Chapter Text
How do you… how do you take back something you've given so completely?
I was—I have given him everything. My heart, my soul… and I thought that he had given the same. Now? I'm left with nothing.
I thought my everything was enough.
It was funny. One moment, Harry was just preparing dinner, transferring his hard made roast to a dinner plate, and the next, he felt the saltiness of tears seeping through his pursed lips, his body shaking as he tried to hold back his sobs.
Harry pressed on, determined to finish this last act of kindness for the man who had once been his everything. And yet… how could something as simple as plating a meal suddenly become impossible when once he had given all of himself so effortlessly?
The pouring of a tall glass of water was deafening in the silence of the kitchen. Harry moved to the sitting room, and he sat on the armchair in front of the floo with his head down, waiting for his soon-to-be ex-fiancé to arrive home.
Hermione's earlier words haunted Harry. She had told him everything, and she and Ron had helped him move all of his belongings away. Hermione’s heartbroken voice cut through him, and Ron’s furious shouts felt like a blow against his heart.
“I’m sorry… I’m so sorry, Harry,” Hermione whispered, as she did nothing but hand over a small vial of memory.
Inside was the memory of him , his arm around a woman as he whispered in low tone words that made the woman flush. Then, he simply walked, arm tight around the woman’s waist as they disappeared through the floo.
Hermione had explained that tonight was supposed to be his fiancé’s celebration for becoming the undersecretary for the Ministry. He hadn’t even bothered to tell Harry. When asked why Harry wasn’t there, his fiancé simply said that Harry was busy.
Busy .
Harry could almost laugh. He had been busy, yes, with his broom enchanting training and everything else. His schedule was packed. But Harry was never, ever too busy to be at his fiancé's side on such an important day.
At the very least, he could have told him, invited him. A simple gesture, an acknowledgement—anything.
But no—he did not do any of that. And now, he was somewhere with a woman, whispering words he would whisper to Harry, doing things that Harry liked, touching someone so intimately—someone that was not him.
The Floo flared to life, a bright green illuminating the room for but a moment. And in that moment, Harry felt nothing. There was no anger, no sadness. Just silent, suffocating resignation.
“You’re still up, dear?” his fiancé as he walked over to hang his coat before moving to the kitchen, all with an easy, practiced motion.
Being blinded by love was a funny, funny thing. Harry thought. He never realised that so many things have changed between them. Once, the mere sight of Harry waiting for him in front of the Floo would have lit up his face. He’d lift Harry off his feet, kiss him so sweetly before proceeding to drown him in all of his accomplishments of the day, talking his ear off as they ate dinner or listened to music together.
So when? When did his feelings for Harry start to dull? Was Harry’s everything not enough for him? What more could he give up? His fiancé already has his heart, he already has his soul. What more could Harry offer?
The clinking of cutleries were heard as his fiancé silently enjoyed the dinner Harry cooked for him, not a single invitation to accompany him uttered.
His fiancé was not wrong in saying that Harry had been busy. Harry had been so, so busy tonight, extremely busy, even.
After all, making his fiancés favourite roast dinner had taken him hours of hard work.
It was quite funny, in an ironic way. There was no gratitude, no appreciation, not even any acknowledgment. It was as if Harry’s love was now something that he owed, not something that is freely given.
When? When did it start to be like this? When did it all go wrong? His fiancé had always been the most ambitious person, the most driven. But once, what had driven his fiancé was his love for him, the need to prove to Harry that he was worthy to be with him. Was it the climb to power that had changed him so completely, moulding the man he loved so much into something Harry could not recognise?
Harry wasn't even given the chance to ponder.
“Harry,” he heard his fiancé calling from the doorway.
Harry looked up, and for the first time ever, Harry was terrified as he gazed into his fiancé’s face. Harry felt… nothing. He felt hollow.
Tom looked at him with those cold, unfeeling eyes—the same eyes he reserved for everyone else in the world, but never for Harry. Harry had always been the exception. He had once been special.
Where did those warm, loving eyes go? Where did that beautiful smile go?
Tom walked toward him, and for a moment, Harry's heart clenched. The faint scent of a foreign perfume lingered in the air, cutting through his thoughts and leaving him breathless.
Proof. A cruel taunt. Harry could almost see it—foreign hands tracing down his fiancé’s back, coating him in that cloying perfume.
“Let’s get to bed, love,” Tom said casually, as if nothing was wrong. Even the way he pronounced the word sounded different now.
Harry’s eyes had been opened—a simple blink. And everything has changed.
Harry stood up, and he couldn’t stop tears from gathering in his eyes. The rain outside their window was somehow giving him strength, the staccato of the droplets falling was giving him strength.
It was an easy, easy question.
“Do you love me, Tom?”
The silence between them felt alive, thick with tension. It felt like the entire room was holding its breath as Harry asked the question, swallowing Harry in the gravity of the moment. Harry looked up, and that beautiful, beautiful face was looking into him, searching him in an almost clinical way.
There was no love in those deep brown eyes. Instead, they held an emotion Harry only now recognised had long been etched into Tom’s expression. So long, in fact, that he couldn’t remember the last time Tom had looked at him with kindness, not since his ambition took hold.
“What did she tell you?”
Harry’s eyes widened at the unexpected question.
How unbelievable. How utterly unforgivable.
There was no regret, no guilt, no trying to explain and reason and deny. This… this was not someone he recognised, this was not the Tom he knew. Who… who was the man standing before him?
Harry took a deep breath, steeled himself, and he repeated the question. “I asked you a question first. Do you love me, Tom?”
The silence that followed Harry’s question felt like a lifetime. Tom’s jaw clenched, his eyes narrowing as if weighing his response, but there was no trace of warmth, no flicker of the man Harry once loved. His hesitation said everything.
Harry’s chest ached as he waited, every heartbeat an echo of the love he had poured into this relationship, every part of himself that he had sacrificed for so long—only for all of it to crack under the weight of a question that should’ve been so easy to answer.
Tom’s voice was cold, almost dismissive, when he finally spoke. “What does it matter, Harry?”
Harry’s breath caught in his throat. What does it… what does it matter…?
The sheer audacity—Harry had given him everything, absolutely everything—and yet here he was, dismissing his question as if their love was just a minor footnote in his grand quest for power, where it had once been the shining beacon of light that had strengthened and guided him.
“It matters,” Harry whispered, his voice level. “Because I have given you everything, and I need to know if any of it was real.”
Tom’s expression hardened, his hands curling into fists as he stepped closer, towering over Harry with his eyes so cold Harry thought that he was going to strike him. “You’re being dramatic,” he said, voice dripping with impatience. “I have responsibilities now, things you can't hope to understand, things I have to do. We can’t always be—”
“I’m not asking for always,” Harry interrupted, tears spilling over. “I’m asking if you loved me or not.”
The anger in Tom’s eyes flared even more, but there was something else there too—annoyance, frustration, a little bit of confusion.
He wasn’t used to being questioned like this. Harry had never questioned him. Tom thrived to be in control, and Harry loved being guided by him on their journey together. But now, Tom must have felt it slipping away, like sand falling through his fingers. He was losing his grip on their relationship, on the version of Harry who would’ve relented so easily, saying yes to everything just to keep them together.
Tom sighed, and for a moment, Harry thought he might say something, offer some reassurance, denials, anything to show that he cared. But instead, Tom simply looked away, his voice detached, indifferent.
“I have to get up early tomorrow.”
It was a dismissal. A dismissal of Harry’s love, of their future, of everything they had built together. Just like that, it was so easily confirmed. This wasn’t the man he had fallen in love with. This wasn’t the man who used to pull him close, whisper promises of forever into his ear. That man was gone, replaced by someone colder, someone too consumed by ambition to care about the heart he had shattered along the way.
“I see,” Harry said quietly, his voice barely above a whisper.
He felt hollow, as if all the love he had carried for Tom had been drained from him in that single moment of devastating clarity.
The rain outside pounded harder against the window, mirroring the tears Harry could no longer hold back. He took a deep breath, his hands trembling as he wiped his face and squared his shoulders.
“I think that... I don’t know if I love you…” Harry whispered.
His voice was so small, yet it echoed in the silence of the room, for Tom had stopped dead in his tracks.
“What did you say?” he whispered back.
Harry inhaled deeply and spoke again, his tone more assured. “I don’t know if I love you—I don't know if I love you anymore.”
Tom turned to him, a flicker of surprise and something deeper crossing his carefully guarded expression before he rounded on Harry, standing tall and forcing Harry to crane his neck just to hold his gaze.
“You are being a child! You have no idea what it takes to be me, Harry. No idea what burden rests on my shoulders.”
Harry watched Tom, pressing his lips into a thin line. He wanted to feel something—anger, rage, heartbreak—anything. But all that remained was a hollow ache, a quiet acceptance of how far apart they had drifted.
All Harry did was blink… that was all he did. And suddenly, Tom was no longer the same.
“You think that I don’t love you—” Tom continued, pacing the room and gesturing wildly as if trying to lay out facts and force Harry to see his side, beating him into submission as he always had.
Harry remained silent, his eyes tracing the familiar path of Tom’s footsteps across the floor. How many times had he been the one to adjust, to bend, just to keep the peace? How many times had he said ‘sorry’ and ‘I love you’ just to spare them both pain? How many times had he hurt himself?
Tom abruptly stopped, noticing Harry’s silence, his brow furrowing in anger. “Are you even listening to me? I’m trying to explain that this—” he gestured between them, “—is just a rough patch. We’ll get through it like we always do. You always make things more dramatic than they need to be. Honestly, sometimes I think you—”
Finally, finally he had enough.
Without a word, he lifted his left hand, fingers enclosing around the cool metal, pulling it off slowly yet surely. As soon as it was gone, it felt like an arrow that had been lodged deep in his heart was removed. It hurt, and yet it felt almost freeing.
Tom was still talking, still pacing, still so lost in his own importance that he didn’t notice how Harry did not fight back as he used to, did not notice how Harry had stopped paying attention because he simply did not care. Not anymore.
Tom did not notice the almost reverent way Harry held the ring in his hand. He didn’t see how Harry’s eyes dropped to it one last time, a faint glimmer of tears in his lashes, before he stepped forward and placed it quietly on the table between them—softly, as if it were still something sacred to him, a reminder of what could have been, of what had once felt so real.
Tom’s voice wavered, realising Harry had moved closer, but he kept talking, kept pushing his point. He didn’t notice the sound of the ring being placed down, didn’t even glance down to find out.
“You always make everything about you, about how you feel,” Tom said, his voice rising. “But you’ve never understood what it’s like to think of more than yourself, to consider the future. I'm doing this for you, everything for us—”
Everything for them. Everything for them?
Him hurting Harry over and over again, disregarding the sanctity of their love and sharing his with another... it was somehow for them?
Harry’s gaze softened. Not with affection, no, but with a resignation that felt final. It was over, and he didn’t need to say another word.
Tom finally turned toward him, eyes narrowing at Harry’s silence. “What? Are you not even going to say anything?” He stepped forward, exasperated. “Is this just another one of your new strategies, Harry? You’re going to sulk until I apologise?”
But Harry didn’t speak. He didn’t need to. The ring on the table said everything for him, if only Tom had bothered to notice.
And sadly, of course he had not. He hadn’t noticed anything since he had turned into this monster of a man; nothing else mattered except himself.
“No. I’m just tired, Tom,” Harry said, his voice faint. “I just don’t think I can love you in the way you want me to. I don’t think anyone in the world could love you the way you want them to.”
Harry walked quietly to the coat hanger, grabbing his coat and wrapping it around himself as he spared his fiancé one last glance.
“Oh, now you walk away! Typical. I’ll be here when you’re ready to talk like adults!”
No response was needed as the flames of the Floo took him away. Harry thought he heard a sizzle as he was engulfed in the light, though whether it came from the raindrops still clinging to his coat or his tears, he did not know.