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Harry packs his bag quickly. He has just a few hours before the other students wake up and he does not want to be here for when that happens. Over and over in his mind plays the image of a furious dragon spouting magical fire into the night, the tangerine light flickering the forest with shallow shadows.

The hair on Harry’s arms rise, his throat swelling uncomfortably as he pauses and looks at Ron’s bed. The curtains are drawn, as are all the other curtains of the other four-poster beds, but Harry knows Ron’s back is turned to him. Harry swallows around the lump in his throat.

You want to get to bed, Harry. I expect you’ll need to be up early tomorrow for a photocall or something… Should’ve realized you didn’t want to be disturbed. I’ll let you get on with practicing for your next interview in peace.

Recalling Ron’s words, Harry feels something inside of him harden. His resolve sets.

No matter what he said, no matter what he did, Ron was completely convinced Harry had done this for attention. For fame. For wealth. The jealous git. And though Harry wants to be angry (and he is, for a fair amount of the time), there’s something so… Wounding. About Ron not believing him. For treating him like Dudley used to treat him.

Harry grits his teeth and pulls his bag off his bed. He’s packed his essentials, leaving behind his school books and cauldrons and potion supplies.

Harry doesn’t know if running will break his magic. If it’ll turn him into a Squib.

Part of Harry feels a strange, hollow dread at the thought of losing his magic. There was nothing more wonderful, more amazing, than Hagrid’s words all those years ago – Yer a wizard, ‘Arry.

At the time, discovering Harry was a wizard had meant freedom. It had meant peace. It had meant starting a whole new life from a fresh page, escaping the miserable Dursley household and becoming someone new. Instead, though, Harry had obliviously walked directly into a role that had been written for him and he hadn’t even been aware of it until the lore of ‘The Boy Who Lived’ slapped him hard in the face. He was Supposed to do this, Meant to be that.

Harry had always known that he was going to run away from the Dursley household, when he was old enough. Discovering the wizarding world had given him an out without having to rely on himself. But… Over the years, Harry has realised that wizards and witches are no better than the Dursleys. And he discovered it way back in first year, when no one believed him that Snape was trouble and was trying to steal the Philosopher’s Stone (though, to be fair, it was really Quirrell – but Snape was in on the secret so he wasn’t completely wrong!). Or like second year, when Harry was rumoured to be the Heir of Slytherin and everyone hated him. Or in third year, when the Dementors affected him so much and people whispered behind his back that he was crazy.

And now, fourth year. Something insidious is happening. Harry suspects Voldemort, but he would be called nuts if he admitted it to anyone. And the dreams he has – the strange, creepy, murderous baby being toted around by Wormtail – Harry doesn’t want to see that anymore. He doesn’t want to be linked to Voldemort. Harry can only imagine what Rita Skeeter would write about him if she knew about that. Surely, she’d make him out to be some kind of raving lunatic, desperate for attention and money and power.

But not anymore. Harry isn’t going to let these people treat him this way anymore. Harry doesn’t need magic. He doesn’t need to be revered and hated between breaths, he doesn’t need to be lifted up and torn down. Harry has always been alone, independent, capable of taking care of himself, thank you very much. He knows perfectly well who he is: Harry James Potter. Not the ‘Boy Who Lived’ or ‘Champion’ or whatever else nonsense people could come up with. Let Ron have all the damned titles and glory, for all he cares. And if that means that Harry becomes a Squib, well… It was a price worth paying for freedom.

Harry is running.

Harry’s first instinct is to find Sirius. Then he stops, thinks. Will Sirius make Harry go back, if only to save his own magic? Sirius is a pureblood, he relies on magic as much as he breathes, like Ron and Malfoy.

Harry hesitates. Sirius is his godfather. But, then again, Sirius had run away from him all those years ago to chase Peter Pettigrew and had gotten himself imprisoned for over a decade; he doesn’t have a great track record with keeping himself or Harry safe.

Shifting from foot to foot, Harry weighs his options. Sirius will expect to travel the magical way, either through floos or apparition or by Buckbeak. Harry knows how to travel the muggle way, how to keep his head down. The decision fills Harry with despair. He doesn’t want to leave Sirius behind – his new family – but Sirius wouldn’t understand. Not really. Purebloods and those raised in the wizarding world spoke of Squibs as if they were… Tainted. Broken. Harry doesn’t want that, for Sirius to look at him and treat him like he’s less.

Harry shudders, pulls his coat around him tighter as he creeps down the secret passageway under the Whomping Willow to the Shrieking Shack.

Harry is under his invisibility cloak. He knows that Professor Moody can see under it, so Harry made sure to keep as quiet as possible, leaving in the dead of night and keeping an eye behind him for followers.

At last, Harry reaches the Shack. He mounts his broom, wondering what will happen once he’s officially outside of Hogwarts grounds. Once the Trizward Cup realises his intention to never participate.

Harry flies onward until he feels a tug on his chest. A hook is reached deep within him, trying to keep him on the grounds. Presumably, the Triwizard Cup. Harry clenches his jaw, eyes narrowed, and forces himself to take continue flying. The hook digs in deeper, tearing something within him. Harry grunts lowly through the building agony, forcing himself onward. Just as Harry passes by the dimly lit Hogsmeade, he feels the hook rip free.

Everything hurts, a burning, fiery pain that sears Harry from the top of his head down to the tip of his toes. It’s like his body is on fire and Harry struggles to cling frozenly to his broom, to shut away the pain, to keep moving.

Harry wraps his cloak around himself tighter, eyes crushed shut as he forces himself to keep on his broom, his body trembling around the cold and the endless pain. There’s a massive hole in his chest where the anchor ripped free. It feels… Empty. Hollow. Harry shoves the thoughts away, not thinking about it. This is worth it, Harry tells himself, thinking back to every single time people had treated him poorly and made him feel like nothing, a nobody. Harry thinks about the people who tried to tell him what to do, the people who made fun of him and treated him like scum. To remind himself, Harry had taken one of the badges Malfoy had spelled – Potter Stinks! – and he clutched it tight in one hand.

The price of freedom is worth it.

A handsome man peers at Harry through the darkness, his grey eyes glinting in the light of a single candle. Harry sits on his bed, staring at the man. He is far away, as if seen through a long tunnel. He watches Harry from afar. His mouth opens and sibilant words drip from his lips, a language only they share.

“Where are you, Harry Potter?”

Harry lurches up with a gasp. He’s drenched in sweat, body trembling. Harry’s roommate groans and turns over irritably, yanking his comforter over his head. Harry grimaces, clenches his jaw.

It’s a bitter morning. The room is freezing cold and the room is slowly beginning to light up with the earliest stages of a sunrise, azure light filtering into the room. Harry sees his breath exhale from his lips and he quietly makes it out of his bed.

Harry shares the room with another backpacker. They are in a Belgian town. It is the closest Harry has been to the United Kingdom in eight years. Harry hadn’t meant to get so close. He’d been on a bus and fallen asleep, accidentally letting the charter bus drag him nearly to the UK border. He’d woken up and gotten off in time, spending the night in a small town before he heads in the other direction. The closer he gets, the stronger the dreams are.

Harry shakes off the dredges of his dream. He needs to go east. Needs to get away. Harry packs his bag, slips out of the room far before checkout. Harry leaves his passport behind. It’s not his passport, so he doesn’t mind. It was lifted from a young drunk who looked somewhat like Harry.

Walking out into the frosty morning, Harry turns to the east and begins to walk.

Harry scrubs a pot, keeping his head down and working his elbows.

“Bystreye!” His boss shouts and Harry grits his teeth, forcing his elbow to work harder. Faster! Faster, Harry can do.

Harry has been a kitchen hand in the small Russian city for a month. It’s longer than he prefers to stay in one place, but the chef is kind (in the way a gruff old man can be) and actually pays Harry. Normally, when Harry asks to be paid in cash only, his paycheck gets skimped out on – if he even gets paid at all. But this man is nice, he took Harry in when Harry had nowhere to go. He knows that Harry will leave soon, but he still pays Harry dutifully each night and a fair wage at that.

The night is wrapping up. The last lingering couple have finished their meal and are busy giving one another mooning eyes over their dessert. Harry puts away the last of the dishes, sweeps and mops the floor, goes to take out the trash.

Harry is in the small alleyway in the back of the kitchen, lifting up the lid to the dumpster to toss in the rubbish bag, when he feels something like magic skitter up his spine. Harry drops the dumpster lid loudly, the noise suppressed by the snow coating the alleyway and drifting lazily from the sky, and he turns sharply on his feet.

At the end of the alleyway stands a man. Harry has an immediate sense of déjà vu, looking down the long alley towards the silhouette – he’s dreamt this. Harry stands there dumbly, dressed only in a stained shirt and slacks and ratty kitchen apron, the lightly falling snow muting the world around him and coating his eyelashes in white.

Harry can’t move. He’s frozen in surprise, in shock. The man takes a step forward. Harry takes a step back.

“Harry,” the man says, voice drawling in a strange baritone that sends sparks up Harry’s spine. A warning, a calling, a summoning all in one. Harry.

Harry wants to turn on his heel and run. Wants to hate this person for tracking him down after all this time. Why won’t he understand? Why doesn’t he see? Harry wants nothing to do with him, with any of them. Leave me alone!

It is as if something inside Harry snaps. He is tired of being haunted. He is tired of being tracked. No one owns him. He has no reason to run. If this man is who he thinks he is, then he can strike down Harry for all he cares. Harry won’t defend himself. He hasn’t been able to do magic since all those years ago, since he forced himself through the gates of a gilded cage. Harry had known what he was doing, had known what he was choosing.

Harry lifts his jaw, sends the silhouetted man a churlish look, and he bends down to pick up the rubbish bag. Harry tosses it into the dumpster and marches to the kitchen back door, letting it slam behind him as he decides to take a stand and stop running.

Harry gets off work at midnight, once the chef has given him his cash and a staff meal. The man says the same thing each night, Uvidimsya zavtra. See you tomorrow. It is an invitation and a goodbye rolled into one.

Harry repeats the phrase awkwardly – his Russian is poor and conversational at best – and tugs on his wool duffel coat. Harry doesn’t know if the man is waiting outside for him, but Harry can only hope that if he is, he will make it quick.

As expected, the man is there, standing across the street under the light of a streetlamp. The snow gives him an ethereal quality, as if from a dream.

A hand clasps on Harry’s shoulder, making him jump. He turns his head, the chef giving Harry a sidelong glance. “Vse normal'no?” He asks. Is everything okay?

“Da,” Harry says, sending the man a kind smile. He is older, greying. But he is big. Harry knows that he will stand by Harry to protect him, if he thinks Harry is in danger. Harry won’t let him, because no matter how strong nor big, a muggle cannot match a wizard. “On staryy drug.” He’s an old friend. “Uvidimsya zavtra.”

The chef nods and takes off down the street.

Harry stares at the man across the street. The man stares back at Harry.

“What do you want?” Harry says at last.

“You,” the man replies, word muffled in the slowly falling snow.

“Why?” Harry asks, huffing through a sardonic laugh. “I’m nobody now.”

“You have never been nobody, no matter how hard you try,” the man answers, amused.

Harry purses his lips, annoyed.

The man crosses the street and Harry keeps affixed to where he is, despite his feet wanting to run. Harry holds himself stiffly, angrily. As the man nears, Harry can see his instincts were right.

It as if Harry has stepped back in time, back to when he was twelve years old. The man in front of him is clearly Tom Riddle, though this visage is older than his sixteen-year-old memory. Perhaps in his early thirties. It is strange, for there to be only the appearance of ten years between them, when Harry knows there are nearly sixty.

“You have been gone for a long time, Harry,” Tom drawls, drawing near into Harry’s personal space. Harry tilts his head up to look at him, glaring through his frozen eyelashes. Tom stops a foot away from him – too close too close – but Harry does not step back.

“Pochemu ty zdes'?” Tom Riddle says effortlessly, the Russian flowing from his mouth like a mother tongue. It takes Harry a moment to understand, to translate. It annoys him that Tom Riddle speaks flawless Russian, where Harry has been bumbling through it for nearly six months. Why are you here?

“Where else would I be?” Harry replies, shrugging. Harry peers up at Tom Riddle, wary. They have never been the type to engage in small talk.

“Du är saknad,” Tom says and Harry feels his eyebrows drawing together before translating. Swedish. You are missed. Harry spent a year in Sweden. He wonders how Tom knows.

“I don’t really care,” Harry grits out in English, beginning to get annoyed. What is Voldemort playing at?

“Tu ne veux pas revenir?” Tom then whispers, drawing ever closer until he’s nearly a hair’s breadth away.

Harry scrunches his nose. He’s never been good at French. Don’t you want to come back? Harry struggles to translate, frowning.

“Not really, no,” Harry replies stubbornly in English, refusing to let Tom Riddle intimidate him into backing up, into playing this stupid game.  

“Will you come with me?” Tom asks slyly, eyes glinting in the streetlight.

“No, you ass, I’m staying right here,” Harry snaps, annoyed. And it is then that he realises his mistake. Parseltongue.

Arms wrap around Harry with the speed of a striking viper, Harry inhaling sharply in surprise as Tom Riddle’s forehead is pressed against Harry’s own. Harry is pressed against the lithe, firm frame of Voldemort, the thought reeling him as he scrambles to grasp the situation.

“I thought so,” Tom whispers heatedly, victoriously. “You are not a Squib. No Squib could know my ancestral tongue. No Squib could still harbour my soul and survive.”

“Soul?” Harry repeats, flabbergasted. Tom Riddle is strangely warm where he’s pressed against Harry, their misting breath shared between them.

“You don’t know, do you?” Tom replies curiously, gazing at Harry as if he were a great gift, to be revered and treasured. He’s close – so close so close –

“I see you’re still as crazy as ever,” Harry says dryly, forcing his panic down. If he can ruffle Voldemort, he can escape him. It’s a song as old as time. Anger Voldemort and Harry has a chance of survival.

“Oh, Harry,” Tom tuts pityingly, uncharacteristically not taking the bait, pulling in Harry impossibly closer, “You have no idea, my little horcrux. You are mine.”

Harry shudders, something strange and foreign rising up in his chest. He closes his eyes, an old wound within him rearing its head. It feels like – like magic. The link between them glows for a moment, flaring. Harry hasn’t felt this in years. Power filters through his frame, revitalizing and welcome and endlessly warm. It feels like… Homecoming.

“You feel it too,” Tom whispers against Harry’s lips, so close they are brushing. “You feel it, Harry.”

“Yes,” Harry answers dazedly, warm and drugged by the swelling of magic in his soul. Something within him is reaching out, touching the bond between them. It is ecstasy, it is warmth, it is freeing.

“My equal,” Tom whispers against Harry’s lips, “My marked equal. Your soul is mine,” Tom breathes. His tone is reverent, possessive, wonderous, lost.

“Soul mine,” Harry repeats, the bond glowing brighter, warmer, stronger. “You won’t change me?” Harry asks, whispering into the darkness and light between them. “You won’t make me be someone I’m not? You won’t hurt me?” There’s an ache in his chest, a lonely child standing in a cupboard under the stairs. Harry knows Tom sees it, because there’s an image in Harry’s mind of a child standing in an orphanage, alone, lost, hurt. Empathy.

“Never,” Tom promises, a kiss pressed against Harry’s cold lips. “Come with me.” It’s not a request, it’s a proposal.

“Okay,” Harry breathes helplessly, unsure what he’s agreeing to and yet, despite it all, he lets Tom Riddle take him home. 

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