The Sun Sets Twice Again

Chapter Eighteen

The room again. It felt as if they had been holed up in this room for half of forever, trying to work things out. There was nothing to work out, really, nothing that they could change, that they could explain away any better than they already had, so they worked on things that were completely non-consequential like charms and transfiguration and potions in the room next to this one. Their own little world. Even he was getting restless. Harry was acting like a caged animal.

"Harry, please stop pacing before I bind you to the bloody chair."

Harry glared at him, but stopped walking back and forth across the stone floor.

"Why don't you go flying?"

Harry muttered something that sounded like 'my arse hurts' but replied, "I don't feel like flying right now. That's all I've done for days."

Tom nodded. That was true enough. A couple of days before he'd even dragged himself out into the sunlight to watch Harry for awhile. Just because he couldn't fly, and he fully believed he was never meant to leave the ground on a broom ever, didn't mean he couldn't see the attraction of it, or that he couldn't tell that Harry was a very, very good flier.

"You never talk about yourself," Harry said suddenly, sitting down on the end of the bed.

Tom nearly choked on the sweet he had been sucking on. When he had recovered he said, "What?" in the most incredulous tone he could manage.

"What do I know about you, really? A name and that you're nice to me most the time and that you don't seem to have a problem with being attracted to a guy and that you seem to have this horribly annoying ability to read my mind. That's all things attached to me, though. Well, except you're horrible on a broom."

"See, you know a lot about me." A bloody lot more than I wish you did, actually.

"That's not a lot. I don't know anything about you. I don't understand you at all," Harry said insistently.

"You want to understand me? You want us to discuss our feelings? You want to get to know each other and see if we're bloody compatible or something? I like boys but I'm not a fucking girl. You know enough about me already. Or, here's random information: my favourite colour is black. I like food and I'm really not that picky about what the food is, so long as it's disease-free and relatively fresh. I love magic, all magic, and I'm not really discriminatory on the type. You already know I can't fly on a broom for my life. Oh, yeah, I can talk to snakes but I bet you figured that one out already. I don't like to lose. I don't like Malfoys. And Albus Dumbledore is a manipulative old bastard a good part of the time but I have to respect him for that at least. There, that's plenty about me. Have you had dinner yet?"

"That's not what I meant. I mean, stuff like...like how was your childhood? What were you like growing up? What made you like you are?"

"Bad. Alone. Pain. The end. It's over, Harry, and I don't want to fucking talk about it. I don't ask you about your childhood, do I?"

"No, just every other personal question you can think of."

Tom paused, considering this. So, Harry wanted to talk. This is what he'd been asking for, in a way, wasn't it?

"Fine. But if you want to have some great discussion about childhood pain and misery, I need a drink first."

Harry looked surprised and Tom laughed.

"Alcohol is a suppressant. This isn't the sort of conversation I'm willing to have while in control of my faculties. So, if you want this particular digression into memories to happen then it calls for a drink-- for both of us-- and a secure location. Otherwise, back off."

"Er...where are we going to get alcohol?" Harry asked quietly.

Tom didn't both masking his surprise at the fact Harry seemed to be considering breaking the rules and agreeing to drinking at all. Trying to get out of it with logic, sure, but still considering it.

"You're going to go up to the kitchen and get some fruit juice. I can do the rest."

It was a handy little skill to have, turning juice into wine, though Hogwarts generally had wards to prevent such a thing. That wouldn't matter in his secret room, as he'd discovered in third year. Since then he had occasionally offered something to drink to others; people tended to run their mouths when drunk and, well, information was power.

His own experiences with being drunk weren't exactly pleasant. He'd done it once to see what it'd be like and had ended up coming on to a fifth year Ravenclaw boy he had had a crush on. That'd turned out well enough, he supposed, except for the fact that waking up the next morning in the Ravenclaw dorms had been painful and confusing. The second time he'd done it just because he thought it might help him forget, to deaden things, to stop time for a bit. That'd actually worked, but he'd had so much he couldn't remember a thing he'd done that night. At least he had learned his limits then, and had done it where he wouldn't fuck any random person who happened by.

That, of course, was why he would insist they drink in his room, under his wards, and he'd make damn sure he didn't have enough to do something incredibly stupid and scare off Harry. Just enough that he could talk about this without making things explode. Fucking curious kitten.

"All- alright."

"We're not doing it here. I don't want Dumbledore finding us because...well, do you honestly have any interest in explaining why exactly we're drinking? He'd probably throw me out for corrupting you."

"Where--"

"I'll show you. It's nearby. I'm warning you now, so you can't claim ignorance later, that the room is very heavily warded by me. You won't be able to leave without my releasing you. You would, for all intents and purposes, be locking yourself, alone, in a room with me without telling anyone where you were going, and you won't be able to get out."

Harry looked satisfyingly apprehensive about that particular bit of information. Good. If he was baring his soul here then the least bit Harry could do was be nervous.

"Still in?" he asked.

Harry nodded. "Grape juice, right?"

Give the boy a house point. No, actually don't. Gryffindor doesn't need house points.

"Yes. Grape juice. Enough for both of us to have a few glasses worth."

"Okay."

"See you in a few minutes."

Tom sighed. And onward we march... "See you."

* * *

This was one of his more idiotic ideas, Tom decided. First showing Harry his room, the one place in the entire castle that was exclusively his, and locking himself in there with Harry with the sole intention of getting drunk, or at least very, very tipsy, and then going over the childhood he would do better to forget ever happened.

Only when they were settled in, Harry in the desk chair and him sitting on the bed with his back against the wall, drinks in hand did Tom let himself consider what he was going to say.

He was tempted to ask Harry if he was sure he wanted to do this, but refused to do so out of pure stubbornness. There was truly no describing how little he wanted to be having this conversation at the moment, or any moment, but he had agreed to it. He knew why he had agreed to it as well. Harry needed to understand him. Nothing would work if Harry didn't understand him well enough to trust what he saw and Tom didn't want to be fighting this battle forever. If that took...if that took describing things he wished had never happened...then that's what it took. He could deal with that. Hell, he made a lifestyle of 'dealing with that'.

Tom's cup of wine was half-empty already. Harry had taken only a sip of his and made a face. Tom wasn't much for the taste of wine himself, but he wasn't sure if flavouring charms would change the potency or not and he wasn't willing to risk that.

"What do you want to know, Harry?"

"About you. Tell me about when you were little."

Tom nodded, trying to figure out what to say, and took another sip of his drink. Maybe he could work his way up to things...

"God doesn't create things that aren't meant to be, Harry. So, everything that is has been and should be. Everything is truth, in its own way, even magic. Even the 'unnatural'. God isn't benevolent or vengeful...He just is. I am what I am and I have to accept that. The world would be better if people accepted things like that. I know right from wrong, not socially or even necessarily morally, but I know, and I have to live by that because it's true. It's...everything. Truth is everything. That's God. But, truth is rarely pretty. Rarely, if at all."

Harry was nodding, looking more confused than not and like he wanted to ask a question, but he didn't say anything. Tom was glad of that; he didn't really want this to be an inter-active conversation.

"Just, let me speak, say what I'm going to say. It'll be easier that way, okay, Harry?"

Harry nodded once more and sat back with his drink. "Okay." He took another sip and didn't make a face this time.

"Until I was eight the only thing I ever read was the Bible. That's all there was. There wasn't even enough money for food or clothing, let alone books, but that book...well, it was a Catholic orphanage, so of course that was important to them. The priests all made certain we learned to read and write. One of the nuns even taught me some math, basic numbers and such. Knowledge is power, I suppose, but I just wanted to learn...to understand. I have parts of the Bible memorized, I read it so many times. I didn't learn Latin until later, but when I did I got an older copy, one not in English, and read that. It was...it was important to me as well, I suppose.

"I thought if I just read it right that it would have all the answers. It didn't, or maybe it did and I just never saw them. I don't know. By the time I went back after my second year here, I'd given up on religion. I still believe in God, though."

Harry looked surprised at that, like it was so shocking that he believed in God. Tom supposed it might be shocking in this faithless age, in a person like himself, who was so...not what one expected in a person with faith. He had faith though, luckily. More than once it had been the only thing to keep him alive.

Tom continued speaking, "Religion is man. It's not Truth...it's not God. It's just a set of plausible lies that convince people to obey, to agree, to concede. It's man and man's search for power in a vast universe. It's a flawed system though. A Muggle system. A stupid Muggle system, at that. People putting themselves through all this pain and guilt and regret because they want to believe it makes them a better person. That it makes them more significant in the scheme of things."

He shook his head and drew his legs against his chest. His knee made a nice surface to hold the drink against.

"But that isn't what you asked, is it? You didn't ask my views on God, the Universe, and everything. You asked about my childhood. The two are interconnected, you know. I spent my childhood submerged in a culture I couldn't relate to and didn't understand. I was convinced I was wrong, bad, unnatural. They were convinced of it, too. By the time I was seven, things were out of control. My control, their control. They *hated* that. I don't know. I don't think they hated me, not really. They thought I was possessed. They thought that I had some...demon...inside of me that made me act out, that made weird things happen, that made me different. Different...bad, is there a difference when you're that age? When your differences are...wrong. All that was inside of me was my mother's blood. I didn't learn that until much, much later, though."

Nearly too late, really, but he didn't add that, not yet.

"Things...weird things...unnatural things...had been happening to me for years, happening because of me, for as long as I could remember. When I was upset or scared or angry, things would explode or change. Once, I accidentally changed all the walls black in the room I, and a bunch of other boys, were deigned to sleep in. I wanted things to be darker...it worked. The locks and explosions were the worst though, by far. I was small for my age, you know, most of us were, but I was especially so, and sick all the time. I was incapable of fighting back and easy prey for the other boys. Natural tendency to single out a victim to create unity in the group. I was the victim of choice in my age group. At least, until I started fighting back. Well, I wasn't fighting back, exactly, my magic was. Still, I was six, how was I supposed to know that?

"At first, I thought God was saving me. That He was helping me. I thought...He'd make things better. Then I broke one boy's ribs or one boy had his ribs broken mysteriously. Another nearly suffocated in his sleep. A third almost drowned in a nearby pond we played at. I was the common factor, there; I was the only one who'd have reason to harm those three boys, and no one could figure out how I did it, least of all me."

It was stupid thinking God was saving him. Why would God care about him, right? Their God, at least.

He drew in a deep breath, it was shaky and his head almost felt like it was detached-- enough alcohol for him. He took another sip anyway. "That's when they got the idea that I was possessed. They tried prayers, they tried baptism, they tried starving the demon out of me. They tried everything and all the while I got more and more scared. Shit, I was so fucking scared all the time then. So, of course, the odd occurrences happened more and more often. *That* convinced them the demon was fighting, trying to stay inside of me."

That was when he had taken to hiding in the darkness, where he belonged, hiding from them, because they wanted to help and it hurt. Harry didn't say anything but he had a stricken expression on his face. Maybe that was what the Dursleys had done to him. He doubted they'd gone as far as the priest.

"They finally decided to attempt an exorcism. I don't remember most of it, not really, just darkness and candlelight and smoke and screaming. I was trying to get away. I didn't understand. I didn't understand them. I didn't understand myself. I thought something was wrong with me. I thought they were trying to kill me. So, I fought. That was the first time I realized I could control what was happening. That was the first time I had power and knew how to use it."

The revelation was the only thing that had kept him sane and alive. He took another sip of wine. How much time had passed? Feels like years.

"By the time I got my Hogwarts letter I had a lot of control. I could make things appear and disappear. I could make things explode on will. I couldn't put things back together then, but I rarely wanted to, so that probably affected whether it was going to work. Of course, before I got my Hogwarts letter, all the way until the day before, I still thought my ability came from God, or the Devil, or something outside of me. Magic never once crossed my mind, and after that day, the day of the exorcism, the day it *failed*, I never let myself think it wasn't an ability granted to me by a higher power. I never even considered, not once, that the ability was inherent or that, you know, I shouldn't have been able to do it without a wand. Shows how much I knew."

He really had known nothing about his abilities except that he could use them to steal food and fight back; that was enough before Hogwarts, though.

"I happened to be in London the summer of nineteen thirty-eight. A Catholic orphanage in the city. I hate that place. I suppose it's gone now but the feelings are still there. Hate it. Still, that was one stroke of luck in the whole miserable situation. That I was able to get to Diagon Alley and then Platform 9 and 3/4ths. That I was in a position to escape and that I managed to."

Lucky? Lucky for a damned child, maybe.

He continued, introspectively, "After all, scars fade, it all fades away eventually, when you've left it behind. I hope that's true. I hope that the priests from there are burning in Hell, if Hell exists. If there's any justice and Hell does exist, that's where they are. If the priests and nuns at my first orphanage were masochists, punishing themselves with guilt and pain, then the ones at the London orphanage were sadists. Punishing us with their perversion. There's a glamour on most of the scars I have from there. I'm not so tipsy that I can't undo it now, if you want to see."

After messing with his shirt for a moment he managed to get it off. He found his wand stowed away in his robe and quickly cast the counter-glamour at himself before replacing it. He probably could have done it without a wand, if he were sober. Then he twisted around so Harry could see his back, which he knew was decorated in lines of scars. Not that many, he didn't scar easily at all, but they added up over the years, and they were more than a person would care to explain. More than he wanted to explain, so he didn't. His voice hard, he ignored Harry's sympathetic, disgusted, and somewhat horrified look, and worked on finishing was he *was* willing to tell. He closed his eyes, resting his chin on the knee that wasn't hosting the cup.

"You'd think they'd have learned. That they would have figured out that when they hurt me, I hurt them. For every time they beat me, a 'mysterious' accident happened. It was worth the pain to hurt them, I hated them that much. They would have done it anyway, you know, whether or not I intentionally fought back, because even though I could control it, my would-be magic, when it did happen I couldn't actually stop it from happening. I didn't understand it well enough to do that, at that point. So, purposely hurting them was the compromise between hurting myself or killing them. I have no doubt that if I hadn't controlled my magic then, with what little control I had, someone would have died. Not to say I didn't enjoy watching them suffer. I did. Still, if I'm going to kill someone, I'm going to damn well intend to do it."

Control, it was all about control. He had it. Most people didn't. He had to keep it. It'd be easier if he didn't feel sort of sick.

"I...I gave them more mercy than they deserved and certainly more than they ever granted me. The bastard, the devil-child, the fucking mistake. I was never like them and thank God for that. I wonder, if I was made in God's image, and so was Dumbledore, and so were you, and so was...I don't know...Hitler and the saints and everything...how do people come up with one God? One Truth? One Universe? Maybe God was crazy, all different sorts of people at once. Maybe the world is crazy, itself, because of that. That'd explain some things I suppose, wouldn't it? We're all fucking mad. Maybe Truth is Madness..." Had to keep control. "...you know, I think I've had too much to drink."

Tom opened his eyes. At some point during his diatribe Harry had moved onto the bed. He'd definitely had too much to drink if he hadn't noticed that, though closing his eyes couldn't have helped. Harry's eyes were bright and his movements unsteady. Looked like he wasn't the only one who had had too much to drink. Lightweight. Tom laughed derisively. He stopped laughing as Harry's hand moved to his back, where most of the scars were. He couldn't remember the last time he had touched someone on purpose or let someone touch him. Too much to drink...need to stop...need to stop this.

"Stop it."

Harry's hand stopped tracing the scars.

"No, I mean, get away from me."

Harry looked like he had just been hit. Tom groaned. He really wasn't in the right state of mind for this.

"Stop looking at me like that. You've had too much to drink. I've had too much to drink. This is what the term 'bad idea' was created for."

"Seems like a good idea to me," Harry said softly, leaning his head and back up against the wall.

Harry was sitting beside him, the outside of their thighs nearly touching, and he could feel the heat coming off of the smaller boy. Tom leaned back again too, so that his back was to the wall and Harry's hand had to move to avoid getting pressed painfully between stone and skin.

"You want this. It's really fucking obvious. What's your problem?"

"Alcohol. Alcohol is my problem. When you wake up later it'll be your problem too, if we do anything."

"Your idea to drink."

"Not my idea for you to grope me. Get off the bed," Tom said. It didn't sound as much like an order as it should have.

"Make me. You have a wand."

Oh, wonderful. Harry was mimicking Tom's own words back at him. Exactly what he needed.

Harry's hand was on his own now, tracing the lines in his palm. He yanked the hand away.

"Stop it, Potter."

"So, you're allowed to invade my personal space and my sense of comfort, but I'm not allowed to touch? Well, fuck that. This either goes two ways or no ways, Tom."

"I've never touched you, Harry. I wouldn't do that without your permission."

"You're always so confusing. On and off. Don't you have any middle ground?"

"No," Tom replied, fumbling for his wand. After a movement he found it, in the sleeve of his robe where he had left it, and a few minutes later managed to get the wards down from around the room enough so that Harry could leave. "There. You can go."

"I don't want to go! I want...I want to, to kiss you, okay?"

"Then tomorrow you'll want to punch me. I would rather avoid the latter, thank you."

Harry frowned, seeming to consider things. "But...you want to kiss me, right?" The semi-smile Harry gave him was hopeful. How much had the boy had to drink that his inhibitions had disappeared this far? And why did Tom feel like the bad guy here?

He nodded. "Yes, Harry, I want to kiss you--"

He didn't get a chance to finish the rest of his sentence because Harry was kissing him. Tom's hands went up immediately, pushing against Harry's chest, and the rest of him pulled away.

"Damn it, Harry!"

Tom pushed the smaller boy physically off the bed with his next movement.

"I told you not to do that."

Harry was defensive immediately. "You're not my keeper. You can't tell me what to do."

Tom glared. "I can when it concerns me."

Harry stood. "What's your problem?"

Tom was off the bed in a second, glad his reaction speed wasn't too slowed down by the alcohol and that Harry was definitely farther gone--no, that isn't a good thing at all actually--so that he still had the physical advantage. He advanced on Harry, backing the other boy into the stone wall a few steps away. His arms went out to make certain that Harry couldn't get away.

"My problem is that you're being an inconsiderate little prick. I said no. 'No', believe it or not, actually means no, as in do not, stop, and absolutely not."

"You said you wanted to kiss me."

"I hadn't finished my sentence!" Tom exclaimed.

He moved in a bit closer so he was effectively towering over Harry. Harry shrunk back as well as he could into the wall, which wasn't very well at all.

"I respect your space, Harry. With the exception of running after you when you made yourself bloody sick, I haven't been in what can be defined as 'your personal space' at all. There's a reason for that. I fucking respect you. If you're not going to give me the same courtesy then I'm not going to bother."

"So confusing," Harry said pleadingly.

Tom backed away and went back to sitting on the bed.

"Ergh, I don't feel good."

Tom frowned. "I imagine you don't. As I said, you've had too much to drink. Sit down-- in the desk chair-- and try taking a couple of deep breaths. Do you feel sick or just dizzy?"

"Sick."

Tom sighed. This was turning into a very long day.

* * *

Tom frowned, bringing his hand up to rub at his eyes. He yawned as the other hand set his drink down on the desk. Harry had refused to leave the room, which was probably a sound decision given the fact that getting all the way up to Gryffindor Tower would be a trial, and had finally fallen asleep on Tom's bed, all but kicking him out of it. For a minute Tom had been tempted to go to sleep himself, but he didn't particularly care to deal with the awkward aftermath that was bound to happen were Harry and he to wake up next to each other, especially after the utter mess that was the botched kiss.

He didn't know how much time had passed since Harry had fallen asleep but it couldn't have been over an hour. By now his head was roaring, though if it was from the alcohol, long-repressed memories, or his own emotional disarray he couldn't tell. He was itching to speak, to act, to do, but he could do nothing now, not in this state and not at this juncture in time. Even reading, something he generally found both engaging and calming, had lost its appeal at the moment. Tom frowned again. Then, nodding to himself, he de-warded the bottom drawer, drawing the utensils necessary for writing from it.

If all else fails, writing to yourself is a fair bit saner than talking to yourself aloud.

There was the question of what to write, of course, or where to start. One which he couldn't particularly answer. Tom sighed, taking a sip of his drink, water now because he'd already learned his lesson - repetitively - about drinking alcohol, the lesson being more important when he was in the company of others. He drew the feather end of the quill across his lips, a barely noticed habit he had never bothered to break himself of, and after deciding he'd write what he wrote, as the whole point of this exercise was it being cathartic, he dipped the nub of the quill in the ink. He felt a sudden pang of wanting for his diary, which he had been keeping since he was in first year and that was now destroyed - by Harry no less-- as he started to write.

Harry -

He was rather surprised to see that first word there, as if this was a letter and not just a jumbled mess of thoughts in words, but continued anyway, letting what he was thinking spill out onto the pages along with the black ink.

It would be so easy just to walk away now before the simplicity of my fascination becomes an obsession, as deep a part of me as my ability to do magic and my need for control. If I do not turn away from you before this goes further you will crawl over me and into me, digging into my skin, capturing pieces of me. I told you that you are the only one with something to lose from this but I lied. I do not have the obligations of friends and surrogate family and destiny, no, but I do have something to lose in giving into this I now realize. I wish I had remained blissfully ignorant.

To feel for you, to love you (am I capable of that even? you don't have the answer), I will have to grant you control of a part of me which is soft and vulnerable and helpless. I will have to surrender to you, leaving myself open and without even recourse. I will have to trust you not to take me and your knowledge of me and use it to shatter me into little, unfixable pieces. I will have trust in your honesty and your affection (love? could it possibly become love?). I will have to trust in you when the only one I've ever been willing to trust is myself. If I do this, I will lose part of myself to you and I'm not certain I can allow that, even though I'm asking the same, and more, of you.

So, yes, it would be so very simple to walk away, to put you out of my mind, convince myself this is lust and stupidity-- Merlin knows I'm a talented liar even to myself-- and in tearing this parchment I would remove all doubts that I was anything but quite mad in ever finding you beautiful. Yet, here I am, continuing to write as I watch the light rise and fall of your back as you curl into the mattress of my bed. You're so closed off even as you sleep as if you expect an attack in the night that you will not be able to fight. But though your position protects most of you-- your stomach and kidneys and chest and groin-- it cannot protect your mind. I've done that instead, casting a pleasant dreams charm that I hope will be effective enough to stave away the memories and your worried imagination. I don't understand why I care if you have nightmares.

I sat on my bed, next to you, and watched you sleep for a few minutes, thinking on things, on the way I'd reacted to the kiss, on my memories. That I'd have to explain it when you woke up or risk setting back the progress we had managed thus far. If only I hadn't reacted so violently. You shifted again, this time moving up onto your side, as if you could sense me there, your fringe falling over your eyes and scar. That scar, the scar. The beginning of everything and the end of it all. Impulsively my hand reached out, stopping just short of your skin. I could feel the warmth from there, sense the movement, see the life. You were purity, vulnerability, and rage. My fingers brushed the fringe away before trailing down your cheek bone. I could break you, like a little, fragile toy, all bone and blood in my hands; or I could mold you like clay. I could destroy you. Would I feel bad about that? Would it hurt me to do so? Would you scream for me? The urge to destroy something beautiful, to make it ugly and dark and battered like me, over took me for a moment and my hand strayed to your neck. Killing you would end it quickly. Letting you live might mean it'd never end. I didn't know if I could live like that (I still don't know, I don't) and I want to live.

You moved again, suddenly, this time closer to me, pushing against my hand, pressing your pale, pale throat against my long fingers. God, you trusted me in your sleep and what was I thinking? That I could destroy you, kill you? I could do that, but I wouldn't, not if...not if I wanted any chance to save things, to find what I wanted. I've lived through worse, I have, I'd survive. You would, no, you already were coming around. You could make things beautiful in a way I shouldn't be capable of being. So, I didn't do it. Does that count for something? I suppose not. Not if you ever read this at least.

I enjoy watching you sleep, though not because you are restful or still, as you are neither, but because you're powerful in your sleep in a way you will not allow yourself to be while awake. You need your control as well, I know, though it is more of a subconscious response born out of necessity than a conscious decision (perhaps mine is as well, you never have perspective of the forest when you're climbing the tree). A life time of being told you were nothing, nothing but a freak, an affront to nature, and you were not broken but you were muted, like a bird with clipped wings. You hide your abilities even as you excel, downplay your formidable successes (I have seen luck, don't fool yourself, that isn't it)-- for that reason alone I wonder if you truly belong in Gryffindor, as humility was never a strength of theirs when I went here-- but at night the power you reign in so tightly during the day seeps out between the cracks in your facade (you're crumbling already. no strength. do you even eat when I don't force it? would you even care if they didn't need you?). Your magic creeps over me like a rough caress in the night, so tainted and sweet, and I want to make you happy, make you angry, make you anything that will focus that energy on me so that I can see into you.

Your face is so open, even when you're closed off from the world, if one knows how to look...and I've made a study of you. Your eyes glimmer with untold emotions, more expressive and eloquent than your words could ever be (not much of a speaker but a doing, a feeler, a being). All this pales in comparison to the stark extreme of undiluted emotion that runs off of you in unguarded moments, such as when you sleep. And so, I like to watch you sleep, I'd like to watch it again.

You're whimpering again (I'll need a stronger charm, I suppose), mumbling something about how you meant to do well. I want to go over there and gather you in my arms and comfort you (none of the violence of earlier is still here, it's buried again, so deep, so deep), but I'm afraid that I might wake you and you would reject my concern. Moreover, I wonder why I care to comfort you. This placating, gentle desire is foreign to me. I can't trust myself because of you, you know, because I can't be certain which emotions are mine, and which are yours, and lately there's been this...feeling that's neither here nor there, neither me nor you, neither real nor surreal. I hate it. It's that simple. So, I hate something you're a part of and I'm a part of and we've both created. I want it gone. I want it dead. I want it decimated. I won't lie about that. I don't seem to be lying about much of anything lately.

I don't want you to read this. It isn't even a letter to you, certainly. It's a letter to myself that happens to be addressed to you. And therein lies the problem, doesn't it? There is no 'me' anymore without you. If you can't figure out how to shut this off then I'll never be alone again. I can't find the desire to be angry about that. Murderous? Yes. Angry? No, not particularly. But I can't kill a part of myself, though apparently my future (older? other?) self tried to somewhat, so, I can't kill you. Even if I wanted to. Which I don't. I *don't*...

You're still whimpering. I wonder what's in your dreams that causes you to whimper like your world is falling apart. Was it something he (I?) did? It hurts to hear you make sounds like that. I can feel them, feel the pain. I wonder what you felt while I talked this evening. Did it hurt you to listen like it hurt me to speak? Maybe I'll ask you when you wake up. I can't take it anymore. Listening to you like that, listening to you plead in your sleep. I'll just have to wake you and hope your nightmare had nothing to do with last night. Your sleep isn't restful anyway. I'll destroy this after you're awake, before you have a chance to see it and wonder what it is.

-TMR

Leaving the pages where they lay and the quill and ink next to them, Tom once again returned to the bedside, sitting on it. Harry shifted towards him, just as earlier, which he frowned at as he reached out a hand to touch Harry's shoulder.

"Harry. Wake up."

Nothing. His hand contacted with Harry's shirt, which was warm with body heat. Tom nudged him gently before pulling back away.

"Harry?"

A groan now and a muttered 'g'way'. Tom sighed and decided that the best way to deal with this was to find the pain potion he knew could help with hangovers and then attempt to wake Harry up. He stood, searching the cabinet only to find that he had used the last of his store. Well, it was an easy enough potion to make and the ingredients were readily available in the open potions' storeroom. He could be back in fifteen minutes. Casting a basic ward over the items on the desk he looked over Harry again, who seemed to have fallen back into far less unpleasant dreams than earlier, and, figuring the other boy who be alright for less than twenty minutes, he left.

* * *

When he returned Tom came to the conclusion that leaving Harry alone, ever, in even the remote vicinity of protected information, was a very big mistake.

"I could have sworn I warded that."

Harry had the 'letter' in his hand, just finished reading the third - and last - page, and he looked up as Tom spoke.

"It was supposed to not be visible to anyone but me," Tom continued.

"I could see it," Harry replied, shrugging.

"You weren't supposed to read it."

Should have known better. Should have known better. You messed up. Ha! A little voice sing-songed in the back of Tom's thoughts. He ignored it.

"It was addressed to me."

Tom nodded, taking a deep breath, and, after realizing he still held the goblet of pain-reliever in his hand, handed the drink to Harry.

Harry took a sniff and then, shrugging again, swallowed the concoction in a gulp.

"Urgh! What was that stuff?"

"A potion, it should make whatever headache you have go away."

"It tastes like mud," he said, then paused, "but it worked."

Tom sat down at the desk, sipping from the cup of water he had left there, watching Harry. After a moment he poured some water for Harry and handed that to him as well. Harry drank that down in two gulps and poured himself some more, leaving the pages on the bed as he moved next to the desk to do so. Tom picked them up quietly and, after folding them, put them in the drawer. They disappeared neatly into the wards. Harry raised an eyebrow.

Tom continued frowning, glaring at the top of the desk.

"So, I wasn't meant to read it, but I did, and we can't just pretend I didn't."

"We could," Tom said half-heartedly.

"I can't," Harry replied. "I can't just pretend I didn't read that. I can't even pretend that it didn't make the barest amount of sense. I wish it didn't, but it does. So, no, I can't ignore that because ignoring that is driving me mad."

"Harry."

Harry spoke in one big rush, only pausing to take a breath for air, as if he were afraid that if he stopped Tom would interrupt him and he'd never get a chance to finish. "Don't 'Harry' me. I have something to say and I'm going to, so, just, just shut up. You make a lot of sense, Tom, you do, and then you turn around and do or say or act something different and it makes sense too, but not when you take everything together. Like, like you're two different people! It's driving me mad because I can't figure it out. And just when I think I do, you do something else entirely. It's confusing. I think I know now, though. You aren't confusing, you're just confused. Just as much I am. Amazingly, you're human and I don't think that ever really occurred to me before. You don't...seem it. You're too calm, too collected, too surreal to be a fifteen-year-old bloke with a nasty childhood and problems sorting out his feelings. It seems impossible, but, well, it's not. In the back of my mind I still expected...I expected you to have the answer, answers, and you *don't* -- not anymore than I do at least. You're just more certain about the answers you do have. So, you're fucked up and I am too, and we have to figure this out, right, because if we don't everything's going to go to hell. Now, I can't say I'm not a little concerned about the whole fantasy of killing me thing, but I can't exactly claim that the fleeting thought of killing you hasn't crossed my mind once, or twice, or a dozen times, so it'd be bloody destructive of me to hate you just for that. Right, so, I don't hate you. I don't like you either. I don't think we're going to be at a point where those two emotions are connected for us -- ever. So, I'm willing to make the best of it. But I don't think anything physical should enter in it yet, because neither of us are comfortable with that and forcing ourselves to be is just going to make everything else so much worse. So, let's try for...for friends I guess, though that's the wrong term entirely, and I mean something where we are comfortable with each other and ourselves and what the other is causing in ourselves because I know you aren't dealing with that any better than I am. The important thing is making this work when it isn't just the two of us because very soon it won't be and we can't go all destructive when that happens, you know. I won't let my friends be hurt because of me, or you, either. *Then* we can deal with whatever lust has to do with this. There, that's my intelligent and mature decision for the year, I claim complete immaturity for the rest of it."

Tom was silent for only a moment after Harry stopped talking, then he asked, "You done?"

"Er...yes."

Tom nodded. "I suppose I can agree to that. It's the smart thing to do. Not ignore it, just put it off until we're better adjusted. Yes, that is agreeable."

"Alright." Harry nodded and took a sip of water.

"Alright."

Harry put down the cup of water and gestured to the door. "We should probably go...somewhere that isn't here. It's late, right? People are going to wonder where we are."

"Alright." Tom started taking down the wards, muttering under his breath.

"Alright."

No, not awkward at all. Tom rubbed his eyes again, feeling like he could sleep for a week. When that feeling left he and Harry were going to have a discussion about wards, privacy, and Harry's complete lack of noticing either.