Chapter Text
“And you’re sure that it’s going to be completely safe?” Peter couldn’t help asking for the fifth time as he walked towards the cart that waited at the vault door. He glanced back at his vault, but the door had already sealed, and he couldn’t see the Elder Wand.
“It almost seems as if you don’t trust us, sir.” The goblin who had led him to the vault turned around and squinted at him with eyes deep enough that Peter winced. When goblins started to look like that, and when they got polite, it meant they were angry enough to be about to attack.
“I’m sorry.” Peter managed to hold himself back from flinching. He remembered Fawkes’s soft song and the touch of the phoenix’s beak to his face. He had been brave enough to face down a wizard much more powerful than himself. That had to mean he could face down goblins, too. “But I recovered that wand from a wizard who will want it for himself. I’m nervous about him tracking me down, that’s all.”
The goblin considered him, then snorted and resumed the walk to the cart. “Fine. It still smacks of distrust for you to doubt the security of the vaults.”
“I’m sorry,” Peter repeated, and then settled into the cart for the ride back to the surface with a long sigh. He would have to hope that Dumbledore didn’t figure out where he had taken it, and didn’t attack the bank with twofold power that was enough to bring down the vaults.
Then again, Riddle, also a powerful wizard, and Harry, his soulmate, who probably had fourfold power, had touched the wand and said it was dead to them. Maybe that meant that if Dumbledore broke into the bank and got it back, he still couldn’t use it?
Peter shook his head. It still felt like a chain of suppositions to him.
Then again, keeping the wand with him when he didn’t have the power to use it felt like an even worse wager. He would just have to do the best he could, and hope it didn’t work out badly.
*
This time, no one had obstructed his walk through the secret tunnel. Albus straightened up outside it and checked his Disillusionment Charm. For being wandless, it was holding up well.
He smiled. That naughty Gellert. Well, he couldn’t prevent the power their bond gave him from flowing to Albus, and he couldn’t do anything to stop Albus once he had the Elder Wand back. Albus turned and began walking up the corridor towards his old office, humming to himself. There were devices there that he had modeled after the Marauder’s Map James and Sirius had made. With them, he could scan the whole of the school and find the Elder Wand’s hiding place.
And then, he could do what he was meant to do, and protect the magical world from the triumph of two Muggle-hating man.
Why does the magical world never realize it’s in danger? Albus asked himself as he came to a halt outside the gargoyle. Why did it not realize it when Tom Riddle started running for office? They should have known that someone who was that slick and seemed so promising was up to no good. They should have known that those two children had a reason for burning his soul-mark off his chest. They probably foresaw what he would do.
Well, it did no good to speculate on the past. Albus sighed and spoke to the gargoyle. “Licorice whips.”
The gargoyle didn’t move. Albus gave a disgusted shrug. He should have known Minerva would change his password, but it had been worth a try. He reached out and placed his hand on the gargoyle’s head, directing a long flow of power into it. He had made sure ages ago that his command over vital things in the school would go undisturbed, since it was tied to the position he held as Headmaster. And Tom Riddle hadn’t formally removed him from that position.
For some reason, however, the top of the gargoyle’s head exploded into a cascade of sparks, and Albus snatched his hand back, staring. Riddle hadn’t removed him formally as Headmaster, but someone had.
“You should have known better than to think it would be that easy, when your office has accepted me.”
Albus made a show of reluctance as he turned and his Disillusionment Charm dropped. In fact, he didn’t really want to duel Minerva. She wouldn’t overcome him when he had twofold power, even if he was currently wandless, but he didn’t want to hurt her, either. She had stood by his side loyally for many years, even when she was being a bloody inconvenient ally, and even when she had broken with the Order of the Phoenix’s ideals.
“Minerva,” he told her gently, watching her red-flushed cheeks and the way she gripped her wand. “Whatever lies Riddle and Potter have told you about me, they are not true.”
“Your own behavior was all the excuse I needed,” Minerva snapped, and stalked a little closer. Albus approved of that. His wandless spells were most potent close-to, where he could catch a limb and tug someone from their feet, or smother them in Transfigured material, or simply Stun them. “What were you thinking, trying to sneak into the school?”
“I’m thinking that I need my wand back, Minerva, and you would not have granted it to me.”
“It’s not your wand now.”
Albus sighed, despite the way that his heartbeat suddenly echoed in his ears. “You think someone taking it away from me is the same as someone winning it in a fair duel? I promise you, Minerva, it’s not the same. On the other hand, there’s no need for a duel that would destroy half of Hogwarts and might cost innocent lives. Give me my wand, and I will go my way and let you be unharmed.”
“What a generous offer.”
“Well, yes. I thought it was.”
Minerva’s wand snapped into her hand. Albus raised his own hand, keeping his face mild and his actions slow. There was still the chance that she would see sense and back down before a fight started.
“Professor Legion,” said Minerva, her voice sharp, precise, “if Professor Dumbledore moves, you know what to do.”
“Yes, Headmistress.”
Albus twitched a little, not liking the idea that standing somewhere out of sight—even her voice had been altered so that he couldn’t pinpoint the source—was Juliet Legion, their NEWT Potions professor. She was a vicious woman whom Albus had never trusted, but after Riddle had taken control of the Ministry and poured so much money into Hogwarts, Albus had largely lost control of hiring. She knew Dark magic that might explain who had taken his wand from him in the corridor below Hogwarts.
“I hope that you won’t do anything impulsive, Professor Legion,” he said, raising his voice a little. “You might as well know that I have resurrected the bond with my soulmate and have twofold magic. Remember that I was powerful already, and estimate your chances if you have to face me.”
Legion said nothing in response. Albus hoped that meant she was reconsidering her stance on Minerva’s side, although probably not, given that she was Dark and her own soulmate was Pomona Sprout, the Hufflepuff Head of House. She probably thought her own fourfold power could match his.
Let’s find out, Albus thought, and aimed his hand towards Minerva, willing power through it that ought to force her back and make her heart stutter. Not enough for a heart attack—he would never do that to a dear former friend—but enough to take her out of the battle, freeing him to concentrate on Legion.
Minerva moved out of the way with a mocking smile, at the same time as something heavy and warm collided with Albus’s back. He went down, gasping, on his knees, and tried to struggle out of what felt like a huge heated blanket draped over him. He did manage to roll onto his back, but not further than that.
A brown bear’s face snarled an inch from his own. Albus froze in sheer surprise. He hadn’t realized that Legion was an Animagus.
But surprise couldn’t keep him pinned by itself, not when he knew what he was dealing with. He gathered more of the same wandless force he’d planned for Minerva between his palms, and slammed them down into the floor.
The force propelled him straight upwards, and although it didn’t carry him as far as it might have without the weight of the bear on him, it still got him out of his prone and trapped position. Albus staggered back to his feet on the other side of the corridor while the bear stood up and shook her head.
This time, Albus aimed his hand at her. He still didn’t wish harm on anyone else here, but the Legion had managed to be in his employ for eight years and he’d had no idea she was an Animagus…he had to take out an opponent this dangerous before she revealed some other unexpected talent.
But he had to shift his focus again before he could do that, this time to raise a wandless shield against Minerva’s Stunner. He couldn’t help the stare he gave her, and he hated the edge of the smile that lifted her lips in return, even more mocking than the previous one.
“How dare you come back to the school you abandoned and assault my professors?” Minerva whispered. “Why did you come back?”
“All I wanted was my wand! I would have departed in peace if you’d given it to me.”
Albus had started out almost shouting indignantly, but towards the end, he managed to tame his voice. The last thing he wanted was for students to become involved, one reason he’d come so late at night when most of them would already in their common rooms. But he supposed he should give up on persuading Minerva.
This time, he bent all his concentration and will except for the part holding the shield into a simple Summoning Charm. Accio Albus Dumbledore’s wand!
There was no response, not so much as a flicker. Albus felt a moment of greyest despair before he forced his reaction down. Then he glanced at the bear.
She was gone. In her place, one hand to the back of her head as if he had hit her there, was Pomona Sprout. And behind her was Juliet Legion, one arm curved protectively around her soulmate, her wand as steady on Albus as Minerva’s.
This time, Albus really couldn’t prevent the words that spilled from his lips. “You kept this from me all these years, Pomona?” The only people who had worked for him longer were Minerva, Filius, and Binns.
“I kept it secret from everyone except my soulmate,” said Pomona, glancing at him coolly. “And as you made it clear from the start of my soulmate’s tenure here that you weren’t going to trust a Dark witch, I never saw a reason to inform you.” She gently touched Legion’s arm. “I promise that I’m fine, dearest. Worry about him.”
Something like a knife pushed in under Albus’s heart. He would never have that with Gellert, since his soulmate persisted in not loving Albus the way he should—
But then the bright cascade of love poured down on him again. What did that matter? He loved Gellert exactly the way he was, and that was enough for the bond, and that was enough for the safety of the world. Albus didn’t need personal happiness. He was a humble servant of the greatest possible happiness for the greatest possible number.
He said, “Professor Legion, if you aim your wand at me, I am going to strike as hard as I can.”
Legion didn’t respond. She was a tall woman with dark hair always bound beneath a scarf on her head, and grey eyes that Albus had never liked meeting, for fear of what he would see in them. Now, she stepped away from Pomona as the poor woman had commanded, and drew a flask with a shifting green potion in it from her robe pocket.
Albus couldn’t help staring. “Battle draughts?”
Legion only offered him the same kind of mocking smile that Minerva had—at least Albus thought he knew who had corrupted her now—and hurled the flask into the air. It clanged to a stop about a meter away from Albus as if on an invisible shelf and began to pour the thick green potion all over the floor. Albus backed hastily away. Battle draughts had various effects, from turning the enemy to stone to bewildering their minds so badly they couldn’t cast magic. He, and more importantly, the world and the people that depended on him, couldn’t afford for him to be caught here.
He tried again, this time screaming it aloud and not caring who heard him. “Accio the Elder Wand!”
There was a long, drawn-out gasp that might have come from any of the three women around him, and—
Albus strained all his senses, ignoring the way the green potion was piling up in front of him, an effect he’d never seen before, forming a sludgy pile that was growing claws and arms. All he needed was an edge of response, and a sense of direction. He knew the school well. He would find his wand no matter where they had hidden it.
There was no hint of a response. At all.
The battle draught’s creature loomed before him, thick as though it was made of mud, but with brilliant glowing yellow eyes and a mouth that yawned open. Dripping fangs snapped at him. Albus backed up a step before he realized how fatal that was, how much confidence it would give to the enemy.
And then he saw the merciless look in Legion’s eyes, the way Pomona stared at him with contempt, the way Minerva was angling in from the side.
He had no idea where the wand was.
He turned and ran.
*
“I’m sorry that we didn’t catch him, Minerva.”
“You did better than anyone could have expected, against one of the most dangerous wizards in the world.” Minerva smiled wearily at Juliet and Pomona as they stood in front of her desk, subtly leaning on each other. Through long practice, she kept envy out of her voice and kept herself from rubbing her soul-mark that had turned dark with the loss of Elphinstone. “Even wandless, he’s still that.”
Juliet nodded, eyes fixed on her. “And what are you going to do now?”
“Report what happened to Minister Riddle. He has the Aurors and the time to deal with this. My primary duty remains to the school, to you and our students.”
“If you don’t need us for anything else, then…?”
Minerva shook her head, and watched as Juliet tenderly supported Pomona out of the room. Being tossed in her bear form was still rattling the woman.
Left alone, Minerva shut her eyes and worded the facts carefully in her head. They had done incredibly well, yes, and Minerva was happy that both Juliet and Pomona were on her side. But they had also lost Albus, and even though she had started running from her quarters as soon as she’d heard the wards scream about an intruder, Riddle was unlikely to look graciously on that.
Still, by the time she had worded the report in her head well enough that she thought she wouldn’t get herself or Juliet and Pomona in trouble, Minerva realized that her hand wasn’t shaking as she reached for the Floo powder.
The way it had been shaking during the encounter with Albus.
She feared Minister Riddle, formidable fourfold power and all, less than she did her former Headmaster and friend.
*
“Nagini will help us.”
Harry nodded and moved slowly to stand at the opposite point of the silver circle, pure silver as far as he could tell, embedded in the floor of the house Tom had brought him to. Harry had looked around as they walked through the corridors, but hadn’t seen any family device that he recognized, or even any portraits. Maybe this had belonged to political enemies of Tom’s, or maybe it was connected to the heritage that he hadn’t told Harry about in any detail.
Curious, dear one? What is it?
Harry swallowed as he looked up at his soulmate again. “I was just wondering—where you came from. What your family was like. I’ve heard the stories and the rumors, but that’s all they seem to be, without substance. Except that you can obviously claim descent from Salazar Slytherin, of course.”
Tom’s eyelids drooped over his eyes. Then he said, “I don’t like to talk about it.”
“I realize that, which is why I haven’t asked until now.” Harry gestured with his hand around the circle, around the whole room where Nagini was crawling in a slow motion, without taking his eyes off Tom. “This house, for instance. It doesn’t look like a pureblood manor, but I don’t think a Muggleborn family would have had a house this big, either. Is it yours? Why?”
For a minute, Tom’s hand tightened on his wand. Then he relaxed and tucked it into his robe pocket. “It appears that we won’t be conducting the ritual right this moment, Nagini.”
Nagini lifted her head high enough that Harry thought she was going to rear right off the floor. “But the little one needs a snake.”
Harry hated how he flushed at the words. Little one. Well, he was shorter than Tom, and not as long as Nagini. But he wasn’t as short as some of the people he had known at Hogwarts. For a moment, his mind filled with the thought of little Colin Creevey.
Little Colin Creevey who had sent him a Howler the other day, because he was soulmated to someone Colin believed wanted only the worst for Muggleborns like him.
Harry sighed as he half-listened to Tom answering Nagini. He probably wasn’t going to get the best answer from Tom at the moment. But that didn’t matter. He had to know, and then he had to work to change things.
That was the way it was.
Tom nodded once and then said, “So you might have heard that my father was a Muggle and my mother a Squib of the Gaunt family.”
“Among other rumors,” Harry said, hoping to make Tom smile. Tom only gave him a somber look and went on talking.
“Those are the true rumors. My mother fell in love with my father, who was handsome.” Tom spent a moment touching his face. “I inherited my looks from him, although I fancy that I am better-looking.”
“Infinitely.”
Tom half-smiled. “Your opinion means little as someone who never saw my father, but I value it nonetheless.” He was quiet for a moment. “My mother used a love potion on my father. They married under its influence. After they were married and she knew she was pregnant, she was stupid enough to think she could discontinue feeding him the potion and get him to love her on his own recognizance.”
His eyes were distant, his voice caustic as he spoke of his mother, but Harry could feel the pain flooding, cold and silver, down the bond. He reached out and let a comforting hand of calm rest on Tom’s soul.
Tom closed his eyes, then nodded. “He rejected her. In fact, he was horrified to learn there was such a thing as magic, having never had a clue that our world existed. He returned to their home village, and my mother fled to London. She died on the steps of an orphanage, living long enough to name me. And I was raised by abusive Muggles.”
Harry took a long breath, but didn’t interrupt. The bond was singing like a strangled snake now, and Nagini had moved closer to Tom, staring at him in silence while her tongue darted out.
“I didn’t discover the truth of my family heritage until after I’d been at Hogwarts several years. I tracked down my mother’s remaining family members, but they wanted—nothing to do with me. Neither did my father or his parents. I wanted to kill them. It might have been better if I had.”
“What did you do?”
“Placed them under the Imperius Curse. I convinced my grandparents that they wanted to donate every bit of money they owned to various organizations. I let them choose the charities. I didn’t care. I wanted them to be poor. They ended up starving to death a few years after that.”
“And your father?”
The bond was as dark and thick as tar now, and Tom seemed to take the same amount of effort to force the words out that Harry would have had to use to move through real tar. “I trapped him in his mind. I convinced him that the reality of his leaving my mother behind had been a dream, and that she had been in control of his life from the point when she’d told him she was a witch. That I had grown up in this house with him, the true master of it along with my mother, while he thought he lived with only his parents. He ‘remembered’ waking up now and then from the spell, and then he would go back under it. The Imperius Curse reinforced the illusion until he couldn’t distinguish it from his own perceptions.”
“And what happened to him in the end?”
Tom met Harry’s gaze. “He went mad within a fortnight. He spent the rest of his life screaming his lungs out in the home where his parents placed him.”
Harry stared back with the pulse beating high and hard in his throat. He was sure Tom could have seen it even if he didn’t feel it through the bond. He swallowed and sought something to say.
“I’ll understand if you want to back away and not spend time with me for a while.”
Harry shook his head. “We’re not at the end of the story yet. What—why did you come to have their house?”
Tom shrugged. “My grandparents willed the house to an animal sanctuary. It was an easy thing to go to the sanctuary and use the Imperius Curse to make sure that they sold it to me at a cheap price.”
Harry stood there and tried to figure out how he felt about that. The emotions blended and mixed in him like running paint. Nagini slithered towards him and hissed, “You smell like pain.”
Tom flinched slightly at the sound of that, but Harry lifted his head. “Not only pain,” he said, not sure if Nagini could understand the English words, but then, he wasn’t really speaking to her anyway. He stared Tom in the eye. “I should—dislike it more.”
“And me? Dislike me more?” Tom sounded as if he was perched on the edge of a cliff waiting for the answer.
“I should,” Harry agreed, and felt the bond flinch far more than Tom did across from him. Tom just seemed to sway back and forth a little. Harry lifted his head and forced himself to speak the words that burned in his throat. “But I don’t.”
“Tell me what that means, Harry.” Tom’s voice was a soft breath, and Harry thought the mental bond probably whispered the words to him far more than he was hearing them. A stray thought drifted through his head, something about how soulmates would know the bond between them was deepest when they didn’t bother to distinguish between spoken and mental communication.
But Harry just lsaid, “I hate what you did. I hate the thought of cursing someone with the Imperius Curse and driving them mad. Or starving them to death. It—it’s evil. It’s wrong.”
Tom nodded, but didn’t say anything or move, because he had to know as well as Harry did that more was coming.
“But there are two things,” Harry said, and glanced down at the mark on his wrist as the bond between them shimmered and danced like light on water. “Three things, really. First, it’s in the past, and I can’t time travel. I want you to make up for what you did. Rejecting you for it and screaming that you’re evil in your face won’t change anything.”
“Hardly.” Tom’s voice was soft, but Harry could hear the bite there, and the bond vibrated, once, as if the water could harden into ice and be plucked like an instrument.
Harry continued, more slowly, no longer as sure as he had been about what the right move was. “Second, our bond is complete. I’m not going to reject you. It’s just not going to happen.”
The ice melted and dawn raced through their bond, streaks of brilliant light. Harry tried not to smile, because he really did shudder at the thought of what Tom had done to his father and grandparents. He moved a little closer to Tom, but stayed on his side of the silver circle inlaid into the floor.
“And third,” Harry said quietly, “I hate them, too, for what they left you to.”
Tom was staring at him in a way that made Harry feel the sun might have gained eyes and landed in front of him. Harry felt his face warm, and breathed out as carefully as he could.
“No one has ever told me that before,” Tom breathed, and the bond sang and strummed and flooded Harry with warmth until he did have to come around the circle after all, damn their ritual preparations, and clasp Tom’s hands.
“How many did you let close enough to know you?” Harry asked gently. “I know that it wasn’t your fault that you were abandoned or that you had your soul-mark burned off.” Tom’s left hand twitched towards his jeweled phoenix, but Harry didn’t let it go. “But after that, the defenses you set up would have discouraged most people who wanted to get close.”
“And I did not want them close,” Tom murmured, his fingers flexing around Harry’s. “I knew they would have tried to know me because they were looking for political power, not because they wanted to sympathize with or help me.”
Harry nodded. “Right. I—I can’t pretend that I like what you’ve done, Tom.” He shuddered as he thought of Tom’s grandparents starving to death under the forceful compulsion to donate every piece of their money to charity, of Tom’s father trapped and screaming in his head. “But that’s why we have to move forwards and change things, because the answer isn’t abandoning powerful magical children to abusive homes or excusing the crimes of those who hurt you, either. I’d like to take some of those Galleons you keep offering me for my own use and set up a foundation.”
“To do what?”
“To work on ways of countering the Unforgivable Curses.”
Tom shifted within Harry’s hold, his fingers flexing back and forth. “So that if something like I did to my father happened again, you would have people available who would recognize it and—”
Recognize it. The words came from both of them, colliding and meeting in the middle of the bond like aimed curses.
Harry held Tom’s eyes much like he was holding his hands. “Yes. I don’t know if you would ever use the same trick twice after telling me about it, Tom. I don’t know if you’ve used it during other times that you don’t want to tell me about right now. But I do know that no one deserves to suffer that way. And you’re not the only wizard with the strength or skill or cruelty to have used that trick. We work on creating a staff of people who are experienced in treating the effects of the Imperius Curse and recognizing it, and treating the aftereffects of exposure to the Cruciatus. Maybe even teaching people to throw them both off, if we’re lucky.”
“And the Killing Curse?”
Harry swallowed. It wasn’t betrayal, he reminded himself. Not with everything the Order had done to him. He looked into Riddle’s eyes.
“Dumbledore was working on a ritual way of deflecting the Killing Curse, before he—went mad,” he admitted. “I don’t know the details, because it wasn’t a main project of the Order’s. They thought you would use subtler means until the war you were supposedly preparing for began. But I do know where the notes that he was working on are hidden.”
Tom was still for a moment, and then he reached out and wrapped the bond around Harry like the coils of a huge, warm snake.
You know that you can trust me, don’t you, darling?
Harry relaxed as much as he could when he was leaning back on nothing that was actually there, the defining coils of Tom’s snake of power. Of course I do.
Tom caressed him with magic more than his hands, since his fingers were making only small movements, and then said, Trust me now. He released one of Harry’s hands and picked up his wand. Harry watched with half-lidded eyes and a heart that was beating fast despite himself as Tom held out his wand and—
Tangled it in their bond. Harry stared. He hadn’t known that was possible. He’d been around soulmated pairs for a long time, and none of them had ever done anything like this.
They are not as brilliant as I am.
Harry snorted aloud. Nor as conceited.
When one is so incredibly brilliant, Harry, this is simply acknowledging reality.
Harry twitched one shoulder in acknowledgment, and watched in fascination as Tom trailed silver threads behind his wand as he sketched a shape in the air. At first, it looked like a miniature of the silver circle on the floor in the room with them, but then it began to sprout dazzling complexities and dizzying half-circles. By the time that Tom seemed to have finished sketching, Harry was squinting, his eyes watering as he tried to grasp the shape.
You don’t have to grasp it. The important thing is that you understand what it does.
Harry eyed him. “What does it do, then?” he asked aloud, simply to emphasize the point that he didn’t know yet.
Tom closed his eyes and gathered up his magic, which Harry could feel, the power wavering and breathing around him like a great beast’s slow exhalations. Then he nodded and flung his wand out in front of him. “Avada Kedavra!”
Harry flinched back before he could stop himself, but even as he watched, the green curse struck the middle of the silver maze and froze there. Then it began to writhe back and forth like a lobster on the verge of being boiled.
Harry stared from Tom to the maze and back again. “What is going on?”
Tom replied in Parseltongue, his face slightly averted as if he didn’t want Harry to see the expression on it. Of course, the bond blazed with pride and shame and hatred and remorse, so that didn’t help much. “I’m aware of some of the same research that Dumbledore must have been. People have been seeking a block to the Killing Curse as long as it’s existed without one. But the rituals have always been incomplete, and depended on being bound to a place and knowing ahead of time that someone is going to cast this particular curse at you. Unless you’re standing in that circle when it happens, the rituals are useless.”
Harry’s eyes flickered back to the maze. “But this isn’t?” It looked like a drawing someone might try to make for a ritual.
Tom shook his head. “No. The essential part everyone was forgetting was soulmate magic. And even then, it might not have worked without a soulmate bond as powerful as ours. Until this moment, it was purely theoretical for me, as well, since I didn’t have you until recently.” He tangled his fingers with Harry’s and tugged him closer to the maze. “Come here, darling, look.”
Harry went with him, not reluctant but fascinated, and bent close enough to see the green curse impaled on what seemed to be the silver spikes of one of the maze’s half-circles.
“I don’t know what that means,” Harry admitted after staring at it for a little while. Even with the pooled magic of their bond flowing between them, he didn’t understand every nuance that Tom had tried to introduce or teach him.
For a moment, Tom’s chest inflated as if he didn’t want to explain what they were actually looking at. Then he exhaled and turned to look at Harry instead. “I’ve taken the ability to cast the Killing Curse away from myself.”
For a long moment, Harry’s body locked in a shivering tension. But he could feel the truth from the bond. Tom had indeed done what he’d said.
Harry took a step back and stared at him. “But why?”
Tom caught hold of his hands again, the way Harry had held them when he was trying to explain how he felt about what Tom had done. “Because I don’t want you to distrust me. Because I want to show you that I support the work of this foundation. Because I’ll donate this house to them if that’s what you want.” He hesitated, then added, “Because giving up my ability to cast a spell is nothing compared to the sacrifices I’m prepared to make for you.”
Harry leaned against Tom, overwhelmed. His body shook with emotion to the point that he didn’t think Tom was surprised when he cleared his throat and said, “We shouldn’t do the ritual to call a snake to me tonight.”
“No, I agree.” Tom’s voice, in English, was gentle again. He smoothed his fingers down Harry’s cheek. “We’ll go home and come back tomorrow or this weekend. Whenever the Wizengamot and my Ministry duties leave us enough time.”
Harry nodded. Then he leaned harder against Tom, and sent a soft pulse of the warmth he really did feel down the bond. He loved Tom, as complicated as this was. He was bound. He wouldn’t be walking away any more than Hermione and Ron would have walked away from each other, or his parents.
For better or worse.
*
Tom touched Harry’s cheek again, then his wrist, to watch the soul-mark shine and dance with living flame. I am so much luckier than I ever deserved.