Dusk Falls (A Harry Potter Fanfic)

Part 14: Growth and Growing

Hi, Guys! I'm back and have an update for you! It's not long, but I hope you guys like it anyways. Hopefully, I won't be so crazy busy that it takes so long for another update after this one for you guys. Anyways, stay safe out there and enjoy! Cheers~

Harry's POV:

"I was thinking," Harry started quietly as they appeared before the path to Malfoy Mansion. "Maybe we should go check out some of those properties listed on my inheritance test? Maybe... find one I could grow a conservatory in? Like the one at the tea house or like Cerridwen's?"

"You want to make a conservatory? That is certainly doable, given your affinity with growing and tending to plants. I dare say Cerridwen would be delighted to give you some clippings to start with. Did you have a particular property in mind?" Tom paused, then matched his steps with Harry's as Harry started towards the forest instead of the mansion.

"I don't know enough about my properties to have a specific one in mind. I'd probably have to visit them. At least a few of them." Harry mused, then came to a decision. "Would you go with me to look at them?"

"Of course." Tom said it as if there was never a room for doubt. And maybe there hadn't been. Harry had yet to see him as anything but accommodating where he was involved. It still threw him sometimes to have someone that attentive to him. That attuned to his needs or wants. It made him wonder if he was doing enough for Tom. Was he doing anything even close to that in return?

A hand gentle sliding along his cheek startled him from his thoughts.

"Are you alright? You seemed sad all of the sudden." Tom murmured, sliding his thumb back and forth along Harry's jaw.

"I... yeah. Just thinking about... Well, about us." Harry paused to take in the greenery and life of his forest as it thrived around them. Happy, content, growing, constant. As if nothing could shake it's foundations; Deeply rooted in their natural routines as they were. Just as the sun would rise only to set and the seasons cycled through change, the forest too had constant patterns to it. To every life within it.

There was courage and strength to be taken from the unshakable knowledge that life thrived if given even the slightest chance to do so. Even after disaster struck, such as a forest fire, life would quickly surge to fill the void left in the ashes that remained. Growth springing from the newly cleansed earth.

Much like he was starting to do with his life. Growing into himself and who he was. A soft rustling echoed around them; a counterpoint to the non-existent breeze with Harry at its focal point spreading throughout the forest from them.

"Was there something specific that caught your fancy or was it a generalized musing?" Tom inquired after the silence stretched for long moments.

How like Tom to ask him in such a way. One that would give him an out should he not want to discuss his thoughts. Even when he was the one to bring it up.

"I..." Harry gathered some of that unshakeable courage to himself. "I guess it's more of a concern than anything really. You are so... wonderful."

There was a puzzled silence, then Tom said in a slightly bewildered voice. "Thank you?"

Harry couldn't help but chuckle at the tone. He couldn't help it.

"What I mean is you are so accommodating and helpful. Is there anything you want me to do in return? Not as, like, payment or something." He hurried to continue. Hermione would skin him alive if he implied he thought he needed to repay Tom after their last talk on relationships. (Even if he secretly still did... a little, tiny bit. He was squashing that part though.) "I mean, like... I don't want us to have a one sided relationship. I want to put just as much effort into this as you are. To be there for you as much as you are for me. What can I do for you, Tom?"

Harry ran a hand through his hair in agitation and a bit of nervousness. When he chanced a look at Tom, he found the man seriously considering his words; his gaze scanning blindly over the greenery around them in an absent motion.

"Do you honestly feel like our relationship is one sided? I don't believe it to be so." Tom finally said. There was a long pause that had Harry squirming. "Think of it this way, Harry. Your life is in an upheaval. Between your inheritance and the 'Light' side hounding you at any given opportunity, no one would blame you if you chose to shut out the world entirely and never again dain the Wizarding community with your presence. I most certainly wouldn't."

Tom took a breath, then continued in a quiet tone that carried in the still air around them. The forest having gone silent as if in anticipation of his words.

"However, to put it simply, you aren't doing that. You are meeting each day with your head up and fully engaged in the present. Regardless of how painful and chaotic that present may be. I am content, Harry. Content with knowing that once our lives calm down, you will be free to level that incredible will and focus into more aspects of building your life with me. Yes, sometimes I wish the problems we are facing would be solved in a more expedient way. But, you are giving your best. As am I. I am content with that. Can you be?"

It took Harry a long moment to find his words after Tom spoke, but find them he did... Only to wish he hadn't in the next second.

"How are you that perfect?" The words just kind of tumbled out and Harry felt his face heat up at Tom's sudden grin of amusement. "Forget I just said that. Please."

"No, I don't think I will." Came the chuckling reply. There was a pause, then soberly. "To answer your question, since I don't think I really did to your satisfaction, what you can do for me is to be yourself. Be yourself, show me all the little things that make you you. I want to see it all. I want to know all of you and in return, I will try to show you all the facets that make me who I am. Deal?"

"Yes, deal!" Harry smiled at his mate. His earlier worries a distant memory in that moment.

"Good. Now..." Tom looked around. "Where are we?"

Harry glanced around, but this seemed to be a part of the woods he hadn't actually visited yet. A surprising feat given how often he roamed the forest, but he would have remembered the old forest giant that dominated the glade to the left of them.

Sundered horribly by lightning at some point in the past, the tree towered above it's neighbors in defiant glory. It's branches stretching to envelope the sky in it's quiet leafy embrace. As if to declare to one and all that it would live despite what the world threw at it. Not just live, but thrive in the adversity.

Harry gently laid his palm on the bark of the trunk, unsurprised to find that his feet had carried him to the tree's base. Beneath his hand, the old one pulsed with an almost tangible vitality. Strong and ageless. He would like to be like that one day.

To be so unshakable and proud of who he was. He would get to that place, even if it was the last thing he did. He was done playing to someone else's tune. Done being someone and something others expected him to be. It was time to start becoming who he wanted to be and if he lost some people for doing that along the way? Then they were never meant to stand with him anyways.

Harry gazed up at the old giant as his conviction pulsed into the earth at his feet. Growth and growing saturating the forest around him, his senses singing with the forest's silent voice.

One last pat to the trunk and Harry turned back to his ever patient mate, walking back to his side.

"I have no idea." Harry grinned at the twitch Tom gave to his words, then had mercy on his mate. "The manor is that way. Shall we go back then?"

Time to be. Time to become. Time to grow. He had time.