The Darkness Has Consumed You
“The darkness has consumed you, Tom.” Harry whispered, numb despite the flurry of emotions drowning him completely where he stood in the posh living room. Harry could make out shock, grief, anger, and some combination of all three emotions as he watched Riddle turn around to face him.
Riddle was drenched in blood—so saturated with the viscous liquid that there was little the red did not stain.
Harry stepped back, unable to stop the motion when Riddle moved towards him, his fingers reaching out for him almost as if he needed to be grounded. But the digits were just as saturated in blood.
Harry felt like he might be sick.
“Has it, Harry? Will you really vilify me for doing what any person would do in my situation?” Harry heard Riddle speak, but it was drowned by the sound of Harry’s own heartbeat. Harry’s heart was beating so quickly that it came as a shock when Riddle continued to speak, but the words were completely incomprehensible.
“Are you even listening, Harry?” Riddle continued, backing Harry effectively against the grandfather clock at the opposite end of the room. Harry wanted to run screaming rather than stand another bloody second in the same room with Riddle.
Harry had thought the boy had changed—that he had done something in befriending the boy to change the nature of the beast. But there was no hope for it now, there was an intensity in Riddle’s gaze that made Harry’s blood run cold—that made the air in the room stagnant and heavy.
“Harr—“
“D-don’t touch me!” Harry shouted, noting the way Riddle’s shoulders tensed at the pure fear and hostility in Harry’s tone. “You’ve butchered them, Tom. How is this just?” Harry did not notice when he started to cry, but the tears came down easily from his cheeks.
Tom looked almost confused by Harry’s reaction. But of course, why would Harry ever think that Riddle would understand the consequences of what he has done? The boy had no remorse—no true sense of guilt for any of his actions.
It did not matter to him that he looked like a demon so completely drenched in blood not his own. It probably did not matter that Harry was panicking the way he was at having been forced to watch Riddle murder these people in cold blood.
What mattered was that the people had threatened Tom, and for a moment, Harry had felt the boy was justified to react in rage. In anger. Harry had been through abuse once before.
But this? This was bloody madness.
It was such a shock to the senses, so much so that Harry could think to do nothing but press himself into the clock behind him. He should have thought to pull out his wand in the event that Riddle attacked him for his adverse reaction. Harry should have done more than this. Harry should have stopped him, should have whispered a spell to unarm Riddle before he decided to torture his blood relatives.
The fact that Harry did not made him just as complicit in the act as Riddle. It made no difference to Harry that he had not even cast the spell, he practically had when he failed to do anything at all to prevent this. It was that notion alone that made the tears fall harder than they already were, unending and unstoppable despite the growing look of concern in Riddle’s eyes.
“Shush, sweetheart.” Riddle murmured, the sound of it the familiar tone he reserved for only Harry. “I will get rid of the bodies, and clean up the mess.” It was odd at first, the first time Harry had heard Riddle speak to him in such a way. But Harry recognized it for what it was.
Riddle, in his own way, had grown to care for Harry. Harry had thought it was a sign that Harry could in fact change Riddle—that he would not need to go through with the half-baked plan the Order had set him on to kill Riddle before he became Voldemort.
But he was wrong, and Harry had done absolutely nothing to prevent these deaths.
“No one deserves to die this way, Tom. I-I can’t do this.” Harry started to hyperventilate when Riddle finally closed the distance between them, taking Harry easily in his arms despite Harry’s weak attempts to get away.
All Harry could smell was blood.
The stickiness of it clinging onto his skin just as easily as it coated Tom—the gelatinous fluid enough to make Harry want to be violently ill. But he refrained, simply because Harry thought he might pass out.
“Harry, it will be alright.” Riddle whispered into Harry’s ear, the sound of it doing little to comfort Harry’s mounting distress. “They attacked me, Harry. I-I could not control myself when they made to hurt you. ”
It was the fact that Harry, on some level, understood that made the situation all the worse. It was like an illness clawing its way into his chest—and he ached every single place it touched.
“Tom, that was—“ Harry could not speak any more, Riddle’s arms tightening so much that it was difficult to breathe.
“Don’t think about it, Harry. You know I will always protect you. I won’t ever allow for anyone to touch you; for vermin like them to touch your name with their lips.”
It was sick, so sick that Tom thought it appropriate to confess his love for him at this particular instance. To promise him the world after Tom leveled it all to the ground with Harry watching at the sidelines like some accomplice.
He might as well had, he’d as good as killed them for being the cause that tipped the boy over in the first place. The fact he did nothing only damned him further and made it difficult to fight off the desire to pass out.
“It’s okay, everything is going to be fine. You’ll see.” Harry was so caught up in the moment that he failed to see the smirk on the boy’s lips, victory and satisfaction making Tom’s once angelic features demonic.
Harry doubted it ever would be.
“If the darkness has consumed me, Harry—.” Harry heard the boy whisper into his ear, his face smearing blood on Harry’s cheek and hair, the sensation of it drawing a shudder of disgust. “Are you not tainted as well? You watched me do it and you did nothing at all.”
Harry stiffened in the boy’s arms, having the worst of his own fears exposed like a raw nerve to air and water in the air.
Tom was right. Harry may not have done it, but he was just as sullied too.