Chapter 33: Thirty Three

Notes:

Warnings for sex, minor character deaths, and violence.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

X

Time seemed to stand still as bright green eyes stared into icy blue. The whispers from the Veil seemed to be screaming at him, but Harry paid them no heed, his attention sufficiently focused on his no longer dead Godfather.

Harry could feel his heart thumping in his chest, amplified by the heavy pounding of Sirius' heart merging against his. Harry hadn't been this close to Sirius for months; hadn't been able to physically feel his Godfather since his death, but now he was here, and Harry didn't know quite how to react.

A pale hand grasped Sirius' shoulder, hauling the man to his feet.

"Sirius Black," Tom drawled, and Sirius immediately dropped to his knees, bowing his head. "I am not relinquishing my ownership over you, however your primary duty is to resume your role as Godfather, lover, and friend."

"Yes, Master," Sirius answered, his voice distant, and hearing Sirius talk to somebody in authority with sincere respect didn't seem right to Harry. But Sirius was bound to Tom now, forever forced to be his obedient servant, even if the role was secondary to Sirius' normal life.

It was worth it though; it had to be. They had lost so much when Sirius left their lives; Remus had been tormented to the brink of craving death, and James could only cope by numbing his senses and blocking out the rest of the world around him. Even if they had learnt to survive now, they weren't the same people they once were, and though Sirius being back would not guarantee to fix them completely, it would bring back a sense of normality to them.

Tom moved away from Sirius to pick up the Tablet, so Harry got up and walked over to his Godfather and embraced him in a tight hug, burying his head in Sirius' chest.

It was still so hard to believe that Sirius was really there, alive and real, and the emotions were overwhelming to the point that Harry had to squeeze his eyes shut against Sirius' shirt to stop the tears from spilling over his cheeks.

Sirius' hands lay gently on his back, and it wasn't the tight hug that Sirius normally grasped him in, and it was wrong but Harry needed just that small touch from his Godfather to prove Harry wasn't imagining this.

Harry did let out a muffled sob as Sirius shifted to embrace Harry properly, squeezing him tightly as he rested his head on top of Harry's.

"Merlin, Harry!" Sirius exclaimed, and Harry sobbed again as he heard the real Sirius speaking for the first time in months. "Why did you do that? You could have died, and just for me."

"You died for me," Harry mumbled back, fingers clenching at the back of Sirius' shirt. "I had to get you back; I had to."

"I know," Sirius murmured softly. "I know."

X

If Harry had been emotional at the Ministry, it was nothing compared to being back at home with Sirius in tow.

Tom had soon dragged Sirius and Harry apart and Apparated them back to the Potter's house. Apparently they couldn't have Apparated to the Ministry because Tom didn't believe in going somewhere without knowing the surroundings first.

And as soon as Sirius stepped through the door of the living room, he was pounded on by both Remus and James.

Tom dragged Lucius away from the 'sickening sight', as Tom called it, and left the newly reunited group alone to take it in turns to embrace Sirius so tight as if they were afraid he would disappear again if they let go.

"It can't really be you, can it, Sirius?" Remus asked, his voice desperate as he clutched as Sirius' shirt and gazed deeply into his eyes.

"I think it is," Sirius answered softly with a light smile, taking Remus' hands into his own.

"But how?" James cried in a strangled voice. "You were dead!"

"Technically," Sirius reasoned with a grin, and despite his recent resurrection and reunion with his loved ones, his usual fun loving attitude seemed to be in place once more, with Sirius not seeming nearly as emotional as the rest of them. Harry supposed Sirius mustn't have experienced their separation to the same degree that his family had had outside of the Veil.

"What did it feel like?" Heather asked in a hushed whisper, and the room went silent as everyone waited for the answer with bated breath. Even Harry, who had a vague idea of the answer, wanted to hear from Sirius himself what it had been liked trapped behind the Veil.

"What did it feel like?" Sirius repeated, his voice just as faint. "It felt long but short; all meaning of time seemed to float away, like I had been trapped for eternity, but eternity was only mere minutes. I couldn't physically feel anything, but I could hear the voices of the others trapped with me, and see the light of the outside world through the door, and through the darkness I could see something even darker; the door leading to the afterlife which was impossible to cross through." Sirius' eyes were wide and distant, his voice far away and emotionless. "I longed to see you all, yet it was easy to accept my death, though despite that, being back in the real world feels like I'd been drowning until I left the Veil."

Silence washed over the group at Sirius' dramatic words, but eventually James broke it with a sharp laugh.

"Blimey, Padfoot, you not going to keep going all philosophical on us, are you?" James grinned, the smile not quite reaching his eyes. "I get enough of that from Xeno Lovegood."

"That hippy bloke who was in the year above us? Merlin, James, I'm only dead a few months and you got a replacement best friend already?" Sirius responded with a bark of a laugh.

Remus gave Sirius a watery smile at that, and James swiped his eyes with the back of his hand furiously as he forced out a laugh.

"A best friend isn't the only thing I've changed," James said lightly, reaching a hand down to tap on his prosthetic leg.

Sirius blinked, and James rolled his trouser leg up slightly so Sirius could see.

"Your leg is gone," Sirius said plainly, and then his eyes widened. "Prongs, your leg is gone!"

"A werewolf in human form attacked me, and the damage was too much," James explained, rolling his trousers back down.

"Greyback?" Sirius guessed, and Remus violently shook his head.

"Greyback is dead," Remus spat, his hatred of the once vicious man not fading after his death. "Good riddance to him, but Ulric is much worse. He's filed his teeth into fangs, grown out his nails and sharpened them too, and he isn't picky who his victims are."

"Sounds a pleasant bloke," Sirius mused. "Did the Order get Greyback?"

"Nobody knows," Lily answered, casting Harry a dark look. "His body appeared in Hogwarts one day; Harry found it."

Sirius turned his focus back onto Harry, the blue orbs still widened with shock, and Harry shrugged.

"An enemy of Voldemort's and the Order killed him, and wanted me to see the body," Harry said, expanding on the vague information his parents and Remus had given to Sirius. "Greyback bit one of my friends and infected him, and this guy wanted to make a peace offering of sorts, I guess."

"How much more I have missed?" Sirius asked faintly, shifting to sit in one of the chairs.

"This could take a while," Lily muttered while the others pulled up their own chairs.

"Harry will be required elsewhere," a cold voice spoke, and Sirius moved to kneel at the sight of Tom, making James choke at the sight.

Tom threw James a nasty smirk, and beckoned Harry to him with a finger.

"Don't be too late," Lily called as Tom pulled Harry through the doorway. "You've got to be up early for the train to Hogwarts tomorrow."

Harry found it somewhat amusing that his mother had given up asking questions whenever Tom was involved.

Tom led Harry to the entrance hallway where Lucius was waiting by the front door, the Tablet tight in his grasp.

"We are going to test this at the graveyard in the village," Tom informed Harry, taking the Tablet from Lucius. "Lucius will keep watch for us."

Harry nodded, not particularly happy that Lucius was going too, but Harry knew there would be no point arguing; if Tom wanted Lucius with them, then that was that.

The graveyard was not a long walk from Harry's house, and the streets were dead.

The weather was icy cold, the sky already dark with only the streetlights lighting the way, but that didn't normally stop the villagers from venturing out.

The curtains of the houses they walked past would occasionally shift as the neighbours spied, but otherwise Godric's Hollow seemed deserted and entirely shut down.

The gate to the cemetery creaked open, the hinges deeply engrained with rust.

Lucius stopped by it, drawing his wand threateningly, and darted his eyes from side to side to check for life.

There was only a shimmer of light from the far away streetlights, and otherwise the graveyard was cloaked in darkness, the grey stone of the headstones barely visible.

"Anyone in particular you wish to bring back?" Tom asked, stopping to study his surroundings.

"Err, I don't know," Harry shrugged. Apparently whoever Tom brought back to life would only be in body and not soul, so should he go for someone he never knew, or go for someone he did know and risk their lack of character seeming strange to him? Would it even matter, or were they just a test for Tom to dispose of after?

Harry opened his mouth to respond, but then a mumbled whispering reached his ears.

He whipped his head around, trying to place the sound but it seemed to circle him, the words not quite making sense.

"What's wrong?" Tom snapped sharply, grabbing hold of Harry's shoulders to stop him moving his head.

"Didn't you hear that?" Harry asked in a hushed voice, straining his ears as the whispering died away.

"Clearly not," Tom muttered. "I have Charms that will go off if anyone comes within a certain radius, and Lucius is keeping watch too; there is nobody here. You are likely paranoid about being in the open."

Harry didn't quite believe Tom, but the older man really didn't seem to have heard anything, unless it was Lucius messing with his head, but surely a middle-aged man had better things to do.

There was a slight breeze, so Harry presumed it must have been the leaves rattling through the wind and tried to push the thoughts of the strange sound aside as Tom gave up on Harry picking a grave and chose one himself.

Tom placed the Tablet onto the floor, using his wand to flick a small amount of dirt from the ground over it.

Tom closed his eyes and began chanting, the Tablet shaking and glowing bright, sending rays of golden light through the ground.

As Tom's chanting sped up, a thick beam of light erupted from the grave, the ground around it shaking and crumbling in on itself.

Harry flinched violently as a woman screamed loudly, and then a pale hand punched through the ground, the body beneath the dirt fighting its way through.

Harry could only watch wide-eyed, the screaming almost deafening, as a woman draped in brown cloth pushed up through the mud.

She turned blank eyes to Tom, and dropped to her knees.

Though the woman looked very much alive, there was something off about her. Sirius had seemed distant and not quite himself, but this woman seemed even more emotionless and real, as though she were nothing but a fresh corpse.

As Harry peered closely at her headstone, it said she had died in 1834.

The screaming had stopped now, subsiding into soft sobs which were carried away with the wind, but Tom still showed no sign of acknowledging it.

"How may I serve you, Master?" the woman spoke, and a wicked smirk crossed Tom's face.

"You have served your purpose," Tom replied curtly, and then he cast the Killing Curse at her, her once again lifeless body crumpling to the floor. "I do not want Muggles in my midst, be they slaves or not."

Harry nodded gently, still slightly shaken from the screaming.

"Was that her screaming like that?" Harry asked, and Tom gave Harry a questioning look.

"Nobody was screaming, dear," Tom replied with a small smirk, but his eyes seemed wary for just a moment. Tom picked the Tablet up from the ground and turned to Harry once more. "I have something I would like to show you," Tom said, offering Harry his hand.

Harry placed his hand in Tom's, allowing the taller man to pull him through the cemetery until they reached a row of headstones from more recent times.

These were the ones with fresh flowers on, and with their writing still legible. There was also far too many of them, and Harry could now see why the village had been so deserted.

"Have all these people died because of the war?" Harry whispered, jumping when Tom's mouth was suddenly against his ear.

"Necessary casualties," Tom hissed, pulling Harry to a row of graves facing the large metal fence, with large leafless trees looming above them. "Read the headstones."

An odd request, Harry thought, but he knew better than to disobey Tom.

The first one seemed normal enough.

'Amy Helena Wright : 1976 – 1996. Loving daughter and sister. Will be forever missed.'

But despite the darkness, Harry noticed that some letters seemed to have a dark substance coating the engraving.

Harry pressed his finger against it and was immediately met by wetness. He brought his fingertip to his nose, and caught the scent of blood.

Harry turned wild eyes to Tom, but Tom was hardly visible in the night, and Harry turned back to the grave.

He trailed his fingers along the letters, noting the ones painted with blood, and his eyes widened even further as he realised the blood was spelling something.

MYHEART

Merlin, Tom was romanticising Harry using blood and headstones, and Harry couldn't keep the smile from gracing his face.

And going through the row, Harry saw more.

DEARESTDARLING

BEAUTIFULDARKNESS

ALWAYSMINE

MYDISASTER

"Thank you, Tom," Harry said softly, as large hands wrapped around his waist from behind as he gazed at the final one.

The gesture would have been strange from anyone else, but Tom wasn't like anyone else, and that was why Harry loved him.

He turned in Tom's grip and tilted his head up to kiss Tom gently.

As usual, Tom soon took over the kiss, biting Harry's lower lip and sucking on the bruises he left. Tom's tongue plundered into Harry's mouth, mapping it out.

Tom released Harry to place a Cushioning Charm on the floor, and then pulled Harry down to the ground with him, settling him onto Tom's lap as he rested against the headstone.

Harry leant back in and resumed the kiss, squirming as Tom's hands slipped underneath Harry's jeans to grope his arse.

"Tom," Harry whined, wriggling as he rubbed his hardening cock against Tom's. "We shouldn't be doing this here; it's disrespectful."

"They don't care; they're dead," Tom smirked against Harry's neck, biting down on the sensitive skin.

"B-but," Harry protested weakly, breaking off as Tom pushed a finger inside of him.

"This would be easier with your clothes off, dear," Tom teased, using his free hand to undo Harry's zipper.

"We're in public," Harry pointed out, but his hands were already pushing his jeans down his thighs and fumbling with the buttons on Tom's trousers.

"Nobody will see us, and Lucius will keep himself hidden," Tom drawled, lowering his head to bite at Harry's collar bone.

Tom brought his hand up to spit on his fingers, and then he dropped them back to Harry's hole, pushing two digits inside of him and scissoring them to stretch Harry.

Tom withdrew them soon after and freed his erection, and Harry shifted until it pressed against the tight ring of muscle, lowering himself onto Tom's hard cock.

It burnt as it stretched him, but Harry pressed down until it was inside him completely, with Tom's balls pressing against the swell of his arse.

Tom captured Harry's lips again, his hands gripping hard at Harry's hips.

Harry moaned into the kiss as he moved up and down on Tom's cock, fucking himself and losing himself in Tom.

He gripped hold of the top of the headstone for support, shutting his eyes as Tom's lips trailed down to Harry's neck, sucking hard at the mark Tom had previously made.

Tom thrust up, using his hands to pull Harry's hips down to meet him thrust for thrust, grazing against Harry's prostate each time and sending jolts of pleasure running through his body.

Harry could feel the pressure building up, and Tom moved a hand down to jerk Harry's cock in time with each thrust, and Tom's fingers, lips and cock were too much, turning Harry into a writhing mess as he came over Tom's slender fingers.

Tom pumped into Harry even harder, and then he stilled as he released inside of Harry, kissing Harry hard as he did.

Harry rested his forehead against Tom's, both of them breathing heavily.

"We're so messed up," Harry muttered with a shaky smile, resting his fingers on Tom's chest.

"To most people, perhaps," Tom countered. "But we are the ones who matter."

X

It seemed strange arriving at Kings Cross Station the next day.

The Winter Holidays had been so eventful; even the previous day had been full of drama for Harry, and now he had to leave all that behind to go back to Hogwarts.

Harry didn't particularly want to go back to school; he wanted to stay at home with Tom and Sirius. It wasn't even like he needed his NEWT results anymore, but Tom insisted he had to go back until at least the end of the year.

Sirius joined Lily and James to wave Harry and Heather off, transformed into his Animagus form so that people wouldn't notice the previously technically dead man. The large dog that was Sirius still seemed to gain a lot of attention, mostly from younger students who asked to pet him.

Sirius growled loudly when Xenophilius Lovegood waved at James, and Harry and Heather quickly boarded the train before they got caught in the drama between the quirky man and the canine Animagus.

Heather soon left Harry for a compartment with her friends, and Harry quickly ran into Luna after that. They managed to get an empty compartment near the end of the train, and it didn't take long for Draco to find them, slinking into the small room without a word.

While Luna seemed to be glowing, Draco looked the opposite, his face more pale and gaunt than usual. He had heavy bags under his eyes, making it look like he hadn't had much sleep recently, and because it had been over a week since the full moon, Harry knew it wasn't werewolf related.

"What's wrong?" Harry asked, deciding there was no point skirting round the question.

"Him," Draco hissed, his eyes darting to the door to watch the empty corridor outside. "He's furious about Azkaban; not even my Aunt Bellatrix has escaped his rage since it happened."

Harry wondered if that was why Tom decided to keep Harry from seeing Voldemort for another week.

"My mother is in hospital," Draco continued bitterly, his chest heaving up and down as he spoke. "The Lestrange brothers told the Dark Lord my father fled like a coward, so he took it out on my father's wife. I don't even know where Father is; he probably drowned or got himself captured by Dumbledore."

Harry's stomach knotted at the mention of Lucius, and he hoped the news of the man's whereabouts would cheer Draco up slightly.

"Your father is alive," Harry said quickly, and Draco snapped his eyes to him. "Dobby managed to get him to Tom, and Tom's keeping Lucius in hiding because he knows Voldemort will probably just kill him once he sees him."

Draco's mouth moved silently, and then he shut it, tilting his head to the side suspiciously.

"What interest does Riddle have with my father?" Draco queried, but Harry could already see that a weight had lifted off Draco's shoulders, his expression lightening slightly.

"Apparently your Grandfather Abraxas and Tom were, err, close acquaintances at Hogwarts, and your father reminds Tom of him," Harry answered with a shrug.

"And your Godfather is back for good now?" Luna piped up, making Draco narrow his eyes.

"I saw that dog with you and thought it looked like Black's Animagus form, but I thought he had died," Draco mused, both he and Luna watching Harry carefully.

"Well technically, yes," Harry said with an unsure smile. "He got trapped in the Death Veil at the Department of Mysteries, but Tom found a way to get him back out."

Draco looked like he was restraining himself from asking how.

"Did Tom give you the ring, too?" Luna asked, and both Harry's companions dropped their sight to his finger, so he held it up for them to see better. "Oh, the Shen Ring; that has a nice meaning to it."

"Eternity?" Draco whispered faintly. "Why did he give you that? If I didn't know better I'd say it looks like a Betrothal Ring."

"It is," Harry nodded. "Tom wants me to magically bond with him after I turn seventeen; says it's good for public image or something."

Draco nodded understandingly, but Luna shook her head.

"That might be part of the reason, but Tom could have asked anyone if it was public image only," Luna reasoned, twirling a lock of her hair around a finger. "I think he loves you, but not in the way the rest of us understand love. Love is lovely, and I think everyone can enjoy it in their own way."

Luna cast a look at Draco, whose lips turned up in a small smile.

Draco and Luna were sweet together, and Harry hoped Luna would help bring Draco out of the dark cloud he seemed to be under. Despite their slightly more conventional than Harry's relationship, Harry wouldn't want to trade Tom for anyone, no matter how cute and loving they may seem.

Last night had proved to Harry that Tom's feelings for him were strong and real, even if they may not be how a typical person experienced them.

They spent the next couple of hours in silence, keeping themselves occupied with reading. As the train journey went on, the sky seemed to fall drastically darker, with heavy rain pelting against the windows.

The trio looked up when their compartment door slid open, and Heather stepped through it, biting down on her lower lip.

She slid the door shut behind her, and sat down next to Harry but kept her eyes focused on the corridor outside.

"Heather, are you alright?" Harry asked his sister, causing her to bring her gaze back to him.

"Maybe," she shrugged. "Did, err, Tom say anything about the Hogwart's Express?"

"Like what?" Harry questioned suspiciously, and he was met with another shrug.

"I don't know; it's just that some of the Aurors seem to be acting strange, I guess," Heather answered.

The train did have a number of Aurors on it for protection, and Harry hadn't noticed anything out of the ordinary, but then again, he hadn't particularly paid any attention to them.

"How are they acting strange? Tom would have told me if Voldemort was planning an attack on the train," Harry said, and before Heather could answer, the train slammed to a halt, tilting on its side slightly before landing roughly back on the tracks.

The lights flickered off, and Harry looked outside the window to see that they had stopped on the viaduct bridge, high in the air with water below them.

Voldemort may not have planned an attack on the train, but the Wizarding World had other enemies; ones they didn't even know about.

"The Dark Lord isn't behind this," Draco said slowly, drawing the same conclusions as Harry, and apparently Heather too.

"It's his son, isn't it?" Heather whispered, her shaky fingers clutching her wand to her chest.

Harry nodded, slowly walking towards the compartment door. The train seemed to be deadly silent, and it put Harry's nerves on edge. Where was everybody?

He peered through the small window, squinting to see through the darkness.

A terrified face slammed against it from the other side, causing Harry to yelp and jump backwards.

The person's mouth was open in a silent scream, and then they were dragged away and with a scream, a spray of blood splattered against the door window.

"Oh my God," Heather muttered, and the others drew their breath, not daring to make a sound.

The train jolted again, causing Harry to stumble over, saved only from falling on the floor by Draco's quick reflex.

As the train fell back onto the track, a shimmering blue waterfall of light cascaded down the window.

"Wards," Luna mused, "they must already be on the train."

"Oh my God," Heather repeated, and Harry moved to sit next to her, wrapping an arm around her comfortingly. "Can we get out?"

"I don't know," Harry muttered softly, "but we'll be fine; I won't let anything happen to you."

"Why is it so quiet?" Draco murmured, peering through the blood splattered window from his seat. "Do you think the Aurors or something stopped whoever was on-board?"

Draco's answer was an ear-splitting metallic scream.

The train was rocking again, this time lifting so high that Harry lost his grip on Heather as they fell from their seats, crashing into the wall.

Screams echoed down the corridor as the train began to fall on its side, and the force of it sent Harry flying again, and he yelled in pain as his head hit the window which was now on the bottom of the train.

He could feel blood trickling down the side of his head, and could feel shards of glass stuck in his skin. Luna looked to have sustained a similar injury, and Heather's wrist seemed to be bent at an awkward angle.

Harry could see the water far beneath him from the part of glass which was off the track, meaning the train was resting precariously on the edge of the viaduct. It was a long drop down, and the sight made Harry feel sick.

Creaking echoed through the train, and with a horrifying loud groan, the whole train was dragged further out as screams got quieter and quieter, and through the glass, Harry saw a large splash in the water beneath them, and he could only imagine that a carriage had gone crashing into the water below.

Harry couldn't understand why nobody was helping. There was no Tom, no Order, no anybody. The Aurors on board seemed to have been taken out, and all that was left was a large group of youths, the eldest of whom were barely on the brink of adulthood.

Bangs sounded down the corridor, there were screams being cut off half way through, and Harry could smell something burning, but he daren't move, holding onto Heather tightly as the girl shook, and Draco and Luna were wrapped together as well. They all had their wands drawn, waiting for the attack to reach them, secretly hoping that the attackers would be preoccupied hurting others so someone could rescue them before they reached Harry's compartment.

Harry could almost hear all of their hearts beating; could almost smell the fear in the air, and every noise made each of them jump.

As if to mock them, the upside down door to their compartment was punched viciously, and then again, and then again, and they had to duck as the door flew towards them as it was knocked off its hinges.

Two faces peered down at them; Ulric, who was giving them a bloodied grin, and Marvolo, with a silver mask covering the left side of his face. Marvolo chuckled humourlessly, his eyes glazing over with a hungry lust, and he gave Harry a dark smile.

"Dearest Harry; what a pleasant surprise."

X

Notes:

I said Marvolo would be in this chapter, but I never said for how long ;)

No, but next chapter is very Marvolo heavy, and Harry finally has his chance to fight without Tom there.

I hope you enjoyed the chapter. The love notes on the headstones scene was inspired by the song 'Horror of our Love' – the title of the story has to connect to it after all LOL.

Date: 2015-12-18; view: 499