Web Hosting by Netfirms | Free Domain Names by Netfirms

by Morgan Steelgrave

Author's notes: The basic premise of the story is that Harry, using a Time-Turner, has gone back to the Hogwarts that Tom Riddle knew in an attempt to prevent him from becoming Lord Voldemort. Harry manages to enroll himself as a Fifth year Slytherin with Tom, who appears suspicious of Harry from the beginning. Somehow they form a friendship (despite Tom's investigations into Harry's past and current activities) that leads to something more complicated. But then, things between them have never been simple.

This bit is terribly sugary in a melodramatic, love-hate sort of way. I'm afraid it's simply rehashing the scene when Harry confesses stuff to Tom, but...hell, in case of writer's block, write snogging. Harry's been interrupted in the library while doing research on something terribly important...which shall be revealed later. ^_^

Harry sensed Tom's presence long before he felt him sit next to him at the library table. He kept writing, grinning as the continued scratching of his quill making Tom drum his fingers on the table impatiently. When Harry finished his sentence, Tom plucked the quill from his hand and whispered, "I've something I want to show you."

Harry grabbed the quill back with a smirk. "Now? Aren't you on duty?"

"No, I switched with Myrtle." Tom's energy was contagious. Harry stuffed his books into his schoolbag, deliberately forcing his smile into submission.

"Myrtle can't stand you. What did you do?"

"I'm helping her with Transfiguration for a week. She failed her last examination and she's terrified her parents will find out."

Harry quirked an eyebrow. "How do you know that?"

"I have my ways," Tom shrugged. "Everyone has their strings. Now put this on." He held out his uniform tie, which Harry eyed skeptically after a glance at his own. Tom sighed impatiently before jumping up to stand behind Harry, where he moved to blindfold him with the tie.

"What in God's name--?"

"Just put it on," said Tom, continuing with his ministrations. "I promise I won't lead you astray."

Harry thought briefly that he already had, but sat patiently, if a little anxiously, as Tom finished knotting the tie. "Fine. There, it's on. I can't see a bloody thing."

Tom chuckled viciously. "Excellent," he said, pulling Harry from his chair and leading him out of the library and down the hall. "This way. Now we'll put on the invisibility cloak...you'll just have to trust me. Just a bit further."

What Tom meant by, "just a bit further," included several long corridors and at least two flights of stairs. Harry was about to protest when he realized their footfalls echoed much more than they had been, and that he could hear the occasional drip of water.

"We're in a bathroom, Tom," said Harry, unable to keep the laughter from his voice. He felt Tom move away and heard him to the right, tapping on things and muttering to himself.

"At the moment, yes," said Tom, obviously engrossed in whatever it was he was doing. This was followed by some more muttering and a triumphant, "Ah, here it is."

There was a clink, followed by a grinding noise that Harry found vaguely familiar.

"Tom--"

"Don't peek, now. I know it's tempting. Now we have to go down this chute, here," Tom said, guiding Harry to what felt like a sink. A cold, damp draft hit him squarely in the face, and suddenly Harry's suspicions were confirmed. He knew exactly where Tom was taking him.

"Tom--" he protested again, but Tom pushed him gently with a cheerful,

"Trust me," and Harry found himself sliding once more down the slimy chute that led from Moaning Myrtle's bathroom to the tunnel below.

He managed to slow his pace somewhat so that his landing was not as rough as it had been his second year. He was distinctly uncomfortable in the blindfold, but he felt Tom hit the ground behind him and take his hand. "Stick close to me. There's some rocks you might trip on."

Tom led him down what felt like an interminable length of dripping tunnel before coming to a halt. "Right. You can look now," he said, tugging the blindfold gently off.

Harry was greeted by the glittering eyes of two entwined serpents carved into the wall in front of him. Swallowing to settle his stomach, he glanced back at Tom. There was a look of rapturous pride on his face. Harry attempted a smile, glad it was too dark for Tom to see it fail miserably.

"Open up," hissed Tom in Parseltongue, and the wall obliged, emerald serpents' eyes winking. Tom led Harry down the stone walkway where the gigantic columns were reflected in the moats on either side. Harry could see the gigantic statue of Salazar Slytherin drawing into focus as they approached. Tom stopped at the point where the walkway met the altar on which Slytherin's feet were planted. There was an unmistakably reverent silence as he gazed upward.

"Fantastic, isn't it? I spent three years searching for it. Three years of research, combing this castle and its history, trying to climb inside the mind of Salazar Slytherin," Tom said, never taking his eyes off the statue. Harry, who had been staring uneasily into the dark hole of Slytherin's mouth, risked a glance at his friend.

"Why?"

Tom brought his hands up as if to grasp the answer from the air. "Because this...this is mine," he said at last. "I alone could open the door. It was made for me, all those years ago, just waiting for me to find it."

"Why do you come here?" Harry prompted. Tom shrugged.

"When things get to be too much, when I can't hear myself think, I come down here and bask in the simple glory that not another soul can find me here. I come here to think, to clear my head. I could spend hours here." Then, with a sly look, he added, "There's someone here I want you to meet. She's shy, I suppose. She usually comes out to greet me."

He turned toward the statue, and Harry steeled himself. "It's alright," Tom called in Parseltongue, "You can come out." In English, he said to Harry, "Shut your eyes again. Don't look, whatever you do."

The basilisk slid slowly from the statue's mouth, dropping heavily onto the stone floor. Harry's heart seized in his throat; he shut his eyes and dared not breathe.

He heard Tom approach it, and heard him speaking to it in a hushed murmur. Harry caught only a few words Tom spoke, but some of them sounded like a warning to the basilisk not to eat his friend. The basilisk hissed in reply, but it almost sounded...affectionate?

Then suddenly it was moving again, this time directly toward Harry, and stopped so close that Harry could feel the brush of the creature's flickering forked tongue as it appraised him.

"Who is this?" Harry heard it ask simply.

And before Tom could answer, Harry said in Parseltongue, "A friend."

His eyes were still tightly shut, but Harry was certain he sensed both Tom and the basilisk start in surprise.

"Harry--?" Tom began in English, but he trailed off, at a loss for words.

"Open your eyes, friend," said the basilisk then. "You speak as one of us. I cannot harm you."

Harry opened one eye, then the other. The basilisk's gigantic snout was hovering mere inches from his face, the glassy yellow eyes watching him closely. The eye contact gave Harry a chill not unlike that of a dementor. He glanced questioningly at Tom, who shook himself from staring at Harry and said simply, "She likes it when you pat her nose."

As absurd at it felt, Harry followed Tom's suggestion and stroked the basilisk's cool, papery snout. She sighed, as much as a basilisk could sigh.

"This isn't so bad," Harry managed, though his tone was far from convincing.

Tom chuckled in disbelief. "Were you ever planning on telling me you're a Parselmouth?"

"I doubt it," said Harry dryly, still petting the basilisk. Then he ventured hesitantly, "Have you ever taken the basilisk out, Tom?"

"Taken her out?"

"Out of the Chamber," Harry repeated, never looking away from the giant serpent lazily nuzzling his hand. "Have you ever taken her out of the Chamber?"

"No, of course not," said Tom, a little indignantly. "What a question, have I ever taken her out." A shrewd look crossed his face then, and he added, "Why do you ask?"

Harry recognized Tom's probe for what it was, and replied in a tone that harbored no further question, "I just had to know." He heard Tom approach, but still did not turn to look at him. He watched as Tom reached out to stroke the basilisk from behind him.

"You know something, Harry?" Tom said very close, more than a hint of amusement in his voice. "You are the only person I've ever met with more mysteries hung around your neck than I have around mine."

Harry turned slightly. "I've told you mine," he said.

"Some of them," Tom shrugged. "There are some that I doubt you're even aware of. We all have those, secrets and burdens we can't share with anyone because we don't know they're there." He wandered off again, and this time Harry's eyes followed him as he paused to survey the Chamber once more. "Do you know why I brought you here, Harry?" When Harry made no definite reply, he went on, "Perhaps this will sound familiar to you.

"You lose your parents. That should be bad enough, but then you're forced to spend most of your life with people you despise because they despise you. They hate you, they ridicule you because you're different than they are. They try to exorcise it from you with words. They try to beat it from you with fists. It hurts, but it makes you strong. Strong enough to hang on, to hope and pray that something better will come along. And when it does...it's like a miracle. You're not a freak. You're not mad. There's so much you've missed out on, so much to learn, you just can't soak it up fast enough. This is more of a home than anything you've ever known, more of a home than that rat-infested hole, more than anything you could have had with the family that abandoned you.

"But there's still something missing." Tom paused, advancing slowly on Harry, who dropped his hand from the basilisk's snout, oblivious to its hiss of protest. "Something isn't quite right. You don't realize it until it appears, right in front of you, and it dawns on you that it's been absent to that point."

"Sounds familiar," Harry said quietly.

"Exactly, " said Tom. "Call it what you will. Understanding without question, compassion without pity, something more than shallow words said to ease your mind. Empathy. Whatever it is, Harry, you give it to me."

Harry flinched slightly. Taking a step back, he said, "Only because you let me."

"That's what frightens you, isn't it?"

Tom's words pushed Harry back another step. "I'm not frightened," he said, thrusting his chin out defiantly. Tom merely laughed softly, striding forward to close the distance between them.

"Ask yourself that again."

Harry took a deep breath and tried to convince himself that the flush he felt was anger. "Look, Tom, there's a lot more going on in my head than you--"

"I know what's going on in your head. You gave me a vague idea, at least. Harry," Tom said, suddenly gentle, "I want to know you. I want to know the person who is Harry, without all the mysteries."

When Harry next spoke, he was surprised to feel his voice catch. "I don't know if you can separate them." Tom's eyes flickered to his scar, and Harry felt the same fleeting tingle that he had experienced the night he told Tom about the Time-Turner.

"That's something you have to do," whispered Tom hoarsely.

It's your fault I'm this way, you bastard. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you.

And all thoughts of Voldemort were shoved out of his mind when Harry reached up very deliberately and pulled Tom toward him, their mouths meeting urgently, desperately. Harry felt light-headed, the tingling that had been present in his scar now magnified and spreading all over. Tom moaned and pulled him hard against him, for which Harry and his rapidly weakening knees were grateful. He pulled away only when he absolutely had to catch his breath, steadying himself with one hand on Tom's chest.

"Alright?" Tom asked, ducking his head to see Harry's eyes. Harry nodded, dizzy. Words refused to form on his tongue, and Tom smiled. "Let me," he said. Harry nodded again, allowing Tom to tip his chin upward and place light, lingering kisses along his jaw and up to his forehead. Tom paused, nothing touching the skin there but breath, and Harry found this to be nearly unbearable. He moaned faintly, his hand clenching in the fabric of Tom's shirt, and was rewarded with the reverberating contact of lips and tongue exploring his scar.

Harry supposed later that if the pain he felt due to Voldemort's anger was as strong as it was, then the pleasure felt as a result of his happiness should be as great. As it was, he was completely unprepared for the onslaught of blissful tremors that rocked his body at Tom's touch. It was both his desire and Tom's that coursed through the connection and into him. It was too much; Harry pulled back gasping for breath, leaning in again to possess those lips with his own before they could find their way back to his forehead.

This time it was Tom who held back, and the puzzled, awed look in his dark eyes made Harry wonder if he had felt the connection between them, as well. Those eyes searched Harry's face for a long minute, until Harry twined his arms around his neck and pressed himself against him until they were both breathless.

"This feels..." Harry managed.

"...right," finished Tom.

"Do you really believe that?"

"More than anything. More than anything, I believe in this."

At some point during the night, the basilisk returned to the dark solace of Slytherin's mouth. She had no desire to interrupt the display below.