Chapter Text
When they emerge from the bathroom, they find Kreacher has left lunch on a side table as well as some bags from Hogsmeade that Harry doesn’t recognise or understand.
Tom, however, lights up at the sight and then eagerly tucks into the food, eyes fluttering closed in pleasure at first bite. Chewing carefully before swallowing, he asks, “Is Mrs Weasley here, then?”
Harry raises his eyebrows, balancing his own plate on his knees. He isn’t hungry, but since they have no idea what the rest of the day holds, figures he may as well force some sustenance down to keep his strength up. “How’d you know?”
Tom shrugs and doesn’t respond, too busy eating like he hasn’t seen food in weeks, and Harry lets the matter rest.
Though he’s loath to let Tom out of his sight for even a second, Harry eventually ventures downstairs in search of news.
His sense of timing is impeccable – when he reaches the ground floor, the front door swings open, and Sirius strolls inside wearing the biggest smile Harry can recall ever seeing outside of old photographs.
“Harry!” Sirius rushes forward and bodily picks Harry up like he weighs nothing, then swings him around while laughing wildly. “I’m free! FREE! I’M A FREE MAN!”
One of Harry’s flailing legs hits the wall, his other foot the banister, but he doesn’t even notice – Sirius’ pure joy is too infectious. Harry throws his arms around his godfather and whoops loudly, neither of them caring that Walburga wakes up and starts screaming.
“SHUT UP YOU HORRIBLE OLD HAG, I’M A FREE MAN! EXONERATED ON ALL COUNTS WITH THEIR APOLOGIES!” Sirius hollers into her painted face. Walburga shies back from his exuberance and Harry’s swinging legs, her screams abruptly cut off in her shock at their display.
Then there are footsteps thundering up and down the stairs, the whole Weasley family and Hermione congregating in the hallway until they’re practically packed wall-to-wall, and the loud exclamations of joy and rousing congratulations start anew.
Once the initial burst of excitement has calmed slightly, they migrate down into the kitchen, everyone talking over each other in requests for the full story.
Which is when Harry and Sirius, after a brief shared look, reveal that they’ve found Bob, and that he’s fine upstairs, resting under Kreacher’s watchful eye.
“You found him!? And you didn’t say!?” Mrs Weasley screeches, moving toward the exit, forcing Harry to jump up and steer her back to her seat.
“Please, he needs peace and quiet, you can see him later,” Harry tells her gently, trading another look with Sirius.
They both know there will be no later.
“The Death Eater who held him also had Wormtail stashed away,” Sirius interjects, easily redirecting everyone’s attention to himself.
Everyone’s but Ron and Hermione’s.
Harry sends them a small, reassuring smile and nod at their questioning stares, and knows he won’t escape having to tell them the full truth this time. For some reason, he doesn’t consider lying to them.
Whether it’ll be the straw that breaks the camel’s back remains to be seen.
Sequestering themselves in their usual drawing room, Harry takes a deep breath for strength, then tells his best friends the truth about his soulmate.
“I’m sorry,” Ron says, digging his finger into his ear and scratching demonstratively. “I could have sworn you said that your soulmate, Bob Jonsson, is really Tom Riddle, who, as we all well know, is You-Know-Who! But that would be mental, and definitely not something my best friend would ever tell me, so what was it you actually said?”
Harry cringes, holding his hands out in supplication. “I’m sorry I lied – I am! But he’s not – he doesn’t actually remember anything he did as Voldemort, and you have been seeing the real him, just not… with the right name. Or face.”
“…suppose this explains why you didn’t seem to like him at first,” Hermione says faintly as she sinks onto the sofa.
“Ah, see, it would, if it were actually true,” Ron says, wagging his finger in her direction, tone tinged with hysteria. “But it’s not, because this is simply a poorly thought-out prank, and – and Bob is still Bob!”
“I realise this is… a lot –”
“No, see,” Ron harshly interjects, a wild edge to his blue eyes, “a lot was learning there are different sodding universes. A lot was learning my best mate died a couple months ago and was replaced by a different version of him who’s been lying to us all along. And now you’re telling us that our friend, your soulmate, is the evillest wizard of all time? The psychopath who killed your parents, and nearly killed my sister? One question –” Ron inhales deeply then bellows, “ARE YOU FUCKING INSANE!?”
Harry looks to Hermione for support, receiving only a shrug, a raised eyebrow, and a gesture toward Ron’s perfectly valid meltdown in response.
“…no?”
“No, he says. NO! NO!? Blimey, Harry – this is – this – I –” Ron’s legs give out, and he drops down beside Hermione. Gulping down air, he adds, “I need… a minute. Or – or a million.”
Figuring he may as well go for broke at this point, Harry carefully says, “You won’t have to be around him, though. Or me, I suppose.”
Hermione frowns. “How so?”
“We’re leaving.”
“Leaving Grimmauld?”
“…leaving Britain, actually.”
“Don’t be silly, Harry. School starts up again in a couple of weeks –”
Harry puts his hands in his pockets to hide their trembling and does his best to gentle his voice. “Hermione, you’re not getting it. Dumbledore knows who Tom is, and he won’t have Tom at the school. So, since we still need an education… we’re leaving Britain. Permanently.”
Hermione blinks. Once, twice. Then, her eyes begin to well up. “You’re leaving?”
Harry nods, ignoring the discomfort he feels at the sight of her tears. “We have to.”
“But… W-where are you gonna go?” Hermione sniffles, wiping at her eyes.
“Not sure yet,” Harry admits. “France, maybe? Sirius is coming with us, for appearances sake if nothing else… we haven’t talked specifics yet.”
“So you’re leaving the country with You-Know – Tom,” Ron says, voice hollow, eyes burning holes into Harry’s. “Leaving Hogwarts. Leaving us. You’re choosing him over us.”
Harry’s face falls, feeling Ron’s pain like a lance through his stomach. “Mate, come on… I have to.”
“No, you don’t,” Ron snaps, some of his fire returning before promptly dwindling down to embers again. “You could let him go. Alone. And you’ll stay, yeah?”
Dejectedly, Harry shakes his head. “He needs me.”
“Fuck what he needs.”
Closing his eyes momentarily, praying for strength, Harry forces the next words over his lips. “I need him, too.”
Ron crosses his arms over his chest and glares, a strange shine to his eyes that Harry belatedly realises must be tears. “I thought we were your best friends.”
“You are,” Harry pleads. “Try to understand – he’s my soulmate. That… it means something here. I know you know it too, even if you haven’t accepted your bond yet. Don’t make me – I don’t want to choose between you, because it’s not a choice I could ever make.”
“You’re making it right now,” Ron shoots back, finally tearing his gaze away, fastening it on the floorboards instead.
“Ron,” Hermione says through her softly falling tears, putting a careful hand on his arm, braced for if Ron decides to shrug it off. “It doesn’t have to be forever. Dumbledore won’t have – Tom – at Hogwarts, but he can’t control whether they return to the country after their schooling is done.” She takes a shaky breath, then, when Ron’s shoulders begin to slump in defeat and recognition of her point, she goes on, “It’s only a couple of years. We can visit. They can probably visit. Dumbledore isn’t omniscient.”
Ron exhales deeply and drags his hand through his hair. His eyes are edged with red, and Harry feels his own start to burn in sympathy. “I’m just… I’m really gonna miss you, mate.”
“I’m gonna miss you too,” Harry chokes out around the heart thundering in his throat. “Both of you. So much. You’re – you really are my best friends.”
They may not be the originals, the ones he’s been through hell and back with. But they have stood by him for six months, unflaggingly supportive despite his efforts at keeping them at arm’s length and accepted him unconditionally after hearing the truth about his origins. They know him – and he them, their hearts and souls, and that they’ll eventually accept this reality as well. Knows they’ll stand by him, come what may.
He’s going to miss them terribly. He desperately wants them to remain in his life, the way they have since he found a boy who offered to share his homemade lunch, and they rescued a girl from a troll.
But even as he thinks it and sees the want reflected in his best friends’ glassy eyes, he accepts that their relationship is going to look very different going forward.
Because, strange though it may seem, he needs Tom more.
After the emotionally exhausting conversation with Ron and Hermione, Harry is intercepted by Sirius leaving the drawing room, and after sharing a solemn look, they head back to Tom’s room together.
When Harry steps inside, he nearly has a heart attack.
Tom isn’t there.
An odd, strangled sound of pure panic escapes Harry, and he rushes deeper inside the room.
Then, Tom carefully sticks his head out of the bathroom, and Harry can’t help but crash into him, wrapping his arms around his soulmate and hugging him tightly to his chest.
“I thought you disappeared again,” he mutters into Tom’s soft hair, his careening heartbeat somewhat soothed by the scent.
“I was just hiding in case it was someone else,” Tom says, sounding baffled and looking the very same once Harry lets go of him, but the bafflement is soon replaced with pleasure at Harry’s reaction.
“Merlin, this is strange,” Sirius says faintly, closing the bedroom door and leaning back against it. “Your voice is the same but…”
“I imagine it must be.” Tom shrugs, trading a quick glance with Harry. “But I’m still – me.”
“Yeah… best I not focus on just who that is,” Sirius grunts.
“I meant,” Tom grimaces, “Bob.”
Sirius’ features soften minutely, and he nods. “Right. Well.” He straightens and changes the subject. “I don’t know if you heard the commotion downstairs earlier, but I’ve been officially exonerated.”
“Congratulations,” Tom interjects warmly, and Harry easily reads the sincerity in his voice.
Sirius smiles a little and goes on, “Dumbledore and I agreed that we’re leaving later tonight, so get your things.”
Oh you agreed, did you?
It’s unclear whether he does it to hold Tom back or for his own comfort, but Harry puts a hand on Tom’s shoulder, and snidely asks through gritted teeth, “Have you already decided where we’re going, too?”
“Not decided, necessarily,” Sirius prevaricates before sighing deeply. “But Dumbledore suggested, and I agree, that perhaps the States might be best.”
Tom freezes under Harry’s touch, and his brown eyes go wide. “America?”
“Why there, of all places?” Harry demands incredulously.
Sirius’s eyes turn shifty. “It’s far away from Britain. Dumbledore knows the headmistress at Ilvermorny, so he can more easily facilitate a transfer for you both, and the Death Eaters are less likely to look for – Tom over there. It just… makes sense. A fresh start. For all of us.”
All perfectly valid reasons. “…and?”
Sirius frowns in confusion, but his hand twitches tellingly toward his chest. “And what?”
“What other reason is there, that you aren’t telling us?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Aren’t we a little past lying to each other at this point?”
“I don’t know – are we?”
They stare each other down.
Until Sirius’ lips begin to twitch at the same time as Harry’s.
Fidgeting slightly with the sleeves of his jacket, Sirius amusedly says, “Merlin forbid a bloke gets to keep something to himself. Fine. In addition to all those reasons… I suspect it’s where my soulmate might be hiding out.”
Harry’s eyes widen. “I thought you said you weren’t sure he’s even alive?”
“Wait,” Tom interjects, equally shocked but for a different reason, “you have a soulmate?”
“Yes, I have a soulmate. And no, I’m still not… sure he’s alive.”
“Then why…?”
“Because of Kreacher.”
“What does Kreacher have to do with anything?” Tom asks in confusion.
“He still follows your orders. He doesn’t do it because he wants to – he has to. And he wouldn’t need to unless… unless the person who originally told him to follow Voldemort’s orders is still alive.”
Oh! Damn, that’s unlucky. Still, better than no soulmate at all.
Sirius cannot, for some reason, quite meet Harry’s eye when he goes on, “I could be wrong, of course… but I don’t think so. And we always – always used to say, that in America, no one would ever know we were…” He trails off, seemingly incapable of forcing any further words over his lips.
Understanding dawns, or perhaps more accurately, smacks Harry right in the face.
Oh. That’s… unfortunate.
“Does anyone else know?” Harry asks, careful not to inject any judgement into his voice lest Sirius clam up completely.
“No,” Sirius replies, hoarsely. “I – I only ever told James. But I figured… if you can overcome what Voldemort did to them… to everyone… and come out happier for it? I don’t know – I just… maybe – maybe it’s worth giving Fate the benefit of the doubt.”
“It wouldn’t be platonic, then?” Harry asks, keeping his face frozen in a mask of acceptance no matter the torrent of thoughts and emotions crashing over him.
Sirius swallows. His voice comes out barely louder than a whisper, “…no.”
Harry nods, squeezing Tom’s shoulder, hoping Tom understands the silent cue not to push. “Alright then. America it is.”
In the middle of packing up Tom’s room, they’re interrupted by the pecking on a window. Harry doesn’t recognise the owl but quickly lets it inside.
“Hello, there.”
The owl hoots politely in reply and stretches out its leg, where two letters and a small pouch for tipping is attached. Digging through his pockets, Harry finds a couple knuts that he drops into the pouch, then disentangles the letters. Or tries to, at least, but after he’s removed the letter with his own name on it, the owl pecks his hand in admonishment and jumps over to Tom with another soft hoot.
Tom raises an eyebrow. “For me?”
The owl hoots again, and if owls could sound exasperated, this one certainly would.
After the delivery has been completed, the owl soars out the window, which Harry then shuts.
Turning the letter over in his hands, he doesn’t recognise the handwriting. Trading a quick look and a shrug with his soulmate, he breaks the small piece of tape keeping the envelope closed.
Harry,
Happy Christmas.
I’ve never written a letter before. But Bobby said this is how you lot stay in touch.
I’ve been thinking a lot about this summer. About that dementor, and what you did. I don’t remember everything, but I remember most of it.
(Mum and dad barely remember anything. They’re not saying anything, at least. You know how they get.)
Thank you. See you this summer.
Dudley
Baffled, Harry reads the short missive a couple of times, but it makes no more sense the fifth time he’s gone through it.
Looking up, he finds Tom already watching him.
“Was yours from Dudley as well?”
Tom’s lips curve into a small smile and he holds out his own letter. “Yes. Trade?”
The letters switch hands.
Bobby,
Hope term’s been good. Mine’s been alright. Haven’t really seen the lads much. Been getting into boxing at school, properly, that is. And I’ve done a lot of thinking.
We had fun this summer, yeah? I hope you’ll come round next summer too, but I don’t think we should mess with Harry as much. He’s not so bad.
Are there spells that erase memories? Is there any way to get those memories back?
Happy Christmas.
Dudley
“I don’t even know what to say.” Harry reads the letter over once more before shaking his head and handing it back to Tom. “He never… This is new. Unique to him. He wasn’t as bad after the dementor stuff back where I came from, but he never sent me a letter.”
‘I don’t think you’re a waste of space.’
“Suppose even a puddle like Dudley Dursley has some hidden depths,” Tom says, still smiling, sounding surprisingly fond.
Harry rubs a hand through his hair and shakes his head again. He doesn’t know what to feel or think about the whole thing. “Yeah. Seems he does.”
They smuggle Tom up to Harry’s room under the invisibility cloak. They’ve barely been there a minute before there’s a careful knock on the door.
Frowning, Harry opens it, after directing Tom to stay under the cloak. Outside, he finds Ron and Hermione, both looking determined, though there’s worry in their red-rimmed eyes.
“May we come in?” Hermione asks, overly polite. Ron’s jaw clenches but he doesn’t say anything.
Harry steps aside and shuts the door behind them. “Tom’s here as well.”
At that, Tom removes the cloak, holding it loosely between his clasped hands, and a tense silence falls between the four of them. Harry wants to move to Tom’s side but forces himself to remain still. He reminds himself that he trusts all three of them – and that neither Ron nor Hermione will lay a hand on his soulmate.
To Harry’s surprise, it is Ron breaking the silence, with a terse, “Are you okay?”
Tom looks equally surprised. “I – yes. I’m quite alright, thank you.”
Ron gives one curt nod and trades a look with Hermione that Harry can’t decipher, before shaking his head and letting out a deep sigh. “Blimey, this is odd.”
“I can imagine,” Tom says quietly, running some of the fabric between his fingers in an uncharacteristic show of nerves.
“It’s even odder remembering the things we’ve spoken so freely about over the past couple of months,” Hermione says, “and that you’ve been right under the Order’s nose this whole time.”
A small smile flashes across Tom’s face before his expression sobers. “I understand. Though I can’t deny it was… entertaining.”
Ron snorts. “I bet it was. Just – I gotta ask. Was all of it a lie?”
Tom’s eyes widen, and Harry can’t help but think he looks sincere. “No, of course not. Even I am not that good an actor.”
“So the FF… Studying with me, even though I’m a muggleborn…?” Hermione juts out her chin in defiance, but Harry can see the slight tremble to her shoulders.
“That – stuff like that… it doesn’t really matter to me, anymore,” Tom replies slowly, eyes downcast. “I mean – you’re brilliant, Hermione. And so is Harry. Not to mention myself. And none of us are purebloods. I don’t – I don’t really know.”
“Good,” Ron rumbles. “Keep it that way. Harry’s told us everything, you know, and we’ll keep your secret – unless you give us a reason not to.”
Tom nods, some frustration flashing past on his face. “I understand.”
“I hope –” Hermione cuts herself off and takes a deep breath before continuing, “I hope we can get to know each other properly from now on. For Harry’s sake, if nothing else.”
Harry’s eyes begin to burn as a careful truce is negotiated, and then further cemented by Tom handing over the Christmas gifts he’d gotten for Ron and Hermione before he’d been kidnapped.
Hermione hugs the book to her chest with a tremulous smile, and Ron stares with hunger at the beautiful chess set in his hands.
Harry’s chest feels fit to burst as they then bid each other a careful but heartfelt ‘goodbye for now’, each of them promising to keep in touch – with some additional extracted promises of future visits as well.
“They really are quite special,” Tom remarks softly once the door has shut behind Ron and Hermione.
“Yeah,” Harry says, lump in his throat. “They really are.”
“Oh this is such a lovely moment,” Death suddenly trills from behind them. “You know, I always tend to prefer when those two aren’t demonised quite so much. Especially with your co-dependent little bromance with Ron there, Master.”
Harry curses in shock, turning around. “What the hell are you doing here?”
Death, in all it’s terrible glory, spreads its arms-not-arms wide, appearing to, for a moment, fill up the entirety of the room, wall to wall, before shrinking back into something that fits in one’s direct eyeline. “Wouldn’t be a final chapter without me, now, would it?”
“What do you mean ‘chapter?’” Harry demands, receiving a sharp laugh in return that nearly punctures his eardrums.
“Don’t you pay me no nevermind,” Death replies in an exaggerated Southern accent, giving the impression of batting its non-existent eyelashes. “I merely came to congratulate you on the road so far.”
“As if you didn’t pull the strings the entire time,” Harry sneers, inching closer to Tom, who’s gone white with fear. “Getting me here –”
“Oh, Master. I’m flattered you think so,” Death interrupts, every syllable dripping with amusement. “But no, neither I nor Fate have dictated this story – you see, I’ve already told you there are endless universes. Every choice a person makes creates a fork in the road. I can only tinker a little with the narrative by creating a diverging path – which path you end up treading is all you.”
It gestures toward Tom, who’s greatest desire seems to be to meld with the walls or floor or bookshelves; anything to escape Death’s direct attention.
“Take Tom here, for instance. He could have simply refused to bend to your will. Instead, we get a sinner redeemed. It’s a compelling narrative, to be sure. Perhaps not to everyone’s tastes but it resonates well enough with plenty of people. Including me, in this case. And no one forced you to do all those morally questionable things, Master. That was all you, isn't that neat? You make him better, he makes you worse... I've got chills, truly!” Death stretches out its arms-not-arms, wagging them in the air, before happily continuing, “I, for one, cannot wait for what else you two will get up to. Toodles!”
With that, from one blink of the eye to the next, Death disappears.
For now.
They end up at farmhouse in the middle of nowhere Wyoming, hastily purchased and magically furnished.
While Sirius impatiently gets everything for the soulmate-tracking ritual in order that same evening (more like the middle of the night for the three of them) with the help of a confused but eager Kreacher, Harry and Tom escape out the back door, drifting down toward a creek at the end of the property.
Their breath escapes in white plumes in the pitch-black darkness but the cold doesn’t bother them – being on the other side of the world from where they woke up is simply too exhilarating.
Harry conjures a nest of blankets for them, and they huddle close on the frozen ground, underneath a sky sliced up by trees, every shard crammed full of twinkling stars.
It’s peaceful. Beautiful. And it hits him then, looking up at the cosmos and stars that are just slightly out of place from where he expects them to be, that he almost lost it all. Took it for granted. Kept his gaze down and made the world smaller than it had to be; so small he couldn’t care less if it ended until it almost did. Only a strange twist of Fate, of Death’s whim, led to this moment, where he’s lying under an open sky next to his soulmate, their bond singing softly between them, and feeling genuinely, completely happy. The void that nothing could fill, that used to dog his every step, is now nothing but a distant memory.
Breath catches in his snared shut throat. Then, Tom’s fingers thread slowly through his. As if he can tell. As if he understands, without Harry having to speak a single word. As if he feels it too.
Harry lifts their entwined hands to his lips, and presses a soft kiss to Tom’s fingers, closing his eyes in rapture at the serenity in his veins.
With their history, getting even this far is just shy of unbelievable. Nothing about them really says ‘ever after’.
And yet.
being with you is easy, easy as breathing
only you can see me when the lights go out
the way you complete me, so incompletely