Getting Harry Back

Chapter 5
To Hang Love Slowly, Pt. 2

...horror and doubt distract
His troubl'd thoughts; and from the bottom stirr
The Hell within him, for within him Hell
He brings, and round about him, nor from Hell
One step no more than from himself can fly....
John Milton
Paradise Lost, Book IV

"Now it begins," Voldemort whispered. "My conscious awakening to magic."

He frowned, and the flickering torches of the subterranean Great Hall made his frown even darker and more unsettled.

"Curious that this awakening, while leading to my third transformation, is not itself that transformation."

He felt Tom within him, strong and aching.

"No," he said, feeling that ache and its sadness, its grief, "that transformation came from Jim's betrayal, brought on by my betrayal of Jim."

"My betrayal first," he thought with hollow satisfaction.

..........

Tom and Jim were motionless in the orphanage's attic, both looking at the wand in the box with Tom's name on it that they'd just discovered.

Hesitantly and conscious of Jim watching him, Tom reached for the wand, then picked it up. The wand felt strangely warm in his hand, and Tom felt that warmth awaken something inside him. It felt familiar. It felt...

...like that power he'd used so long to hurt and kill.

Tom gasped, dropping the wand and box onto the floor.

"Tom? You all right? What's wrong, chap?"

Tom turned his head and saw Jim's face, worried for him. He couldn't speak.

Jim's arm went around him. "Here, let's sit you down. You've gone all peaky."

Tom gave a big sigh and nodded, grateful for Jim's arm, more grateful for Jim's caring.

For several minutes, the two boys sat quietly on an old trunk. Tom closed his eyes, though he wasn't thinking. He couldn't think yet, he was too dazed. He just felt Jim's arm, Jim's love, and drank them in while waiting for his mind to return.

Finally Jim said, "Want me to go for the nurse?"

Tom shook his head, sighed again, and then opened his eyes.

"No. Don't need that. Just... just give me a moment."

"Sure, Tom. Whatever you say."

Late afternoon sun filtered through the grimy windows, showing dust motes floating in the still, musty air. Outside, they could hear other children playing. Several floors below, they heard kitchen noises, and smelled their almost-ready supper.

Tom leaned forward to get up, and felt Jim's arm around him tighten. They stood up together. He could feel Jim watching him, though Tom's attention was on the floor, on the wand sitting in a pool of faded sunlight as if it were glowing.

The boys stood quietly together, then Jim's arm left Tom, though not his caring.

"Going to be all right?"

Tom turned to face him, though his eyes felt reluctant to leave the wand. He gave Jim a small smile:

"Bit better now. Think I'll be fine."

Jim looked carefully into Tom's eyes, then down to the wand, and back to Tom's eyes.

"Maybe best we get you away from here, eh?"

Tom nodded again, glanced over at the wand, then back at Jim. "Right you are."

The two left the attic, re-locking the door and leaving the box's clutter and wand on the floor.

Tom didn't sleep that night, not that he'd expected to. He knew that he had to go back, and go back alone. Tom had been grateful that Jim hadn't pressed him about what happened. Jim sensed Tom wasn't ready to talk, and he accepted that. Tom could feel Jim's worry, but he knew that Jim would follow Tom's lead on talking or not talking.

Tom was grateful because... Well, first because he was ashamed, ashamed of that power because of what he had done with it. He could never tell Jim.

But he also knew there were answers in that box and its papers, and even more in that wand. Answers he had to know. Answers, maybe, he had to keep secret. Even from Jim, perhaps especially from Jim, because of what Jim might think of him.

So after Tom heard Jim sleep-breathing, he sneaked out of bed and up the stairs to the attic. For many minutes, he stood in front of the door before unlocking it and going in, setting his candle on a shelf.

For many more minutes, he stared at the wand on the floor.

Finally he bent down and picked it up, feeling again that warmth, that awakening power. He firmed his jaw and waved the wand. Instantly, sparks flew out, and Tom dropped the wand again.

"Good. Very good."

Tom froze, then whirled.

There, not ten feet away, was an enormous green snake, its triangular head and red eyes pointing toward him.

"I knew you'd come back," it hissed, "and alone."

Tom blinked his eyes and shook his head, but inside he already knew that the snake and its voice were quite real.

"I have so much to tell you," it continued, "about who you are, and where you came from."

The snake flicked its tongue.

"And what you're capable of."

..........

Who first seduc'd them to that fowl revolt?
Th'infernal Serpent; he it was, whose guile
Stird up with Envy and Revenge, deceiv'd....
John Milton
Paradise Lost, Book I

Nagini lifted her head and turned to Voldemort, flicking her tongue, tasting for reactions. Without thinking, Voldemort, too, opened his mouth and tasted her smile and curiosity.

"Nagini, my darling," he hissed, "have you grown sentimental, too?"

"Our first meeting," she hissed in return, "a special time. Such an honor for me to be the instrument of your awakening."

Voldemort tasted her... not just pleasure, though that was part of it. But also satisfaction, deep satisfaction, and other feelings so serpentine that he had no words for them, even in Parseltongue. He could only recognize them in her and, increasingly, in himself.

At this Voldemort, too, felt satisfaction, though unlike Nagini's, his satisfaction was tainted. He felt in Tom and, especially, in Tommy, a shudder of irrepressible fear and revulsion. Even in himself, he, Voldemort, noticed a certain... disquiet?

He decided, once again, that this was merely part of reliving all these transformations, so exhausting, so draining and uneasy-making. He returned his attention to what he thought was more urgent business, the reliving:

..........

"You have a visitor, Tom," the orphanage Headmaster said, inviting him into his dingy study.

While it was Tom's first visitor ever, he wasn't surprised. Nagini had told him what to expect.

A tall, thin man, with an enormously long auburn beard, smiled at him.

"Hello, Tom. My name is Dumbledore, Albus Dumbledore."

The man turned to the Headmaster. "If we may have some privacy?"

Tom noticed that the Headmaster's face looked somewhat vacant, as if in a trance. While Nagini hadn't told him, Tom could guess what it meant.

"Of course, sir," the Headmaster replied, "of course," as he nodded and turned to leave the room.

* * * * * * * * * *

"But you can't! You can't leave me here alone, Tom, you can't!"

Tom had never felt so many intense feelings come from Jim - all of them awful, fearful and accusing.

"Jim, I've got to, I have no choice. Even though I didn't know, it was arranged by my mum before I came here."

Tom felt like shite, complete shite. He knew he was betraying Jim, betraying and abandoning him. And Tom knew in his heart, with hideous clarity, what he was abandoning Jim to.

Jim's face, at first stunned, now mirrored what Tom felt in him. And Tom could feel another feeling emerge and grow: rage.

"Tom? Tom! TOM!"

Tom hung his head in shame.

"Look at me! Look me in the eye and tell me that you've leaving me! Look me in the eye!"

A long, horrible silence.

Tom now felt Jim's love crumble, first into emptiness, then into... hate!

Tom raised his head, shocked. Jim's love, which had nourished Tom and given him life and hope, was almost completely gone, swept away by Jim's impending loss, his abandonment, and by all Jim's previous losses, which now returned in full. In its place came hate. As Jim felt stripped of love, hate was the only thing strong enough to keep him standing, to keep him breathing.

When Jim saw Tom's eyes, he knew that Tom was leaving him.

For a long time, the two boys were motionless, Tom locked in horror and shame; Jim locked in hate, pure and love-abandoned rage and hate.

"Fine," Jim spoke quietly. "Go then. And be damned."

..........

What though the field be lost?
All is not lost; the unconquerable Will,
And study of revenge, immortal hate,
And courage never to submit or yield....
John Milton
Paradise Lost, Book I

"Transformation three." Voldemort smiled. "The love of friends is not to be trusted." He could feel life seeping away from that Potter-love, he could feel it strangling, almost in death throes.

"One more transformation," he whispered, "just one more".

..........

"Can I sit here?"

Tom had searched and searched for a vacant seat on the Hogwarts Express. As a first year, knowing nobody, he felt awkward, even intimidated. While there might have been room in some compartments, there was no obvious space, and he hadn't the nerve to say anything; he'd just moved on. Finally he'd found an almost empty compartment, but he decided to ask, just to be sure.

A small boy, probably another first year and the compartment's only occupant, had been looking out the window. When he turned, Tom gasped. Messy black-black hair, like Jim's.

The boy shrugged and smiled shyly. "Yes, if you want."

Tom could feel that the boy was pleased to see him. He, like Tom, was feeling scared and lonely.

The boy held out his hand. "My name's Potter, Brian Potter."

Tom took his hand and felt his own shy smile, just as scared, but not quite so lonely, or at least hopeful of being not quite so lonely.

"Riddle. Tom Riddle."

Brian looked at Tom with the same wide-eyed openness that Tom had so loved in Jim. "Glad you came. I'm from Wales -- actually, before that, from Ireland. Anyway, for years we've lived up in the mountains, and I don't know a soul on the train. D'you?"

Tom shook his head. "'Til a month ago, didn't know I was a wizard. Didn't even know there were such things."

Brian's face smiled like the sun. "Brilliant! You grew up with Muggles. Me, too. That is, me mam and dad, they're magical. But no one else around was. All me chaps, they was Muggles."

Brian's face saddened. "Miss 'em, I do. Even though me mam and dad told me I'll make lots of new friends, I still miss 'em. Y'know?"

Tom thought of Jim. His face saddened, too, and he nodded. "Yeah. Know what you mean."

But Tom could feel a hope inside both him and Brian, a powerful hope that maybe, just maybe they'd already each found a friend.

By the time the scarlet engine arrived at Hogwarts, Tom and Brian felt inseparable.

* * * * * * * * * *

"Gryffindor!" the Sorting Hat cried, its voice reverberating in the Hogwart's Great Hall.

Tom watched as his friend, Brian, walked over to the Gryffindor table, looking back several times with a scared and hopeful smile. Tom could feel Brian's deep want for Tom to join him.

The two boys had stood together in line, Potter and Riddle, sharing excitements, fears and hopes, most of all the hope they'd be sorted into the same House.

"Riddle, Tom," announced Dumbledore.

Tom took a deep breath, crossed the dais, picked up the hat on the stool and put it on.

"Please make it Gryffindor," he thought, "Please. Please."

Tom felt the hat's surprise, then heard its incredulous response:

"Gryffindor? Never felt a more Slytherin Slytherin. You're pure Salazar or I'm the Headmaster's nightcap."

"But...but my friend, you put him in Gryffindor."

Tom felt the hat probing him in deep and indefinable ways. When it spoke, Tom felt its careful tone, as if perched on a precipice.

"Slytherin will better help you achieve your ambitions."

It paused.

"Are friends more important to you than your ambitions?"

Tom took that question inside himself. He knew that nothing less than complete honesty would serve.

"Are friends more important to me?" he thought.

The warmth of Brian and with that, the warmth of Jim floated in, the most beautiful feelings, the happiest in so many years. But with Jim's warmth also came feelings of Tom's own shame at abandoning Jim, then feelings of Jim's hate. His heart, so open and happy from the train ride, again turned cold and hard.

He sighed.

"Friends are more important," he thought hollowly, "but I trust my ambitions more."

Tom heard the hat sigh, too, and with his special gift, Tom felt its disappointment, even sadness. A disappointment and sadness he shared.

"I thought so," the hat replied simply, dully.

Another pause, and Tom could feel the hat checking him one last time to be sure. Then it shouted:

"Slytherin!"

Tom heard the Slytherin table burst into applause as he slowly removed the hat. But Tom's first look was to the Gryffindor table. There, on Brian's face, he saw a wide-eyed sadness mirrored on his own face. It took walking halfway to the Slytherin table, and several back glances at Brian, before Tom had his face solemnly ordered to meet his new, more appropriate House.

As he arrived, a tall and older student with straight brown hair stood to greet him. Tom noticed that the other Slytherins watched that student deferentially. The tall student smiled at him, not warmly but appraisingly. Tom could feel distant, calculating reserve, searching for weakness and advantage. "Welcome to Slytherin, Tom. I'm Jeremy, Jeremy Flint. Here, sit by me."

When they were seated, and ostensibly watching the next student on the dais, Jeremy said, casually:

"I'm from Kent, near Canterbury. Where are you from, Tom?"

Feeling Jeremy's stealth, Tom was alert, but he, too, answered with a casual voice. "Salisbury."

"Ah," Jeremy said, "beautiful country, and so near Stonehenge. The wizarding community around there is the oldest in England - only a couple of communities in Ireland are older. Have your people lived there a long time?"

"Actually," Tom replied, "I grew up in an orphanage, not far from the Cathedral."

"Oh," said Jeremy, "how sad, how very sad."

Tom felt no sadness in Jeremy. Indeed, he felt even more stealth.

"Do you know," Jeremy said with no change in casualness, "anything about your parents?"

Tom felt the entire table waiting for his answer, predator-like.

Tom also felt, within himself, all his own predator instincts reawaken with a relief and their own smile.

"Be it ever so humble," came the thought.

That part of Tom was feeling very much at home.

"Some," Tom lied casually. "A letter from my mother, who died shortly after my birth, said that both she and my father, who is also dead, were both magical."

Tom felt a wave of sympathy from several housemates, and he wondered how he could use it. From others, he sensed their feelings of how this information could be used for their own advantage. Tom knew that these students would bear the most careful watching.

..........

Voldemort sighed, and gave a hollow chuckle.

"Close, very close. And not yet secure."

He could feel what was coming, and braced himself for his last and, in some ways, most severe test.

..........

During the first week of classes, Tom and Brian discovered, initially to their delight, that Slytherin and Gryffindor shared double Transfiguration classes, under the same teacher who had met him at the orphanage -- Professor Dumbledore. They immediately sat together, chattering away about classes and Houses, and arranging a time to meet, the next day.

That evening, after supper, when Tom returned to the Slytherin dungeons, he found Jeremy waiting for him in the common room.

"I hear you were sitting with Brian Potter, a Gryffindor, in Transfiguration."

Tom felt Jeremy's suspicious menace. He knew, instantly, that all further contact with Brian would have to be in secret.

And Tom felt, in his heart, that he was slowly becoming, not entirely to his liking, more and more Slytherin.

* * * * * * * * * *

At breakfast early in the second week, Tom was startled to receive an owl. By that time, of course, he knew what owls were, but he also knew that he wouldn't receive any. There was no one to send him one.

Apprehensively he took the message from the leg of the large grey owl and opened it:

Tom -

I'll meet you outside the Slytherin dungeons at eight tonight. Please be there.

-- Brian

Tom was startled again. The location of the Slytherin dungeons was a closely guarded secret. How did Brian know where they were? And how did Brian expect to safely meet him without the entire House knowing, and probably transfiguring him into something unspeakable?

But at 8 p.m., Tom slipped out of the Slytherin common room, giving an excuse of going to the library. He glanced nervously around, saw nobody, and took up a standing post in the most secluded, or more accurately, the least obvious spot, a somewhat darker corner. There he waited, feeling very much on edge.

"Tom."

He jumped at the whisper and looked around. He saw nobody, but as he calmed down, he felt Brian, Brian's feelings of devilment, excitement and happiness.

"Alright, Brian," he whispered, "I know you're nearby, even if I can't bloody see you. What's going on?"

Suddenly Brian appeared, two feet from his side. Tom jumped again.

Brian laughed quietly.

Tom stared: "How...?"

"Invisibility Cloak, chap. They're pretty rare, but me uncle on me mam's side, he weaves 'em, he has the knack. And Mam and Dad, they got one for me, 'cause some of the Muggles who lived nearby, they could get a bit nasty, at times."

Brian smiled broadly. "Get under and let's kip outa here before anyone sees, and get to somewhere we can talk."

So began a rousing secret friendship. Several nights a week, Brian would pick up Tom, and they would prowl the castle and the grounds, making as much high mischief as possible. Neither had ever had such a good friendship, a friendship that became closer, and more boy fun, for its secretiveness.

By year's end, they'd visited every room in the Castle. By the end of their second year, they'd seen every beast in the Forbidden Forest. In their third year, they'd expanded their carousing to Hogsmeade, breaking into all the shops, and in their fourth year, they'd started to explore the houses.

One unseasonably warm night just before the summer of their fourth year1, after first making off with a bottle of Old Ogden's Firewhiskey from the Three Broomsticks, getting drunker than ever before and feeling little-boy-like, Tom and Brian decided to do a bit of peeping. During their first year's exploits, they'd done a spot of girl's dorm peeping -- Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs. But that held little interest for either boy once their curiosity was satisfied and the novelty and snickering wore off. Since then, their pranks had sometimes been, as boy's pranks will be, tinged with sex or at least toilet humor, such as taking the Potion mistress's considerable bra and placing it on a suit of armor right outside the Great Hall. But in general, they kept themselves, by preference, to asexual mayhem.

"Less try here firss, Tom," Brian slurred, nodding to a house next to the tavern.

Both boys were staggering, barely able to keep under the cloak and constantly bumping into each other. Tom had noticed, not for the first time, that he rather liked bumping into Brian. Nor did Brian seem to mind bumping, not at all. He seemed to bump as much as Tom. And that night, they were both constantly bumping.

Tom giggled his agreement, and they crept to an open back window and peered in.

There, two male wizards in their twenties, on a night too warm for sheets, were tenderly, lovingly and nakedly embracing.

For several minutes, both boys stared wide-eyed and entranced, dry-mouthed and motionless.

When younger, of course, Tom and Brian had occasionally engaged in mutual boy sexual horseplay, as was common with their age, class and situation. But as they'd grown older, they'd grown, as boys often did, more private and detached, whether because of fear since sex had become less playful and more intense, or because of fear for what was being awakened.

Now as they saw those young men not only having sex but making love, deep and beautiful love, they first knew what they'd never before dreamed. And with that knowledge, whatever had slumbered within them stirred. As they turned and looked into each other's eyes, it roused itself and became fully awake. Though they neither spoke nor thought any words, they both knew that this, what they felt inside themselves, was no mere randiness, though that was there, too, strong and with the alcohol adding its own potent drive.

They no longer looked, but searched each other with their eyes, fearfully, hopefully, longingly. And finding what they sought, they leaned toward each other, still searching, still fearful, yet finding more, until they found each other's lips and searched them even more deeply, losing themselves and finding the other, then finding themselves again, all in their kiss.

And with their kiss, their virgin kiss, their friendship and their lives were changed in wonderment of their shared love.

Leaving, that summer, especially pained Tom. While before term's end, they'd been together several more times in their new, tender and exciting ways, they hadn't talked about their changes, though Tom clearly felt them, both in himself and in Brian. Neither boy knew what to say.

They certainly knew of boys having sex, as did all boys living apart from families and among other boys. They also knew that theirs was not just sex. But their world failed to give them words or even openness to talk of what they felt. Their world failed to give them guides, in story or in older boys or men whom they could ask or watch and follow. No, instead their world gave these young awakening boys only a wordless fear, tinged with shame, that told them without speaking - always the most potent telling - that they must keep hidden. Not the playful hidden of their Slytherin-Gryffindor friendship and their middle-of-the-night pranks, a hidden they could deliciously share together. This, their love, was a gnawing hidden that ate away at the beauty they felt, that insidiously sought to taint what they knew, in their boy hearts, was right and natural and them.

So both were terrified of what this meant, and that terror kept them silent, hidden from each other and from themselves. But still, despite the terror, despite the awful hiddenness and the wordless cloud of shame, both boys knew they were in love, first love.

Tom's summer was more miserable than ever before. Again, he was cut off from the magical world, and he returned to Jim's hate, which grew more bitter every year. But being just in love, and with no way to know how Brian was feeling, Tom's summer also lurched through an endless cycle of agonies, fears, and hideous emptinesses, longings and despairs.

At summer's end, Tom manipulated things to arrive at Platform 9¾ four hours early.

And found Brian already there.

And found, even better, their love was still shared. If anything, it had grown.

Fifth year started like nothing Tom had ever dreamt possible. He was in young love, and his love loved him.

..........

He, himself, groaned, and as he groaned he felt the structure of Voldemort shake, though not yet crumble. That would happen, and soon.

"It would have to be love coming through his grandson," he thought. He sensed Voldemort using his own hate to bolster himself against the despair he felt from Tom and the howling agony he felt from Tommy.

"Brian awakens all pre-transformation feelings, he destroys all their protections."

A weakened and sad and hating Voldemort-almost-Tom sighed.

"He always did."

He felt Voldemort-almost-Tom's face covered with tears, and he knew that these tears would keep flowing until after it was done, long after.

..........

Tom could feel it in Brian - his fear, his paralyzing fear.

Autumn 1942: the TriWizard Tournament, held at Hogwarts, brought an influx of students from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang, both now in lands overrun by the Nazis. There, too, in those foreign lands, the power of the Dark Lord, Grindelwald, had also reached its height and held sway. So war and war's ideals came forcefully into Hogwarts.

Especially war's ideal of purity. There had always been talk of pureblood and Muggle- born, traced to many generations. Slytherin itself was founded on pureblood. But now pureblood was not enough. Issues of race were also hotly debated, and sexuality.

Of race, there were many views, each righteously held, especially within Durmstrang, where every nationality claimed pride of place, often to the extreme devaluing of the others. But within Slytherin and Durmstrang, there was no dispute of the racial outcasts - Jews and those Hogwarts and Beauxbaton colonials from Asia, India and, especially, Africa, particularly, extremely, when combined with Muggle-born or "half-breed".

And there was also no open dispute about sexuality. None.

Shortly after the students from the other schools arrived, students from Muggle families were harassed, at first verbally, then physically, escalating until two Hufflepuffs, one an Indian colonial, were severely beaten.

To much Slytherin and Durmstrang grumbling, strict rules were announced, including threats of Veritaserum, expulsion and closing the Tournament.

For a month, things seemed to settle, though within Slytherin, there were rumors of two 5th year boys who were caught in flagrante delicto and who had to be rescued by the Housemaster. They chose to leave House and school.

Then a pureblood white Ravenclaw boy and a Muggle-born ColonialBlack Gryffindor boy were found tortured to death and mutilated in circumstances suggesting that they'd been caught having sex.

The Tournament was immediately cancelled, and Veritaserum uncovered two Slytherins and three Durmstrangers, all of whom were sentenced to Azkaban. The aftermath left Hogwarts aflame with terror, hate, talk of revenge, and an unbridgeable chasm between Slytherin and the other Houses.

Brian's fear and Tom's came when they had almost been caught. Not caught in pranks - that had happened and was an expected occasional cost of their escapades. They were careful that only one was caught at a time. One of them always stayed beneath the Invisibility Cloak. So their Slytherin-Gryffindor friendship was never discovered. But getting caught in pranks, while infrequent, was nothing.

Tom and Brian had almost been caught not only in sex, but in love.

"Me parents, they'd disown me," Brian said, "and all me other chaps."

Tom nodded. While he had no parents, his House would have done the same.

"But, Tom, that's not what scares me. Hard as it would be, that I could face."

"What then?"

"You."

"Me?"

"Yes, Tom, you. That's what scares me - what'd happen to you. Alone in Slytherin, they'd kill you, you know they would. In a heartbeat."

Tom stared at Brian, seeing and feeling not just love, but sacrificing love.

"Tom, I will not be the cause of your death."

"But.... But what about us?"

"Yeah, that's the point, isn't it? What about us? What are we, Tom?"

Tom lowered his head. He could feel Brian looking at him. He could also feel his own shame.

"Tom. Look at me."

Tom slowly raised his head, already feeling Brian's determination.

"I'll not have you ashamed of us, Tom, I'll not have it. What are we? You know as well as I, though we've not had words about it."

Both boys stared at each other. Tom couldn't speak; Brian did:

"We're in love, Tom."

Tom froze, his face in pain.

"Tom," Brian said, putting his hand on Tom's cheek, "I love you."

Brian gave a small smile, and Tom saw the frightened, open boy he'd met on the Hogwarts Express.

Brian continued: "And whether you say it or not, I know you love me."

Tom felt his mouth and eyes move into his own small smile and, almost against his will, his head nodded ever-so-slightly.

Gently, tenderly, Brian gave Tom a simple kiss, which, after pulling back, broadened both their smiles. Then Tom saw Brian's eyes grow sad.

"I love you, Tom, and I won't ever be the cause of your death."

Tom felt Brian's terror and determination. He also felt his own terrors.

"So you have a choice, Tom."

Tom frowned, alert.

"You can join me in Gryffindor, or we can join another House together. Or...."

Brian swallowed and firmed his jaw, though not his eyes or his heart.

"You can stay in Slytherin, and we'll stop seeing each other."

Tom felt his own horror as he felt Brian's utter determination, pleading and... love. Brian's love had not gone away; unlike Jim, Brian's love stayed and was strong.

"I want you to join me, Tom. With everything inside me, I want us to be together. And for that, for you, for us, I'll leave my family and my House. I'll...." He stopped and swallowed. "I'll even leave school, I'll leave Hogwarts with you." Brian looked even more determined, even more sad and loving.

"But I will not be your death."

Tom couldn't think.

Brian brought up his other hand, and now cupped Tom's face, giving him another simple kiss.

"Know that whatever you decide, Tom, whatever happens, I love you."

He paused.

"And I always will."

Tom saw Brian's tears, and felt his own.

And he felt Brian's love.

Tom never felt Brian's love turn to hate. Even when Brian stopped seeing him after Tom chose to stay in Slytherin. Even when Tom and Brian went out with girls, Brian falling in love, Tom settling for sex, much sex, with many girls. Even when Tom pursued the Dark Arts, and became, more and more, Voldemort.

Tom always felt Brian's love, and he grew to hate it. He hated it more than Jim's hate. For once he turned firmly to the Dark Arts, Tom learned to feed on hate, even more than fear. Hate nourished better, because it was stronger, and there was always fear underneath the hate, as a kind of dessert.

But Brian's love, his enduring love....

Brian's love kept calling him back from Voldemort, calling him back to Tom.

And Brian's love was always there. Even that night, decades later, when Tom - he could never stay Voldemort when directly facing Brian's love - when Tom, not Voldemort, killed Brian.

Afterwards he wept in sadness and shame, and for many weeks, he lurched between Voldemort, Tom and Tommy, no longer in control of who he was.

..........

So farwel Hope, and with Hope farwel Fear,
Farwel Remorse: all Good to me is lost;
Evil be thou my Good....
John Milton
Paradise Lost, Book IV

He sighed.

Now was the most crucial, the most vulnerable time.

He felt himself anchorless and awash in strong flows of Voldemort, Tom and Tommy, none stable or secure. He felt himself in danger of drifting and becoming lost.

Now, now was the time of renunciation.

He closed his eyes.

"Renounce it, renounce love, you fool! You know you must!"

"But why must I keep renouncing it? And why is renouncing always so hard, so very hard?"

"Renounce it! However often, however hard, it's the only way. All else is madnesss and weakness, loss of power and control."

"But why?"

"Renounce!"

"Why?"

"Renounce!"

After a long pause, he sighed and felt his face filled with tears, which he ignored. He went into himself, hesitating only slightly before donning, again, the thick hide of cold, hard hate. He gathered his will. For this transformation, this one more than any of the others, demanded all his will. Indeed, it required all the will he could grasp, some not his own, though he did not know whose.

He opened his eyes and saw the empty, dimly lit Hall. He felt himself breathing heavily.

"I...."

"Am...."

He closed his eyes, took another deep breath and, with pure and agonized will, forced it out, to completion:

"Lord Voldemort!"

Curled at his feet, Nagini lowered her head and smiled.

Love was truly hanged and dead.

At least for now.