No Longer

Everything's Gonna Be Alright

Era Damon White**

His head was killing him, pounding painfully as if he'd been concussed by Vernon Dursley's fist. Groaning, he sat up slowly, blankets falling to pool at his waist. His robes had been changed to soft white cotton, and when he took in the magic in the air around him he realized he was still in Hogwarts.

Using deductive reasoning, he figured he was in Quirrel's room. It was also, he sensed, around ten o'clock in the evening. Now taking in his physical surroundings, what he at first figured to be a pile of robes was actually Quirrel himself, curled in a tight ball with a head of short brown hair.

Era pushed the blankets off himself silently and with that self same stealth, approached the figure. Carefully, he lowered himself to one knee and continued to study this thoroughly altered man. He was trembling, and when Era reached out a hand to contact his sub, his reasoning made him pull it back at the last second.

"Tom?" Era queried gently.

The ball curled tighter.

"Tom, sweetheart, will you look at me please?"

No response other than burying his head deeper into his arms.

Slowly, as one would approach an injured wild animal, Era reached his hand out and laid it on his mate's shaking shoulder. The trembling escalated, and a small sob was emitted.

"Sweetheart, I'm going to put you on my lap, shake your head if you don't want me to."

Impossibly, his mate seemed to shrink even further in upon himself, and Era couldn't bear it. He hadn't shaken his head, so the smaller man was whisked into his arms, Era exchanging to sit in the seat where Tom had, now with his mate on his lap.

"Shhh, shhh honey, everything is going to be alright, shhh, calm down sweetheart. Why are you crying?" Era continued to whisper comforting words, stroking his hand down his mate's back, and wishing he could help the other man.

It went on, and fifteen minutes in, Era had gotten himself so worried that he entered his mate's mind.

Tom couldn't believe what his mind and body told him. He'd been able to stand up to Professor Dumbledore to some extent, though the man had constantly been trying to control him, by words or action. It hadn't truly started until fourth year, before then the bastard had only used words to harm him.

But then, that year, that's when he began trying to Imperius him into doing things. It had started off on a smaller scale, at first only forcing him to spend all his time trying to find the Chamber of Secrets, but once he'd found it, even though he'd gotten better at keeping the professor out of his head, he'd been taken by surprise.

One night, he'd been forced to open the Chamber and release Pasiphae onto the school with the intent to kill. She'd killed an unpopular, book-obsessed loner named Myrtle, the first person she came in contact with after exiting the Chamber.

Tom could still remember the horror on the muggle girl's face, and how he felt himself breaking apart on the inside knowing that he had killed her. In his further weakened state, Dumbledore once again seized control of him and made him create that first horcrux. It was made of his diary, where he could write all his fears, wishes, and challenges with no fear of judgement.

Now, Tom could mourn the loss of such a good device for working through his problems, but back then, after the horcrux, he'd changed.

It had begun with his calling the purebloods to his side, the ones his darkness had infected, and by using non-purebloods as a rallying point for hatred he ammassed his army of Death Eaters. That piece of his plan had won over any small chance they had of working their way free of his grasp, as the more who despised muggleborns joined, the more the power trapping them grew.

He continued to make more horcruxes, growing madder and madder as his soul shattered into smaller and smaller pieces. He had killed so many people, and the numbers only grew as he grew more crazed. The people he'd called to be his followers grew more insane alongside him, the ones with the most powerful dark affinities suffering the most, such as Bellatrix Lestrange, Bartemius Crouch Junior, and the Lestrange twins, even the Malfoys, Notts, the  Dolohovs and many more he couldn't quite remember.

He was a horrible person, a murderer, a cult leader, someone who started a war, and he'd even tortured people, oh, so many people. Tom should've been killed. When his mate found him, he should have just killed him rather than put his soul back together. Now it was his heart that was broken.

His mate would never love him, could never love him, not after the dreadful things he'd done, and Tom could feel himself crumbling further in every passing minute. He didn't deserve to live, didn't deserve anything after he'd taken life and sanity from so many others. 

Tom couldn't help the sobs that wracked his body, the pain inside of him was tearing him to pieces, and the thought of it ending was somewhat of a relief. Maybe his soul had been put back together so that he could be killed. He derived some solace from that thought, and blackness crowded out his vision, turning his thoughts off right alongside it.

Era sighed, dropped a kiss on his mate's forehead, and tucked himself and Tom into the bed. It wasn't designed for two, but it felt plenty comfortable to him. It would be impossible for him to leave now, while the- well, he supposed Tom wasn't exactly a man. He'd been sixteen when the first horcrux had been forced on him, which made him a teenager more than anything.

It was impossible for Era to comprehend what it must be like for Tom, to have gone one day from a scared teenager, to being insane, then brought back to sanity, as if the intermission between the periods of saneness was a dream, but one that he had created. The struggle between blaming himself, which he inevitably would, although Dumbledore was the true villain of the story, and blaming the madness that had control of him.

The ability to see the truth was somewhat heart wrenching, as he knew Tom would never simply believe his words that he was not to blame for the atrocities that had occurred. He knew that the truth would set him free, cheesy though it may sound, yet there was no way to make Tom accept it.

As a matter of fact, what Era knew to the very core of his being, was that all he'd be able to do was stand with the teenager who was not a teenager, and give him all the love and support he would need to get through this.

Kindling sparks of warmth lit inside his chest though. He'd been so afraid, terrified even, of his mate rejecting him. But after what he'd seen in his mate's mind, that was not a possibility he needed to worry about. With a feeling of contentment deep in his soul, he cuddled his smaller mate into his side, and contemplated, for once, thoughts of mates and the future, rather than potion reactions throughout the long night ahead.