to kill an innocent man for Tom Riddle, but on the other hand, Tom Riddle can assure world peace if you do. You don’t want to live in a castle in the sky with him, but if you do…?”

“Oh, I’d do it, I suppose,” she murmured, her cheeks pink. “Ah, but you’re right, it's just so wrong. I could never go through with it, and then the world would still be at war and it’d all be my fault.”

“Exactly!” Harry shouted, leaping from his chair. The few people in the bar turned to glance at them. Harry chuckled awkwardly and quickly sat back down. “So, what do I do?”

“Hm…” Minnie swayed, smiling at her now empty glass. “He can’t do the murder himself?”

“Nuh-huh. Has to be me.”

She thought for another moment. Harry took the few seconds of silence as an opportunity to choke down the rest of his drink.

“That’s rotten work, Monty,” she finally said, sighing. “A nasty hypothetical. Are you sure you didn’t dream it up? I had a dream a few nights ago that Tom caught me after a prefect meeting and had his way with me in a broom closet. Ah, that was a pleasant dream.”

“Ugh, you’re such a drunkard,” Harry grumbled, gnawing at the side of his glass. “You aren’t even making sense anymore.”

“You say that as if you weren’t already plastered when I got here,” she retorted, her speech slurred. “Oh, Madame Sirona, darling? A fillup, if you wouldn’t mind?”

“You’re aware it's a Tuesday, eh, loves?” The barmaid replied from the opposite end of the establishment. Harry hiccuped a groan.

“Blasted… I’ve got an Arithmancy quiz at nine sharp.” He cursed, rubbing his eyes. “Blasted Riddle an’ his blasted… face.”

“Mhm!” Minnie agreed absentmindedly as she shuffled around for her purse. “Say, I’ve forgotten my wallet in my dorm. Are drinks on you?”

“Madame Sirona, how much is on my tab?” he called out, stumbling out of his chair. She waved him off. “Lovely. Brilliant. You’re a peach!”

Slinging his arm over Minnie’s shoulder, he pulled the girl out of her chair and towards the door. She giggled, shaking her head at him. Her rollers swayed with the movement.

“You’re my best friend, Monty,” she cooed. “I’ll miss you dearly when you go off to your castle in the sky. Won’t you visit me while I’m down here being my brilliant self?”

“I’m not disappearing into a castle in the sky, Minnie,” he retorted, shouldering open the pub doors. “Riddle’s mad as a hatter and fickle to match. He’ll grow tired of me long before any construction on a floating castle starts.”

“Is that so?” She sighed forlornly, ruffling through her purse and pulling out a pack of cigarettes. “I’m not so sure. I don’t think you know how much of a catch you are, Monty. I’m sure he’ll want to lock you away so no one else can see your handsome face. It’s what I would do if I were in his shoes.”

“Ah, yeah?” he mumbled, absentmindedly pulling out his wand and casting a gentle Incendio. She held her cig above the open flame until it lit. “Good. Go let him know. I’m sure he’ll take your pretty mug over mine anyday.”

“You think?” she hummed, taking a drag before handing it off to him. “My, isn’t that an idea. Too bad I’m a forgetful drunkard, or I’d take you up on it.”

Harry barked a laugh, accepting the cigarette.

“I can’t wait till you get old and boring, Minnie,” he told her between puffs. “You’ll be so embarrassed by this memory, just wait.”

“Oh, you don’t have to worry about that, Monty dearest,” she giggled, patting his chest. “I’ll never get boring.”

“Yeah? We’ll see about… ah, shit.”

“Hm?”

“I forgot to buy a bottle for Septimus.”

“Ha!”

Chapter Text

Harry woke with a splitting headache.

Groaning, he rolled over, fumbling for his wand blindly. He heard it roll off the bedside table and fall to the ground with a depressing thunk. His arm hung limply off the bed for a moment before he pulled it back under the covers and rolled over, curling himself into a ball.

There goes the day, he thought sourly.

“Aye, Monty.” Septimus shook his shoulder. “Mate, it's half past ten. Didn’t you have arithmancy at nine?”

“Shove a sock in it,” he replied sourly, yanking his duvet over his head.

“Suit yourself. I’m off to potions—you skipping that one too?”

“…My life is a nightmare,” Harry groaned, forcing himself up and off the bed.

“You didn’t bring me any firewhiskey, by the way,” Septimus quipped, plopping down onto the warm bed as Harry set about shoving on a mismatched pair of socks and the trousers he’d tossed off from the night before. “You alright, mate? It’s not a big deal; missing one class of arithmancy isn’t gonna make your NEWTs score any worse at this point.”

“If only my biggest problem were NEWTs,” Harry grumbled, buttoning up his blazer. “Instead, there’s war and death abound, and bloody Tom Riddle on the prowl. I won’t even be free of him in death, if I ever manage to make it that far.”

“Just duel the bloke already,” Septimus retorted, picking at his nails. “That’s how you solve all your other issues.”

“I’d lose.”

Harry threw on a used robe and tossed his satchel across his shoulder. Huffing, he put his hands on his hips and stared at Septimus’ prone form, before motioning towards the door with his head.

“On with the day, then.”

Septimus sighed and slid backwards like a worm, gangly legs dangling in the air as his front half hung off the bed, arms outstretched as he rooted around under Fleamont’s desk. Harry raised an eyebrow as his friend kicked the air.

“What are you doing…?”

“Wand,” Septimus grunted, pulling Fleamont’s wand out from where it had fallen and presenting it to the other man triumphantly. Harry took it with a muttered thanks.

“Cheers,” Septimus replied, chipper. “What would you do without me?”

“Marry Cedrella Black in your stead, probably.”

“Hey.” Septimus’ expression turned stony. “Don’t talk about her like that.”

“Blimey. Ever heard of a joke?”

They left the boys’ dorms, finding Minnie waiting for them in the common room. She was sprawled out across a couch, pulling the last of her curlers out of her hair. Steam was slowly climbing out of her ears—a side effect of Pepperup Potion. Harry descended upon her the moment he saw it.

“Cough it up,” he demanded desperately, holding out his hands like a beggar. She yawned and pulled a small potion vial out of her blouse pocket, tossing it at him. He snatched it out of the air and popped the top, chugging it down in a few gulps. The effects were immediate. Harry sighed with relief as his body warmed and the piercing headache began to abate.

“What would I do without you?” he languished. Minnie vanished the used curlers and stood, shaking out her silky black hair.

“Die, probably,” she replied primly, grinning at them. “Septimus, Cedrella came to the painting door while you were waking that bum and asked me to give you this.” She held out a baby pink envelope. It had a lipstick kiss on the back of it and a red flower pressed into the wax. Septimus snatched it out of her hand and put it under his nose, breathing deeply.

“Carnations,” he whispered, awe in his voice. “Of course! Cedrella, you genius.”

Harry rolled his eyes, beckoning his friends towards the painting door. They left the common room and began descending towards the dungeons in an uncharacteristic silence. Septimus, who would’ve usually been the chattiest in such a situation, was too engrossed in Cedrella’s love letter to talk, and instead walked just behind Harry and Minnie as he read.

“Oh, to be in love,” Minnie sighed longingly, glancing back at the ginger as she spoke. “It was fine when it was the two of us against loverboy back there, but now that I’m the only single lady in this trio, I really ought to find a man.”

“What nonsense are you on about now?” Harry retorted sourly. Minnie tapped her cheek, sticking the tip of her tongue out at him playfully. “Oi, no funny business. I don’t know what you’ve gotten into your head now, but—”

“Tom and Monty, sitting in a tree,” she sang, twirling, “K-I-S-S-I-N-G.”

“Minnie…” he warned, lengthening his stride as she began to speed away from him, still singing. “Minerva McGonagall!”

“First comes love,” she mock-fainted, swooning, “then comes—ompf!” She collided with another body, stumbling back. “Goodness gracious… oh!”

“Minerva,” Tom Riddle acknowledged curtly, brushing an invisible crease out of his robe. Harry slowed to a stop behind the girl, glaring at Riddle over her head. Septimus collided with his back moments later, nearly sending them both tumbling. Harry managed to grab Minnie’s shoulder to steady himself at the last second, but he wasn’t quick enough to save Septimus from collapsing into a pile of limbs at their feet.

“Tom! Sorry, dear,” Minnie replied primly, elbowing Harry in the side as he dredged Septimus off the dungeon floor. “We were just having a laugh. Are you off to potions, too? You should walk with us.”

“No, he shouldn’t,” Harry hissed in her ear. She glanced at him pointedly.

“Sadly, I have a prior engagement,” Riddle replied, stone-faced. “A meeting.”

“A prefect meeting?” She reared back, allarmed. “I didn’t get a missive.”

“It’s a personal discussion,” he elaborated vaguely, side-stepping her. “It was actually supposed to be earlier in the morning, but someone,” he grabbed Harry’s arm, yanking him out of formation, “clearly forgot. So, if you’d excuse us….”

“Wait—wait! I should really go to potions.” Harry stumbled as Riddle began dragging him back the way they came. He reached a hand out to Minnie, but she just waved him off innocently. “Minnie? Minerva McGonagall, I can not afford to miss potions again!”

“I’ll take notes for you,” she called back, smiling ear to ear. “That ‘meeting’ sounds far more important, right Septimus?”

“Uh-huh,” the boy muttered, far too engrossed in his letter to be paying any attention to what was going on.

“Minerva!”

Riddle dragged him around the corner, and his friends disappeared from his sight. Harry cursed, yanking out his wand and firing off a warning hex right at his captor’s neck. Riddle twisted his head to the side, letting it splash harmlessly against the wall. Spinning, he let go of Harry’s arm to grip his collar instead, forcibly dragging him to the front so that they marched at a more deliberate angle.

“For three agonizing months I sat and waited for you to come to your senses,” Riddle growled, sporadically opening random doors before shutting them, clearly searching for something specific. Harry jabbed his wand backwards into the man’s stomach, but Riddle grabbed hold and yanked it out of his hand. “I was patient, I was barely aggressive, I sympathised with your grandfather’s foolishness, his absurd language—all of it, for you. I even gave you a night to ponder my offer. An entire twelve hours.”

Finally, he found the room he was looking for and threw Harry inside, shutting the door behind them. Darkness enveloped them completely—the only light was a slight sliver of sun streaming in from a crack under the door. Harry scrambled to his feet and threw his arms out blindly, his fingers finding nothing but air.

Somewhere in the darkness, Riddle growled. It was a low, menacing rumbling that had been dredged up from the deepest hollows of his throat. Harry could feel nothing, see nothing, but the man’s now-familiar dark eyes, which glowed a faint red in the pitch black.

“~All I asked…~” Riddle hissed. Harry’s wand clattered to the ground as the man tossed it aside and grabbed Harry’s shoulders. Instinctively, Harry reached out and tried to push the man away, his hands wrapping around hot skin. He tightened his hold, and Riddle swallowed roughly, his Adam’s apple bobbing beneath Harry’s fingers. There was something about the feel of it, the movement of cartilage under his thumb—Harry withdrew immediately as if burned. “~...was that you give me your answer after Arithmancy.~”

“~Technically speaking, it’s after Arithmancy right now,~” Harry retorted stiffly. He didn’t understand why he was even entertaining the man’s insane logic.

“~All these months I have waited for you, oh so patiently, and you force me to endure another hour?~” Riddle continued on as if Harry had never spoken. Harry gripped the man’s wrists as Riddle shoved him against a cold wall. He was beginning to sense a pattern. “~Tell me, my horcrux. Tell me what I want to know. You and I are both well aware that you only have one option.~”

Standing there, backed into a corner, hidden in darkness, Harry thought he could hear Hermione screaming his name. He wondered if she was still out there somewhere, braving the unknown, fighting in the same unbeatable war he was. If she were there with him, what would she do? Would she agree that the cost was worth the insurmountable gain?

Harry breathed unevenly. What would Ron say? Would he tell Harry that there had to be another way? If Sirius and Remus were alive, would they push him to keep fighting, even if they knew the battle was unwinable? If he could ask Dumbledore for his counsel, would the old man beg him to choose a different path?

If his parents saw him now, if they could understand the weight of his actions, would they grieve the half of his soul he was willingly giving up to save them?

Harry forced himself to swallow, corralling his wild thoughts. It didn’t matter. He had no way of knowing what had happened to Hermione. Ron was long dead—Sirius and Remus too. Dumbledore—his Dumbledore, the wisened professor who had been his guiding hand—would not be that man for another century. His parents, even if they had been watching over him from beyond the grave, could not reach him here. In this place, in this time, he was alone. All he could do was move forward.

“I’ll do it,” he ground out, breathing shakily. He felt Riddle’s muscles tense beneath his hands. “I’ll do it, but you have to swear that no more innocent people will die by your wand.”

There was silence. Riddle was still. Then, he loosened his grip, and sagged forward, his head coming to rest beside Harry’s ear. Riddle pressed their fronts together and breathed in deeply. Harry tried to dig himself further into the wall to escape the contact, but the other man just crowded closer.

“Yes,” Riddle murmured, his lips ghosting along Harry’s skin. “That is… more than doable.”

There was a moment, just a breath, before he pressed them to the crook of Harry’s neck. Harry went rigid. The man’s lips were hot, fiery—uncomfortably so. The contact burned up his jaw and through his face, concentrating in a dense ball right between his eyes. Harry breathed unevenly. It was unnatural. It was unearthly. It was….

Riddle abruptly pulled away, the feeling dissipating immediately with his withdrawal. Harry sagged, gasping. It was impossible.

“How did you…?” Harry didn’t continue the thought. He didn’t know what to say. What could he say?

“~Finally,~” Riddle hissed, voice dripping with sick glee. His eyes shone a deep red as they burned through the darkness. Within that cocoon of black, they were the only thing that existed. “~Harry James Potter… you are mine.~”

Chapter Text

The once-delicious Hogwarts food tasted like ash in his mouth. Harry gnawed on a slice of chicken half-heartedly as he pushed bits of haggis around his plate. He had barely eaten all week, though not for lack of trying. He was hungry—starving, even—but whenever mealtime rolled around he could only manage to scarf down about half his plate before an unabating nausea overwhelmed any urge he had left to eat. He didn’t think Minnie had caught on to his mood quite yet, but Septimus had been sending him concerned glances for the past few meals. Harry wanted to mention it before they did, but didn’t have the wherewithal to come up with an excuse, much less pretend that he felt like anything more than a piece of flobberworm dung scraped off the bottom of a shoe.

Riddle told him he needed one week to prepare—just one. It felt like an impossibly short amount of time, yet also an eternity. Seven days—168 hours. Harry walked through most of it in a daze. He woke up, went to class, went to Hogsmeade with Minnie, drank until he forgot why he was drinking, then woke up the next morning to do it all over again. Riddle didn’t attend any of their shared classes during that week—a small respite that felt more foreboding than anything else. A week to prepare; what did one man need an entire week for? How exactly does one go about preparing to create a horcrux? Did Voldemort prepare anything before making Harry into one? He couldn’t help but flip the questions over in his mind until they became meaningless. Thoughts turned to sludge. Harry felt like a dead man walking.

“Aye, Monty.” Septimus nudged him. “You want my last brandy snap? The elves outdid themselves with this batch.” He held the dessert out to Harry, swaying it under his nose.

“Eh, I’m feeling a smidge queasy,” he replied numbly, cheek in his palm as he drew swirls into his decimated food. Minnie glanced up from her textbook.

“Pepperup only does so much for hangovers,” she reminded him absentmindedly, grabbing the brandy snap from Septimus and setting it on the non-haggis side of Harry’s plate. “We ought to cut back, I reckon. Perhaps we’ll stay on school grounds tonight, hm? Go out for a  picnic, have a little smoke?”

“A cigarette….” Harry sighed longingly, gazing into his plate. “That’s what I need. Black coffee and a cigarette.”

“Not in front of the wee ones, you lot,” Septimus murmured, nodding at the younger years sitting further down the table.

“No, no, he’s onto something.” Minnie tucked her textbook in her bag and stood. “NEWTs are a week away; what more is there to learn in class?”

“Fuck all,” Harry grumbled.

“Exactly. Let’s pop by the kitchens and get a bloody coffee, and then let’s get out for the day and sit in the sun! It’s not as if other people aren’t skipping too. I haven’t seen Tom Riddle in class for Merlin knows how long, and he’s best in the year.”

“Well, if you’re so insistent, I won’t argue.” Septimus sighed, languished in his tone but quick to stand. The pair of them looked expectantly at Harry, who poked at his food for a moment more before a small grin started to stretch across his face.

“Ah, what the hell.”

Septimus clapped him on the back. Pushing the plate of mashed meat away, Harry hopped up and joined his friends. They left the Great Hall and made off to the kitchens, guided by the same desire to be freed from the school’s suffocating walls—if for different reasons. The house elves were more than willing to package up a little picnic basket for them, including a large portable kettle of black coffee at Harry’s behest. Then, they marched right out the castle doors and straight to the Great Lake. Minnie and Septimus immediately laid out the blanket and began rifling through the basket in search of pastries and sweets while Harry stole a few cigs from Minnie’s satchel, poured a cup of black coffee, and sat down next to the water.

“Surely, they gave us truffles,” Septimus muttered. “Where are the truffles?”

“It’s a damned picnic basket, you great lump, not a pâtisserie.”

Harry held his coffee in one hand and a cig in the other and gazed out at the black water, breathing deeply. Mid-morning sunlight streamed over the lake, coating the dark water so it gleamed like silver. In the distance, the Forbidden forest stretched on infinitely, its large hollowed trees swaying in the wind. Harry took a long drag—exhaling nice and slow—then washed it down with a swig of his brew, sighing as the burning warmed him just right.

“What’d you just say? Say that again.”

“Pâtisserie?” Minnie hummed.

“Once again.”

“Pâtisserie. It’s French.”

Harry tapped some ash off into the water, watching as it floated there on the surface, swaying with the tide. It got yanked back and forth by the current for a time before finally getting swept under by a particularly torrent wave. He raised the mug to his lips and breathed in the smell.

“‘Course it's bloody French. Did you reckon I thought it was Irish? The hell are you doing, spouting French at me? You’re a Scot, woman, have some shame.”

Smack!

“Oi!”

“Pray tell, what exactly do you think truffles are, Weasley? Romanian?”

“It's a bloody beautiful morning,” Harry remarked, more to himself than anything. Minnie and Septimus didn’t seem to have heard him. “I mean, it's just gorgeous.” He spread his arms wide. “Look at this world!”

“Romanian chocolates are rather brilliant.”

Smack!

“Oi! Quit it, you twit!”

Harry set his coffee to the side, shifting his full attention to the cig in his mouth. He wondered if he would see the world differently with half a soul. Would the color be greyed? Would the light be dimmed? He tried to imagine it—tried to feel out the places where his soul might be so he could imagine not having it there—but the idea of lacking something as intrinsic as his soul felt too abstract to sparse. Would he lose memories? Lose love? Would he care about others in the same way? Would he be able to feel in the same way? What parts of him was he about to give up?

“Hey, mate.”

Harry shook himself from the thought as Septimus settled down beside him. The ginger had a box of chocolate truffles in one hand and the other outstretched to Harry expectantly. He handed his friend the cig and sat back, bracing his arms behind him. 

Septimus took a deep drag before squishing the cigarette butt against a rock. Sitting forward, he fiddled with the box of truffles for a moment before glancing back at Harry nervously.

“I know we joke about it and all,” he started, “but I really am going to marry Cedrella. I don’t care what her father thinks of my family. She’s my one and only.”

“I know,” Harry replied, sipping his coffee thoughtfully. Septimus nodded and looked back down. He played with one of the truffles absentmindedly before taking a bite out of it. He screwed up his face and spat it out into the water.

“The ceremony won’t be anything grand,” he continued. “Mum’s been saving pocket money here an’ there, but it’s barely enough.”

“I’m sure my father would be happy to chip in as a wedding gift, mate,” Harry interjected. Septimus immediately shook his head.

“That’s not what I’m trying to ask from you. I just…. Well, I don’t want you to think it would be a grand time commitment is all. It’ll be low effort, so if you were—well, that is to say….” Septimus groaned, running a hand down his face. “Blimey, how do I put this? Listen, you’re my best mate—and Minnie’s also my best mate, but it's different because she’s also girl, and Cedrella asked her to be the maid of honor yesterday, so I thought now would be a good time to ask—well, if you were interested, since the wedding will probably be right after graduation—”

“Are you asking me to be your best man?” Harry questioned softly. Septimus nodded, his face almost as red as his hair. The only noise was the sound of the waves gently lapping at the shore.

“You don’t have to—”

“I’d be honored.”

Septimus’ entire face brightened. “Wait, really? You mean it?”

“Yes, I bloody mean it.” Harry’s voice came out a little more incredulous than intended. He tried again. “Merlin, Septimus, of course I meant it. That’s the greatest honor a bloke can get from his mates, but are you sure? What about your brother?”

“Who, Sextus?” Septimus shook his head. “He’s fine, but he’s just my brother. You’re my best friend, Monty. I wouldn’t want anyone else but you to be up there with me.”

Harry bit down on his bottom lip and looked back out at the lake, pretending that the wetness in his eyes was from the sun. He thought of Ron. How couldn’t he think of Ron? This was a conversation they’d joked about but never dared dream of: there was no room for weddings in a war. Ron and Hermione had wished for it, he was certain, but making it a reality would have been like begging Voldemort to kill them right in front of each other. Sure, Ron had mentioned it to him once or twice while they were on the run—nothing but regretful whispers in the darkness of the tent—but then the Battle of Hogwarts began, and he was just… gone. Forever. They didn’t even get to bury him.

“I want to be there for you every step of the way,” Harry told him quietly. “I mean that, I really do. You deserve to marry the woman you love, Septimus. If the Blacks have a problem with it, they’ll have to get through me first.”

Septimus looked away and rubbed his nose, sniffling slightly. “That’s… yeah, bloody hell, that’s good—good best man speech material, mate. Write that one down,” he croaked, wiping his eye with the back of his hand. Harry barked a laugh, thumping the other man on the back.

“If it’s any help to your nerves,” They both jumped at the same time as Minnie suddenly spoke, settling down on Harry's right. “Cedrella is ecstatic about becoming a blood traitor. She’s even picked out tablecloths already.”

“Wait a bloody minute…” It suddenly dawned on Harry at that moment—since when were they actually planning a wedding? He whipped back around to stare at Septimus. “You cheeky bastard! You actually proposed?”

The ginger shrugged smuggly. “I’m loath to even acknowledge any ideas you have about romance, but I suppose I'll have to admit it. She thought the letter proposal was rather romantic.”

“You know what they say about broken clocks,” Minnie chimed in. Harry rolled his eyes at the both of them, downing the last of his coffee in a single gulp.

“You’ll find I’m right more often than not , ye of little faith.”

“Oh, shove a sock in it,” Septimus retorted glumly. “I still need to get a ring, so we’re not technically engaged yet.”

“Cedrella seems to think so,” Minnie sing-songed, lighting a second cigarette as she spoke.

“Yeah, that’s why I said technically, you pillock. ”

“Is that any way to treat the maid of honor?”

“Is that any way to treat the groom ?”

Harry smiled, watching the waves steadily lap the shore as Minnie and Septimus fell into another round of pointless bickering. This was why he said yes—for these beautiful, glowing souls that had flung themselves into his orbit—they all deserved to live full, happy lives and die when they’re old and ready for it. They deserved a proper death. Children shouldn’t have to worry about whether they'll live to see tomorrow. No one deserved to die a pointless death in someone else’s war. If giving up half his soul meant saving all of theirs, he would do it over and over again.

“I love you both,” Harry admitted softly. They stopped arguing to look at him. “It’s been the greatest honor of my life to be your friend—and I really mean that. From the bottom of my heart and back again.”

Minnie and Septimus glanced at each other.

“You’re not dying, are you?” Minnie asked him gently, pressing a comforting hand to his arm. Harry rolled his eyes.

“Oh, fuck off. I’m trying to be vulnerable.”

“Well, I thought it was brilliant,” Septimus sniffled, dabbing his eyes. “You’ve got some romance in you, after all. Maybe I really can be your best man one day.”

“Merlin, you’re both insufferable,” Harry grumbled, swatting at Minnie as she stuck out her bottom lip in an over-exaggerated pout. “I ought to—”

He was interrupted by a sudden visitor from the sky. A brown barn owl with a big black spot under its right eye swooped down and landed on Harry’s knee. It puffed up and let out a loud, harsh scream. Harry twitched back, grimacing.

“That’s Tom’s owl,” Minnie remarked curiously, untying the note from its foot. “It must be a missive for our next prefect meeting.” She unfolded it and began to read. Her eyebrows immediately shot up to her hairline, her cheeks blooming into a furious red. “Huh?”

Harry leaned over her shoulder, somehow knowing already what it said.

I’m ready. Come hither.

“It’s for me,” he muttered, nipping the parchment from her hands. Crumpling up the paper, he shooed the owl off his knee and stood. It let out another harsh, drawn-out scream before shooting off into the sky again.

“I have to go.”

Chapter Text

The door to the Chamber of Secrets slid open with a dull thump, and Harry stepped inside. All of the furniture had been shoved off to one corner, leaving a wide open space in the middle where Tom Riddle stood, his back to the door. In front of him, sitting a few metres apart, there were two chairs… and two men.

“What the hell is this?”

Riddle glanced over his shoulder at Harry before turning back to his two captors. The men had silk pillow sheets over their heads, obscuring their faces, but Harry could tell by their clothes that they were Hogwarts students.

“The making of a horcrux requires you to murder another person,” Riddle explained matter-of-factly.

“I know that. Why are there two of them?” Harry demanded, storming into the chamber. 

“Do you have my diary?” the other man replied, not seeming the least bit affected by Harry’s tone. Harry glowered at Riddle before reaching into his satchel to retrieve the accursed book, smacking it into the Dark Lord's outstretched palm. Riddle massaged the black leather cover for a moment, considering, before he continued. “Transferring a horcrux into a new vessel also requires a life. One of them is for that purpose.”

“Transferring…?”

Harry followed Riddle with his eyes as the man set the diary down on a small table between the two hooded men. On it were two vials of a black, tar-like substance. Harry eyed them warily before focusing his attention back on the man before him.

“I already told you—I’d prefer my horcruxes to be together.” Riddle turned around, eyes glimmering as he looked Harry up and down. “And you wouldn’t want to live with half a soul, I assure you.”

“You’re not putting that thing in me.” Harry shook his head, shivering with disgust. “That wasn’t the deal. Stop changing the terms.”

“That thing is the better half of my soul, Harry Potter,” the Dark Lord murmured, closing the gap between them before pressing his forehead into Harry’s scar. Heat bloomed from the connection, and Riddle breathed in slowly, his eyes fluttering shut. Harry forced himself to swallow the lump in his throat. “I have worked tirelessly these last days to ensure the ritual’s perfection. Tell me, would you truly rather exist with half a soul than accept the kindest parts of mine? That diary keeps my childhood: my hopes and my dreams. It is my heart, my soul. I hold it in the highest regard.”

Harry worked his jaw. He didn’t like it. The idea of having even more of Tom Riddle inside him felt too invasive, too transformative, but….

“I suppose something is better than nothing,” he finally acquiesced, causing the other man to grin.

“Good,” Riddle replied, drawing back as his gaze roamed up to Harry’s brow. His dark eyes flashed red before he reached up, ghosting his fingers across the scar.

“How miraculous it is, that even across time and space, I can feel the piece in me that wants to return to you,” he whispered, before raising his head and pressing a searing kiss to Harry’s brow. “Come. It is time to choose.”

As quickly as he approached, Riddle retreated, pulling the heat away with him. Harry pressed a finger into his scar, contemplative.

Leaving Harry standing there, Riddle stepped towards the bound men and reached out, ripping the pillowcases off their heads. Neither so much as twitched. Harry assumed they had been forced unconscious by a sleeping draught.

“Who are these students?” he murmured, cautiously stepping closer. Both faces were entirely unfamiliar to him, though he could feel something in the haze of Fleamont’s memories that made him certain he had seen them before.

“Abraxas Malfoy and Walter Pettigrew.”

Harry froze.

“…What?”

Tom Riddle grinned, wide and monstrous.

“My first Death Eater or the father of your family’s greatest traitor… I picked them well, didn’t I?” he murmured, brushing his finger along the curve of Abraxas Malfoy’s jaw before examining it as if the man were a bookshelf covered in dust. He rubbed his finger and thumb together contemplatively, before turning to Harry with a wry grin. “I hope this assures you of my sincerity, Harry Potter. I will give up my two greatest boons for you.”

Harry didn't speak; he couldn't speak. For not the first time, he found himself struck silent by Riddle’s unwavering derangement. It had been quite clear to him long before this point that the man was, simply put, out of his bloody mind, but this was still somehow the most absurd decision that Riddle had come to.

“I wonder…." The Dark Lord stalked over to Harry, black eyes glimmering. “Which one will you choose?”

It was quiet. Harry wasn’t sure what to say. What could he say in a situation like this? Even though he had known for the entire week what he would have to do—even though he thought he had made peace with it—standing there felt different. Being forced to choose who he’ll murder felt different.

”Well?” Riddle pressed, impatience evident in his voice. "I knew you'd hesitate, but—"

“I’m not so selfish as to kill an innocent man for his son’s crimes,” Harry finally retorted, interrupting whatever nonsense Riddle was about to spew at him. “Walter Pettigrew has done nothing to deserve this.”

The Dark Lord quirked a brow, seeming almost disappointed. “Really? Hm. Well, Abraxas it is.”

Riddle grabbed the back of Walter Pettigrew’s chair and dragged it backwards several paces. Following the movement, Harry noticed a circle on the ground around the chairs, which had been painted on by what appeared to be the same black fluid in the vials. He almost questioned what it was, but thought better of it. He severely doubted Riddle would explain it to him.

After removing Walter Pettigrew from the circle, Riddle dragged Abraxas Malfoy’s chair to the centre of it and stepped back, motioning at Harry to join him.

“This seems to be quite some set-up,” Harry muttered, hesitating for a moment before stepping over the black line. “Is this all a requirement for creating horcruxes, or are you being needlessly flamboyant?”

“You could create a horcrux with nothing but a sharp stone if you wished. I have done it with nothing but a wand, standing in a child’s nursery, all while being shredded by a rebounded killing curse,” Riddle replied absentmindedly as he returned to the table and picked up one of the potions, examining it. “All this preparation is for the transference that will come after. It must be carefully timed and perfectly executed, so I have eliminated as many variables as possible. The only unknown is… well, you’ll see soon enough.” Riddle set down the vial, turning back to Harry. “You may begin.”

“Hold on,” Harry turned in place, following the man with his eyes as Riddle walked a distance away, planting himself between and a little to the right of Harry and Abraxas, forming a sort of obtuse isosceles triangle with their bodies. “You haven’t told me how to, yet.”

“You don’t know how to kill a man?” Riddle hummed. “Well, the wand motion—”

“Not that. How to make the damned thing.”

It was silent. Suddenly, the air felt… suffocating.

“Committing an act of murder splits the soul in two,” Riddle intoned, his gaze burrowing into Harry’s skin. “You, Harry Potter, who have never killed, who would never do so willingly, who holds the dark arts in such low esteem—you are incapable of casting the necessary dark magic to meld the severed part of your soul with mine.” Riddle pulled his wand from his robe pocket. “You must murder to sever your soul, but that is all I can trust you to accomplish. The ritual is mine to perform. Now, begin.”

Harry took a shaky breath, reaching for his wand. This was it, then. All his years of fighting, all the agony and pain, all the people who had died to help him kill the Dark Lord—he was throwing it all to the wolves. He was undergoing the most evil of dark magic, willingly splitting his soul, for just one promise, one unbreakable oath.

The unbreakable oath.

“You’ve forgotten something,” Harry whispered. “You promised you would swear to it.”

“I cannot,” Riddle replied instantly. “It’s as you said—Walter Pettigrew is innocent. I cannot swear to never kill the innocent before the ritual.”

With those sparse few words, Harry felt all his doubts and fears come rearing back up again. This was a trick—he was getting fooled—Riddle didn’t plan to be passivistic after he became truly immortal—he would lock Harry away and run off to destroy the world the second he became unstoppable.

“You don’t believe me,” Riddle observed.

“Is it that obvious?” he replied dryly, his knuckles white around his wand. The other man sighed, clearly feeling inconvenienced, and raised his own.

“I, Tom Marvolo Riddle, swear an unbreakable vow to swear another unbreakable vow after this ritual is successfully completed, wherein I will swear that another innocent will not die by my wand for as long as I live.”

He then ripped his wand downwards and smacked it against his wrist, casting nonverbally. A string of magic leapt out of the tip and wrapped around his wrist, branding a ring of fire into his skin. Riddle’s face twitched, and then smoothed out.

“There,” he shook out his arm and let it fall to his side. Smoke rose up his wrist, dancing through the air. “A rushed job, but it will kill this body nonetheless. Are you satisfied?”

Harry looked at the other man and just… stared.

“I don’t… understand you,” he finally murmured. “Is becoming my horcrux truly all you want from this world?”

The other man’s answer was immediate and matter-of-fact.

“I told you, Harry Potter, returning to the past restored half my soul.” Riddle pressed a hand into the hollow of his chest. “Now that I remember how it feels to be a person within this flesh, I design to recover my humanity and see my ambitions of immortality fully realised. This is the only way to succeed in both—to be whole again.”

There was a second of stillness. For an almost imperceivable moment, Harry sensed… desperation from Tom Riddle. Not madness, not crazed insanity—just silent, tired longing.

“You cannot understand right now, with your soul so complete and unscarred, but you will soon enough.” Riddle let his hand drop from his chest. Any emotion Harry could sense from the man fell away with it. “Now, you have stalled this long enough. Become my true equal. Cast.”

Harry breathed in shakily. He raised his hand to his chest as Riddle did, feeling along the divots of his ribcage. Where was his soul within it? 

“Alright,” he whispered, raising his wand at Abraxas Malfoy’s prone form. He knew the wand motion. He’d seen it in his nightmares all his life. He didn’t need to be told how to cast the one curse he’d sworn would never come out of his wand.

Harry took one last, great breath, and let go of his soul.

“Avada Kedavra!”

Chapter Text

Nothing happened.

Harry lowered his wand.

“It… didn’t work.”

“I expected this,” Riddle muttered, rubbing his cheek. “You need to want it, Harry Potter. You need to want his death. You’ve cast the Cruciatus before, haven’t you? You know the kind of emotion you must muster—the intent. Try again.”

Harry tried to think of what would come later if he let Abraxas live. He thought of Lucius Malfoy and the agony he would inflict on others—on Dobby, on his own son. He thought of Draco, twisted by his family’s ideals, driven past the point of no return. Harry felt his gut churn. He drew his wand back.

“Avada Kedavra!”

Nothing.

“I can’t do it.” Harry sagged, breath ragged. “I don’t have it in me. I can’t… I can’t force it out.”

“Hm… you don’t hate the Malfoys enough, do you.” Riddle’s dry tone made the question come off as more of a statement.

“Of course I don’t,” Harry snapped. Riddle rubbed his jaw in thought. “How could I? This bloke is just a pureblood elitist. He’s garbage, but he isn’t you. If Voldemort didn’t exist, he wouldn’t have been a Death Eater.”

Riddle paused.

“You’re right,” he agreed softly, a grin beginning to stretch across his face. It was an evil, cruel smile, like he’d just discovered something that had never occurred to him before. “There’s no one you hate more than me, is there? Then…” he motioned to himself as if presenting evidence of a crime. “Think of what I have done to you. Imagine that I sit before you in that chair.”

“What?” Harry shook his head, scoffing. “I know you’re insane, but—”

“James and Lily Potter,” Riddle began. “Minerva McGonagall, Albus Dumbledore, Sirius Black, Ron Weasley—hell, the entire Weasley family—I wiped that bloodline off the face of the Earth.” Harry stiffened, slowly turning to face Voldemort with wide eyes. Riddle merely smiled coyly, as if admitting to a prank. “I could go on and on. You’ve said it yourself time and time again: I am to blame for each and every death. I have killed all that you have ever loved. Harness that grief. It has been your life’s work to see me dead. Now is your opportunity to see it through. Kill the bastard. Kill me. ”

Harry’s hands shook.

“List them off,” Riddle demanded. “One by one. Tell me who I’ve killed.”

“…This is absurd,” Harry whispered.

“You can’t remember?” Riddle questioned lazily, glancing at his nails. “My, they must not have been very important to you, after all.”

“…Rubeus Hagrid,” Harry began, breathing shallowly as he stared at Voldemort, his tunnel vision digging deeper into those red eyes. “Severus Snape, Remus Lupin, Neville Longbottom, Dean Thomas, Seamus Finnigan.”

“More. Who else?” Riddle stalked forward and grabbed Harry’s jaw, turning him to face Abraxas Malfoy’s prone form. “That can’t be even a fraction of the lives I’ve ended.”

“Lee Jordan, Parvati and Padma Patil.” His vision blurred. Abraxas Malfoy’s white hair burned like fire. “Katie Bell, Lavender Brown, Oliver Wood, Cho Chang.”

“Is that all?” Riddle scoffed. “My cruelty is boundless—I know there are more.”

“Luna Lovegood,” Harry croaked, tears beginning to slip out of his eyes. “Madam Pomfrey, Professor Flitwick, Madam Hooch, Professor Sprout.”

“Don’t stop,” Riddle encouraged. “You’re close, I can feel it. Who else?”

“Cedric Diggory, Mad-eye Moody, Hedwig, D… Dobby.” He could barely see Abraxas Malfoy through the tears. His voice was shaking—his entire body was shaking. “Aunt Petunia, Uncle Vernon, Dudley, Fleur Delacour, Nymphadora Tonks, Ted… Teddy Lupin.”

“Useless deaths, all of them!” Riddle’s voice was everywhere—in his ears, in his heart—as the man paced back and forth behind him. “Young and old, it didn’t matter to me so long as I won. Their lives meant nothing!”

“Fuck you!” Harry screamed. “Colin Creevey was sixteen years old. He was a child, and you slaughtered him! Avada Kedavra!”

The green light was blinding.

Chapter Text

Harry expected it to hurt when his soul split in two. 

The light of the killing curse faded away, leaving Abraxas Malfoy’s corpse slumped in the same position it had begun in. Harry blinked away the tears and staggered back. What was different? He pressed his hands into his chest. He felt the same, but… changed. Something invisible inside him had shifted out of place. Not an organ, nor a bone, but something about his gravity felt… skewed.

“ֆօʊʟ աɦօ ɦǟֆ աɨɛʟɖɛɖ ɖɛǟȶɦ—” Riddle’s garbled voice broke him from the stupor. Harry whipped around to find a wand pointed at his face. “—ȶǟӄɛ ɨռȶօ ʏօʊʀ ɦɛǟʀȶ ȶɦɛ ֆɨռ օʄ ʍʊʀɖɛʀ.”

“What is this?” Harry breathed. The language coming out of Riddle’s mouth felt both familiar and foreign, ancient and modern. The man grabbed one of the potion vials and leaned his head back, pouring the inky substance down his own throat. Riddle swallowed, then threw the vial aside.

“քʊʀɢɛ ʏօʊʀֆɛʟʄ ʄʀօʍ ȶɦɨֆ ɮօɖʏ ֆօ ȶɦǟȶ ʏօʊ ʍǟʏ ɮɛƈօʍɛ քʊʀɛ օռƈɛ ʍօʀɛ.”

There was no light, no perceivable spell, but the result was instant. Harry doubled over and screamed. The pain wasn’t inside him, it was him. Every piece of him, slowly tearing. The sensation was like trying to cut air in half. How could you separate what would become no smaller?

“Riddle!”

Molecules split apart like hydrogen in an atom bomb, diverging, but not exploding. There was no chain reaction—no reaction at all—just a papercut that turned into a fissure, which became a tear, ripping in two, innards exposed to the open air. It was not flesh, it was not DNA. It was the indestructible spirit, split straight down the middle.

“ֆօʊʟ աɦօ ɦǟֆ ɮɛƈօʍɛ օʀքɦǟռɛɖ ɨռ ȶɦɨֆ աօʀʟɖ—”

One severed half—one piece of himself—began to pull away. Harry tried to cling to himself, but it was like trying to stop his blood from pumping. He felt it pull away—he felt himself pull away—become separated from the body. Half of him stayed, half of him floated; a bisected ghost, screaming so loudly that the afterlife closed its doors to him.

“—ʄɨռɖ ʏօʊʀ ռɛա ʋɛֆֆɛʟ աɦօ ɦǟֆ ֆաǟʟʟօաɛɖ ɖɛǟȶɦ.”

A beacon, a candle of black, burning cold through the unabating fire. He could see it, and could feel himself falling further away to meet it, escaping his other half, running, running. He touched the black fire and was sucked deeper, further away from his body, from the abandoned half, now left behind in the skin.

“ɦօʟɖ ʏօʊʀֆɛʟʄ ɨռ ʄʟɛֆɦ ǟռɖ ɮɛƈօʍɛ աɦօʟɛ օռƈɛ ʍօʀɛ.”

And then—it was gone. A door, an obstruction, like a universe between them, slammed shut. The last string tying the two pieces of his soul together was severed, and the half of him that left the body disappeared from the other completely. Harry was halved forever.

The sky came crashing down.

“Riddle!”

Harry clawed at his throat, snarling, thrashing on the ground. His sight returned to him, but nothing else did. Riddle choked, gasping, gurgling, and then went silent.

“~Tom Marvolo Riddle.~” Harry spat venom. “I am going to—” 

“I’m so sorry, Harry,” the man’s voice was suddenly warm, almost gentle. “I couldn’t tell you or you’d never agree to it. The first time you slice your soul in half will always be a great, unbearable agony.”

“I’m going to skin you.” Harry dug his nails into the ground, clawing, throat hoarse from screaming. He snarled, writhing, dragging himself forward with bloodied fingers. He couldn’t contain the fury, the infinite hatred. The half of his soul that Tom Riddle had stolen was all his restraint, his forgiveness, his mercy. “I’ll wear your scalp like a hat while you’re still alive to witness it. I’ll cut off your needle dick and feed it to you. I’ll rip out your innards, I’ll tear your teeth from your gums, do you hear me, Tom Riddle?! I will slice you into so many pieces they will be finding your bones for centuries!”

“It’s temporary, my sweet horcrux,” Riddle soothed, grabbing the second vial as he spoke. The gentleness in his voice was lost on Harry, who snarled like a beast in response. He clawed at the stone floor, infinite opportunities to rip Tom Riddle to shreds burning through his mind. “Oh, Harry, your soul is so kind. Thank you, thank you. I’ll pay you back tenfold, I promise you, just bear with it a little longer.”

“Fuck you!” he bellowed. “You scum of the earth, you unlovable beast! I’ll kill you! I’ll hunt you to the ends of the Earth! You hear me, Riddle?! There won't be a crack in Hell where you could hide from me! The devil will try to protect you, and I’ll rip his skin from his bones!”

A hand grabbed his jaw and forced his mouth open. Harry dug his nails into Riddle’s skin, clawing, gnashing his teeth. A bottle was forced into his mouth, and a thick, putrid sludge slid down his throat. He reached for Riddle’s face to gouge out his eyes. His fingers sank into the wet flesh, but drew no blood. Not even a scratch. He choked in fury, beast-like, crazed. He had only one directive, one focus. Kill Tom Riddle. Destroy him. Tear him apart, take back the soul he’d stolen, do anything to—

“Give him back to me!” he howled around the vial. Riddle yanked it out of his mouth and began to speak.

“ֆօʊʟ աɦօ ɦǟֆ ɮɛɛռ ɛռƈǟֆɛɖ ɨռ ȶɦɛ ɨռǟռɨʍǟȶɛ,” he began.

“Fuck you!” Harry scrambled towards Riddle on all fours. The other man’s voice was all around him, echoing through his skull. “I’ll kill you! I’ll shove a hand up your tight arse and pull out your colon!”

“ɮɛƈօʍɛ ʄʀɛɛɖ ʄʀօʍ ʏօʊʀ ֆɦɛʟʟ.”

“I’ll cut open your back and rip out your lungs!” The air was supercharged. He smelled smoke—the diary was burning. Its soul was swimming around him, so thick he could feel it sliding across his skin. “You’ll breathe on the outside, you’ll hold them in your hands, like bags of flesh—I will make you taste them!”

“ʄɨռɖ ʏօʊʀ ռɛա ʋɛֆֆɛʟ աɦօ ɦǟֆ ֆաǟʟʟօաɛɖ ɖɛǟȶɦ.”

“Stop—stop!” There was an immediate, sudden intrusion. It crowded against his gaping wound, pressed itself into the broken fissure. A foreign beast, melting into him. Harry thrashed, trying to escape it, but like the air, it was as untouchable as a ghost. “No! No! No! I don’t want your filthy soul! Give him back to me! Give me Harry James Potter!”

“ɦօʟɖ ʏօʊʀֆɛʟʄ ɨռ ʄʟɛֆɦ ǟռɖ ɮɛƈօʍɛ աɦօʟɛ օռƈɛ ʍօʀɛ.”

Harry froze. His entire body stalled, teetered, and then clicked. Harry dredged in a great, groaning gulp of air, as if it were his first breath out of the womb. He filled his lungs to bursting and then collapsed, still.

Silence.

“It’s done,” Tom Riddle sighed, stepping forward. “How do you feel?”

Harry didn’t move, didn’t twitch—he barely breathed. Tom Riddle crept closer, kneeling down beside him.

“Harry,” the man whispered, pressing a hand into his shoulder. “I know you have suffered greatly, but you must get up now. Face the world with new eyes. You are reborn. You are immortal. You are perfect. ”

Nothing moved—for one beat, then two—before slowly, shakily, Harry rose to a seated position. He held his hands out in front of him, eyes roaming over the digits, the knuckles, the bloodied nails, before finally settling on the large ring on his left pinkie finger. The Potter signet ring gleamed back at him like the eye of a cyclops.

“Harry,” Riddle whispered in his ear. “My beloved horcrux, look at me.”

Harry turned his head a fraction of an inch. Riddle’s eyes were a deep, warm brown. Only small specks of black and red remained.

“Thank you,” the man told him, unnaturally sincere. “You have given me an unimaginable gift. I will treasure it for the rest of eternity.”

“There is no need for thanks, only action,” Harry replied flatly, before raising his arm and backhanding Tom Riddle across the face.

Chapter Text

Riddle’s head snapped to the side. He sat there, blinking at nothing, before slowly raising a hand to his cheek.

“How curious,” the man murmured, turning his head back to face Harry. There was a reddened mark of the Potter signet ring imbedded in his skin. “Why did you do that?”

“Retribution,” Harry replied simply. Planting his hands, he slowly pushed himself onto wobbly legs. Riddle stood with him, hovering, hot hands holding Harry’s shoulders steady. His mind was as disoriented as his body. The harsh severing and rejoining made him feel as though he had been ejected from a black hole’s singularity.

“Retribution,” Riddle echoed, fascination dripping off his tongue. “How strange. I’d forgotten how it clung to me in my youth.”

Harry grabbed hold of Riddle’s shoulder for stability, swaying on unsteady legs. He felt half himself, and half something new, which he supposed made perfect sense. The new half of him was so… cold, so analytical. It iced over Harry’s unending anger and redirected it, pushing it forward, pushing him forward.

“I know what to do,” Harry whispered, pulling away from the other man. He made two shaky steps forward before stumbling. He was immediately caught by Riddle and righted. He tried to keep going. “Let go of me. I know what to do.”

“It will wait, sweet horcrux,” Riddle murmured, gently pulling him towards a couch. Harry allowed himself to be dragged away, his mind moving a million kilometres a second as he gathered his bearings. It was all suddenly so obvious. All the agony in the world, all the pain and suffering, he alone could destroy it. Harry James Potter, an immortal, unbeatable object, incapable of dying. He was the people's only hope. He would save them all.

He would wipe the Dark Arts off the face of the Earth.

They passed the slumped forms of Abraxas Malfoy and Walter Pettigrew. Harry looked at the man who would have sired Peter Pettigrew and felt nothing but relief that he was gone. It was one less dark wizard to deal with.

“You said to me—you said you would help me destroy every dark wizard on Earth if I asked it,” Harry muttered. Riddle slowly lowered him onto the couch, nodding. “You meant it, right?”

“Not particularly,” Riddle admitted dryly, pushing Harry down onto his back. “It's an absurd proposition. Logically speaking, it’s impossible. You cannot destroy evil, Harry. Its march is as unstoppable as time.”

“I’m not interested in hearing about logic,” Harry snarled, sitting up again. Riddle planted a hand on his chest and forced him back down. Harry grabbed the man’s wrist and stared into his brown eyes until Riddle finally met his thunderous gaze. “Do not forget, you are at my mercy just as much as I am at yours. I am not above casting Fiendfire right here and now, destroying us both. There must be a way.”

Riddle stared down at Harry, his eyes burning a fiery amber. Not black, not red, but gold.

“What a force of nature you’ve become, my dear horcrux,” he whispered, his familiar, sharp grin creeping across his face. “Such ruthlessness—such grand conviction—it was once mine, you know. Our souls intertwine so beautifully within you, my dear.”

“Despite having all my restraint, you’ve still found it within yourself to wax poetic like a fool,” Harry snapped, letting go of the man’s wrist so he could rub the scarred space between his brows in irritation. “Tom Marvolo Riddle… I’d curse you if it would mean anything.”

“Hm… speaking of curses,” the other man winced, holding up his left wrist. The unbreakable vow coiled around his arm was red like hot iron, and had begun creeping up towards his elbow, snaking through his veins on a one-way trip to his heart. “It appears that I’m running out of time to complete my promise.”

“Just die then,” Harry retorted instinctively, before pausing, considering. “No, you can’t die yet, not with half of my soul inside you.”

“Oh, stop it. I’ll blush,” Riddle dead-panned, holding out his hand. “Grasp my wrist, dear horcrux. Let’s shake on it.”

Harry reached out and took the man’s arm firmly. Riddle held Harry’s wrist in kind, gripping tightly. Heat bloomed from the connection, travelling up his shoulder and throughout his body, warming every inch of him. Harry breathed out a sigh. He could feel his other half within Riddle, comforting him, whispering softly. After all this time, Harry now understood all of the man’s touches against his scar, the desire to be closer. So much of Riddle’s previous actions suddenly felt uncomfortably sensible.

“Now,” Tom Riddle murmured, holding his wand above their conjoined hands. “Make me swear.”

There was a pause.

“Me?” Harry mused, eyes half-lidded. “How generous. Are you sure you won’t regret that later?”

“I swore the last unbreakable oath to myself. This one is for you,” Riddle said simply. Harry stared at the other man for a moment, rolling the cryptic response around in his head until it became smooth and simple. There didn’t seem to be any hidden meanings behind his words. It appeared Riddle had no intention to lie and stretch half-truths anymore.

“So you’ve stolen some sincerity from me as well,” Harry chuckled. “That was foolish of you.”

“I’ll never regret my actions, even if they cause me agony,” Riddle replied without shame, tightening his grip on Harry’s wrist. “Your soul has shown me a world previously unknown. The least I can do is accept your retribution.”

Harry snorted. The old him would have been incensed by such a proclamation, but now all he could think was that it gave him an… opportunity. As much as he despised Tom Riddle for what he had done, that new, cold part of him coveted the man in an uncomfortably intense way. He desired the power of the Dark Lord Voldemort. The usefulness he posed was unignorable—the power he wielded was unmatched. With Tom Riddle by his side, Harry could rid the world of evil in a third of the time.

It was useless to keep running from the man. Harry needed to trap him.

A smile slowly stretched across his face.

“Tom Marvolo Riddle,” he drawled, rising up so that they sat eye-to-eye. "First, swear that you will never kill another innocent with your wand. Second, swear that you will only wield your wand against evil. Third, swear that you will join me in my quest to purge this world of dark magic. Finally, swear that you will not be freed of this duty until evil itself is lost to the throes of history.”

Riddle blinked at him silently, a dazed look on his face. He exhaled, shaking his head, before he began laughing. Softly at first, then louder, until he was cackling, his head thrown back, deep, echoing belly laughs shaking the very foundation of Hogwarts.

“Harry James Potter!” he growled, his eyes burning a furious gold. “You absolute monster. Is that it, then? Either I accept your absurd terms, or I die? Or half of your soul dies?”

"Oh, how the tables have turned… ‘It would pain me, dear horcrux, but not enough to shake my resolve,’” Harry quoted with a sick grin, swaying his finger back and forth like a pendulum. "Better choose quickly, Tommy. You don't have much time left."

True to his words, the first oath was already peeking out of the collar of Riddle's shirt, dangerously close to reaching his spinal cord. Harry could see the man's brain working fast, his eyes twitching back and forth as he tried to come up with some way to wriggle out of this mess he had made for himself, but they both knew he only had one choice. The only way out of the oath was down the one path Tom Riddle refused to tread.

”Which will it be?” Harry murmured softly, almost sweetly. “Be my dog, or die like one?”

"Damn you," Riddle finally mustered. "I accept."

With that, he brought his wand down against their conjoined hands. Four threads of fire burst forth and wrapped around them, twisting into elegant knots—bows of golden flame which then sank into their hands and wrists, branding them with thin lines of amber. Then, the fire fell away, leaving them with black, charred ribbons marring their flesh. At the same time, the first oath faded, disappearing into Tom Riddle's skin as if it never were.

It was done. There was no going back—for either of them. They were bound together eternally.

Harry felt an inexplicable, uncomfortable, overwhelming glee.

“You can’t escape me now, Tom,” he murmured, tightening his grip. “Even if you wanted to, even if you lose your sanity completely, I won’t set you free until my ‘impossible’ quest is over.”

A flicker of panic surged through the other man's face before his features quickly smoothed out. He smiled warmly, as if nothing was wrong at all.

“Is that why you've gone to such lengths? Because you covet me so deeply?” Riddle chuckled. Harry saw through the act in an instant. Deep inside, far from prying eyes, Tom Riddle was shitting himself. Whatever plan he’d concocted before he coaxed Harry into this mess was dust in the wind now. “That was unnecessarily dramatic, my sweet horcrux. Why would I ever part with you?”

Riddle reached out, brushing Harry’s fringe off his scar. Bending forward, he pressed their foreheads together. Allowing the other man to pretend all was well, Harry leaned into the contact, sighing as warmth bloomed throughout his brow.

“You are my other half, my twin soul,” Riddle whispered. His shoulders were quivering with rage. “I could never stray far."

"Good," Harry murmured, enjoying the feeling of his soul pressing against its stolen half. "Because as far as I'm concerned, you're mine now, horcrux."

Chapter Text

Harry did well on his NEWTs. He got an A in Arithmancy, which was better than he’d expected, and the rest were O’s. Fleamont’s brain certainly helped since he was such a brilliant student, far more brilliant than Harry had been in most things outside of Defence. His scores ended up as the third best in the year, right behind Minnie in second and Tom in first.

“If you’d gotten an E instead, you’d be second,” Minnie admitted, sighing over the A she’d received in History. “Thank goodness I decided to take the Astronomy test as well, or we’d be tied.”

“And what a shame that would be,” Septimus grumbled, grimacing at his own scores. “Blimey… at least Herbology was an O.”

“You did wonderfully for what you plan to do.” Minnie patted his shoulder comfortingly. “Have you talked to Professor Garlick about the teaching assistant position?”

Septimus began grumbling about internships and the limited supply of them as Harry flicked some ash off his cigarette, blowing smoke into the warm air as he listened absentmindedly. He felt more... settled now that a couple of weeks had passed. He had spent his first few days after the ritual disoriented and furious, scheming up ways to eradicate Dark Magic as quickly as possible. He had been so caught up in it that he briefly considered leaving Hogwarts altogether, without even taking his NEWTs. In his addled mind, he had found the idea of wasting a single moment of his time taking exams to be preposterous. Irritatingly enough, Tom had been the one to finally drag him back down to reality.

"If this is the path you’ve chosen for us, we will have to walk it alone," his horcrux had reminded him. "If you truly need something beyond these castle walls, send me on an errand. Unlike you, my personal ties have already been severed. Don’t waste the time you have left with your companions on menial tasks."

Harry sighed, wondering if he really should have trusted the wily bastard with it all. Sure, Tom was essentially trapped by his side due to the unbreakable vow, but that didn't make him an effective errand boy. Although he could begrudgingly admit that his horcrux was right. Each second with Minnie and Septimus was quickly becoming a precious, rapidly draining resource.

“Has Cedrella spoken to you about her results?” Minnie asked Septimus curiously, biting into a sugar quill. Harry clued back into the conversation just as the noise around them began to rise. Dozens of other students were in the courtyard with them, either chatting with their friends about summer plans or groaning over job prospects. Harry observed them silently before he began to feel eyes on him. Glancing around, he caught sight of a shadowed figure looming just within the castle, a suspicious black sack slung over one shoulder. Harry cursed, putting out the cig on the bottom of his shoe. It seemed the last of his errands had finally been completed.

“We’re planning to meet up tonight after curfew to talk about it,” Septimus replied absentmindedly, fiddling with a hole in his sock. The figure disappeared back into the darkness of the castle. “We’re also settling on a date for the wedding. It’ll be right after graduation, but we’re not quite sure when yet. Mum wants it to be the twenty-third of August since that’s her birthday, but I don’t want our anniversary to be the same as—”

“I’ll be right back,” Harry grunted, shoving to his feet. Minnie peered at him curiously before turning back to Septimus, who had begun complaining about his mum’s meddling.

Prowling around the various groups of students, he darted inside the castle, glancing down either corridor hurriedly. He saw nothing at first, before there came a low, bird-like whistle from a suspiciously shadowy alcove. Harry rolled his eyes, striding over to it.

“You sure love skulking around like some deranged bat,” he grumbled, stepping inside. "I was beginning to think you’d run off for good. I ought to put a tracking charm on your wand."

Tom grinned wolfishly, swinging the sack back and forth like a metronome.

“My, how romantic of you. Your spoils?” He offered the bag to Harry, who descended upon it hungrily. Ripping it open, he rifled around, nodding at the contents. Everything was there and appeared undamaged. "Aren't you going to thank me? Perhaps I’m owed a kiss for my efforts?"

Harry glanced up, eyebrow raised. Tom's head was tilted to the side as he observed Harry, his eyes hooded and his smile warm. The other man had become irritatingly cheeky ever since stealing half of his soul. Harry didn't find it nearly as amusing as Tom seemed to.

“Hm. I appreciate your help,” he finally acquiesced, throwing the sack over his shoulder. “I would’ve just used my owl this time, but Father can be ornery, and that beast of yours gets things done much quicker.”

“Oh, please, it was a simple errand.” Tom waved him off before he leaned closer, a suspicious grin stretching across his cheeks. “Besides, I needed to recover something from the Muggle world, so I’d have taken the trip regardless.”

Harry squinted.

“Suspicious,” he muttered, glancing over his horcrux for any signs of cursed objects. “Would you tell me if I asked what you, of all people, needed there, or should I even bother?”

“Do you want to see?” Tom’s eyes were half-lidded as he held out a fist. The back of his hand was facing up, leaving his enclosed palm hidden from view.

“It’s not a spider, is it?” Harry grumbled, hesitantly reaching out towards the offering. Tom grabbed his wrist and pulled him closer, before slipping something cold onto his left ring finger.

“Perish the thought,” Tom murmured, letting go to reveal the Gaunt ring resting there. It sat beside the Potter signet ring, gleaming with a light that seemed to be emanating from within. Harry stared at it in the same way he would a piece of hippogriff dung smeared across his hand.

“~What the hell are you playing at?~” he snarled, glaring at the other man. Tom’s brown eyes shone gleefully. “~We agreed that retrieving this could wait until after we graduated.~”

“~Forgive my impatience, but I had a theory,~” he replied, a disquieting giddiness pervading his otherwise level voice. “~I tested it with some people I’ll kill in the future. All those who haven’t been born yet responded to the call and remembered me and my future actions. It appears that souls are of a finite quantity and don’t care about temporal laws. Rather curious, is it not?~”

Harry blinked at that, drawing back slightly. “Interesting…” he murmured, before shaking his head. “Wait—what are you getting at?”

There was a very keen glimmer in Tom Riddle’s eyes.

“Now you can know for certain what happened to Hermione Granger.”

Harry stiffened.

“There’s no need to thank me,” Tom continued, waving his hand flippantly. “Though I’m awfully curious myself—it'd been impossible to know for certain if my Death Eaters managed to catch her, at least until now. Though those fools never did know what to do without my guidance, and she was always so slippery….”

He trailed off as he glanced back at Harry, who glowered, fiddling with the ring contemplatively. Tom watched him expectantly, but Harry made no move to activate its ability. There was an uncomfortable beat of silence.

“I suppose you’d like to go someplace more secluded?” the other man mused. Harry remained quiet, watching as the sunlight glimmered off the black resurrection stone. “Well? Have you finally run out of words to speak?”

“You would do well to give yourself a limit,” Harry snapped, tugging the ring off his finger and handing it back. Tom frowned, pausing before he accepted it.

“Why do you hesitate? Does ignorance suddenly seem preferable?” he questioned, sounding more curious than anything. Harry rubbed his brow.

“I… I don’t know,” he admitted, running his hand down his face slowly. “What if she died? What if she lived? I can’t choose which is worse.”

“Ah… I see,” Tom hummed, nodding. He appeared to ruminate on that thought for a moment, considering, before reaching for Harry’s hand and slipping the ring back onto his finger. “Then, consider it an engagement ring.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Not even for me?”

“Stop messing around,” Harry snarled, moving to yank the ring off again. Tom beat him there and covered Harry’s fingers with his own. Warmth exploded through his wrist, shooting up his nerves and into his elbow. Tom broke into a toothy grin as Harry visibly twitched.

“We need a story to tell people when we leave,” he reminded Harry coyly, who rolled his eyes.

“A million and one more logical and likely excuses exist than an engagement, Riddle,” he snapped, snatching his hand away.

“Ah… and I thought we were past last names.”

“I have to go.” Harry shook his head, turning on his heel. Tom grabbed his wrist and yanked him back, slamming their bodies together. In an instant, they collapsed into each other, chests all but melting into one. Harry grumbled, closing his eyes as his cheek sank into Riddle’s shoulder. Their flesh was nothing but a thin membrane between them, a sleeve stopping one half from reuniting with the other. Harry's stolen soul buzzed just below his horcrux's flesh, murmuring calming words to him as Harry tried to sink closer and closer.

It was silent, save for their hearts, which beat in sync.

For a single, sparse moment, Harry wanted to go back to being the way he used to be. He wanted one more minute as the Boy Who Lived—the kind child who would rather die a martyr than kill the greatest evil of the century. He was beginning to forget what the warmth had felt like, boiling deep within him.

The cold was an incredible motivator, sure, but he'd be damned if Tom Riddle didn't seem to be having the time of his bloody life now that he’d discovered empathy.

“We shouldn’t embark on this grand mission with regrets, my dear,” Tom murmured into his neck, rubbing soothing circles into Harry's shoulder blades. “Make space for her loss, and then move on. Your soul has taught me that much.”

“How wise of you,” Harry replied sourly, voice barely more than a whisper—a muffled sigh in the vacuum of space. He wrapped his arms around his horcrux and pulled the man closer, zapping away as much warmth as he could. “I’ll… consider it.”

Chapter Text

“What was that about?” Minnie looked at him suspiciously as he returned. Harry waved her off, tossing the sack onto the grass at her feet.

“I had a delivery,” he replied vaguely, crouching down and ripping the bag open. He rooted around for a moment before pulling out a small velvet box. He handed it to Septimus. “For you.”

“The ‘ell is this?” the ginger questioned, popping it open. Immediately, he froze, eyes bulging. Minnie looked over his shoulder and gasped.

“Oh, Monty, it's beautiful!” she breathed, glancing between him and the ring with a gleeful grin. Harry smiled back, prideful in his machinations. His mother’s jewellery smith had been more than willing to brew up the little ring, especially after Harry sent her the particulars. It was thin, nothing overtly extravagant—the silver band had been sculpted into twisting vines that branched up and around a medium-sized ruby, which had been carved into the shape of a small red carnation.

Septimus was silent.

“You said you didn’t have an engagement ring yet,” Harry explained matter-of-factly. “It’s a rushed job, but it’ll do. You’re on your own for the wedding bands, though.”

Septimus shook his head. “I…I can’t accept this,” he whispered, attempting to hand the small box back. “I just can’t.”

“Good thing you aren’t, then, yeah?” Harry retorted, nodding towards a band of Slytherins who had just come wandering into the courtyard. “She is.”

Septimus’ neck cracked from the speed he turned around. Within the mob of green, a girl with long, curly black hair watched them hesitantly, clutching her satchel to her chest. Septimus looked at her longingly, a small smile on his face. She smiled back before glancing down at the ground bashfully.

“I can’t,” he whispered, turning back and pushing the box into Harry’s chest. “Monty, this is too much. I could never pay you back.”

“There’s no payment; you don’t pay someone for a gift.” Harry leaned forward, gripping Septimus’ jaw and forcibly turning his face back around. Letting go, he pointed at Cedrella, who perked up the moment Septimus looked her way again. “I’m not letting you jeopardise your happiness because you’re too frightened to accept help from your best man,” he hissed in a hushed whisper. Hesitantly, the girl raised her hand and waved sneakily so that those around her wouldn’t notice. “Now, go over there and propose to your girl.”

Septimus breathed in shakily. He glanced from Harry to Minnie, who made a shooing motion with her hands.

“What are you waiting for?” she encouraged him excitedly. “Go! You two have been hiding your relationship since… what, third year? Do you want to hide it until the wedding, too? This is your last chance, don’t waste it!”

“I’ll never be able to pay you back for this,” Septimus whispered, scrambling to his feet. “Thank you, Monty. Thank you.”

“Stop stalling,” Harry retorted, grinning. “Go.”

Septimus stumbled away from them in a sort of daze, but then found his footing. Moving more intentionally, he strode towards the group like he was about to go to war. At first, the gaggle of Slytherins looked suspicious of him, a few even reaching towards their wands, but then Cedrella pushed her way out of the group and ran forward. She met Septimus halfway, her hands so tight around the strap of her bookbag that her knuckles were white and protruding. Harry couldn’t hear what Septimus said next, but he could see when the gangly ginger shakily got down on one knee and presented the ring.

“Yes!”

Her voice was so loud it struck the courtyard silent. All conversation halted as people turned to look at the pair. Septimus, with cheeks so red he nearly looked purple, shakily slipped the ring out of the box and onto her finger. The second it was on, Cedrella collapsed into him, arms wrapped around his shoulders as she sobbed loudly into his neck. He pulled her close, and the couple sat there on the ground together, embracing in public for the first time in the four years they had been together.

The courtyard was dead silent. No one moved; no one even seemed to breathe.

And then Minnie let out a whoop, clapping loudly.

“That’s my best friend!” she hollered, grinning ear to ear, daring anyone to say a single word. The Slytherins that Cedrella had entered with were pale, and seemed wholly unsure how to proceed. Slowly, slightly uncertain, a few of the students around them began to clap. Quietly at first, and then a bit louder, until soon the entire courtyard was applauding. Some of them still didn’t seem quite convinced if it was a prank or not, but that clearly didn’t matter to Septimus and Cedrella, who were still locked in a tight embrace.

Harry smiled at the pair, fiddling with the Gaunt ring. If he couldn’t give Ron and Hermione their perfect wedding, then these two were just as good. He imagined that if the afterlife truly transcended time and space, Ron would be thankful for the wedding present. At least, Harry hoped he would.

“It’s a good thing, what you just did,” Minnie whispered to him as the applause started to die down. “I don’t think they would have gotten this experience otherwise.”

“That’s what friends are for,” he replied simply. Reaching around, he grabbed the sack and handed it to her. “The rest in here is for you, by the way. Consider it a graduation present.”

“Moi?” she gasped, practically ripping the bag open. “Why, Monty, I didn’t know you were so genero… what the hell is this?”

She reached in and pulled out a small jar of crushed leaves. She held it out to him questioningly.

“Nepeta cataria,” he revealed smugly. “Muggles call it catnip. I figured you might like it—you know, since your animagus is a—”

Smack!

“Oi!”

Chapter Text

“Are you ready?” Septimus called out, peeking out of the loo as Harry tied his hair back with a deep red satin ribbon. The graduation robes they had been provided by the school were black and brightly embossed with Gryffindor’s house crest and colours. Harry felt slightly encumbered by the many layers of fabric and tassels, but more than anything, he felt… giddy. This was a moment he had only ever dreamed of. Finally, his Hogwarts graduation had arrived. Hermione and Ron may not be at his side, but he felt assured knowing that some day in the distant future, they would be graduating in a world that had never heard the name Voldemort. He would make sure of it.

“Monty?” Septimus called again. “Ready?”

“Just a moment,” he hollered back, brushing away his fringe to glance over the lightning-bolt scar. Hesitantly, he grabbed for his wand and cast a mild disillusionment charm over it before sweeping the short hairs back so that they fell across his temples. It made him look… older. “Alright, now it’s perfect.”

He and Septimus met Minnie down in the common room, and the three of them left for the Great Hall together. As they walked through the corridors, they were joined by flocks of other graduating seventh years in their starched and finely pressed robes. Everyone was either speaking excitedly with their friends or silently walking through the halls, gazing around as if trying to memorise every last brick of the old, warm castle.

“It’s finally happening,” Septimus murmured as they stepped through the doors into the Great Hall. “I feel like I might just piss myself.”

“Not next to me, you won't," Harry muttered.

The three of them settled down at the Gryffindor table just as Headmaster Dippet came striding into the hall, his sleek, professional black robes billowing. Behind him, the professors stepped in a single-file line in a parade of sorts, marching themselves to the front of the hall where the podium stood. They all gathered behind it in a half-moon as Dippet stepped up and amplified his voice with a Sonorus.

“Graduating class of 1945,” Dippet began, raising his arms towards the students warmly. “You have come of age during a turbulent time in our history. With the Dark Lord Grindelwald wreaking havoc across Europe, many of you may feel anxious about entering adulthood and attempting to find jobs when life overseas is so wracked with terror.”

Harry fiddled with the tassels on his graduation robes before glancing behind him. Minnie stuck out the tip of her tongue at him and winked.

“However, I wish to quell such fears,” he continued. “There are brilliant witches and wizards fighting this battle in the name of peace. All of you have enjoyed many years of tutelage under our dear Professor Dumbledore, who is currently overseas fighting valiantly against the evil forces that are so fast encroaching. Even now, I hear whispers that a direct duel between him and Grindelwald is imminent, of which he is sure to be the victor.”

There were a few murmurs from the crowd, and then stillness.

“And even if he somehow fails,” Dippet continued, his voice rising towards the ceiling as he grew more passionate in his speech. “There will always be those brave souls among us who will rise up against tyranny and evil. There is no future that I can envision where you all will have to experience the horrors of war. There is simply no reality where Grindelwald will succeed in his quest.”

There came a few whoops from the students, but Dippet held up his hand to silence them.

“Because no matter what will come of this war, each and every one of you has proved that your brilliance shines brighter than any evil could possibly muster.” He gazed around at the room, before his eyes landed on someone at the Slytherin table. Harry immediately knew who it was and stifled a groan. “Within this graduating class is a collection of the most brilliant students I have ever had the honour of teaching, one of whom has shattered every record set before him. Today, I wish to lend this podium and your ears to one of our own, to share in the wisdom that has brought him from a quiet Muggleborn to the top of our graduating class. Please give a warm applause to our very own, brilliant, Tom Marvolo Riddle.”

There was a great thundering cheer as Tom sauntered up to the front of the Great Hall, looking every bit the prideful intellectual. Shaking hands with Dippet, who patted him on the shoulder before stepping down from the podium, Tom quickly took his place and addressed the room.

“Classmates and peers,” he began, smiling in that warm but distanced way he had perfected. “I began my great journey through life in a Muggle orphanage, unknowing of this world which has brought me so much incredible knowledge and experience. Today, I stand before you to announce that it is my intention to take the gift that Hogwarts has given me and use it for the good of the whole wizarding world.”

“Oh, you must be joking,” Harry hissed under his breath, shaking his head as the students around him continued to applaud.

“With that said,” Tom continued. “After we leave Hogwarts tomorrow, I will be departing from Britain with one purpose in mind: to relieve as much suffering from the magical world as I possibly can.”

The second round of cheers burned through his ears. Harry bit the inside of his cheek, frowning distrustfully at the Dark Lord reborn. Tom continued his speech despite Harry’s eyes burning into the side of his neck, seeming completely unaware of his Horcrux’s displeasure. Frown deepening, Harry glanced around at the other students, taking in their jovial faces with narrowed eyes.

So this was his game, he thought to himself, sitting back in thought. He had been wondering this whole time why Tom was seemingly okay with abandoning all his ambitions for Harry’s quest, but this made far more sense. If ruling by fear didn’t work for him the first time, ruling by adoration is worth a shot.

“It is my hope that, by leading with this example, I may inspire some of you to take up your wands against the dark wizards who threaten the safety and security of our society.” Tom finished his speech to an uproarious applause. He grinned at the other graduates brightly, before turning keen eyes to Harry. They locked gazes, a spark of electricity zapping between them.

Even with the chaos going on all around them, Harry felt like he knew what Tom was trying to tell him.

“We will live on without any regrets, my friends,” Tom murmured into the Sonorus, before stepping down and returning to his seat at the Slytherin table. Harry reached to his left hand and felt along the divots in the Gaunt ring, contemplative.

“He was looking at you,” Minnie whispered over his shoulder. He eyed her and hummed, agreeing silently.

“Well then!” Dippet’s voice quelled the crowd. “As Mister Riddle said, it will become the duty of many of you to take up wands against the evil in the world. To those of you who will be going on to auror training after today, we thank you for your service and dedication to this country’s vision of a peaceful age. To the rest of you: walk with your chin held high. This world has darkness abound, but never forget that the sun shines on every corner of this Earth.”

He raised his hands towards the starry ceiling above.

“Graduates, it has been an honour to be your headmaster, professor, and friend for the last seven years. No matter what you do with your lives going forward, I have little doubt that each and every one of you will be absolutely brilliant.”

A final round of applause shook the very foundation of Hogwarts. People began standing, clapping their mates on the back, hugging, laughing. Minnie tackled Septimus, sending the gangly man to the floor. Harry dragged her off him, and she threw her arms around his shoulders instead. He spun her around, laughing. In the midst of the chaos, Harry caught sight of green in his peripheral vision. Glancing to his left, he saw Tom making his way through the mobs of graduates towards them, occasionally shaking hands with someone or nodding pleasantly.

“Congratulations, Tom!” Minnie called, waving at him with a bright smile. He turned, eyes catching Harry’s own. Smirking, he prowled over to them. “Your speech was brilliant!”

“And here we are, the top three,” he drawled, holding his hand out for Minnie to shake. She leapt out of Harry’s arms and into Tom’s, dangling off his neck. Tom grimaced slightly, but accepted the embrace in kind, redirecting the handshake to Septimus, who clasped it firmly.

“So, you’re going to Europe?” the ginger asked curiously as Harry dragged Minnie off the man by the scruff of her robes. “Seems a bit dangerous.”

“Danger is expected, yes,” Tom replied vaguely. “Even still, I’m confident in my decision. It doesn’t sit right with me that we can live peacefully here while those across the pond are suffering.”

“How noble,” Harry drawled. Tom turned keen eyes to him.

“Fleamont,” he acknowledged, a dangerous glint of gold flashing through his eyes. “I actually wanted to discuss something with you before we departed. Could you spare a moment of your time?”

Harry glanced at his friends, but they both waved him off knowingly. Motioning towards the entrance of the Great Hall, he turned and began traversing through the throngs of celebrating students, assuming that Tom was close behind him. It was like trying to walk through a whirlpool upside down, the bodies churning left and right, never quite in sync with the others. Elbows were thrown, bodies collided, cheers pierced his ears.

Eventually, he managed to get spat out at the entrance. Turning, he waited for a moment more before Tom came stumbling out of the crowd too, looking slightly frumpled, his hair askew. Walking out into the corridor, they passed by underclassmen and graduates alike, before finally meandering into the library. Tom led him to a small nook between Herbology and History of Magic, before turning, eyebrow raised.

“Shall we depart immediately from the train?” the other man began, leaning against a bookshelf. “If we want to catch Grindelwald before Dumbledore duels him, it would be best to get a head start.”

“I can’t.” Harry shook his head. “Septimus’ wedding is on the first of August. We can leave after that. Their duel isn’t until the second of November, so we still have plenty of time.”

Tom frowned. “No… that won’t do.”

Harry raised an eyebrow. Tom rolled his eyes.

“Either you slept through History of Magic or Binns didn’t update his curriculum in the eighties,” he mused, tapping a nail against the dusty books beside him. “Grindelwald will lay siege in France at the end of July and then go into hiding again until his duel with Dumbledore. To be frank, I have no intention of duelling Dumbledore again in this life, so now is the only opportunity we have to strike. We won’t have another chance to get the Elder Wand if you go to a bloody wedding.”

“Then you can go and get it yourself,” Harry hissed, stalking forward. “I’m the best man. Do you expect me to abandon them, just like that?”

Tom worked his jaw for a moment. He seemed supremely unenthused about either prospect, and Harry understood why—logically, it was a horrible idea to let Grindelwald go right now, but it also didn’t exactly suit their plans for Tom to jaunt off on his own. If Grindelwald was really going to attack Paris that month, then he would be prime for duelling. If they let that go, they’d have to actually hunt around for him, which had no guarantee of success.

Harry hesitated for a moment, then took a step forward. If logic were all his horcrux was going to focus on, then perhaps….

“Tom, you said we can’t begin with regrets,” he murmured, the tip of his nose ghosting across the other man’s cheek. Tom froze, straightening slightly. “Surely there’s some way so that we can do both…?”

Tom was silent for a moment, before—

“He’ll be attacking Paris from the twenty-ninth to the second,” he murmured, brows furrowed in thought. “If we left at the crack of midnight, right at the end of the wedding… if we used a portkey….”

“It would work,” Harry agreed, tilting his head slightly to run his lips down the curve of Tom’s jaw. The man went rigid. “He wouldn’t expect us in the dead of night. We could catch him unaware.”

“Even still—” Tom sucked in a deep breath as Harry parted his lips right beside the man’s ear, hovering just above the hot flesh. “I’d rather have more assurance. I’d rather….”

“Rather, what, duel him alone? You certainly could, but just imagine it,” Harry murmured, reaching up to grip Tom’s robes. “We disarm him in unison, and then we’ll have the Elder Wand. Us, twin immortal creatures, the Masters of Death, just as we planned.”

Tom swallowed audibly. Harry shifted forward—just barely, almost imperceptibly—and pressed his lips into the soft skin just below his Horcrux’s ear. Heat blossomed from the contact, warming his entire face. Tom’s entire body visibly shuddered, his skin practically vibrating under Harry’s lips.

“You… monster,” Tom groaned, his voice shaking. “I ought to—”

Hands gripped his shoulders and slammed him against a bookshelf. Harry grunted, disoriented for a moment, before he gasped. Tom’s mouth was wrapped around the tender crook of Harry’s neck. He sank his teeth into Harry’s flesh and sucked hard.

“Oi, oi!” he hissed, digging his nails into the other man’s shoulders. “Ease up—bloody hell, what are you, a vampire?”

Tom wrenched his head back, eyes peeled wide, silent and deranged.

“No regrets,” he snarled, before surging forward and crushing their lips together.

Heat exploded through Harry’s mouth, rocketing down his throat, filling up his chest. It was like swallowing fire, like breathing in a star. Harry felt a deep, torrid groan force its way out of his throat. There was no gentleness, no romantic notions hidden inside the kiss, just unrepentant, maddened fervour.

Harry clawed at the other man’s flesh, his clothes, anything within reach. Tom returned the favour in kind, his nails dragging down Harry’s cheeks, his neck, digging into his collar. If they were not impenetrable objects, he would have left deep, bloodied claw marks across Harry’s skin. Instead, his flesh accepted the abuse as if it were nothing but peppered kisses. Heat spread out from the contact, tripling the nearly unbearable burning racing through their bodies.

“Harry Potter,” Tom breathed into his mouth.

Harry groaned, forcing his hands under the man’s robes and feeling along his stomach, his chest, wrapping around to the small of his back. Harry pulled him closer, their legs interlocked, their chests flush.

“Harry Potter.”

“Shut up,” he hissed back, biting down the man’s bottom lip hard, causing Tom to grind closer, groaning.

“Harry Potter.”

Yanking his hands out of Tom’s shirt, Harry grabbed him by the collar and drove him backwards until his shoulder blades hit the bookshelves behind him. Tom let out a grunt before grabbing Harry’s arms, stabilising himself momentarily. He looked dazed, gasping for air, cheeks flushed, lips parted. For a moment, they just stared at each other, their bodies burning like the inside of the sun.

“Your eyes,” Tom whispered, awe pulsing through his voice. “They’re… glowing green.”

“What?” Harry raised a hand to his cheek, feeling along the soft skin just below his right eye. He didn’t feel any different, but he could almost see the faint green light reflecting off his Horcrux’s pale cheeks.

“Harry Potter,” Tom shook his head, laughing breathlessly. There was something about the way he looked—dishevelled, blushing, hair askew—that finally broke something in Harry. “You’re so—”

“You know what I hate about you?” Harry interrupted with a snarl. “I hate how bloody beautiful you are.”

With that, he descended upon Tom Riddle again.

Chapter Text

“Do I look frumpy?”

Septimus was standing in front of the mirror, micromanaging every molecule of his attire. Harry lounged on the ginger’s bed in his dress robes, tossing a rubber ball at the ceiling.

“You’re dashing,” he replied absentmindedly, “Cedrella won’t know what to do with herself.”

Septimus grumbled fretfully. “What if she gets cold feet?”

“She’s already been blown off the Black family tree,” he deadpanned, glancing at the other man from the corner of his eye. “It’s a little late for second thoughts.”

Septimus sighed, plopping down beside Harry on the bed and rubbing his face aggressively.

“I just love her so much,” he murmured, voice muffled through his palms. “I want everything to be perfect.”

Harry tossed the ball across the room and sat up, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed so that they sat side by side.

“Septimus,” he started, gripping his friend’s shoulder firmly. “You and Cedrella had your first date in the boathouse. You had your first kiss in an abandoned classroom. You never went to Hogsmeade together, you never held hands in the halls—hell, no one but me and Minnie knew you two were an item until you proposed. Despite all that, you still got her flowers, you wrote her poetry, you shared longing glances—the whole thing was one long, messy, stressful trainwreck of a relationship, and it seems you’ve both loved every second of it.”

Septimus raised an eyebrow at him. “Thanks for the pep talk, Monty,” he grumbled. Harry rolled his eyes.

“What I’m trying to say is, what part of your relationship has ever been perfect? And what part of your relationship makes you think she wants it to be perfect?” he continued. “If Cedrella Black wanted a perfect pureblooded twat, she could have married the man her father had arranged for her, but she didn’t. She chose you, every single time.”

Septimus fiddled with his cuff absentmindedly before turning to Harry, grinning nervously.

“I knew you would be the perfect best man,” he murmured, before pulling Harry into a sudden bear hug. Harry froze, momentarily startled, before returning the embrace.

“But anyway, have you seen Cedrella in the wedding dress?” Septimus exclaimed as he abruptly pulled away and buried his face in his palms, groaning. Harry swore he could see steam rising off his head. “I can’t stop thinking about it. Everyone else has seen her today but me.”

“Well, a good way to fix that is to get off your arse and marry her already,” Harry replied dryly, patting his shoulder. “Now, come on. You’ve plucked at your eyebrows long enough. If I let you keep going, there won’t be any hair left by the time you’re satisfied.”

Septimus squared his shoulders and puffed up his chest, nodding.

“Alright.” He stood forcefully, determination oozing from him. “Let’s do this. Whether it's perfect or a hot mess, I’ll be a husband by tonight, and that’s what’s important.”

“There he is.” Harry stood as well, smoothing out the creases in his robes. “Now, go.”

Harry followed Septimus out of the house and into the yard. There, out in the tall grass, was a flowery arch and rows of white chairs. The guests were already seated and speaking quietly to each other, likely wondering when things were going to begin. On one side of the arch stood the groomsmen, who all looked a little fatigued from standing in the hot sun for so long, and the other side was awaiting the bridesmaids, who were still locked up inside with Cedrella and Minnie.

Everyone immediately perked up when Septimus and Harry approached, a hush falling over the crowd as they walked down the aisle and took their positions under the flowering carnations.

“Was he stalling?” Sextus whispered in his ear. Harry glanced at him. Septimus’ older brother was an odd man, who, funnily enough, looked quite a bit like Fred and George, if they were two stone heavier and had receding hairlines.

“Just a smidge,” Harry whispered back. Sextus grinned wolfishly, stifling a laugh. Both of his two front teeth were gold—a byproduct of a Quidditch accident in his youth, if Harry recalled correctly.

“He’d never tell you this, so I’ll have to,” Sextus started. “When he was younger, he would get so worked up about running errands with mum that he’d piss himself with excitement. Have you ever met a bloke who gets that excited over bloody produce? We always knew he’d be a brilliant husband because of that.”

Harry folded his bottom lip under his top teeth to keep from laughing, bowing his head to hide his expression.

Septimus glanced at them before doing a double-take.

“What?” he hissed anxiously. “Monty, what did he tell you?”

“Nothing,” he coughed out a snort, before schooling his features. “Nothing. We’re talking about the weather.”

“Bull-shite!”

“Oh, look,” Sextus interjected, pointing towards the Burrow. “There they are.”

Harry glanced over just in time to see the first bridesmaids emerge. Shockingly, he recognised most of them as Slytherin girls in their year, which he really hadn’t been expecting. Harry supposed that they, too, preferred supporting their friend over siding with their families. Behind them came Minnie, who grinned cheekily at them.

“Oh, Merlin,” Septimus whispered, tears immediately beginning to prick the corners of his eyes as the bride finally emerged from the house. “There she is.”

It was immediately obvious to Harry that Cedrella had either stolen a wedding dress from the Black family coffers or had been secretly gifted it by one of her family members, as it was adorned with so many overlapping layers of silk, lace, and pearls that it had to weigh at least a ton and cost a small fortune. The bridal veil was equally adorned, with the added detail of small hydrangeas and peonies sewn along its hem, sweeping down her face and over her shoulders like sea foam. It looked uncomfortably heavy with all the silky bits, almost opaque in its opalescence. It trailed down behind her by several metres, catching in the tall grass, leaving a trail of flowers behind her.

As if that all weren’t enough, in her hands was a massive bouquet of carnations.

Harry smiled as Septimus quickly wiped his face and cautiously offered his arm to his bride. She took it, and the pair turned to stand below the flowering arch. Immediately, the groom began crying in earnest, having to wipe his face every few seconds. Beside Harry, Sextus sighed and shook his head forlornly.

“Lovesick sod,” the older man whispered. Harry shushed him, grinning ear to ear as the officiant—a very jovial Professor Garlick—regarded her prized pupils with tearful eyes. In another life, in another time, Harry would have been watching Ron and Hermione exchange their vows on the same plot of land. The people and the time were different, but the feeling was the same. The love was the same. The happiness on Cedrella’s face, the unstoppable tears rolling down Septimus’ cheeks—there was no greater joy than that.

“Dear friends, beloved family,” Professor Garlick began, motioning with her head towards the guests. “There is no greater honour than to be standing before you today, commemorating the union of two of the brightest herbology students I’ve ever had the joy to teach.”

The wind swept through Harry’s hair, cooling his skin and making him sigh. The herbology professor wasn’t the only one there that day. Harry could spot a few others mixed in with the crowd, including Dippet, who was sitting in the far back—likely to avoid drawing too much attention. When he caught Harry staring, the old man smiled good-naturedly and nodded his head. Harry copied the motion, his mouth twitching with the barest hint of a confused smile. Beside the man was Madame Sirona, who tilted her head to whisper something in the Headmaster’s ear. He then glanced back at Harry with a look that spoke of every embarrassing, drunk moment Fleamont had spent in The Three Broomsticks. Harry quickly looked away, clearing his throat gruffly.

“When Septimus admitted to me, nearly four years ago now, that he fancied ‘that pretty Slytherin girl in class’ and wanted my help making a bouquet for her, I found myself worrying that he was getting mixed up in something that would leave both him and Cedrella heartbroken,” Professor Garlick continued, her voice wobbling slightly as she smiled at her pupils with warmth in her eyes. “Today, I can’t be more relieved to have been wrong.”

Harry’s eyes wandered towards the treeline as Professor Garlick continued with her speech. At the very end of the property, leaning up against a tree, a familiar figure stood and waited. No one else noticed the man, their gazes too enraptured by the couple beneath the flowering carnations, but Harry saw him.

“—With all that said, Septimus Weasley, with magic and your community bearing witness, do you take Cedrella Black as your lawfully wedded wife?”

Septimus sniffled loudly, his eyes hidden behind his hand as he wiped more tears away.

“I do,” he croaked.

“And do you, Cedrella Black—”

“Yes!” she exclaimed, practically vibrating. “Professor, just wed us already. I can’t stand it.”

There was laughter from the crowd. Professor Garlick shrugged, grinning a tearful smile. “Well, as magic—and the bride—commands it, I now pronounce you husband and wife! You may kiss the bride.”

Fidgety, Septimus carefully lifted the veil and reached out to Cedrella, brushing his thumbs across her cheeks. Her grin was so bright that it could have outshone the sun. She whispered something unknowable to him before grabbing his lapels and yanking him down into a kiss. Applause boomed, with some guests jumping from their seats to cheer. Others plucked carnations, hydrangeas, and peonies from where they’d been snagged in the tall grass and threw them on the pair. The bridesmaids undid their bouquets and joined in, raining flowers onto Septimus and Cedrella.

At the treeline, the figure pulled away from the trunk and turned, walking off into the woods. Harry watched Tom go before turning his attention back to the couple as they finally parted.

Turning to the guests, Septimus threw his fist into the air and triumphantly shouted that he was the happiest man alive.

Chapter Text

Most of the guests had either left or passed out on the lawn by the time Harry got Septimus alone. Pulling the glass of fire whiskey from the man’s fingers, Harry led him back into the house and settled them both down onto the couch, sighing softly as he finally got some rest for his weary feet.

For a moment, they both sat in silence, taking in the peacefulness of an after-party lost to booze and merriment. Then, Harry turned to his best mate and patted his shoulder.

“Was it everything you ever dreamed?” he asked good-naturedly, loosening the buttons of his robes as he spoke.

“It was bloody brilliant,” Septimus murmured, smiling at the few people who were strewn about the sitting room, quietly snoring on couches or just passed out on the ground. “It was perfect.”

“I told you so,” Harry teased, elbowing the other man gently in the side. Septimus rolled his eyes, smiling despite the jab.

“Yeah, yeah… you were right, I’m always wrong.”

“Well, I wasn’t going to say it.”

Septimus groaned, shoving Harry’s shoulder. “Oh, come off it, prat.”

Harry laughed, swatting the ginger’s hand. Outside, the full moon’s light was streaming through the clouds in little ribbons of blue. Harry gazed out the window for a moment, watching as the light danced along the swaying grass. Even fifty years out of his time, the Burrow still held such intense comfort. The furniture was different, the people were too, but the bones remained the same.

“Now’s the hard part,” Septimus sighed, leaning back to gaze thoughtfully at the ceiling. Harry dragged his gaze away from the window to turn towards Septimus, humming questioningly at him. The ginger quickly elaborated. “Get a job, find a house, start a family—I know we’ll be alright, but it just feels like… I dunno, what if I mess it up?”

“You won’t,” Harry replied immediately, shaking his head. "There's no way."

Septimus opened his mouth, but Harry grasped his best mate’s shoulder tightly, forcing them to lock gazes.

“You’re going to be an amazing husband and an even better father,” he said seriously, staring into Septimus’ eyes and hoping his words were making an impact. “I know I won’t have to worry about you after I’m gone.”

Silence.

Septimus wavered, immediately sobering up.

“What…?” he whispered, brows furrowed. He seemed to stall for a moment, then tilted his head, as if he hadn’t heard Harry correctly. “What do you mean by that?”

Harry steeled his nerves. It was finally time to come clean.

Ever since they had left Hogwarts, it was all he had been thinking about: what to tell Septimus and Minnie. He’d wanted to say it earlier—wanted to lay out all his reasons, let them digest it properly—but there’d never been a good time or a right way to put it, and now that the wedding was over with, there was quite literally no time left to spare.

“Septimus, I’m leaving Britain," he admitted forcefully. He tried to convey as much sincerity in his voice as possible, but from the look on Septimus’ face, it seemed to have the unintended effect of a verbal kick to the groin. Harry quickly redirected. “I want to help people, and I can’t do that here. I’m going with Tom Riddle to Europe. I don’t know when I’ll be back, or if I’ll be back, but—”

"Stop—stop!" Septimus held up his hands, shushing him. It was silent for a moment, as the ginger seemed to process his words, before he slowly began nodding. “This is about that conversation we had a month ago,” he finally murmured, a horrible, dawning realisation smearing itself across his face. His next words were nothing but a whisper. “When… when you were talking about sacrificing yourself for world peace. This… this is what you meant?”

Harry nodded mutely. If he were whole, this would have been the moment he wavered—the moment he'd choose to put ambition aside for the sake of his loved ones—but now all he felt was a cool wave of determination flowing over his shoulders. This was his last moment with Septimus; he had to make sure it counted.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner.” He tightened his hold on Septimus’ shoulder. He meant it—truly, deeply meant it. “I wasn’t… quite sure how to do it, but...!”

Septimus was quiet. He didn’t speak, he scarcely seemed to breathe. He just sat and… and stared at Harry. He seemed to be taking in all the curves on Harry’s face—committing every inch of it to memory.

“I wish you had,” he finally replied, quiet, regretful, “and I wish I could convince you to stay, too, but I know you better than that.”

Harry smiled sadly.

“I’m so sorry, Septimus. If I could be happy living as a normal man in Britain, I would be that man with you.”

Septimus just shook his head. Harry felt like he had to say more—convince Septimus to be happy about this change—but he couldn’t find any reasons that would sway the other man to his perspective. It was just… a painful goodbye. There was nothing else to do.

“When are you leaving?” Septimus broke the silence softly.

Harry’s smile wavered.

“In a half hour,” he admitted hesitantly. The tension in the air tripled with that one sentence. He felt Septimus' muscles stiffen under his hand. He began to explain. “Tom wanted to leave immediately after graduation—he insisted on it, really—but I wasn’t going to miss this. I wasn’t going to do that to you, Septimus.”

His friend didn’t seem surprised, just… sad. Somehow, that made it worse.

“Well,” the groom cleared his throat, clearly fighting back some wetness in his eyes. “I suppose that this is…” he trailed off, and was silent for a moment, before a flame suddenly burst out of him. He ripped out of his stupor, leaping to his feet. “No, fuck—what the hell, Monty? You’re leaving us, just like that? In less than an hour?”

Harry looked down at his hands. His tendons flexed and relaxed as he fiddled with the Gaunt ring on his finger.

“I’m sorry.”

“I thought I’d always have you,” Septimus whispered, shaking his head in disbelief. “I didn’t think you’d really just… just up and leave.”

“Septimus…” Harry rubbed his temple for a moment, considering. Of all the words in the English language, which ones would help soothe this nightmare he’d created? “Septimus, you’re the reason I’m doing this. You said it yourself—I’m going to miss all of you, but I’d miss you even more if you were all dead and I could have prevented it. No matter what Headmaster Dippet said, the war will come to Britain eventually. What if that happens when Cedrella is pregnant? Or when she’s just given birth? Imagine you’ve brought your first child into this world, and war shows up on your doorstep to steal it away from you.”

Septimus' expression dropped. All colour drained out of his face, and he collapsed back onto the couch as if his strings had been cut. All was silent. Harry wavered—he hadn’t meant to be so hard on the man. Hesitantly, he reached out and gripped his friend’s hand in his own.

“That was harsh. I’m sorry,” Harry looked down at his hands. “I went too far. I'm ashamed.”

Septimus made no noise or moved. He barely even breathed. Harry stared at the other man’s face and tightened his hold.

“You are going to create the most beautiful family here, Septimus Weasley,” he pressed on, silently pleading for his friend to understand. All the people in the world—all those who were suffering under the cruelty of dark lords—they needed Harry. No matter what could have come to pass in the future, Voldemort would not rise again. Britain was safe. Septimus and his descendants were safe. The future was safe. Not everyone was nearly so fortunate. “You’re so kind and… and good. Your descendants are going to change the world. You are going to change the world. You’re the only brother I’ve ever known. Please, let me return the favour. Let me fight for you.”

Septimus turned and threw his arms around Harry’s shoulders, hugging him tightly. Harry paused, startled, before returning the embrace in kind. Septimus’ hug reminded him of Molly Weasley’s—of warmth and goodness—of all the better parts of the world. Harry felt the tension in his shoulders begin to abate, the ache in his heart lessen. He leaned into the embrace, feeling as though the future was reaching out to hold him.

“It’s okay,” Septimus whispered. For just a moment, for just a breath, he sounded exactly like Ron. “You don’t have to fight for me. Just… just be safe. Just come back home when you're done.”

Harry didn’t trust himself to speak. He just nodded, silently, and buried his face in Septimus’ robes. They sat there in silence for an unknowable amount of time before Septimus finally let go. Harry could feel the wet mark of tears on his shoulder—could see them on Septimus’ cheeks.

“Give me a name,” Septimus sniffled, rubbing the wetness off his cheeks. Harry furrowed his brows.

“What?”

“For my firstborn,” the ginger elaborated, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “I’m not naming the poor sod Fleamont, but I’m not letting you wriggle out of here without naming one of my children, either. You’ll have to be quick with it, but give me something good.”

For a moment, Harry just… stared, before a wide grin split across his face. He didn’t even have to think about it. There was—there could only be—one name.

“Arthur."

“That’s horrible.” Septimus laughed wetly. “What, like the Muggle that followed Merlin around? That Arthur?”

“Exactly right." Harry grinned. "It's perfect. Just sound it out. Ar-thur Weas-ley."

There was a moment’s pause.

“Alright,” Septimus sniffed, rubbing his eyes. “Arthur Weasley… I suppose it’s got a nice ring to it.”

Harry tried to hide the encroaching tears with a smile, but it was getting harder and harder to keep his composure. As much as he wanted to sit there for Septimus forever, he didn’t have much time left. It was time to say goodbye, for good this time.

“I have to go find Minnie before I leave,” he murmured, slowly standing. Septimus looked startled, like a child caught between his mother and father, a look of frozen panic on his face as he watched Harry step back from the couch.

“Wait—”

“I’m here.”

They both whipped around to find Minnie standing in the doorway, watching them. Her dress robes were half undone, bunched up around her elbows, and her makeup was running. Harry knew in an instant that she had heard the whole thing. It was written all over her face.

Silently, Minnie motioned towards the front door with her head.

“Walk with me?” she sniffled, swiping the heel of her hand across her cheek as she slowly walked towards the door. Harry took one last glance at Septimus before holding out his hand. The other man clasped it tightly.

“You’re coming back,” Septimus demanded quietly. “I’m not letting you just run off to some castle in the sky, Monty, not forever.”

Harry just nodded silently. His friend hesitated, then let go, his hand falling limply into his lap. Harry stared at the man who would one day give rise to the kindest family in the Wizarding World, and turned his back.

He and Minnie left the house in silence. Harry felt a sense that they both wanted to be away from prying ears and blurred thoughts—away from the wedding and the drunkards and the liquor—at that point, there had been enough booze shared between them.

They walked along aimlessly, passing by passed-out guests and trampled flowers alike. Neither of them spoke until they reached the very edge of the property line, far enough away that no one would overhear.

“Minnie,” Harry began. She shushed him.

“I had a lot of plans for my future, going into Hogwarts,” she murmured softly, smiling at the distant hills as the grass swayed in the wind. “Mummy loves Father, but he’s a Muggle, and so is our town. She feels stifled there, and jealous that I have the opportunity to live in the magical world, which she had turned her back on to get married.” It was quiet for a moment. Harry just… watched her. For all her genius, for all her joy and determination, this bright, brilliant witch would never truly know just how miraculous she was going to be.

“Monty, I love the wizarding world just as much as you do,” she sighed, closing her eyes as she breathed in the warm summer air. “I decided a long time ago that I would become an Auror to protect it, and once I got too old to do that, I would work as a professor at Hogwarts to help raise the next generation. When I had that dream a month ago, about teaching your grandson Transfiguration, it felt like… like I could finally see it, stretching out in front of me—my life’s work, fully realised.”

Harry looked up at the sky. The stars were twinkling down at him happily. Standing below them, he felt like an ant, lost adrift on a raft in the ocean. He looked back down just in time to catch Minnie’s gaze. She smiled at him, her eyes dewy.

“If this is what you have to do, I won’t stop you.” Her voice was shaky, her smile wavered slightly, quivering as fresh tears started to pool in her eyes. “But I won’t lie and say that I won’t miss you half to death.”

Harry reached out and pulled her into a tight embrace. She let out a soft sob, digging her nails into his robes, clinging as if he were about to fly off with the wind.

“You’re going to be brilliant, Minnie,” he murmured into her hair, pleading for her to understand just a fraction of the truth. What could he say? What could he do to show her how incredible she was going to be? It struck him immediately. “I know you’ll be incredible, because I had the same dream.”

She stiffened and pulled back, eyes wide.

“What?” she whispered.

“I dreamt about it too,” he repeated. “You, a professor at Hogwarts, teaching my grandson. I had the same dream.”

She didn’t speak. She just stared at him in open-mouthed wonder.

"I know it's going to happen, Minnie," he murmured, reaching up to grip her shoulders. "Everything you've ever dreamed of accomplishing—you're going to succeed at all of it."

"Are you certain?" Her voice was barely above a whisper. He nodded.

“Positive, I've never been so sure of something in my life, which is why I… I need to ask you a favour,” he continued, tightening his grip on her shoulders. “Can you do that for me? Just one little favour?”

Minnie had a dazed look in her eyes, but she nodded regardless. Harry took an unsteady breath, words tumbling out of him too fast for him to censor.

“In about fifty years, when you’re a professor at Hogwarts, a Muggleborn named Hermione Granger is going to be admitted,” he began, thoughts racing. The Gaunt ring was heavy on his finger, but he couldn't bear to look at it. “She’s going to be frightened and alone. She’ll have no friends, no support—she’ll need you.”

The truth was, Harry couldn’t bring himself to call Hermione forth. He was terrified to confirm that she had died while he had lived. He would rather never know.

He was a coward, but he could do this much. He could save her before she even needed saving.

“Minnie, please, promise me you’ll look after her. Make sure she stays safe. Even if she has no one else, make sure she has you.” He swallowed around a lump in his throat, blinking away the tears as they came to him. “Can you do that for me? Just… make sure she’ll be okay?”

“Hermione Granger…” Minnie whispered, as if committing the name to memory. Her eyes darted around his face, seeming to search out an explanation, but he doubted she would find one. “Hermione Granger… yes, I can do that.”

“Hermione Jean Granger,” he clarified, nodding incessantly. “You won’t understand why I’m telling you this for a long, long time, but I promise you, Minerva McGonagall, you won’t regret keeping her safe. Even if you think I’m mad for asking this of you, even decide you hate me—”

“Oh, Monty.” Minnie shook her head, interrupting his speech as she dragged him into another hug. “I could never hate you. Never.”

Harry curled into her embrace, clinging to her back desperately. The humid summer wind swept over the tall grass and made their robes dance like leaves in a hurricane. Out there in the dead of night, they were just two people, one lost to his time and the other trying desperately to sort out where she stood in hers.

There was nothing else they could do but keep moving forward.

Harry was the first to pull away. He reached up and wiped away Minnie’s tears, smiling sadly.

“It’s time to go, isn’t it?” she asked softly, still sniffling. He nodded. She took in a shaky breath. “Alright… alright, then. You should go before I force you to stay.”

Harry chuckled softly, then tried to school his features.

“Don’t forget her name,” he whispered. “No matter what. Hermione Jean Granger. You got that?”

“Yes, I’ll remember,” she sniffled, wiping away the last of her tears. “But you have to promise me as well—you’ll come back to see us. You won’t just leave for Europe and die for nothing, do you understand me, Fleamont Linfred Potter?”

“I swear, Minnie,” he said, smiling sadly, “the last thing you have to worry about is me dying.”

With that, Harry gave her hand one last squeeze and stepped back.

“Till next time, Minerva McGonagall,” he murmured, and turned away. Behind him, Tom was waiting at the property line, two trunks lying beside him in the grass. Harry took one step forward, and then another, and then—

“Monty!”

He whipped around. There, sprinting out from inside the house, was Septimus, waving his arms over his head.

“Wait! Stop!” the ginger shouted, stumbling through the tall grass. He slowed to a stop beside Minnie, panting and wheezing. “Don’t… don’t go yet. I forgot…” he bent at the waist, hands on his knees. “Bloody… hell, I’m out of shape.”

Harry furrowed his brow, confused, before his eyes swept down to a shimmering cloak held taut in Septimus’ hand.

“You wanker,” Harry murmured softly, an incredulous smile stretching across his cheeks. “You stole my bloody invisibility cloak.”

Septimus grinned up at him, before thrusting out his arm.

“Take it. I don’t need it anymore,” he wheezed, straightening slightly. “It’s just as you said—there’ll be no more skulking about and hiding in the shadows for Cedrella and me, but you… well, just stay safe, yeah? Hiding isn't a shameful thing if it'll keep you alive."

Harry chuckled, taking the cloak and tossing it behind him to Tom, who caught it and folded it under his elbow silently. Turning back to his friends, Harry gazed at them for a moment before silently raising his arms. They both came forward and enveloped him completely. Harry clutched them tightly, breathing in, committing their scents to memory so he could bring them out in a Pensieve one day.

“Don’t die,” Septimus murmured in his ear.

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Harry replied, hesitantly pulling away. He patted Septimus’ shoulder and then turned to Minnie.

“This isn’t goodbye,” he promised. “It will be a long time, but I will come back, and when I do, it will be a beautiful world that I return to.”

Minnie simply shook her head.

“It’s already a beautiful world, Fleamont Potter. Never forget that.”

Harry opened his mouth, and then shut it. What was there to say? Smiling softly, he stepped back, giving them both one last, long look before turning away for good. Stepping, one foot in front of the other, he joined Tom at the property line. The other man gazed at him with a slight grin and handed him one of the trunks.

“I was worried you'd change your mind,” his horcrux murmured, before reaching into his pocket and pulling out a piece of parchment. “The portkey was about to expire.”

“I wouldn't miss this for the world,” Harry replied, grasping one corner of the parchment tightly. Tom’s smile widened imperceptibly. "Come on, then. Let's get it done."

“Harry James Potter,” Tom whispered, just softly enough that Septimus and Minnie might have overheard. “It will be my greatest honour to spend this eternity with you.”

Harry let out a soft chuckle. Within him, a familiar warmth unfurled like the petals of a flower.

“I never thought I’d be saying it, but… likewise.”

It was then that the grandfather clock inside the Burrow struck midnight. The moment that the first low, weary gong echoed out across the field, the portkey activated. In a flash of bright light, Harry Potter and Tom Riddle disappeared, leaving behind nothing but a circle of trampled grass and a faint feeling of warmth simmering in the air. Septimus and Minnie were momentarily blinded by the light, before it fell away, leaving them standing in the field under a canopy of stars.

In the morning, the Daily Prophet will be delivered early. The breaking news headline will cover the entire front page in massive, bold letters: Grindelwald is Dead. No one will know who did it, but all first-hand accounts will agree that they’d seen two figures duelling the Dark Lord in the streets of Paris, their spells soaring out of their wands in perfect sync.

But all of that was for the morning. As long as the sun was hidden below the horizon, Septimus and Minnie could bask in the fleeting warmth for a little while longer. Silent and still, they stood in the field and watched the wind roll over the distant hills, breathing in the light summer air.

All was quiet.

It was a beautiful world.

Chapter Text

46 years later

1st September 1991

The clack of many small footsteps echoed through Hogwarts’ corridors. Freshly off the boat, several dozen tiny first-years were being guided through the cobbled halls by the groundskeeper, Rubeus Hagrid. Within the Great Hall, older students were already gathered, either chatting with friends about their summers or gnawing on their cheeks, anxious for the new school year to begin. Almost all of the professors had already arrived as well, save for one, who was hurrying her way towards the hopeful first years.

“I’m late, I’m late! And on this day of all days,” Minnie berated herself, fixing her hair in the shine of armour stands as she passed them by. Somewhere in the distance, rapidly growing closer, children’s voices filtered towards her.

“It's humongous!”

“Look, a suit of armour!”

Minnie turned the corner, halting in place as she caught sight of the procession coming down the main corridor. It was a larger group than the year prior, which had been larger than the one before that, and so on. It was no shock, though, really. Magical Britain was growing in population more and more every year, as was every other magical community across the globe.

“My mum and dad are professors here,” one student gloated, his cheeks rosy and eyes glimmering. “I’ve been coming to Hogwarts for years. You lot ought to follow me so you don’t get lost.”

“Shut up, Longbottom,” a brunette boy with oily hair grumbled sourly. “Who cares about your stupid parents?”

“Put a sock in it, Nott,” Neville Longbottom retorted, elbowing his classmate in the rib. A ginger-haired girl wiggled between them, shoving the two apart.

“My mum works here as well, Longbottom,” she proclaimed loudly. “You aren’t special.”

“Don’t give him so much credit, Daisy,” the Nott boy retorted. “Professor Evans-Prince is a brilliant charms master. She completely outclasses those Longbottom brutes.”

“What did you just call my parents, you overgrown pygmy puff?”

Professor Minerva McGonagall scanned over the incoming first years with narrowed eyes as the trio continued to bicker. She spotted another ginger—a lanky boy with soft brown eyes who met her gaze and immediately perked up in recognition. She smiled at Ronald Weasley and kept searching.

There were many unfamiliar faces, which made her swell with joy, but there were many more whom she was quite familiar with already. Most notable to her were the Prewett triplets, Felicity Meadowes, and the McKinnon boy. There was only one notable family that was absent.

The Potter family had no child to send to Hogwarts. It was a reality that occurred with every batch of students, but it saddened her more this particular year than it had in the past. She had been half expecting to meet that little green-eyed boy she’d dreamed about all those decades prior, even though the Potter family was all but defunct now. She’d been half expecting Monty to show up with a hidden family in tow, laughing that he’d had them all convinced.

Minnie shook her head to be rid of the delusion, then steeled her resolve. Monty may have ended his family line, but that didn’t mean he lacked a successor. It was only a matter of time until she would be able to fulfil his last request.

The children all came to a stop in front of her, facing the large, imposing double doors of the Great Hall with wide eyes. Hagrid nodded to the first years, then nodded to the transfiguration professor.

“I’ll leave ‘em with you, Minnie,” he said, before lumbering around her and into the Great Hall. Children craned their necks to see inside, but he was through the door before much could be revealed. She smiled down at them happily. No matter how many years passed, the sorting ceremony was always a great joy for her. The parents faithfully never shared what it would be. Every batch of students was just as surprised as the first.

“Hello, dear pupils,” she crooned, her eyes darting from face to face excitedly. Which unfamiliar little girl was she? Hermione Granger, where was Monty’s last link? “My name is Minerva McGonagall. I will be your transfiguration professor. Welcome to Hogwarts.”

The children looked up at her with wide, anxious eyes. She gazed at their nervous faces with faux sternness before a small smile spread across her cheeks. Minnie leaned in conspiratorially and whispered. “Who wants their robes transfigured into bubblegum?”

In an instant, the trepidation lifted, and the children burst into giggles; the Nott boy was shoved to the front.

“Well, before that,” she began, a twinkle in her eye as she turned to open the double doors. “Please form a line and follow me.”

She heard the children quickly shuffling into formation as she threw open the doors of the Great Hall and strode forward. All chatter ceased as she guided the children to the front of the hall. Turning, she moved a small stool to the front of the steps before summoning the sorting hat atop it and stepping aside.

For a few moments, there was complete silence. The incumbent students looked a bit puzzled, but Minnie merely smiled. She and the hat were of a similar theatrical mind. Sure enough, it gave them another second of confusion before bursting to life. The first years gasped as a rip near the brim opened wide like a mouth, and the hat began to sing.

As the sorting hat regaled the students with a song, Minnie glanced at the professor’s table. The Longbottoms—who shared the position of defence instructors—were sitting beside Lily Evans-Prince, the Charms professor. The headmaster’s decision to appoint the three Gryffindors as professors despite being young had been a great source of pride for Minnie, and with the Longbottoms especially, as their move from aurors to professors mirrored her own.

A few paces down from them sat Regulus Black, the newly appointed Quidditch coach. He had gotten the position after retiring from a very successful career with the English National team, which preceded an equally successful seven years as Slytherin’s star seeker. Gryffindor hadn’t won a single game against Slytherin while he had been a student, even with Sirius Black as a chaser, so it was with a bit of bitterness that she accepted his appointment.

Minnie couldn’t be too angry, though. He was, after all, one of two brothers who had dredged the crumbling house of Black out of dissolution. She remembered when the family had been nothing more than inbred scoundrels, slowly dying off into the throngs of Britain's seedy underbelly. After the Black brothers took charge following the sudden death of their parents, their house rapidly grew to prominence—almost overnight. It really shouldn’t have been much of a shock in retrospect. After all, both men were globally recognised Quidditch stars and world-renowned Creature’s Rights activists. The dissolution of house elf servitude would’ve been impossible without Sirius and Regulus Black as the political and financial backing of the movement. What a marvel it was to witness a family’s comeback be so…so vibrant! So full of life. It was almost as remarkable as Remus Lupin and Severus Evans-Prince’s discovery of a cure for lycanthropy. Now that breakthrough had been one for the history books.

“You’re in safe hands, though I have none, for I’m a Thinking Cap!”

The whole hall burst into applause as the hat finished its song. It bowed to each of the four tables and then became quite still again. Unfurling a scroll, Minnie stepped forward, addressing the first years.

“When I call your name, you will put on the hat and sit on the stool to be sorted,” she explained, her eyes doing one last pass over the students. No matter how hard she looked, Minnie couldn’t seem to force the face of Hermione Granger forward. No matter, she would meet Monty’s gift to her in due time.

“Abbott, Hannah!” A pink-faced girl with blonde pigtails stumbled out of line, put on the hat, which fell right down over her eyes, and sat down. A moment’s pause—

“HUFFLEPUFF!” shouted the hat.

The Hufflepuff on the right cheered and clapped as Hannah went to sit down with them.

“Bones, Susan!” she called.

“HUFFLEPUFF!” shouted the hat again, and Susan scuttled off to sit next to Hannah.

“Boot, Terry!”

“RAVENCLAW!”

“Brocklehurst, Mandy” went to Ravenclaw too, but “Brown, Lavender” became the first new Gryffindor, and the table exploded with cheers. Minnie nodded approvingly as “Bulstrode, Millicent,” quickly became a Slytherin.

“Finnigan, Seamus.”

The sandy-haired boy sat on the stool for almost a whole minute before the hat declared him a Gryffindor. Minnie smiled at another addition to her house before looking back at the scroll and going still. There was a moment, just a breath, before excitement surged through her. Almost fifty years of waiting, fifty years of wanting, and she’d come to the end of the road. She was about to meet Hermione Jean Granger for the very first time.

Fleamont Potter had given his entire life to the Wizarding World, and no one knew. In the first several years, he’d returned to Britain sporadically to share his and Tom’s travels with her. Minnie and Septimus were the only two people who knew that Monty and Tom had been the ones to strike Grindelwald down. In the coming months, they would be the only ones to know how many dark wizards fell to the pair’s wands. In the preceding years, they would be the only ones to understand why the world was changing as fast as it was—why the wizarding world was slowly, steadily growing brighter—why babies weren’t losing their parents to dark forces, why mothers weren’t mourning their missing sons, why soldiers weren’t returning to scorched villages and razed crops. Their friend was fighting an invisible war, and in the silence of his battle, Minnie and Septimus sat, unable to do anything but watch as the fruits of his labour grew, swelled, and ripened, only to be plucked by thankless hands.

As the years passed, Monty returned less and less, but prosperity surged more and more in equal measure, as countries around the world celebrated the mysterious deaths of dark lords and cruel dictators. After thirty years had gone by since he left Britain, Minnie and Septimus had to accept that he wouldn’t be returning. He hadn’t replied to a letter in months, and they hadn’t seen him in person since Septimus’ third daughter was born.

The first sliver of proof that he was even alive came forty years after Grindelwald’s death. Septimus’s son Arthur, who travelled for work, had brought back a news article. In it was a photo of Monty standing in the forests of some far-flung country, hands in his pockets, spectacles askew across his nose. He wore the foreign clothes of his mother’s homeland, but it was unmistakably him. They could hardly believe their eyes, but after that, each work trip saw Arthur bringing back more and more articles. It was as if Monty knew they were searching for him, as if he was leaving clues for them to discover.

Each time, they would gather around to drink in every small morsel of knowledge that they could. The articles were almost always about something unrelated—a historical tome uncovered or a regime toppled —but then there would be Monty, standing with his arm around a scholar or a newly elected official, silently influencing every monumental step the world took toward a greater age.

As more articles accumulated, it gradually became clear why Monty had stopped coming home. The first few could be dismissed as blurry camera shots, but as closer photos were found, it became impossible to ignore. Monty wasn’t ageing. In every single image, his body remained unchanged, unscarred by time. He always looked like himself, as he had at seventeen. She and Septimus adamantly refused to believe it at first, but as the years passed, they began to understand why he had done it.

Monty’s body may remain static, but his eyes were always different. Sometimes tired, sometimes hardened, always gazing at something beyond the camera, at something just out of frame. Staring at the photos, they began to gather a sense that their friend was searching for something just a little out of his reach. They had a feeling his life’s purpose had transcended to some greater plane, one that they would be forever unknowing of.

Minnie felt in her bones that Monty would still be searching for it long after she passed away. Septimus, already, had seen that reality come to pass. Even then, on his deathbed, he had stubbornly believed that Monty would come home long enough to see him go. It hadn’t happened, of course, but each time she visited her old friend’s grave, fresh carnations were resting there. Cedrella had gone years before him, so Minnie liked to believe it was Monty making up for lost time. She never caught him in the act, though.

Secretly, Minnie couldn’t stand it. She missed her friend. She missed their talks. She hated knowing that he was out there, fighting against something so all-consuming that he had stopped his own clock just to fight it longer. To counterbalance her perceived uselessness, she’d thrown herself into work. She’d thrown her mind at the problems she could fix, and still, it was so little compared to what Monty was doing.

But now, Minnie could do something that would make him proud. Fifty years she had burned away the midnight oil, but it all amounted to nothing if she couldn’t find and protect Hermione Granger as he’d asked her to do all those years ago.

Today, she would see it through.

Today, she would finally keep her promise.

“Granger, Hermione!” she called, watching with expectant eyes as a small girl with huge, dense hair skittered to the front.

Hermione Granger’s gaze was laser-focused on the hat, as if it held her entire future. Her fists were clenched with nervous determination as she settled onto the stool. Her whole body sat rigid and proud as she turned to Minnie and gave her a tense, expectant nod.

Hermione Granger acted as if her entire life depended on this moment.

Hermione Granger was exactly how Monty described her.

Minnie lifted the hat above the girl’s head, but before she let it drop, she bent down slightly and whispered something in her ear.

“Welcome home.”

The little girl’s eyes widened before disappearing as Minnie dropped the sorting hat down atop her head. There was barely a moment’s hesitation before the hat screamed—

“GRYFFINDOR!”