Holly & Yew

C46 (re-edit)

Chapter 46: Bathe the body in silence ... And let it eat you alive ... You could get through to the blood and marrow ... Deeper than a cinder in snow

Harry's dreams were a chasm of blood and mangled flesh and darkness.

It seeped over him slowly at first, coming over each limb like a draped, ragged cloth of marrow and heme. Harry tried to writhe away from it, screaming for Tom, but his throat was cut so there was only straining vocal cords but no sound.

And then the blood pooled over his chest, still rising like a viscous puddle. It moved with the expanding pulse of his heartbeat.

It covered his mouth and his nose.

Harry thrashed and thrashed before all the fight drained out of him. His attempts at escaping came to a sluggish halt, exhaustion weighing all his limbs down like stone.

Tom, Harry thought urgently before his mind went quiet. Tom.

Harry's eyes dragged shut and he sank down into blood, his body flinching inadvertently as his muscles tensed and relaxed.

"Harry, wake up!" Tom screamed, his voice stabbing into Harry's ear.

Harry jolted awake, his lungs empty. He hacked desperately, reaching for his throat.

The pressure dissipated, and Harry heaved, frantic for air. Tom dragged Harry into his lap, both of them shaking. Harry clung to Tom, still gasping, and Tom clung even tighter back, rocking with every swell of Harry's breath.

Harry could feel Tom's magic brush against his own like a rough sandpaper tongue. Harry's agitated, shaken magic slowly came to heel, draining out of the air to sink back under Harry's skin.

"What happened?" Harry croaked out when he'd recovered enough to speak.

"You were strangling yourself with your magic in your sleep," Tom hissed, his face wearing an intense, specific blankness—a blankness that meant Tom didn't trust himself to let even a single emotion come to the surface for risk of losing control completely.

"I was having a nightmare," Harry remembered. The basement always made his nightmares worse—like the violence that had occurred in this space had imprinted into its walls, its air, its very nature.

"That was obvious," Tom snapped.

Harry hid his face in Tom's shirt collar, sensing the immense fury convulsing below Tom's eerily still surface.

"It was an accident," Harry whispered. "I didn't mean to, Tom."

Tom touched Harry's neck with a wrathful look on his face that conveyed clearly just how much he didn't care.

* Tom abruptly picked Harry up, carrying Harry to his own bedroll. He slipped under the covers before pulling Harry down to rest under him. His arms settled around Harry, the weight of his body pinning Harry down.

"What if Mrs. Cole comes downstairs and sees?" Harry asked anxiously.

"If she says a single word about it, I will murder her and bury her next to her husband," Tom snarled, hoarse with grief.

Harry's heart ached at the bitterness in Tom's voice. He pulled Tom close, kissing the top of Tom's head and clutching at Tom's silky hair.

Tom's magic surrounded Harry: a velvet starry blanket cradling and enfolding him. Harry let his own magic snuggle back into Tom's.

"I'm sorry," Harry whispered, knowing how terrified Tom must have been to see him like that.

"Don't," Tom snarled, a choked, harsh utterance. He stared into Harry's eyes with an intense, wounded look on his face. "Don't say it, Harry. I'm the one who has to ask for your forgiveness. I failed you."