To Kill You With a Kiss

Chapter 8

Harry and Tom wove their way through the ancient labyrinthine corridors of Hogwarts. They walked in silence, like strangers who had nothing to say to each other, or like old friends who knew each other so well they no longer had a need for words; Harry couldn't decide which. He glanced over at Tom as they walked, and his breath caught in his chest. I am your horcrux... Something he couldn't name was tearing at his heart; it felt like the Cruciatus curse, but infinitely sweeter.

In the future I left behind, we were mortal enemies, you and I. Two days ago, when we walked on the moor, we were friends and we laughed together. But today, in this sudden silence that quivers between us, I can finally sense it: there is something between us that is deeper than both enmity and friendship. I am your horcrux. I carry within me a fragment of your lost soul. We are one, Lord Voldemort and the Boy Who Lived. I wonder if two people were ever as strangely bound together as we are? We two, alone among all mortals, share a soul...

We met so briefly in the future, my Dark Lord. Our encounters were fragments of a nightmare, filled with terror and darkness. But even when you were not there, there was always the shadow of you, lingering in my dreams. You were always in my thoughts, but I didn't know you then; I didn't know the soft look your eyes had once; I didn't know the sound of your laughter. How different you are now! As I look at you now, the future seems to be ebbing away, and I feel that this must be you, Tom, the young man with the soft curls, and not that dark wizard of tomorrow. Perhaps Voldemort is nothing but a dream after all?

Do you know what I am, Tom? Oh, how can you know? I don't think you know it even in the future. You feared the prophecy about the two of us, and you wanted me dead. But I wonder... Was there not after all something in you that half recognized what I was? Your death eaters could easily have killed me, but something, perhaps some strange whisper in your heart, made you tell them not to touch me, that I was yours alone to kill?

Can you feel it now, Tom? Do you recognize me? No, your mind is too preoccupied, I can sense that now. You are thinking of Abraxas, of his mouth against mine, and you are thinking of serpents, ripping him to pieces...

"Tom?"

Tom turned and looked at him, absently. "What?"

"He was just trying to help me. With the play, I mean. The final scene with the kiss. Call off the serpents, will you?"

"The serpents-?" Tom looked at him in surprise for a moment, and then he flushed deeply. "Merlin, leave my mind alone, Elias!"

They had arrived at Tom's office now, and Tom flung the door open. His study was as warm and welcoming as it had been the last time Harry entered it, and a fire crackled cheerfully in the fireplace.

"Have a seat. Let me lock the door, so no one will disturb us."

Harry didn't sit; he merely stood and looked at Tom. Your dark curls. Your grey eyes. That all too human flush...Voldemort? It seems impossible, looking at you now, that you will one day become Voldemort. I wish there was a way to hold time still, so the future never comes...

Tom turned to him abruptly. His eyes were suddenly darker now, or perhaps it was just the way the light and shadows from the fire fell over his face that made it appear that way. "Are you in love with him, Elias?" His voice sounded hoarse.

"With who-? Oh, with Abraxas, you mean?" Harry looked at the carpet, his cheeks burning. For a moment, he had forgotten about Abraxas. " I don't know. I don't think so... I liked kissing him more than kissing Araminta, but perhaps he was just better at it. He was trying to teach me how to kiss, you see..."

"He was trying to teach you how to kiss?" Tom's voice was a whisper now. "I dare say the flighty Mr. Malfoy may have some considerable experience, but that hardly makes him an expert on the subject of kissing. Your lip... it's bruised from the fierce attack of his mouth." A finger touched Harry's swollen lower lip lightly. "And that way he was pushing himself against you..." Tom's finger still lingered against his lips. "That's not what kissing is supposed to be like. It's supposed to be more like... like this..."