Chapter 2
Morning was a different beast. Harry sat up, groaning.
Tom was gone.
Harry slipped out of bed.
He realized he was wearing a pilled black shirt and sweatpants. He didn’t remember what he had been wearing yesterday. Nothing but Tom, Tom, Tom. Where was he?
Harry was afraid.
No. No. He was not afraid. He shouldn’t be that. Not of—
Harry didn’t know what to feel. He felt uncertain, that was for sure, but what kind of person was he? Timid? Brave? Cunning?
Right now he was leaning more towards timid, if he were to guess. He didn’t need it, but he wrapped the sable bedsheet around himself and crept from the room. This was his home, but it felt as unfamiliar to him as everything he’d come across. Foreign.
The wood was gelid under his bare feet. The hallway was adorned with wealth, renaissance-style paintings draping the walls. Harry watched as a snake slithered out of the nearest portrait and into the one beside it.
Antique lanterns on the walls radiated an amber luster, making the paintings seem almost sinister. Harry padded down the hall.
Tom was downstairs mixing a pale, satin-gold liquid in a cauldron.
“Tom?”
Tom pivoted around and smiled. “Darling, you’re awake?” His eyes glinted red.
“Who am I?”
“Good morning to you too. Why don’t we have some breakfast, love?” Tom shuffled Harry to a room set aglow with sun percolating through an oblique window in the ceiling. Silver embossed china sat on the small table next to plates of pastries and fruit. Tom sat across from him, hair glowing a deep umber and eyes glinting with his soft expression.
He sliced a strawberry into thin gauzy slivers, light glinting of the jaded knife, and lay them on a scone he slid onto Harry’s plate.
“Who am I?” Harry repeated his question.
“Harry…Your name is Harry Peverell. Hopefully, Harry Riddle when you’re ready. You’ve been an orphan since you were one (sorry, love), and you were raised by your muggle aunt and uncle. We’ve been together since you were fourteen. You’re seventeen now, darling, and your birthday is in July. You love quidditch and treacle tart. You don’t like studying and your cousin Dudley. You went to school at Hogwarts. You got into an accident before you graduated. We’ve been living together for a year.”
“Who are you, then?”
“My name is Tom Riddle. I’m an orphan too, from birth. I went to Hogwarts with you, but I’m a bit older than you. We met when I was sixteen and you were twelve. You are the only one I’ve ever loved. I like snakes and runework and most things you don’t. I don’t like quidditch and people who are disloyal. I’m a member of the Wizengamot.”
Harry sipped his tea uneasily and gazed out the window at the softly swaying trees. “I don’t think that’s right.” He tried to remember only for pain to budgeon him in the head. “You don’t—” he cut off. “No.”
Tom leaned back and furrowed his brow. “I’d never lie to you, love. You’re looking pale. Do you want to go take a rest?” He started to rise.
“No. Sorry. Tom, I—” Harry sighed. “I don’t know.” Tom sat down and poured himself tea. Steam and the scent of chamomile curled in the air.
“There’s no rush darling. None at all. Magic will return your memories when it is time. Just relax.” Tom’s strained eyes belied his words. “I need to work, love. If you need, call. Please stay in the house. It’s not safe outside.” Tom strode out the room. His plate, mostly full, disappeared with him. Sunlight flashed on his abandoned teacup.
Harry took a bite of his scone and reached for his teacup again before flinching. The initially warm tea was bubbling faintly.
Two books on advanced runes. One piece of scrap paper with an illegible note scribbled on it. Three strange scales. Four misplaced cups of still-warm black tea. Six quills of varying sizes and colour. Two glowing stones. Five sticks of charcoal. One engraved wooden wand that made Harry feel cozy when he held it.
Harry spread his findings over the floor of their(?) room. He had tried to only pick up objects that were where they weren’t supposed to be, but he wouldn’t know which were which. He hoped Tom wouldn’t be mad.
He couldn’t find anything that he could definitively call his, though he was somewhat certain about the stick. It felt like his, in the way only Tom felt like (for now).
The quills, on the other hand, were just pretty.
The tea made him think about Tom—silently padding around their house, leaving cups of tea every which way, flipping open books and scribbling notes with quills. (Maybe Harry was a bit of a hoarder. So sue him.)
Harry dumped the tea out the open window and placed the scales, the feathers, stones, and the charcoal in each. He procured the paper and flipped it to the back, before tracing the runes he could remember from the night before with the charcoal. It crumbled under his touch, blurring the lines, but Harry retraced them until they were as close as he could remember.
He flipped through the first book, looking for photos of anything he recognized, then the second.
It took a few minutes before he found his second drawing. Nix. Space? The void? Nothing? That wasn’t helpful at all by itself.
Soliz. Light. To Call. To burn. Justice.
Tepas. Measure word. No English translation.
Cruxe. Sacrifice. To sacrifice.
Lorale. To bond. To make loyal. To strike. To trial.
Auter. To untie. To cage.
By the time he had translated most of the runes he had drawn, Harry felt like giving up the entire route of inquiry. The runes themselves had too many meanings without reference to the statement as a whole (or at least from what he had gathered from the book).
Harry closed the books and stretched out on the floor, drinking in the morning sun. It wasn’t as if he had a time limit. But he was frustrated, his head was throbbing, and he didn’t understand how runes worked at all. He just wanted to understand what had happened to him, but Tom—Harry couldn’t bring himself to ask.
He didn’t know why, but the feeling had only amplified as time ticked by, sunlight creeping across Harry as viscous and smooth as honey.
Soft chimes reverberated off the lusterless gold clock marking the end of another hour.
Tom found him like this at noon, splayed on the floor with a book open on his stomach. Harry opened his eyes when Tom just chuckled and sat down next to him. “So you’ve been busy, love?”
Harry toed his scribblings and the stick under a nearby dresser. He pushed himself up. “For a matter of fact, I have.” Even when they were both sitting, Tom was still tall enough to tuck Harry under his chin and nestle his head in the crest between his neck and shoulder. “Did you know you have at least four cups of tea just lying around?” Tom’s gentle smirk was making him dizzy.
“No, love, but I suspect those might’ve been for you. Did you ask the house elves?” Harry flushed.
“Oh.”
Tom gently pushed Harry’s shoulders back down to the sage-green rug and rested his head on the left, curling into Harry’s side. “What do you want for lunch, darling?”
“What do you have?”
“Anything. Anything at all for you.”
“How do you feel about treacle?”
“Maybe not that, darling.”
Tom retaught Harry how to fly after lunch. He told Harry he’d always been a natural, so it’s no wonder he’s soaring again already. Harry felt so wonderful flying after a conjured snitch with Tom that he suspected there was nothing he’d rather be doing with or without his memories. He tried to ignore the nagging feeling that he and Tom were lying to themselves.
Dinner was a more solemn affair, as Tom told Harry what he’d known about the parents Harry hadn’t grown up with. James was a marvelous seeker. Lily was a natural at potions. Tom admitted to Harry that Harry wasn’t known to be very good at potions at all, but maybe they should still give it another shot tomorrow because “amnesia helps a person’s brain reshape the neural pathways, so they can’t really be certain of any of Harry’s capabilities at this point.”
Harry pointed out he was still good at flying. Tom stated that did not disprove his argument at all, only that some muscle memory was retained.
Later, they sat together by the fire in companionable silence and watched it dance.
Tom swung Harry’s feet onto his lap. Tom mentioned how he had seen Harry looking at books on runes. He suggested Written Magic: Recognized Runes Since 1000 CE. Tom left and returned with the book and another. He handed one to Harry. They read together until it was time for bed.
It was like a beautiful play of domesticity. Harry doubted they could ever be so peaceful in real life for any length of time yet… it felt so right. He wasn’t sure where the thought came from, but as he lay awake next to Tom, he knew he needed to find a way out. Away from Tom. Not somewhere he couldn’t come back, but merely… separated for a little while.
Harry had recognized a few phrases from the note he had used for his runes. Kidnap Potter…Severus dead…use Cruxe.
Who was Potter?
Why was Severus dead?
What did Tom have to do with it?