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The forest is quiet and still after the storm ends, but the evidence of the violence of it remains. A tree has fallen, a crack shattering through the trunk. Pine needles carpet the ground, damp and slick beneath the peeling soles of Harry’s trainers.
Harry has ventured out, watching for nothing in particular. She breathes in the scent of petrichor, feeling more grounded than she has in quite a while. If this storm can end, perhaps other things can as well. Her hand finds the locket at her throat, fingers absently thrumming against the cool metal.
She doesn’t hear the footsteps behind her, only feels the weight of a blanket settling around her shoulders. Harry turns to find a tired-eyed Hermione holding out a steaming cup of tea. Finding food on a regular basis has been difficult, but they have enough tea to last the next century.
But not enough sugar, Harry remembers, when she accepts the mug and swallows a bitter mouthful. Even so, it floods her with a pleasant warmth, reaching all the way down to the tips of her toes.
“Thanks,” she says.
Harry tries to smile, but doesn’t quite manage. Neither one of them has been quite able to since Ron left. When he left, he took all the laughter with him.
Harry often wonders why Hermione still chooses to stick around.
“You should let me wear that for a while,” Hermione says, eyes flicking toward the locket.
The flash of irritation Harry feels at the suggestion is sharp and immediate. Her fingers clutch the locket in a possessive grip, knuckling whitening, and her response is delivered through clenched teeth.
“It’s not bothering me. I’ll wear it a little longer.”
Hermione looks as if she very badly wants to argue. Her mouth opens but quickly closes again. Her brows knit in a concerned furrow, her gaze fixed around Harry’s neck.
“If you’re sure,” she eventually says.
They step carefully around each other now. Opinions Hermione would ordinarily offer freely go unspoken. It’s not healthy, necessarily, but there’s a relief to it all the same.
“It’s fine,” Harry says. “Promise.”
Hermione still looks hesitant, but doesn’t argue. “I’m going to turn in, then.”
“I’ll be along in a bit.”
Hermione shuffles back inside the tent, leaving Harry alone—or close enough to it.
The locket warms and pulses beneath Harry’s palm, like the beating of a heart. Proof of the life inside—the sliver of Tom Riddle’s soul trapped within.
Harry knows well enough that the locket affects the wearer, bringing their darkest emotions and insecurities to the surface. But she also wonders how aware it is—how much it's listening. Is it like the diary—angry, trapped, desperate to claw its way free?
“Can you hear me?” Harry whispers.
The wind rustles around her, howling through the trees, but there is no other response.
The setting is familiar from Harry’s lessons with Dumbledore—a cluttered parlour choked with ornate furnishing and steeped with a suffocating floral perfume. It feels all the more sharper—vivid—than Harry’s previous visit.
This time Harry is not safely beside Dumbledore as a silent witness; she has become drawn into the scene itself.
She sits in a tall-backed chair, feet perched on a matching footstool. She is in the place of Hepzibah Smith.
In front of her, of course, is Tom Riddle.
Tom is beautiful—composed. Her hair falls in silken waves of ebony; her lips are painted blood-red; her skin is the cold paleness of freshly fallen snow. She looks like a princess from a storybook—only in this tale, she is the one who holds out the poisoned apple, coaxing Harry into taking a bite.
A little house-elf hobbles forward—Hokey, Harry remembers—carrying the locket displayed in a glass case with a plush velvet backing.
Harry takes it, holding it out to show Tom. She leans forward greedily, eyes flaring crimson. Every movement speaks of barely constrained hunger.
It is baffling how Hepzibah failed to notice it. Though, Harry supposes it wouldn't have mattered. The old woman’s fate was sealed from the moment she decided to reveal her treasure.
Words rise in Harry’s mind—Hepzibah’s words. She could open her mouth and let them spill out, allowing the scene to play on as it once did. But something rises inside of her, compelling her to go off script.
“It was wrong,” Harry says softly. “Your mother deserved a fair price for this locket. She was sick—desperate. Someone ought to have helped her.”
A smirk plays at Tom’s lips, the mask of the demure, polite salesgirl slipping away. “What sort of girls do you suppose we would have been if we had known the softness of a mother’s love?”
Tom leans back in her chair, arms crossing over her blouse in a satisfied manner. She doesn’t appear to truly want an answer—only to stop Harry short.
Merope Riddle had spent her life trapped and abused, and had done whatever it took to free herself. Harry supposes Merope would have taught her daughter the same—to take the things the world refused to give her. How different, then, would Tom Riddle have been? Would she have become Voldemort anyway?
“I dunno,” Harry finally says, meeting Tom’s sharp gaze. “But I reckon we both deserved more than we got.”
Tom’s brows lift. Harry thinks that maybe her words have surprised her. Then Tom laughs melodically, dark waves bouncing as her head tilts back.
“How touching,” she says, each syllable dripping with condescension. “To say such sweet things when we both know you’ve been valiantly searching day after day for the weapon to bring an end to me.”
“I don’t have a choice,” Harry insists, feeling strangely desperate to defend herself. “I’ve never had a choice.”
Tom’s eyes soften, almost appearing sympathetic. “Undoubtedly my older self has done great harm to you,” she allows. “But I am entirely blameless.” She bats her eyelashes, her mouth pouting.
Harry huffs out a disbelieving laugh, looking pointedly toward Tom’s finger, where the Gaunt ring proudly sits.
“I meant I have done nothing to you,” Tom says, rolling her eyes.
Tom has done nothing to Harry—besides poisoning her mind while she wears the locket. But couldn’t that simply be considered an act of self-preservation?
But does any of that matter when, in order to defeat Voldemort, the locket must be destroyed?
“Besides,” Tom continues, voice lightening, “I believe Voldemort would treat you quite differently, if only she understood what you are.”
The words cause Harry’s throat to grow tight. “And what am I?”
“It really is so painfully obvious.” Tom sighs with a dramatic flair. “It is truly astonishing how blind she's been.”
A chill crawls up Harry’s spine. “Tell me what you think I am,” she demands.
Tom laughs again. The sound raises gooseflesh along Harry’s arms.
“Really, Harry,” she purrs. “You’re a clever girl. You really shouldn’t expect me to spoil the revelation. I will not deny you the satisfaction of making the discovery on your own.”
Harry opens her mouth to argue but Tom raises an elegant hand, stopping her.
“I have faith in you, darling,” Tom says gently. “You’ll come to the correct conclusion in time.”
The room tilts around Harry—her surroundings stretching and warping. Gold light bleeds from the wallpaper, drenching everything in a warm glow. The cloying scent of perfume grows stronger, enough to choke. Tom’s smile is the final thing to fade.
Harry jerks awake, shooting up in her bed with a gasp. Her pajamas are soaked through with sweat and her heart is pounding. The locket pulses against her throat, nearly scorching in its heat. Harry tugs at it, intent on getting it off—on getting some space. But her hand betrays her, stopping and curling protectively around the chain.
Hermione is sound asleep in the neighbouring bed undisturbed by Harry’s panic. Her breathing is soft. Harry hopes her dreams are pleasant.
Harry doesn’t sleep again that night.
The days bleed together into a grey haze of cold and gnawing hunger. They are no closer to locating the Sword of Gryffindor or the remaining Horcruxes. Occasionally, they exchange a few weak half-formed theories in tired voices before falling back into silence.
Harry is not pulled into any more of the Horcrux’s dreamscapes, nor does she experience any visions through Voldemort’s eyes. This should be a relief.
Yet when Harry wears the locket, she feels the weight of Tom’s presence settling beneath her skin, making a home there. Sometimes in the silence, Harry finds herself straining for a voice that never comes, a strange aching longing to hear Tom’s honeyed tone once again.
The insinuations Tom made continue to claw at Harry’s mind with a stark insistence. There must be an answer, but it lingers just out of her grasp.
There is a very real possibility that Tom is simply playing with her, dangling the idea of some life-altering knowledge on a string. Harry is well aware of Tom’s keen ability to manipulate. Perhaps Harry should dismiss it all entirely.
But somehow, Harry believes that Tom was being sincere—at least as sincere as she is capable of being.
More than once, Harry considers confiding in Hermione. She has no doubt the answer must be hidden somewhere in Hermione’s towering stack of books or lodged within the recesses of her brilliant mind.
But Harry doesn’t want to break the fragile peace they currently share. If Harry admits that she has been communicating with the horcrux, there is no way that Hermione would allow her concerns to go unvoiced. Most likely, Hermione would insist that Harry take off the locket and ensure it never touches her skin again.
Harry cannot allow that to happen.
Harry lies in the dark, her thumb tracing the jewelled S on the locket’s front. Just before she drifts off, she feels the ghost of a caress against her scar.
The silver doe lingers in front of Harry, its glow beckoning her to follow.
Harry’s stuttering breath rises into a white mist in front of her as she considers whether or not to go after it. She ought to at least find Hermione, but if she does, she might lose the trail.
Even though she might be walking straight into a trap, Harry follows the Patronus.
Snow blankets the forest floor, soaking through her thin socks as she trudges forward. The towering pine trees sag beneath the weight of it, and now and then she hears a sharp crack as branches give way.
When they reach a clearing, the doe stops, standing before a small pool with regal grace. As Harry moves closer, it fades into nothingness.
When Harry looks down, a peal of laughter tumbles from her lips, far too loud.
Beneath a layer of ice at the bottom of the pool, she spies the ruby-encrusted hilt of the Sword of Gryffindor.
Nothing can ever be easy.
Harry waves her wand, shattering the ice. Then, quickly and methodically, she strips down to her underclothes, the frigid air biting at her skin, sending shivers racing through her. Another spell melts away a circle of snow where she lays out her clothes, bundling her wand and glasses within.
Harry stands at the edge of the pool, steeling herself before making the plunge.
The freezing water steals her breath instantly. Her entire body is wrapped in a sharp, cruel ache. Her eyes squeeze shut, and she fights the panic, forcing herself to keep moving downward.
As her hand closes around the heavy hilt, her lungs seize. She’s no longer certain which direction is up or how to reach the surface. Her legs kick desperately, spots clouding her vision.
The locket burns, scalding against her skin. Her mouth opens in a silent scream. As panic tightens its grip, she feels steady hands on her—pulling her upward.
Harry breaks the surface, gulping air desperately. The sword slips from her numb fingers, landing softly in the snow as she is hauled out of the water.
Her head comes to rest on something soft—someone’s lap, she realises. Her eyes crack open, and she squints up at the blurred shape of her rescuer.
“Hermione?” she slurs.
A hand strokes through her soaked curls, followed by a familiar, musical laugh. “Guess again.”
“Tom,” Harry breathes.
Her chest tightens. Her limbs scream at her to move, to pull away, but she is too cold, too weak, too heavy.
“You reckless, brave girl,” Tom says gently. “Why would you do something so foolish?”
Harry’s teeth chatter as she struggles to form a response.
“Rest,” Tom tells her. “Catch your breath.”
Harry has no choice but to obey. Her eyes drift closed as Tom continues to stroke her hair. Gradually, her breathing slows, the chill eases, and the pain dulls.
“Why did you save me?” Harry asks at last, her voice raw.
“You still haven’t worked out what you are, have you?”
Harry opens her eyes. Without her glasses, Tom is little more than pale skin and dark hair, but the curve of her mouth is unmistakably gentle.
A hand brushes Harry’s fringe aside, and then Tom bends down, pressing her lips softly to Harry’s scar.
The touch is so tender, so unexpectedly gentle, that moisture pricks at the corners of Harry’s eyes.
Voldemort’s touch had only ever brought pain, but Tom’s kiss wraps her in a warm blanket of pleasure. Harry exhales shakily, her mouth parting on a sigh.
Then the realisation strikes her so suddenly that the sigh turns into a gasp.
“I’m a Horcrux.”
It seems obvious now—so obvious that Harry feels foolish for missing it. Hadn’t Dumbledore once said that Voldemort left a piece of herself inside Harry on the night she received her scar?
Tom lifts her mouth away, and Harry immediately mourns the loss.
“You clever thing,” Tom says fondly.
“But that means—” Harry begins, dread pooling in her gut.
“If Voldemort is to perish, you would need to die as well,” Tom finishes.
The truth settles heavily against Harry’s breastbone. Once, she would have sacrificed herself without hesitation. It would still be the right thing to do.
But Tom is holding her now, and Harry feels safe—cherished, even. Perhaps for the first time in her life.
“How cruel of the world to expect such a thing from you,” Tom murmurs, her voice like silk. “How cruel of them to place their burdens on your shoulders. You can let go of them now, sweet girl. I will carry them for you.”
Harry turns her head, catching sight of the distant gleam of rubies against the snow.
“You wouldn’t harm me now,” Tom says, sounding almost amused—and unmistakably fond.
“You don’t know that,” Harry whispers. It's a weak protest, more obligatory than anything.
Tom chuckles and leans down to claim Harry’s lips with a kiss that sings of devotion.
“I do,” she murmurs against Harry’s mouth. “I have seen your heart, darling.”
Her fingers tighten slightly around the back of Harry’s neck.
“And it is mine.”