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Harry could practically taste the anticipation in the air. It soaked into him like the warmest bath on a cold winter night, and he smiled despite the occasion. He likely shouldn’t be smiling, when multiple murders were about to occur. Especially when the murders that were to be committed were on his behalf.
Though, in all honesty, this was Harry’s Christmas present to Tom, rather than the other way around. Harry had been happy enough to let things be, but he knew that Tom’s rage would only be settled by taking revenge on Harry’s behalf, and really, Harry just didn’t care enough to argue about it.
He probably should, but then, he hadn’t exactly been raised to understand compassion, or why he should give a damn about people, had he? He hadn’t been raised—or dragged up, really—to understand why he should give a damn about the lives of others.
Dumbledore really should have foreseen that when he’d made the mistake of leaving Harry in the clutches of the Dursleys.
And now, he’d sent him back to them for Christmas, because of ‘upgrades on the wards’ that had to be done at the school. Never mind that Harry could have gone to Grimmauld Place, or even to the Burrow, since the Weasley’s had invited him for Christmas. Dumbledore had insisted that Privet Drive was the safest place for Harry to be.
“I’m going to head back,” he murmured, turning to look at Tom. “I’ll see you in a few hours.”
“I’ll be there on time, darling,” Tom promised, tilting Harry’s chin with gentle fingers to press a kiss to his lips. “If they try anything, I’ll give it back to them thrice-fold before I kill them.”
Harry smiled. “They won’t, I’ll be fine.”
Tom gave him an assessing look before he nodded his head. “Just a few hours, darling, and this will all be over.”
…
Harry lay on his bed, twirling his wand in between his fingers. He did it often, a little like a nervous tick, but it always soothed him. The time seemed to be ticking away at half speed, and he huffed impatiently. Knowing that he was almost finished with the Dursleys and Privet Drive for good was enough to make his insides itch.
When he’d returned to the house, Vernon had been in fine fettle, and had been his usual antagonistic self. Harry hadn’t risen to his bait, knowing that the man was unwittingly spending his last few hours alive on the sofa, a cake in his hand and a glass of brandy on the table beside him.
He wondered, if the Dursleys had known that they were about to painfully depart the earth, what would they do with their last hours. He’d almost been tempted to ask them, but he knew that it wasn’t actually worth the argument that would follow. If Tom noticed even a hair out of place on Harry, he’d lose his mind.
Glancing at the window, Harry noticed that snow had begun to fall. Perhaps he could convince Tom to draw Vernon outside before he killed him. Crimson spilling over barely there snow would be so pretty.
Not that there would be a lack of blood. Tom had already told his inner circle that Vernon Dursley was for him alone, and Bellatrix had laid claim to Petunia, but the inner circle had plenty of other options. The entire street was in danger because ‘they didn’t help’, as Narcissa had explained to him.
“Someone should have done something,” she’d told him, brushing his hair out of his face. “You were a child, and you deserved help, and not a single one of them did anything, despite the neglect being obvious to anyone with eyes.”
And then there was the Order, of course. Dumbledore had had them stationed on Privet Drive for the entire summer, though Harry had quickly and easily found ways around them. They didn’t like to leave their posts by the house, so a quick wander to the local park and into the trees had been enough for Harry to slip them, especially when he used his cloak.
Half of them didn’t even realise he’d left.
Regardless of how terrible they were at tailing him, they would surely call in back up as soon as Tom and the Death Eaters arrived. Dumbledore had been very firm that they must protect Harry at all costs, for he was ‘the only hope we have’. A load of rot, clearly, since Harry wasn’t going to be saving anybody.
He just… didn’t care.
It wasn’t like he even had anything against most of the Order. He really didn’t. He didn’t dislike most of them, but he also didn’t like them either. He honestly couldn’t care less about them. None of them had shown him any particular care, either. None of them ever asked him how he was, or if he needed anything.
Tom had. The Inner Circle had. They’d asked him what he wanted from life, what he needed, what he cared about. They brushed his hair from his eyes, let him lean on them, even held his hand when he felt icy inside from the lack of the human contact he’d always craved but never been offered.
The Order of the Phoenix only cared about what Harry could do for them, for their world.
Well, they were in for a rude awakening. Harry wasn’t going to be doing anything for them. He actually planned to sit back and watch the world burn.
…
As the clock struck 11pm, a loud crack sounded outside the house, followed by a bang. Harry peeped out of the window of his bedroom and smiled. Though it was dark out, he could still see the silver and gold of the Death Eater masks, shining beneath the street lamps.
Around the street, he could see lights being turned on in bedrooms and living rooms as people twitched their curtains, trying to figure out what had caused such noise so late at night.
Harry put his Invisibility Cloak on and moved to the door, spelling it open with a quick flick of his wand. Vernon had locked it just a little while ago before he and Petunia had gone to bed, but it wasn’t going to stop Harry from getting out.
He heard a shout outside, followed by a scream, and chuckled to himself. Merlin, the Muggles were easy to scare. Though, in all fairness to them, they were in for a rude awakening about the monsters that could be creeping around in the night.
Harry slipped out of the back door and over the fence, walking around the long way. He didn’t want to alert the Order that he was out of the house until he had to. He could hear various cracks sounding around the area and knew that whoever had been guarding him had called for back-up, but as he rounded onto the street, he saw Tom bust open the door to the house with a wide grin on his face.
“We need to get Harry out!”
Harry turned to see Tonks and Lupin running towards the house as Moody, Shacklebolt and Emmeline Vance engaged with a few of the Death Eaters out on the street. Dumbledore had yet to put in an appearance, but he always was a little late to the part, wasn’t he?
It was part of his M.O.
He liked to let Harry get ‘experience’ before he showed up to save the day; it was an easy way to show again and again just how much Harry needed to rely on the old goat to get him out of trouble.
Well. No more.
Harry slipped off the cloak and tucked it into the bag Narcissa had given him. It had all of his things inside it, but it had been charmed weightless and had an unimaginable amount of space. He kept back from the fighting, using the natural shadows of the night to keep himself mostly hidden, though Bellatrix spotted him almost immediately.
She grinned at him and then jumped into a slushy puddle, apparently just for the fun of it. He laughed quietly. She really was quite insane.
When he heard a familiar bellow, Harry turned to see Tom levitating Vernon out onto the street. He leant back on one of the neighbours walls to watch as Tom dropped him unceremoniously onto the snow covered grass of the front garden. Bellatrix skipped past into the house, undoubtedly to fetch Petunia, and Rabastan followed behind her at a more sedate pace. Harry assumed he would be going for Dudley, but it was just as likely that he’d gone in search of Remus and Tonks, who still hadn’t come out of the house.
“Harry?”
Harry turned to see Kingsley watching him.
Harry nodded at him. “I didn’t think it would be the smartest idea to stay in the house when I saw them arrive,” he said, nodding to the Death Eaters, who were attacking all of the houses on Privet Drive systematically. The snow on the ground was melting quickly with the many fires that had been started.
“You should have run,” Kingsley said. “Do you not have your cloak with you?”
“I have it,” Harry replied, nodding, as he looked back at Tom. “But… I wanted to see what happened.”
“You… you didn’t think to try and stop it?”
Harry turned back to Kingsley and smiled, slowly. “Why would I do that?”
He looked back at the house, just in time to see Petunia sail through the bedroom window and onto the grass outside, screaming wildly. Bella followed her out, though she floated to the floor rather than fell, and when she landed, she cackled wildly.
“Crucio,” she said, her delight evident as Petunia’s screams got louder and more desperate as she writhed and twitched on the grass.
Harry turned his attention back to Tom, ignoring Kingsley, who’d stared at him for a few moments before retreating to where Moody was fighting Rodolphus.
Vernon was being stretched, way beyond what could be comfortable for a human body, until his arm literally snapped from his body, the other arm following a few seconds later. Harry arched his eyebrows.
“He’s gonna have to teach me that one,” he muttered to himself.
As though he’d heard him, Tom paused and looked over at Harry. He gestured him over with his head, and Harry smirked, before he pushed off the wall and crossed the blood soaked road.
Tom gestured to Vernon, who was, impressively, still alive, though he was barely moving, and he was groaning nonsensically on the ground.
“I know I wanted the honours, but I think it belongs to you, darling,” Tom said, not caring to keep his voice down.
Order members were calling Harry’s name, but he ignored them as his wand slid into his hand. “Are you sure?” he asked, glancing up at Tom.
“Nothing would make me happier,” Tom assured him.
Harry tilted his head slightly as he looked down at his uncle. His tormentor. His abuser.
“Bombarda,” he snarled, aiming for Vernon’s stomach.
It exploded on impact, and the surrounding area was immediately covered in Vernon Dursley’s insides. Harry blinked.
“I don’t know why I didn’t consider how messy that would be,” he admitted.
Tom chuckled. He gestured to the houses that were being burned up, to the people who were attempting to run, to the overturned cars and the Death Eaters who looked like they were having the time of their lives.
“Shall we, darling?”
Harry inclined his head. Indeed, they shall.
The Order were floundering without Dumbledore, and Tom led Harry to the other end of the road from where they were fighting.
“Did you kill Remus and Tonks?” Harry asked, as Tom twirled his wand and threw a Muggle man into the sky, watching him fall to the ground with a dispassionate look in his eyes.
“I didn’t,” Tom replied. “They’ll survive, provided someone attends to them in a timely manner. I wasn’t sure if you wanted the wolf alive.”
“Thank you for caring about what I might want,” Harry murmured. “But I—”
A flare of magic was felt behind them, and Harry turned, his words forgotten as he saw Dumbledore arrive.
“We can leave,” Tom offered, even as he glared at Albus with an icy look in his eyes.
Harry shook his head. He didn’t need to leave. This needed to be dealt with; the Headmaster had to understand the part he’d played in what had happened here. He was so fond of taking lessons from experiences, and Harry wanted to offer a lesson of his own.
Tom fired a killing curse at the old man, but it was easily blocked, as they’d known it would be. Dumbledore was staring at Harry as though he’d never seen him before, and Harry stared right back. He wouldn’t be cowed, he wouldn’t bow his head, he wouldn’t be ashamed.
“You’ve abandoned your ideas, Harry?” Dumbledore asked, as he neared. “Abandoned the Wizarding world? Abandoned—”
“You abandoned me,” Harry snapped. “When I was a baby, you left me here to be bullied, tormented, beaten and neglected. Don’t talk to me about abandonment, Headmaster.”
“You were safe here, Harry. I had to keep you safe.”
“Safe,” Harry laughed, shaking his head. “You think I was safe here? Really?”
“Harry, this isn’t you. You’re not a murderer. You’re not evil.”
“The guts on the Dursley’s front lawn might prove you different about that,” Harry pointed out, shrugging his shoulders lightly. “I’m where I’m meant to be, Headmaster.” He slipped his hand into Tom’s. “Where I’m wanted for who I am, and not what I’ve been prophesied to do.”
“Harry—”
“No. I’m not willing to listen anymore,” Harry interrupted, shaking his head. He looked at Tom. “I’m done here. I’ll see you when you come back.”
Tom inclined his head. As Harry prepared himself to leave, he heard Tom say, “You really should take better care of the people you consider your weapons, Albus.”
…
It was a strange feeling, to be free, Harry mused to himself as he lounged in the bath. He’d gone straight up to the bathroom that was attached to his and Tom’s bedroom to find that the elves had already drawn him a bath. He brushed his hand along the onyx marble of the outer edge, before he closed his eyes and leant his head back against the tilted side.
“Are you okay, darling?”
Harry opened his eyes to see Tom—his Tom, not Voldemort—was sitting by the side of the bath. He must have drifted off, he realised. He wasn’t usually so unaware of his surroundings that Tom could come so close without him knowing.
“It doesn’t feel real yet,” he admitted. “I’m fine, I just… I’ve been waiting for this for so long that… Now it’s here, I don’t even know how I’m supposed to feel.”
“I know,” Tom replied, shifting so that he was on his knees, leaning over the bathtub. He picked up the shampoo and gestured for Harry to move so that he could lather his hair. “I’ll take care of you, Harry. I promise.”
Harry smiled, leaning into his touch. “You already do.”
There would be a lot of fallout, Harry knew, but for now, he would just relax into the hands that had been prophesied to either kill Harry, or die at his own hands.
No matter what came next, one thing Harry did know for sure was that that particularly prophecy would never come to fruition.
He and Tom would make sure of it.