A Tale of Two Toms

Finally, Harry dismissed him and returned to his essay. He’d already written almost three feet, Tom saw. Tom smoothly got to his feet and went over to Draco who was lying on his side, his face and eyes as lifeless as always. Ordering him to stand and follow, the slave obeyed, standing behind his shoulder as he’d been clearly trained to do. Getting to the door, Tom hesitated.

“Goodnight, master,” he said, finally. Harry looked up, surprise in his eyes.

“Goodnight, Tom,” he replied. They held eye contact for a moment before each turned away and continued their previous actions. It wasn’t the first time they’d wished each other goodnight, but it had been a while since the last time.

Tom walked up the stairs, Draco trailing him silently. As he reached the landing he realised that  there was a shadowy figure standing in the corridor. As Tom hesitated, Draco stopped behind him, his head still bowed. Tom wasn’t sure what to do without his magic - who could have entered Grimmauld Place without Harry knowing about it?

“Who are you?” he demanded warily, ready to call for his master. The shadowy figure flicked on a light in his hand, a dim glow which didn’t illuminate much. Then, moving what Tom realised to be a torch up towards his face, he tilted it so that Tom could just see the faint lines of his face. A face which looked rather familiar, for all that a good portion of it was covered by a large pair of sunglasses.

“Hey kid,” the figure asked him in a gravelly voice, hiding a smirk. “You wanna buy some memes?” Tom stared.

“What the hell are ‘memes’?” he found himself asking almost without thinking. He shook his head and focused. “Wait, how did you get in here?” he demanded, starting to edge down the stairs a bit. Being trapped with a madman with no defence was not his favourite way to end a day. 

The man flicked his wrist and, just as Tom was about to bolt down the stairs, a picture flickered into existence with a weird red ball-looking creature and a muffled “Do you know the way?” Tom just stared at it, completely baffled and vaguely hoping that it wasn’t about to explode.

Seeing his expression, the mysterious person burst out laughing and finally took off his sunglasses with a flourish and a huge grin. Meeting blood red eyes that looked far too similar, the memories came racing back, along with a very rude headache. Tom gave serious thought to his original idea of bolting down the stairs - somehow this was worse than if the red ball had exploded. 

“For Merlin’s sake, what are you here for now?!” he demanded. “You’ve already crashed a dinner party -two, actually!- and a Ministry ball - what interest is there here for you now?”

Other Tom just shrugged, “I dunno, I finally escaped Harry’s wrath and was able to come back. Merlin, he can be a slave-driver sometimes.” Tom just glared at him.

“You don’t need to point that out,” he replied stiffly. “Well, if you’re just here out of boredom, then excuse me for not obliging you by being your entertainment. I need to put Draco to bed.” 

Other Tom moved aside in a rare show of being less annoying than usual. Tom raised an eyebrow at the lack of a fight—he’d expected his counterpart to complain for at least a little bit, knowing him, but.. Nothing. Instead, ImposTom had a solemn look on his face, one that spoke of knowing too much and yet looking it in the eyes. Not looking a gift horse in the mouth, Tom took advantage of his amenability to put Draco to bed, or try to at least. Coming out of his room, not having succeeded in getting Draco to actually lie down in his bed, Tom rubbed his face tiredly. It had been a bit of a difficult day, all things considered. Seeing that ImposTom was still there, he sighed, leaning against the wall.

“Alright, what do you want?” he asked, hoping that if he could get the insanity out of the way, he’d be able to go to bed sooner - Merlin knew if he tried to go to bed this...man would probably just follow him and continue annoying him. 

“What do you mean?” Other Tom tilted his head, looking like he genuinely didn’t know the stress his presence caused Tom.

“Look, I’m tired, I want to go to bed. It’s been a long day and it’s probably going to be another long day tomorrow, given my new housemate. So honestly? Just tell me what you want  so I can go to bed,” he said with a mixture of annoyance and tiredness. 

“It’s hard, you know?” Other Tom started after a moment of silence. “Looking at your mistakes in the face. The Draco from my realm—he didn’t suffer nearly as badly as yours, but.. I think I made up for it with my Harry.” Tom frowned at him.

“What mistakes?” he asked. 

Other Tom stopped, as if thrown off balance by Tom’s simple question. “Um, the way that we forced hundreds—Draco included—to bend to our will. The entire Dark Lord shennanigan, the murder, the horcruxes. ” A pause, barely a quiet murmur, “Harry’s- no, nevermind.”

“Ah, those,” Tom replied quietly, his sudden introspection caused by ImposTom’s words causing him to miss the final phrase. Playing like an unwelcome movie across his vision were Draco’s blank eyes, Avery’s drawn and famished features, Tiberius’ downcast look, the other slaves who had been so abused because of their loyalty to him. A sudden wave of guilt went through him, the feeling instantly recognisable from the pangs which had been hitting him all too recently. “Does it ever go?” he asked, the words slipping out of his mouth without permission. 

Neither had to guess at what he meant.

“No.” A small smile, jagged and broken like everything else in their lives. “It never leaves. It gets worse and worse and worse and it bubbles up and Harry’s just so damn kind all the time and it just makes you feel that much worse.” He took a deep breath. “No, it doesn’t. The guilt never stops, even when you’re trying your best to make up for everything, trying to forget the fact that you condemned your lover to hell for his childhood, that you then killed him, trying to move past any of that.” Tom’s frown deepened in his confusion.

“What do you mean, that you condemned your lover to hell? And exactly when did we kill Harry ?” he asked, completely bewildered. “I mean, I’m pretty sure Harry, both Harrys in fact, are still alive.” Sure, he’d been part of the reason Harry had been sent to the Dursleys, but although it had sounded as bad as his time at the orphanage, it didn’t seem to be worth the absolute self-loathing he heard in his counterpart’s voice. Casualties happened in war. That Harry had ended up with a family of abusive muggles had been at least partially Dumbledore’s fault, Tom was sure. 

Other Tom stared at him, as if sorting out his words. For a second, Tom could even believe how this Tom had been alive for far longer than he’d ever imagined, even while striving towards immortality. “Oh, I forgot. You still think your Harry is human.”

“Not human?” Tom asked incredulously. “What do you mean, not human? What is he - Veela?” Well that might explain why he’d started feeling some strange sort of attraction to his master, despite knowing that it would be the absolute worst thing for him to feel. 

“You’ll learn soon enough, that things don’t change, however much you might want them to, even across dimensions.” And what was that supposed to mean? “But yes, we’ve doomed Harry to far worse than anything we’ve been through, really. Though the orphanage can definitely compare.”

The one time Tom didn’t want him to change the subject. Of course.

“Alright,” Tom said, knowing from past experience that trying to change the subject back would be a futile endeavour, “what exactly do you mean by that? Yes, Harry admitted that they hit him, that they starved him. That they wished he’d never been born. But we had treatment almost as bad as that at the orphanage until we were able to use magic to defend ourselves. We had to suffer through World War II , for Merlin’s sake! Surely that balances the scales?”

“You’d think so, would you? But no, we somehow got the better end of the stick.” Other Tom walked off into Tom’s room, Tom following behind. Entering, he saw his counterpart lounging dramatically on the bed, leaving Tom to take the chair, because there was no way he was going to sit next to that.. that person.

“Why exactly did we need to come in here?” Tom asked with annoyance. “I was perfectly fine with you not being in my room.” 

 Other Tom shrugged. “Thought it’d be comfier, seeing as you keep asking questions that I’m—for once—willing to answer. So go ahead, ask your questions.”

“Fine,” Tom muttered, sounding greatly put-upon, though privately still surprised that his counterpart was actually answering his questions. Seriously, too, which was even more of a shock. “Why exactly do you say that we got the better end of the stick? We had to suffer through the cane at school, through the nuns’ physical chastisement whenever they felt like we had been devilish or otherwise sinful, through the fear of bombs dropping on our head! So yes, I do think that the scales balance in terms of general suffering.”

“That may be true, but..” Other Tom sighed, burying under the blankets a bit. “We were never raped.” Tom gaped at him for a moment, his jaw loose. 

“Harry was...was raped ?” he repeated, stumbling over his words in his shock. Then his brows drew together. “He never hinted at that,” he murmured quietly.  

“Not your Harry—mine. Each go through something a bit different at the Dursleys, and mine.. My Harry went through a bit worse. He was hit and kicked, used as a punching bag, forced to do every single chore in the house since he was four , whether it be cooking or cleaning or weeding the garden, and you’ll never guess what happened if he messed up. If he used accidental magic—something that children are usually praised for. If he would make a sound at the wrong time or if he was in any way at all “freakish”. Harry, he didn’t even know his name until he went to primary school and the teacher called out his name for attendance, and of course he didn’t answer, because he genuinely thought his name was freak. The first time he spoke to a snake—the thing that got us through the orphanage and made us feel like kings—was when he was ten , a week before he got his letter to Hogwarts, and he was thrown in a dusty little cupboard for a week with no food because of it, only let out to do the most important of chores. So excuse me if I believe that my Harry got the short end of the stick between us. And yes, he was raped. Repeatedly. Even after he went to Hogwarts and was forced to come back in the summers. Especially then.”

“But what is the difference between what happened to your Harry and mine ?” Tom asked, still shocked at the revelations. 

“The only difference is that the Vernon Dursley in this dimension had just a shred more fear than the one in mine: instead of using your Harry for his own pleasure and sadism, he simply took out his fear and anger with his fists and his feet. That’s the only difference.”

“So the cupboard? The lack of a proper name? The punishment for not completing impossible chores? The starvation?” Tom asked, half-hoping for some sort of correction, for ImposTom to suddenly grin in that maddening way he had, revealing that it was all a joke. Because honestly, the thought that Harry had gone through that...that Tom had been responsible for condemning someone to something worse than what he had suffered through....that in deciding to use horcruxes as his method to immortality, he had ended up working against what he had set out to do...it was unbearable. ImposTom just looked at him, no hint of humour in his eyes or his mouth.

“All true for your Harry. Vernon and Petunia were a little more concerned about child services than the Dursleys in my original realm, but only enough to make sure the bruises were somewhere that could easily be hidden. Our Harrys rarely ever did PE for a reason. Their grades were completely average, if not below, simply because if he got anything better than his extremely stupid cousin, then he’d face the consequences. I honestly don’t think he ever grew out of that, even in Hogwarts.” 

That explained a lot, Tom thought privately. It explained why Harry’s skills in practical magic had been so much better than his theoretical knowledge. It explained why the First year child he remembered watching from the back of Quirinus’ head had been such a quiet presence in his classroom: never raising his hand, and always turning in the minimum for homework. 

“He seems to be getting better at that now, though,” he commented quietly. “I’ve been...teaching him. He’s actually a surprisingly quick study, although he gets frustrated with himself very easily. Maybe he’s improving now?” 

“I wouldn’t know—the fanfic doesn’t go into much detail about those times. That being said, super sorry about chapter nine.”

“Wait, what?” Tom asked, his reflective mood immediately replaced by bewilderment once more. “Fanfic? Chapter nine?” Then his eyes narrowed in suspicion. “And why would you be sorry about it?”

“I’ll tell you after chapter nine happens. I’m sure I’ll be there, probably punching someone in the face if Harry doesn’t stop me. We’ve never killed for fun but my Harry is the idea tempting.”

“ My Harry ?” Tom mouthed almost silently, his mind racing. “Did you just use his name as a curse word? What’s wrong with Merlin, for Merlin’s sake?”

“Well, you see... I’ve met him. And after walking in on him boning Arthur one too many times- actually wait, let me rephrase that. My darling is far more powerful than Merlin, and not to mention that Merlin—or magic—doesn’t exist in a good portion of the worlds we visit.” 

“You don’t want to swear by Merlin because you walked in on him having sex with Arthur too many times - you married Harry! I would imagine you’ve boned him more than a few times, to be crude about it, so why does that mean you’d use his name to swear by?”

“Because he’s my god.” Other Tom answered with no hesitation, as if he fully believed that sentence. “Also, it’s more of ‘him boning me’ if that’s the route we’re taking.” Tom frankly didn’t know which to question first, eventually deciding that ‘neither’ would be the option most likely to leave him at least some of his regained sanity. 

“So what do you do in a world without magic?” he asked curiously. “Are you still capable of using it?”

“Of course, unless Harry restricts my access. But to be completely honest, I rarely use magic nowadays. I far prefer finding other methods to do the same thing—Harry is the one who uses magic constantly.” Tom furrowed his brow.

“But why ?” he asked, unable to understand this counterpart of his who somehow seemed to have lost that...that spark which Tom had always felt when he used his magic. To have it but choose not to use it seemed anathema to Tom. 

“Well, there’s far more to life than just magic, I suppose. And I know, it’s magic, it’s the thing we practically lived for at your point in time, if I were alive that is, but I’ve found other things I like too. I like muggle sciences, I like inventing, I like when I surprise Harry with a new way to ruin his life.”

“Wait,” Tom said slowly, his brain replaying ImposTom’s words. “Did you say ‘if I were alive’? You mean you’re not ?” he asked, as incredulously as when his counterpart had said that Harry wasn’t human. 

“I wasn’t,” Other Tom answered. “Harry killed me at the end of the Final Battle. Depending on which source you take, my dead body either evaporated into nothingness or just hit the ground like a sack of potatoes.”

“The Final Battle?” Tom asked with a frown. In his mind, what had happened was called The Event. It wasn’t really a battle when Harry had basically called in Lady magic as a strange sort of umpire.  

“Things happened a bit differently in your world. In mine, Harry followed Dumbledore’s plan and walked to his death,” Other Tom murmured, frowning at the ground. “And I followed through. I killed him.”

“Wait, I thought you said you died, not Harry?” Tom asked in confusion. Except wait, hadn’t he mentioned something about that earlier? 

“Well, Harry has a bad habit of not staying dead when he should. So, of course, he got up and fricken murdered me. Was kinda rude.”

“What spell did he use?” Tom asked, morbidly curious. “Wait, don’t say it was expelliarmus ,” he almost begged - knowing Harry and his obsession with that particular spell...but Tom would never live it down knowing that one of his counterparts had been killed with a Second year hex. 

“It was expelliarmus. ”

“....damn,” Tom muttered blankly. It was official. His life was the result of some sort of bad story-writing. Hell, Harry’s life was some sort of bad story-writing. 

“It was pretty pathetic, to be honest. Although, I think it’s worse that Harry’s never brought it up again. Like bitch, I know it was pathetic, but at least joke about it so it stops being so pathetic.” Other Tom ranted, mostly to himself.

“I’ll never understand your coping mechanisms,” Tom told him with bemusement. 

“Well try being trapped in the void for a hundred years knowing that your only way out is through the benevolence of your new master, because apparently dying made you a slave for eternity! And knowing that that person has absolutely no reason to give you anything but pain to the point of wishing for death because of what you had done to him.” For some strange reason, Tom was actually feeling a bit... sorry for his counterpart. And he’d never thought he’d be grateful for his slavery, but if the alternative was what this other Tom had suffered? Was suffering? He’d take being a slave for less than a hundred years with his Harry over being a slave to a vengeful master for an eternity . Merlin, before  this whole conversation, he’d thought the worst that could have happened to him would have been dying . Apparently not… Although, he did have one question.

“If your Harry is like that, how did you get to the relationship you have now?” Because honestly, it didn’t seem like OtHarry was torturing his Tom all the time; not from their interactions, at least.

“A hundred years alone with nothing but your thoughts and the absolute knowledge that you’ll be tortured for eternity—it.. It changes your mindset. You.. you caused a lot of pain for your Harry, but.. I caused so much more. I thought that I was going to be hoping for death by the end of the first day, much less eternity. Except.. When Harry finally arrived, he wasn’t angry. Not really, at least. Sure, he was a little upset at my past actions, but.. He’d rather avoid me than do anything painful. But my thinking had changed so much in that time that I’d figured out the only way to really avoid being punished and all that was by being as submissive as possible,” Other Tom tried to explain. “I don’t know, Harry immediately offered me a way out of my slavery and I refused, though not just because of my mindset at that time. I figured that I was really bad at making decisions, so I decided to.. Stop making them. Give that power to Harry, and then I don’t have to worry about the consequences of my actions. Like I said, the guilt never really stops, but back then, it was full force. I’d hurt Harry more than I’d hurt anyone else, and now that we had an amicable relationship, it felt like.. Like I deserved punishment for my actions, and Harry refused—still refuses—to give it.” He shrugged, a strange air of acceptance in his movement.

Tom was silent for a while, staring at the flowery pattern on the duvet cover, just for somewhere to rest his gaze while his mind whirred. The strange thing was, he could actually understand where this Tom was coming from. A little. And the idea that one day he might actually fall into his slavery so much that he would completely understand it, and would feel the same, was more than a little scary. Because honestly? It was already happening. 

Earlier that day, he had knelt unprompted in front of his master, had felt guilt bubble up inside him to the point where he had felt like he needed to offer Harry the opportunity to punish him to get rid of it. And the guilt he felt, knowing that Draco’s injuries were a direct consequence of his decision to become a dark lord… He would be lying to himself if he said that the thought that maybe this slavery was a just punishment for his actions hadn’t crossed his mind a couple of times. 

And it was so seductive. That was perhaps the worst part. It was true that Tom’s decisions had...not been the best. Merlin, wasn’t it evident when he’d heard exactly where his path would have led had Harry not chosen to do the ritual instead of killing him? The idea that maybe he could give his decisions over to someone else...but no. No one deserved that much control over him; no one had earned that much of his trust. No. His resolve hardened. He had to get out of this collar. He had to. 

“You say that you’ve visited many worlds, some with magic and some without,” he started, looking back up at Tom. “Have I...or rather, has the resident Tom or Lord Voldemort ever won in any of those?” he asked, almost savagely, sure that he must have won in at least some of them. 

Other Tom stared at him, jaw clenched shut almost painfully. Instead of answering, he only brought out the device Tom has seen on his every other time. Other Tom tapped away at the device, and a minute later, he handed the device over to Tom. “See for yourself.” His voice had an odd note to it, and his grip on the device was almost far too tight.

Tom stared at the dimly lit screen, realizing this must be some sort of muggle electronic device of some sort. On the screen, in giant bold letters across the top was “Alternate Universe - Voldemort Wins”.

There were thousands.

Tom didn’t know how to use the device, but he still figured out the scrolling mechanism quite quickly, reading through the descriptions of each of the stories, because apparently that’s what they were, stories , and sometimes through what he wouldn’t learn were called tags. Many were related to something sexual, all too often having ‘Rape/Non-con’ written in bold letters as one of the first tags. Especially with Harry as his slave .  

He didn’t know what to feel about that. He would be lying if he said he hadn’t occasionally - OK, more than occasionally - fantasised about what he would have done to Harry if the tables had been turned (all with a faceless slave since he didn’t want to be punished by the collar). But that had been more at the beginning, especially when he’d had to do humiliating chores and before he’d got used to kneeling and calling Harry ‘master’. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d actually thought about it and genuinely wished for the situation to be the other way around.

He’d even acknowledged that him winning the war wouldn’t have been good for the Wizarding world. He doubted he’d be any better as a master, either. And it wasn’t like Harry was bad to him - everything he’d learned so far about the way slavery had happened in the past and probably was happening now told him...that he had a good deal here with Harry. When he was injured, his master had gone above and beyond what was necessary to heal him. He hadn’t acted on his obvious lust for Tom - yet. Merlin, even seeing Draco’s body told him that he’d had an easy run of it - Harry had never laid a hand on him in anger - the worst punishment he’d ever had was enduring punire for a few seconds, or being chained to a wall until he was shaking and exhausted. Harry had even made sure that he was never hungry, unlike what had clearly happened to Draco, judging by his emaciated form. 

Not to mention, of course, this whole conversation, learning about what Other Tom’s Harry had gone through as a child with his muggle family… The thought of another of his counterparts taking Harry as a war prize and clearly acting as Draco’s master had behaved towards him...it made him uncomfortable. More, uncomfortable, strangely, than his earlier fears of falling into his slavery to the point that he didn’t want to be free.

“The reason I like this world so much,” Other Tom started, snapping Tom out of his spiraling thoughts, “is because of how rare it is. Your story— The Corruption of Power —is literally one in a million. For all that Harry actually won the war against us, it’s very rare for that to be the case in any other world. While you’re one of the only ones like this, there are thousands of stories where.. Where Voldemort won. And from firsthand experience, I can tell you that they’re not fun, ” Other Tom said, his voice void of emotion. “Nothing makes me hate myself more than when I go into a random world and the Harry there, covered in bruises from head to toe and far too thin, flinches at the sight of me.” 

It was odd, considering the number of times that Tom had once fantasised about that very thing, both as Lord Voldemort and then after this wretched collar had been fastened around his neck, but...thinking about his Harry covered in bruises and flinching? He kind of understood what this other Tom meant. And it made him uncomfortable. More uncomfortable. Clearly, trying to distract himself from thoughts of his demise by thinking about Harry’s defeat hadn’t worked. Frankly, he just wanted to forget about this whole conversation. Well, he had a pretty good way of doing that - from past experience, as soon as ImposTom left, so did the memories. 

“Alright, are we done here?” Tom asked, wanting to sound belligerent, but ending up just sounding tired. “You’ve had your fun and I want to sleep.” He knew he sounded a little bitter but...he’d never thought he’d wish not to know something, but...this conversation was one he almost wished he hadn’t had. Almost. Certainly, the uncomfortable revelations about himself and his various counterparts were ones he could have done without. 

“Fun? Which part of this conversation was fun?” Other Tom asked incredulously. “Oh wait, do you mean the memes? Oh yah, I can get you more memes, don’t you worry there ol’ buddy ol’ pal. You know, next time I’m over we should watch Potter Puppet Pals. Definitely the best series in existence, plus it has the only Dumbledore in it that Harry won’t kill on sight. Well, no, that’s a lie, I suppose he wouldn’t kill A Very Potter Musical Dumbledore either, though it was kinda funny when Quirrel-”

“Just shut up and leave,” Tom snapped, the other Tom’s verbal diarrhoea simply more than he could take at that moment. He just wanted this whole discussion to disappear so he could go to sleep. 

“Boo, you’re no fun.”Tom didn’t dignify that with an answer, just throwing ImposTom’s muggle electronic device at him, hoping to hit him in the mouth so he would stop talking . Other Tom let out a small shriek, flailing to catch the device, accidentally playing an off-brand Hot Potato with it.

“You fiend! This is worth more than your non-profitable existence!! Though I do have it backed up to about thirty different places, and I did enchant this one myself so it’s about as indestructible as a Nokia, so I suppose it would’ve been fine.” Just as Tom is about to, once again, tell him to shut up , or just storm out of the room and leave him to talk to an empty space, Other Tom does an informal salute and a rip in time and space opened up behind him. “Well, I suppose this is where I say hasta la bye bye, daddio!!” He stepped through the portal, leaving Tom alone in his room thanking Merlin that the annoyance had finally gone.

Just before the portal closed, Tom muttered, as an afterthought, “I’d prefer it if you didn’t say that, actually.”

In the split-second after the memory of the conversation was once more locked, unnoticeable and undetected, in Tom’s mind, he found himself frowning at his duvet, sure that he was missing something, something important. And then the moment was gone and all that filled his mind was tiredness and the desire to sleep.

As for Draco, due to his unfortunate mental condition, his memory of meeting the other Tom, albeit briefly, was unable to be locked within his mind, and was instead destroyed completely.