let me go, hold me close

So still is the air between them in the hours following this conversation, a steady rustle reveals itself in the frigid aftermath.

The jungle is much quieter the deeper they go, and he only grows more certain they are being followed with every step. A creature with hooves and paws, maybe, but he could be wrong. Black and Malfoy had liked to hunt beasts, he preferred more human prey.

Stealing glances at Harry tells him nothing either, the boy is closed off as never before, in any memory.

"Are you never going to talk to me again?"...when what he intended for was...'Do you hear that, too?' They were entirely dissimilar, how humiliating.

"What?" Harry turns to him in a bemused manner. And with just cause, as he himself questions his own, apparently-long-gone sanity .

"You haven't said anything in hours." He does not elaborate further.

"Is that really such a surprise, Tom?" Sounding so very resigned now.

"No," he says, even as he should say, 'Don't call me Tom!'.

All the while, it grows ever more insistent, that looming feeling; as he reaches for a continuation he cannot find. Harry says nothing, either.

A rhythmic drumming against damp earth, it only gets louder with each step they take, in the minutes that pass.

Black and honey-brown, out of the corner of his eye; and he has Harry by the shoulders, twisted away and half behind him in a flash; every single sense on high alert, magic lashing out—

For exactly one second, before he realises who it is.

Looking back at the boy, only inches away; Harry's face is shock and confusion, and he stares at Tom instead of the intruders; as if in preparation to paint a portrait, eyes wide in his study. (How cute.)

"It's James and Sirius," he whispers to the boy, even as annoyance rears its head. What in Salazar's name were they doing here!

"Harry, Tom," James changes back in an instant, while the mutt remains as is, unwilling to even glance at them. "Are you boys all right?"

"Dad? What are you doing here? Are we all right?!" Still within the circle of Tom's arms. (He doesn't want to let go.)

"You've been so quiet all day, it was getting hard to follow you." An absolutely illogical response, his frustration at this development grows.

"And why are you following us in the first place?" Asking all the right questions! Harry could lead this, he was content to spectate.

"Well," James turns a bit sheepish, "I was following Padfoot. He was following you." He doesn't envy Harry this conversation in the least.

"Sirius!" Harry turns to a dog now hiding under ears and paws. "Sirius?!" Harry demands, to no give.

"And why is Sirius following us?" He decides to interject, finally, when Harry's attempt at interrogation seems fruitless.

"Because I didn't think it was safe for you to be left with Tom...I mean...just Tom...for protection. This forest is dangerous, you know." Harry's glare when Black breaks his silence would certainly have burned through the man's head, were it not for the magic suppressing properties of the forest; of this, he's sure.

Harry…is a raging spitfire before him, around him, it pulls at something within. A tug of desire, he wants to unravel more...

"We're fine!" Never had another worn defiance so well as did this boy.

"What's wrong, Harry?" James turning all concerned parent at his unexpected outburst. "I thought you'd be happy to see us, did something happen?"

He watches as the boy comes to the required realisation, modifying his behaviour just a touch as he grew more mindful. It was he who insisted on keeping his secret, after all.

"No, you just scared us. I thought we were here by ourselves." The second half of his words directed towards the mutt, with a hint of an accusation. It misses James, again, thankfully? regretfully?

"And now you aren't. Your mother went to a conference with Snape this time, and you know how I hate that man, if you can even call him that. But I had a vacation coming up, and Pads let me in on the plan, so." James was not helping at all, each word more incendiary than the last.

Black yelps as a man, a sound more befitting his animagus form. "Only because I made a mistake and you wouldn't let it go! He threatened me with patrol duty! Patrol duty, pup! You know how I feel about that! I'm so sorry!"

He knows the very moment Harry gives in and forgives the mutt, how unfortunate.

(He would try to teach the boy to hold grudges, the way he did, except, wouldn't that mean he himself would never be forg...)

"It's fine, we're just surprised, aren't we...Tom?" stumbling over his name like a hurdle this time, interesting. It helps curb his displeasure at having to respond positively.

"Yes, but you know you're always welcome, James. You too, Sirius, "barely managing that last part himself.

Harry's eyes are wide as they can go now, and so are Black's. Potter must not be worthy of his post as Head of his department if he missed this obviousness right in front of him.

"See, this is why I love Tom. He always knows how to make a man feel welcome, eh?" Yes, Tom, not him! He says nothing, attempting a customer-service smile perfected what feels like a millenia ago.

Letting go of Harry feels like a Herculean task rather reluctantly, they start back on the trail, and that earlier silence does not remain a true silence anymore. There is now a conversation with shifted eyes, stolen glances, and unspoken words, understood instantaneously.

And not just a conversation, for there is more.

Harry is worried. About him. He can tell.

The context matters not.

(Worried about his reaction to this development, most likely; how sickeningly saccharine, and yet, he finds all his earlier annoyance and frustration has melted away.)

All his thoughts are Harry.

The memory of sunlit tears from earlier beckons him to make conversation, an attempt at reassurance. "What would you like for dinner tonight?" (Wasn't it so gratifying to know that Harry wouldn't be able to ignore him any longer? Not if he wanted to keep up his act.)

"You—" Harry stumbles over flat ground. "You're gonna make dinner?"

"Why so surprised, Harry?" James intrudes from up ahead, "Has Tom been making you cook this whole time, and putting on an act for us just now?"

"No, no, it's...my turn today?" His intonation is totally off. James seems especially dense, as it flies past.

"You can do it tomorrow, Harry. Tom, can we have one of your treacle tarts today, if you're feeling up to it? Bloody delicious, those things." How absolutely fantastic. Harry's worry deepens to a noticeable degree.

"Would you like some chocolate treacle tart, Harry?" He chooses to ask instead, and Black chokes on a breath that sounds suspiciously close to 'poison', James does not seem to have heard it.

Harry does not seem to notice either, as he comes to a complete stop, staring at Tom; who in turn halts to mirror him in this stillness. "Is everything okay?" He has to ask.

Harry chokes at that, a real sound, which turns into a cough as he tries to relieve himself of the discomfort. "Is everything okay?! Is everything okay with you?!"

He almost laughs out loud at Harry's expression, amusement stifled only by the red that has taken over Harry's face at the exertion of clearing his lungs. "Yes. Would you like treacle tart for dessert tonight?"

"Ye-es?"

James walks back the few steps between them, finally looking at them with some curiosity; not as thick as he had seemed earlier, then? "What's wrong with you two? Did you have a fight? You're acting weird, both of you."

"It's because you surprised us, we're still a bit ruffled," he insists, forcing himself to move closer to James, slipping an arm around the man in an imitation of Tom. Harry and Black look at him in disbelief. "Dessert will help with that, won't it, Harry?"

Harry says nothing at all, a dumbfounded expression on his face.

"Harry?" James sounds a bit worried now, and, perhaps, he was a little worried, himself. Had his attempt to ameliorate only ended up exacerbating Harry's state of mind?

"Yes, sorry, Dad. Um, yeah, dessert should help. Sorry, I'm still just a little bit in shock, I suppose. Let's go." He starts to walk over to Black, still a few meters up ahead.

This does mean that his only choice-of-companion at the moment remains James. Harry and Black walk before them, and there starts a new conversation, now full of a different silence.

At least, he's glad Harry has not fully forgiven Black. So he wouldn't have to incur all of Harry's wrath alone.

They inevitably end up back next to each other by the time dinner rolls around, as James and Sirius busy themselves in conversation reminiscent of the gossip he had heard once, while still a student at Hogwarts; which, thank Merlin!...and also, ugh?

The only gratifying part of this whole ordeal is the disappearance of the earlier silence between himself and Harry.

Well, not a total disappearance, as neither speaks, still; but the air is no longer thick with tension.

Neither is it still, however, as he catches Harry looking at him often, with confusion aand sort of curiosity.

Surely the confusion was unnecessary? Had he not made it clear that he would keep his word? (Friends) Apparently not, as the boy does not relent in his contemplative glances.

While setting up the tent is much easier today, with one person for each corner; he does end up with Black on one side, which somewhat diminishes even that positive. He would ignore the man entirely, were it not for Harry...( He would have killed the man, were it not for Harry...)

Deciding to forego his usual ritual, he heads straight for the kitchen, intent on beating Harry to it today. There was just no way he would be in charge of entertainment, the boy could handle it.

Not ten minutes later, Harry joins him in the kitchen, leaning against the counter, "Will you put up a silencing charm?"

"What is it?" He obliges as he continues to break down his chicken carcass.

"For what it's worth, I didn't know Sirius would do this," a given.

"I do know that, Harry." He waits for the boy to continue.

—Was that it? Certainly conversation unworthy of a silencing charm.

"Why are you acting like this?" He sets his knife down on the board, turning his full attention to this conversation.

"If you would elaborate what you mean by 'this'?"

"You know! I don't understand! But honestly, I don't care. Stop acting like Tom right after you told me how you killed my...how you killed...you're insane!"

"Am I, insane? Do you forget the context behind that act? They were trying to kill me and destroy my horcrux."

"Of course they were! You're YOU! LORD VOLDEMORT!"

"You should have told me how strong you'd need the silencing charm to be." He cannot stop himself from adding wryly at the boy's outburst.

"I hate you so much." No, no, it doesn't hurt, no, "I'm not hungry. Do whatever you want. Have a good night." Harry storms off in a way that none have ever attempted, not with him.

He almost follows Harry, his brain insistent on atoning for his offense—for a whole second—before he comes back to who he was, in the present! 'You're You, Lord Voldemort,' indeed.

A version of him, at least. Another realization made long ago and kept suppressed until he was back to his usual strength of mind.

(A realization kept suppressed: he had no strength of mind as the deranged madman he had been those last few decades at the end there.)

Disregarding all other thoughts, he forces himself to focus on dinner; a mindless task, for all the hours Tom had put into this activity. (To feed Harry, who wouldn't be eating this food because he was furious at the moment.)

Thoughts of Harry remain constant in their onslaught, a permanent imprisonment by a boy who did not even know—

Nevermind, as he measures out his cocoa powder, sugar, and flour; sifting them, before starting on his dough for the crust.

Dinner is ready in the next hour, and he levitates it all out to the table, now set for four; but the house is dead silent. He knew where Harry was, but the other two?

Are outside, picking up sticks in their animagus forms. Fabulous. Drinking, and the general idiocy it seemed to abet has always been detestable; and now he would also need to supervise an open flame, which was just the cherry on top, wasn't it?

"Dinner's ready", he says instead, walking back inside. He can feel the beginnings of a pain in his head, and it would only grow worse as the night went on, he knows.

No Harry, and there wouldn't be, and he can't stand that. His first time cooking for the boy as himself, and Harry refused to eat it?!

His anger is unjust, but this is not something he realises in the moment of, as he stands before Harry's room. His repeated knocking echoes his indignation, when the boy does not answer, and the door remains closed.

In hindsight, this is both his best and worst action; as he twists the handle and pushes the door inwards.

"Oh for the love of bloody Merlin! Do you not understand the meaning of I'm not hungry! Leave me alone!" Harry twists around in the sheets, covering up his face and burrowing under the pillows.

He walks in and shuts the door behind him, casting another silencing charm. "You need to eat." 

"I DON'T NEED TO DO ANYTHING, LEAVE ME ALONE!" Even muffled, his voice is hoarse by the last word.

(And try as he might, to ignore it, Harry's hurt hurts him too. He had wanted to cry with the boy; not for the strangers he had killed without a second thought, but rather, for a boy who felt for their deaths.)

Lord Voldemort did not feel regret, he did not hesitate, he did not comfort...

Was he Lord Voldemort then? When he stepped forward despite the warning? When he lowered himself onto his knees at the foot of the bed? When he spoke words he had never ever thought he'd find himself speaking? 

"I'm sorry, Harry." Easier than a hot knife through soft butter. "I didn't know—" He is Sisyphus himself, in the attempt to finish that sentence.

There is no response from the boy, at all; not a single movement, not even a breath louder than another, there is nothing. He is left to ponder the end of his words alone. (I didn't know what you'd mean to me.)

"Harry?" When he cannot stand the silence any longer.

"Please, just leave, why are you still here?"

"You need to eat dinner," it is, maybe, not the best response; but he is terribly discomfited at the moment, and the way he kept losing control is pretty petrifying.

"Wouldn't you rather I starve?" Harry sounds mocking, and also hollow, it is a terrible feeling. "Wouldn't that help you along to whatever it is you've planned for here?"

"No," he surprises even himself by just how much truth is in his answer. "I would much rather you eat the dinner I made." Quite embarrassing, those words, when they hang loudly in the air.

"Oh, so that would help with the plan, then?" Still from under the sheets, only growing more mocking.

"There is no plan, Harry. We are here because you wanted to come here. Now come, eat your dinner."

"Why are you so insistent on dinner? Did you poison it for Dad and Sirius?" At least it gets him to sit up in a glare. Which changes when he realises just where and how Tom is. "What the hell are you doing?"

"If I wanted to kill them, you know I wouldn't choose poison." The wrong thing to say, as Harry's face switches to cold and contemptuous. "I just want you to eat dinner, Harry. Is that too much to ask?"

Harry closes his eyes and falls back against the pillows, unmoving once more.

"I know you're almost starving," he says finally.

"I'm not," Harry lies, if only he didn't know with a certainty.

"You are starving, and your blood sugar is extremely low. It is one of the reasons you won't sit upright, even now."

"You don't know anything," Harry tries one more time, and he chooses to disclose his source instead, even if it could end in its removal.

"I do know," he insists, "I always know."

"What?" Harry sits up again, and how happy is he to see the anger is gone, he is now confused. No worries, Tom could work with confused.

"Your bracelet," he gestures with eyes, "it keeps me updated on your well-being. It includes a hunger statistic." And now he's well and truly embarrassed. Oh well, the boy needed to eat.

"A hunger statistic?" It is repeated back to him in such a way he can't help but start to explain.

"Yes, I used a rune to measure the fluctuations in your..." "I wasn't asking you to explain what a hunger statistic is. Why didn't you tell me what it was when you gave it to me?"

"You didn't ask," he offers honestly. Not that he would have said anything, but Harry didn't need to know that.

"Why did you put a rune to measure my hunger, Voldemort?" This is the first time hearing that name compels a sort of disgust. Just the way Harry sounds it out, so tiredly, it makes him want to— "Better yet, why did you make me this bracelet in the first place." Harry holds his arm out as if it were encircled in flames instead.

"Because I...wanted to be sure." Control over the words he wanted to keep within, long gone.

"Sure of what?"

"—sure you'd be alright." They come out as a hooked fish, caught in a line.

"You...what?" Surely Harry does not expect him to repeat himself?

He doesn't, a still statue on the carpet, looking into green eyes.

Harry takes a deep breath when he realises there would be no response forthcoming, running a hand firmly over his face. "Nevermind, I think I've had enough of this conversation. Let's eat this supposedly non-poisoned dinner then, Voldemort."

A second similar blow. Why did it repulse him so, to hear the boy say it?

James and Sirius are already at the table when they walk in, the smell of food taking over the air in the room.

"You boys are late," James' version of an admonition. Harry hums as he sits, he himself says nothing, his mind repeating his own chosen name back at him with an echo of ridicule.

"Seriously! What's wrong with you both? Tom made you marry-me chicken, and you won't even make his plate today?" James has him instantly on alert with that, even though the words are directed at Harry.

"What?!" Harry sputters, as he comes to the realization in the moment. He had indeed made 'marry-me' chicken to go with the treacle tart, replicating the last meal Tom had made Harry the night before their...wedding...

How in Salazar's name had he missed the fact that he was making a recipe called marry-me chicken? How absolutely horrendous! When it rained, it most certainly did pour, didn't it! It is only through sheer will that he manages to keep his face from showing his true embarrassment at this blunder.

Meanwhile, James has not paused in his 'deductive work'. Had he thought him thick once, for the man seems way too sharp now. "There's something going on, what is it? Why are you boys fighting?"

Green eyes meet his own glamoured brown ones in a query he has no answer to, only a joy at being someone Harry looked to, to solve his problems; impossible as it seemed. But for this, he has no solution.

"We're...just...we're not fighting..." Harry tries.

"We're…adjusting...," Tom chimes in, "...to married life." He winks at James.

He does not know what James thinks he means, but it does seem to pacify the man almost instantly. "Oh, has the adjusting period started already? I'm sure I was in the honeymoon phase with Lily until Harry was born."

"You've certainly been in a 'phase' from the day you were born, we know," Black mutters from beside him, much to his amusement even if he does not show it.

No longer the focus of James' attention, as he begins his usual bickering with Black once more; Tom reaches over to finally start putting his plate together, except...

Harry's hand reaches out for his empty plate in the same moment from his other side, and the boy switches it out for his own full one, still untouched. (Not that he would refuse a half eaten plate from the boy.)

It is quite a jarring experience, but he catches James' smile when he looks up again and his heart beats with a hint of something he can't explain.

While the same could most likely be said about him as well; Harry's actions, and his emotional oscillation between hot and cold were driving him absolutely up the wall. And he couldn't help but disassociate back to the memories of them at past dinners, laughing, smiling, kissing...

"Thank you," he says softly, quite late and out of nowhere, causing the boy to look up at him, quite startled.

"You're...welcome?"

He decides to stop the conversation right there, on that high note, lest it sour again; once more focusing on the food.

This marry-me chicken, or more aptly, this embarrass-yourself chicken was already looking to keep him up through the night.

Dinner is spent without any other concerns, and quite fortunately, Harry is forced into bonding by the fire while he finishes cleaning up. The perfect scenario, now he wouldn't have to play babysitter to two grown men, one of whom he hated terribly, the other he could barely tolerate.

(A lie, James is the closest thing to a 'friend' Voldemort knows, to be honest. From Tom's memories, yes, but there was no one else he had ever brought up the subject of love with, at any age. James knew more about him than he truly felt comfortable with, but the man had only ever helped him.)

It is in the middle of scrubbing dishes that understanding occurs once more.

Try as he might, to blame anger for making him seek the boy out, the true cause had been his own worry at the boy going hungry.

And it is this realization that begets one more, memories of baby Harry, and hunger, and the Dursleys...the cupboard with its dim sliver of light...it's spiders...it's crushing loneliness...

But most importantly, his hunger. They had starved his Harry once, and they had not paid for their sins, far beyond his reach now...but none would dare, ever again. No one would ever make his Harry go to bed hungry, never again, not even himself...

So lost is he, in that thought, he doesn't notice James entering the kitchen until the man speaks. "You okay, Tom? Is something wrong? Do you want to talk about it?"

"Not right now," an instant reply, he was only slow when it came to Harry. "It's...something private." He adds, in case the man wanted to pry.

"Oh. Oh! Oh, I understand now!," he looks a bit nauseated. And now Tom does not understand. What on earth did the man take his words to mean?

"Yeah," he sounds unsure in his agreement, this conversation was quite the puzzle. "You do?" He can't help but add.

"I totally understand, Tom. I remember when Sirius and Remus went through a similar thing, when they got started—" He ends up making a disgusted face as he finds the ends of that sentence.

Tom has never been more confused in his life.

"When they got married, you mean?" Why did he even care about the meaning? It's not like James understood him at all in the first place, and most of what the man did speak was pure nonsense anyway.

"Uh! Yeah! If you want to call it that, sure!" James looks a bit aghast. "I understand now, don't worry about it. I'm sure the both of you will figure out what works."

He looks positively revolted as he slinks slowly out of the room. "I'm going to find myself a drink after this," he gestures to the air between them. "Come join us after you're done. And don't worry, Tom," almost turning a bit green now, "I'm sure you can always talk to Pads and Moony about it." His departure is almost a run.

Well, that was a pointless conversation that made no sense, a good two minutes of his life he would never get back. In fact, it was only taking up more time as he ponders over James' inexplicable behaviour while finishing up.

What in Salazar's name was that conversation?

Lost in thought, he does not realise it when he joins them outside, only paying attention when James calls him over to them quite loudly, shifting over to make a space between himself and Harry.

He feels his heart speed up as he obeys without hesitation.

James slips an arm around his shoulders, Harry keeps his twisted in his lap before him. "Thank you for the delicious dinner, Tom. I think that was your best tart to date, wasn't it, Harry?"

"Tom made them better." Harry mutters from besides him, too low for James to hear.

"What did you say?" "I said, sure Dad, it was 'the most delicious one ever!'." Heavy on the sarcasm.

"Oh, you'll be alright, the both of you." James sighs as he pets Harry's arm from around him. "You just gotta figure it out."

"Figure out what?" Harry leans forward, turning himself towards James. (The whole side of his body almost melded together with Tom's now, not enough space on the small couch James had most likely engorgioed from an armchair.)

"You know," James adds with some insinuation, as if Harry was being dense on purpose, "I'm sure you will work it out, though." Harry was not being dense, James was certainly misunderstanding something, he just couldn't figure out what, precisely.

He meets the boy's eyes in his own confusion, eyebrows furrowed as they ask each other a silent question neither has the answer to.

"I'll leave you boys to it," James starts to get up, patting his back lightly as he stands, "I think Pads got into my good firewhiskey, I was saving that for the trip back. Where are we going anyway? What are you researching?"

Another meeting of eyes, before Harry decides on an answer. "Soul magic. It's for a potion. Do you want to see my research parchment?"

"Nope." Popping his lips at the end of the syllable, too quick and entirely expected of him. Tom almost commends Harry on a brilliant manipulation,  before he realises he can't. "Let's have some fun without the boring-ness. Why don't you two talk about whatever you've got going on? Figure it out, I'll be back." James starts to walk over to Black, who has been busy stealing flames from the bonfire to create flying creatures that swirl in the air around him. 

He turns back to Harry, now intensely aware of how close they still were, even with available space on his other side. He doesn't want to move.

Harry doesn't ask him to move.

Instead, Harry begins a conversation. A difficult one, but beggars could not be choosers. "What have you planned? For after? Will you start on your muggleborn genocide agenda again?"

"I don't know. Would you like me to not-start on my muggleborn genocide agenda?" He feels none of the cool collected-ness his tone suggests.

Harry huffs out a humourless laugh. "I would love for you to leave the muggleborns alone, yes."

"Then I will take your views under consideration."

"Will you?" Harry looks at him with a certain intensity at the question. "Why would you even care? Why even ask me that? It's not like you're going to stop." He finishes to himself.

"I could, maybe, if you asked nicely enough." The wrong thing to say.

"This is not a fucking joke for me like it is for you," Harry hisses out, slipping into parseltongue.

"I'm sorry," he can't help but say again, feeling Harry tense beside him.

"That's the second time you've said that today." Still in the snake tongue. This is the first time they've spoken to each other as such, since he found himself here, in this world, at the foot of Harry's bed, where he belonged.

"I find myself full of remorse." He looks away, unable to lie in a tongue he never had to hide in, before this. Every snake he has met has accepted him as their master, they were always eager to help, in fact.

"Really?" Harry does not believe him, it was obvious. "Remorse for what, exactly?"

"For what I've done to you. All of it, in fact." He sneaks in a glance at the boy, watching his slightly open-mouthed expression turn cruel, a pale imitation of the expression he himself had practised in the mirror a millenia ago.

"You don't even know the half of it. What you've done to me! It is not just your actions you have to be remorseful for, but what happened after as well. What resulted from it, for me. You don't even know what happened...to me..." He is breathing a little too heavily by the end, the beginnings of a panic attack, as he can tell by one of Tom's memories. He tries not to dwell on its context as he recalls how Tom had helped Harry then.

And in a mirror of that action, he brings his arm around to Harry's back and strokes lightly, once, twice. Harry turns into a statue under his fingers. "What are you doing?" He sounds a bit hysterical.

Not unwarranted, he himself was in quite a bit of distress at his unexpected infringement of Harry's personal space, but he couldn't stop himself either. "You seemed a bit troubled." It certainly wouldn't be a good enough reason for him, were the roles reversed.

"I am troubled! You're the trouble that's troubling me!"

"What precisely about me is troubling you? Maybe I could help?"

"That!" Harry slips back to English, and it sounds so loud compared to before, James and Sirius look over at them. Harry waves the two of them off as he continues, "Why the fuck are you acting like that!" He hisses, much softer, but still bursting with his earlier indignation.

There is only one honest reply to this question, and it too slips out. It's like he had taken Veritaserum, but he would know if he had, and his tongue speaks his mind of its own volition, as control over it eludes him. "I am acting like Tom because I am Tom." Harry's face blurs in his vision, and the words spin around in his consciousness as he utters them out loud.

"You're not Tom! Tom didn't kill me and my loved ones, you did! Lord Voldemort did!"

"And I am him too," he answers, just as honestly as before. "I can't stop being him just as I can't stop being Tom." Like he had once wished he could.

Harry does not say anything for a long time.

A long time indeed, twenty or so minutes pass before Harry speaks again. "Will you let me question you about this under Veritaserum?" He reiterates a once denied ask.

Not an unreasonable ask either, if he were to consider it in a fair manner. "Is there any other way I could convince you of this fact?"

"I don't think so." Harry retorts instantly.

"Very well, then. Do you have some on you?"

"Why would I bring Veritaserum? Here?"

"You seemed so determined, I was sure you did. Are you going to brew some, then?"

Harry's anger loses its edge, turning a bit abashed. "I don't think I can brew it alone, I've always had Lily to help with the timed stirring."

"Have you?" He cannot help but be amused at the confession of this shortcoming. "I suppose I can help you then. A bit like sawing the wood for my own guillotine though, don't you think?"

He knows Harry finds it amusing by his face, by that tiny hint of a smile, even if his words remain detached in their admonishment. "It would only be your guillotine if you were lying, and guilty, and thus deserving of said guillotine."

"Fine, then," he allows magnanimously, even if he does feel a slight indignation at Harry's disbelief. "It does take a whole twenty-eight days, if you remember."

"I do remember," Harry agrees.

"Do you have all the necessary ingredients?" So far gone into a decision already made, he only feels a slight trepidation about this particular unfolding of things.

"I'm not sure. Why? Did your offer have an attached time-limit?" He sounds a bit offended at the thought.

"Nothing of the sort, I just wanted to rearrange my schedule accordingly."

"Your...schedule?" Harry mocks him, but it only highlights just how animated the boy was in the present, compared to this morning; it cannot create any animosity despite its effort.

"I do follow a precise schedule everyday, Harry." He reminds the boy.

"So I can call you Tom, then? Right? Since you claim you are also Tom. Surely you have no problem with a name you should now identify with?" If only Harry knew, his words do not inflame in the least, even if Tom doesn't understand how they are related to this conversation.

"You can call me whatever you feel most comfortable with." He decides to go with the most neutral answer, hoping it would help the boy when he inevitably slipped one way or another.

"Fine, then," Harry agrees in an imitation of himself from only minutes ago, much less magnanimous, much more resigned.

"Can I ask you something?" He breaks, when neither says anything for too long once more. And to think he had once used silence as a tool to punish his Death Eaters. Was this what they called empathy? (No, this was only rumination.)

"What is it?" Harry does not look at him, staring instead into flames that make his eyes dance in their reflection.

"Why didn't you ever tell me...tell Tom...the truth? Before that day, when you were planning on it?"

"That day? You mean the day we got ‘married’?," Harry speaks of it like bubotuber pus. "You don't remember? You told me you would only hear me out after. You were quite insistent, if you remember."

"I...forgot about that." Or, more truthfully, he had tried not to think about the time of their 'relationship', and all it had entailed. (A hand reaching to wrap around his hard and aching cock...)

"I'll bet you did. This is all your fault, you know? If I hadn't seen you in Dumbledore's pensieve—" the boy cuts himself off in his allegations, rolling his eyes.

"Seen me in Dumbledore's pensieve? I suppose you mean when he came to give me my Hogwarts letter?"

"I...do mean that, how did you know?"

He ignores it to revel in his own amusement. "If only the old fool could see you now. His golden boy, all cozied up to the Dark Lord."

"You're the one cozied up to me." Not that Harry asks for any space; doesn't even ask him to move his hand away, it still rests against Harry's back. He doesn't want to move either, so he doesn't.

"Can I ask you another?" Ignoring that statement of fact as well, the darkness of the night and the warmth of the fire providing a sort of unexpected courage.

"Go ahead." Still not looking at him.

He speaks before he has a chance to stop himself, unable to hold in his curiosity. "Why did you say yes?"

"Say yes to what? Coming here?"

"To Tom. To this marriage. To the bond." Finally, he has Harry's full attention once more.

"Because I wanted to." He sounds so very determined. "Because I loved Tom, I still do. Because he loved me and I knew he did. I had no choice."

"You knew who he was, though. He wasn't much different from me, was he?" Just as vicious, just as unforgiving.

Harry's smile is bitter, "He was much, much different. I think we remember a different Tom."

"I am sure we do not. He definitely did love you, does love you. I do—" he cannot bring himself to finish.

"You cannot even say it, can you?" Harry snorts derisively. "Nevermind," he begins to stand, as he continues, "I think I've had enough of this, I'm going to bed." Quite unfortunate.

James and the mutt have fallen asleep sometime in the middle of their conversation, so he levitates them back into their beds, despite his disgust; coming back to the fire by himself after, lost in thought.

Of who's subject still remains the boy, obviously; an unshakeable grip, his.

And although this conversation with Harry hadn't ended on the greatest note either, things were still a million times better than they had been this morning. To see the boy so cold and distant has been...unpleasant, to say the least.

"Why do you have such a hold over me?" He asks himself with a freedom he does not feel, for these words are the acceptance of the cage. The fire burns away the admittance of this secret.

He thinks about it for a long time after, imagining himself saying those exact words to the boy they belonged to.

In the end, when he can't take his own pessimism any longer; he imagines an aguamenti taking over the wood that fueled the flames, extinguishing its brightness in a flash. (Harry's brightness, within, remains in its steadfastness.)

Quite surprisingly, he falls asleep rather quickly this time, almost as soon as his head touches the pillow.

Quite unfortunately, all his brain insists on showing him in dreams are his interactions with Harry as Lord Voldemort, in a different time, in a different place, in a different world.

And he is helpless to himself.