Stormseeker: Unwanted Destiny

"What are you reading, Harry?" Cassie asks, looking over at me on the train.

"Charms textbook," I reply.

Cassie snatches the book out of my hand. "Oh, no. You are not spending the entire holiday studying. I forbid it."

I snicker softly and take the book back to put it away. "Alright, alright..." I say reluctantly. "But if I fall behind in my classes, I'm going to blame you."

"Are you really having that much trouble?" Draco says, raising an eyebrow at me.

"Much as I try to make it appear otherwise, I actually have to work at things now," I say. "Like I said before, my knowledge of the classes beyond fourth year is scattered at best."

"Well, I'll help you with it," Cassie says. "You've just been spending so much time studying, between reading in the common room, dueling with me, and your sessions with Tom..."

"At least Moody seems to have eased off on me," I say.

"He's still watching you all the time," Draco says.

"Probably trying to keep an eye out for my safety or something," I say. "He tried to convince me to come to an Order safehouse for Christmas. Said my home wasn't safe. I refused."

"Maybe you should stop blowing off the Order all the time," Cassie says. "Humor them from time to time to make sure they don't get suspicious of you."

"Probably," I say, shrugging. "Right now, I just want to have a nice holiday."

"At least Slughorn isn't staying with us anymore," Cassie says. "I mean, not that I can complain about the Slug Club parties or anything..."

"But he's a little overenthusiastic?" Draco says wryly. "But you've still got the Heir of Atlantis staying with you."

I snicker in amusement. "She went from being 'that annoyingly smart Mudblood with a crush on you who is obsessed with house-elf rights' to 'the Heir of Atlantis', hmm?"

"Shut up," Draco says, smirking.

When we arrive back at Caer Danas, Sirius is eager to greet Cassie and me. "Finally, a break from dealing with Order crap."

"If you don't like doing it, why don't you quit?" I say.

"It's nothing to do with what I like or not," Sirius says. "Voldemort's bad news, and we've got to fight him, or we're all screwed."

"I can deal with him myself," I say, shrugging.

"By going to school and ignoring the Order?" Sirius says.

"We defended against an attack on Hogwarts itself on Halloween," I say.

"I didn't hear about that," Sirius says.

"Moody didn't say anything?" I say, raising an eyebrow.

Sirius shakes his head. "Maybe I'm just out of the loop."

I shrug. "Doesn't matter, anyway. Nothing really happened, so far as anyone else is concerned, thanks to the intervention of me and the Headmaster."

"Speaking of which," Sirius says. "Why is Headmaster Riddle living here again?"

"Do you want to tell him to leave?" I say. "I'll hex you if you try. He's more than welcome under my roof."

"It just seems, I don't know, a little weird," Sirius says.

"Quite a bit better than all of the people the Order had holed up here before," I say. "If I don't know the names of everyone staying in my house, something is wrong."

"I guess there's a point to that," Sirius says.

The next morning after breakfast, I find the door to the library locked. Frowning a little, I point my wand at it and murmur, "Alohomora," and quietly step inside.

Tom and Cassie are in the library, facing off from across a table. An old book lays open on the table between them. I relock the door and approach.

"What's going on here?" I say, peering between two fierce faces.

"Your girlfriend here stole from me," Tom says.

"I did not," Cassie says.

"Then explain why you have this," Tom says, pointing at the book. Upon closer inspection, I recognize it immediately as the Codex Veritatum.

"Erm," I say, "Cassie didn't steal that. I did."

"I told you," Cassie says, folding her arms across her chest and looking at Tom defensively.

"You did?" Tom says, looking at me.

I nod. "I took it from the Chamber of Secrets shortly after my most recent reset."

"You are a Parselmouth?" Tom hisses at me, and I blink at him for a moment. That sounded like English, except, not English. He definitely seemed to be hissing.

"Was that Parseltongue?" I say, raising an eyebrow.

"Yes," Tom says. "So you aren't a Parselmouth?"

"I wasn't at the time," I say. "I understood you just fine now, though. At the time, I only knew the word to get inside, 'open." I repeat the one word I knew before in a hiss, and to my ears, it sounds clearly understandable now.

"I see," Tom says.

"How can someone become a Parselmouth?" Cassie wonders.

"I have a theory, but we'll speak of this later, Lexen," Tom says.

"And it took you four years to notice that this book was missing from Slytherin's library?" I say. "Or even a year and a half since you took over as Headmaster?"

"I was otherwise occupied," Tom says. "And what have you been doing with it?" he directs to Cassie.

"I was studying it," Cassie says. "It's quite fascinating. It seems to suggest the existence of alternate universes and the potential of time travel."

Tom gives a nod. "I thought there was something in Slytherin's libary about that, hence why I was looking for it. Imagine my surprise to find it missing when I hadn't known there were any other Parselmouths around."

I snicker softly. "If there's something strange going on, it's probably somehow my fault, even if bizarrely indirectly sometimes."

Tom takes the book and says, "I'm going to go and study this in private. Lexen, do come and see me later, perhaps after dinner." He heads out of the room, leaving me alone with Cassie.

Cassie just shakes her head. "How did you become a Parselmouth? I always thought that was something you have to be born with."

"I'm not entirely sure," I say.

I suspect that, during the ritual that gave Tom some of my abilities, I gained some of his as well. So. Tom is immortal, and I get to speak to snakes. This doesn't really strike me as an even tradeoff. I might be offended about it, if I cared. As it is, I just find it kind of amusing.

"I should give him a piece of my mind for accusing me of stealing," Cassie says. "It's not like that book belonged to him in the first place."

"He actually is the Heir of Slytherin, though," I say. "So, technically, I suppose it is rightfully his."

"Oh, don't refute my indignity with logic," Cassie says, smirking. "It's impolite."

After dinner, I head over to Tom's room, and break through the Locking Charm with a muttered, "Alohomora." I head inside and point my wand at the door, and lock it again with a "Colloportus."

"Lexen," Tom says. "Didn't think anyone else was likely to be able to break that spell."

He's sitting on his bed, reading the Codex Veritatum casually, wearing pajamas and bunny slippers. It's a fairly embarrassing image, really.

"Do you really need to dress like that?" I say.

"I'm in the privacy of my own room," Tom says. "Why should I not?"

"You have bunny slippers!" I protest.

"They're made from real vorpal bunnies," Tom says.

"Vorpal bunnies?" I say, raising an eyebrow.

"Vicious things," Tom says. "They're even classified as danger level XXXXX. They can rip a wizard's throat out in an instant if you aren't careful."

"But... they're bunnies," I say.

"Looks can be deceiving," Tom says, grinning at me. "I made these myself. It was quite the battle."

I stare at him for a moment. "You know, I'm just going to take your word on that." I smirk.

"Now," Tom hisses. "It would appear that you have also gained some of my abilities. I suppose I should not be surprised. You can understand this? Can you speak it as well?"

"I can understand you," I say, frowning a little as I try to figure out how to reply in the snake language as well. "I'm not sure how I might speak in it. Is this working?"

Tom shakes his head. "English."

I try to focus a bit, imagining myself speaking to an actual snake, and thinking of the words I've heard spoken in Parseltongue before. "How about now?"

"Now you've got it," Tom hisses back.

"It seems really weird to be speaking a language I didn't learn," I hiss. "But wasn't this a hereditary power?"

"As I said, you probably gained it through your connection to me," Tom says, switching back to English.

"I wonder what other of my abilities you might have gained," I say.

"Your age-changing power, perhaps?" Tom says.

"Be careful with that, if you do try it out," I say. "It's a quick way to die if you go too far in either direction. I learned that the hard way." I shift around my own age a bit to demonstrate, giving a quick explanation of how it's done, and leave myself at twenty when I'm done.

Tom concentrates for a few moments, and slowly he seems to grow older. Not the rapid, almost intantaneous age shifting that I've gotten used to doing, but carefully controlling it. Then he grows younger again, years shedding from him a little more quickly, but still being cautious. After going down to about five years old, he returns back to the age of twenty or so again.

"The clothes don't change?" Tom says. "That could be inconvenient."

"That's why I bought clothes charmed to automatically adjust themselves," I say.

"I didn't realize you could kill yourself so easily," Tom says. "One wonders why you didn't do so in order to escape from Bellatrix's torment."

"I was weak, and couldn't concentrate," I say, looking at the floor. "Couldn't get into the right mentalstate, either. For a while there, I'd completely lost hope."

Tom gets up and comes over to me. "And when has despair ever solved anything?"

"I would have done anything to break the loop at that point," I say, giving him a hard look. "I even begged you to stop it as well as I could, but you just left me to it..."

"You had a lesson to learn," Tom replies.

"You planned it, didn't you," I say darkly, narrowing my eyes at him dangerously.

"I did," Tom admits.

"You lied to me!" I growl, grabbing him and pushing him against the wall. "You told me-- you told me that you hadn't planned that!"

"Had I spoken the truth, you would have attacked me," Tom says.

"You don't know that," I say. "I don't know that, either. Maybe I would, maybe I wouldn't."

"I wasn't going to take the chance," Tom says.

"And you're not afraid that I might do something to you now?" I snarl.

"You don't even have your wand out," Tom says. "You clearly aren't actually serious about that."

I sigh, pressing my palms against the wall at his sides. "I can't afford to hold a grudge against you. But I want to know why. Why did you do this to me? Tell me the truth."

"Are you certain that the truth is really what you want?" Tom asks.

"Absolutely," I say.

"Very well," Tom says. "I wanted you on my side, no matter what I had to do in order to gain your loyalty. But if I tortured you like that myself, you would merely hate me. Instead, I manipulated Bellatrix into doing so, thinking she was hurting you out of jealousy. I knew that, if pushed hard enough, you would find a way to kill her. Or alternatively, if a different set of circumstances arose, you might demand her death before you would serve me. I sacrificed a pawn to gain a queen."

My heart is pounding as I stare at him, gazing hard into blood red eyes, rage burning in my veins. "Of course," I say in a harsh voice. "I would appreciate, in the future, that if you want to hurt me, that you do so yourself."

"Now, you know my reasons," Tom says. "What are you going to do about it?"

I continue to fix my eyes upon his. I want to hurt him like never before. "That's it? Just an explanation. No remorse. No apologies."

"Would you accept them if I offered them?" Tom asks.

"Well, we're not going to find out, I guess, will we," I say bitterly.

"Then how about this?" Tom says. He leans down and plants his lips firmly on mine, putting his arms around me to hold me tightly as he kisses me passionately for a few moments.

I pull away with a bit of a struggle, and snap, "No. That's not good enough."

"No?" Tom says. He puts on a good mask, but I can't help but think he looks disappointed. Maybe even hurt. Well, it would serve him right.

"You owe me," I growl. "You owe me quite a fucking bit. And I will have my repayment."

"And what would you ask of me?" Tom says.

"I can't afford this," I say. "We have to be able to trust each other, even if no one else in the whole of the multiverse might be trusted. This is absurd."

"Is it?" Tom says. "I wanted to be certain of your loyalties."

I stare at him for a long moment. From a certain point of view, it makes sense. "Did it ever occur to you that you didn't have to do that?" I say quietly.

"Didn't I?" Tom says, raising an eyebrow.

"I'm a bloody Ravenclaw, remember?" I say. "If you'd offered me knowledge from the start, I would have been falling all over myself for it. I would kill to know half the things you know."

"And when you had learned everything you wanted to learn, what then?" Tom says. "Could I have trusted that you wouldn't have thought you had no further need of me, and destroyed me with the very knowledge I had given you?"

That makes me pause. "Point," I concede. "I would not have done that, but you would have no way of knowing that."

"The situation has completely changed now," Tom says. "Now, given our current circumstances, I will do anything in order to make you happy."

"It's not like I'm going to go out of my way to piss you off, either," I say. "I might think I hold all the cards, but I won't put it past you to figure out some way to possess me or something if I should anger you."

"True," Tom says.

I shake my head. "But let's not do that. Let's not turn existence into a constant series of negotiations, backstabbing, always wondering who can trust who and to what extent. I refuse to live like that. Things will be so much more pleasant if we can trust one another."

Tom says, "Trust isn't an easy thing for ones such as us."

"No shit," I say, sighing and rubbing my head. "What's done is done. I can change the past, but I can't change what I've experienced."

"I could always Obliviate you," Tom suggests.

I shake my head. "No way. No fucking way. I hate Obliviation. I would rather you torture me yourself than Obliviate me."

"Would you really?" Tom says, raising an eyebrow.

"Yes, and I know, I'm obviously insane," I say, smirking. I sigh again and step up close to him, and say more gently, "Especially when, as angry as I might have been, I still couldn't bring myself to hurt you."

Tom puts his arms around me, and I lean against him, allowing myself to be comforted, trembling a little. My own thoughts and emotions are so confused and complicated that I can't make sense of them myself.

"Damn it," I whisper. "Damn it, why don't I hate you? Why can't I hate you? You've done horrible things to me. You kidnapped me, held me prisoner, tortured me, manipulated me, had me tortured repeatedly..."

"It's not like I wanted to hurt you," Tom murmurs. "I just had to teach you a lesson."

I snort softly. "Merlin, we're both fucked up, aren't we." I laugh bitterly. "Sanity's a relative thing sometimes, isn't it."

"I'm as sane as I was when I was actually sixteen," Tom says.

I turn away, and go to look out the window, leaning against the wide windowsill. The air outside is lit by cold, bright sunlight, but there isn't any snow on the ground around here at the moment. Tom comes up and takes a seat on the windowsill next to me.

"I want you to bring Cassie in on this," I say, not looking at him. "I want to be able to travel the multiverse with her as well."

"I see," Tom says flatly.

"This is not negotiable," I say, turning to glare at him. "You owe me. I'm sick of seeing this stupid jealousy between you two."

"Fine," Tom says, a little roughly. "If that's how it must be, then so be it. If she's the one that you really want to be with, then I will content myself with merely gaining immortality from our deal."

"I didn't say that," I say.

"What do you mean?" Tom says.

I sit down and lean against the side of the window. "It's not like I don't actually want to be with you, too," I murmur.

"So, you want to travel the multiverse with me, exploring other worlds, gaining knowledge... you just are only actually interested in Cassie," Tom says.

I rub my head. "Damn it, Tom, that's not it at all." I lean close. "I... I do love you, Tom. I love both of you. And I would not wish to be without either of you. Can you understand that?"

Tom stares at me for a long moment. "You... aren't much of a believer in monogamy, are you."

"Is that a problem?" I ask.

"I'm just a little surprised, is all," Tom says, and laughs softly. "And here Cassie has been trying to 'win' your heart, and I've been thinking that I've already won, and you weren't even thinking on the same level at all, were you."

"I never wanted this to turn into any sort of stupid contest," I say. "And if Cassie isn't willing to accept that either, then so be it."

"I see," Tom says. "And who else have you been in love with, Lexen?"

"Hmm," I say, thinking for a moment. "Draco. Snape. Sirius. Katrina Krum. This one fellow in the last world I was in by the name of Trajkov."

"Really," Tom drawls.

"However, most of them weren't even interested in men, anyway," I say. "Especially not Katrina. Despite being married, for some reason."

"You were married?" Tom says, raising an eyebrow.

"It's a long story and wouldn't have made sense even if you'd been there," I say. "I know it certainly didn't to me."

"I'll take your word on that," Tom says.

I sigh. "So, what will it be?" I say.

"I might advise you against making too many bonds," Tom says. "Although they would not have the same negative effects of Horcruxes, too many of them might still wind up with unfortunate side effects that we cannot anticipate."

I give a nod. "You do make a good argument. I've run afoul of some magic I shouldn't have messed with myself, and I'm still not sure if it left any permanent damage on my mind. But I can be pretty sure that it changed me in some way."

"What's more, there could be the danger that if you form too many links, your own magic may not be able to pull all of those bound to you back," Tom says. "Spreading your time powers too thin, in effect. We know that one bond works, and it would be safest to stick with that."

"I'm not willing to accept that, however," I say. "Hmm. Nine of the number of power for Time Magic. Perhaps we could aim for eight bonds."

Tom puts his face in his palm. "That is exactly the sort of thinking that led me to destroying my own mind making multiple Horcruxes."

"Perhaps it's dangerous," I say. "But I'm willing to take the chance. You can keep an eye on me, and if it seems like it's pushing it too far, we can stop and maybe even sever some of the ones that were already made."

"Fine," Tom says. "Fine. Would you want to form bonds with all of those you mentioned before, then?"

"No," I say. "Certainly not. I haven't even met some of them in this life. But Cassie, definitely. I'd say, make sure that works out before trying to expand it any further."

"At least you have that much sense," Tom says. "Eight bonds..." He shakes his head and sighs. He grabs me and pulls me close with a fierceness that surprises me.

"You think this is a terrible idea, don't you," I say.

"Dark magic is never without risks," Tom says. "This could have incredible potential for power if it works out, but it also has incredible potential for disaster."

"I don't know how to make these bonds myself," I say. "I'm at the mercy of your judgment. If you think it's too risky, then I will have to content myself with what I have, and leave it at that."

Tom shakes his head. "No. I'm willing to risk it. I am... curious to see what might be accomplished with it myself."

"Shall we talk to Cassie?" I say.

"Let's talk to her in the morning," Tom whispers in my ear.

I turn to look at him, and he kisses me hard, pushing me down against the windowsill. Clearly, he has other ideas on how to spend the night.

In the morning, Tom and I come down to breakfast. Cassie looks up at us and says, "Good morning. What were you doing last night?" My face suddenly burns. "You need to work on the blushing thing." She snorts softly. "No wonder you didn't come back to your room last night."

"You were in my room last night?" I ask.

"I was waiting for you," Cassie says bitterly.

"Oh," I say. "I'm sorry."

"It's alright," Cassie says flatly. "If that's... if that's really what you want to do, then don't let me stop you."

"Cassie..." I say.

She shakes her head and goes to stalk out of the room.

"Cassie, wait!" I say, rushing after her and grabbing her arm.

Cassie shakes me off. "Thank you for reminding me why I never bothered with men."

"I think you would do well to listen to what he has to say," Tom says. "He refused to back down with regards to you, even when he knew that his own soul would be at risk."

"What?" Cassie says, stopping and looking at me.

"Why don't we go somewhere private?" I say. "There's a lot to talk about."

Cassie sighs. "Fine, I'll hear you out, if I must. But you'd better have a good explanation for this."

We head off to the library, and I seal the room to prevent any interruptions. I let out a heavy sigh.

"I'm listening," Cassie says, folding her arms across her chest and giving me a hard look.

"I love you, Cassie," I say.

"You could have fooled me, when you decided to hole up in Tom's room all night," Cassie says.

"I love Tom, too," I say.

Cassie rolls her eyes. "So which will it be? It would seem to me like you've already decided upon Tom instead of me."

"Cassie, I don't want to have to choose between you," I say. "Nothing would make me happier than to be able to explore the multiverse with all of those that I care about."

"Explore the... multiverse?" Cassie says.

"I'm not from this universe," I say. "I'm an interdimensional traveler. There's countless worlds out there, many of them very, very different from Earth, and I'd very much like to see all of them. But exploring them would be so much better with a group of people I love and trust at my side."

Cassie stares at me for a long moment. "Exploring... the multiverse..."

"I wanted to see what all of the different worlds might have to offer," I say. "Learn everything that I can. Some worlds know how to do things that would be completely unheard of on other worlds. There's so much to see, so much to do, so much to learn... it's a great adventure. And one that I'd very much love to share with you, Cassie."

"Tell me more about this exploring the multiverse thing," Cassie says.

I chuckle softly. I tell her about Torn Elkandu and the Nexus, and a little about the different worlds I've seen so far. I describe the Soul Bond ritual Tom came up with that would allow me to take more than one person with me when I die.

"Alright, I'm in," Cassie says. "I'm still not sure that I like the idea of having to share you with Tom, but I'll let that slide for the sake of exploring the multiverse."

"I'm glad to hear it," I say, going over to give Cassie a kiss.

"So, when can we do this ritual?" Cassie asks.

"I'm not sure," I say. "Let's ask Tom."

We go out and drag Tom into the library as well. "So, have you decided to come with us?" Tom asks.

"I'll do it," Cassie says. "For the record, I still don't like you, though."

Tom just laughs. "I'm just doing this to make Lexen happy."

"So when can we perform this ritual Lexen mentioned?" Cassie says.

"We should be able to do it at midnight on the Winter Solstice," Tom says. "It would be safer to wait for next Halloween though. I'm not certain that I've entirely worked out everything that needs to be done sufficiently."

Cassie gives a nod. "I can wait. Make sure you have everything down properly, and dark magic is stronger on Halloween than on the Solstice. But don't even think about leaving me behind. I... I want to see what's out there..."

"It'll be glorious," I say, beaming broadly.