Chapter 6: Chapter o6
Several following days passed by rather peacefully and almost uneventfully, and Harry couldn't help it, but he felt his heart warming up towards snarky, but very inventive and surprisingly intelligent Slytherin. They still fought over even the trivial matters, such as Harry's supposed lack of taste in clothing or all Muggles being useful only as targets for practicing hexes and such, but all in all they tried to co-exist in a most normal way there could be, taking into account the circumstances given.
As for their magical connection, with it being already wonky and broken as it was, neither Tom (understandably) nor even Harry were ready to test its boundaries again, at least, not intentionally.
Accidents still happened, of course.
For example, Harry once tried to quickly go and grab the juice for them both from the kitchen, leaving Tom sitting on the stairs with a pile of books on his lap and immersed in yet another dusty tome. To Harry's excuse, his estimation of the distance was a bit off due to the lack of light in the corridor (as no one wanted to wake the portrait, of course).
Nevertheless, when Harry stepped into the kitchen, he heard lowly hissing behind him, interrupted by muffled intake of air. He turned to see Riddle trying to hold himself as if nothing was wrong, but failing, when trying to breathe some air through magically constricted throat. Harry rushed back immediately, lunging to hug the other boy, who, of course, was trying to dodge his nervously flailing hands. After several shaky intakes of air both boys have calmed down enough to return to whatever they were doing: Riddle scowling at his book and Harry trying to wish away his thirst, as he was waiting for someone to pass-by and help get the drinks for him and Riddle.
Another time it was Riddle who forgot about invisible restraints. On the very first day of Tom being here Dumbledore walked on them in the library and, like the meddling old coot he was, he has put froward the restrictions, after performing the spell, which was only slightly milder then the one being in place in the Restricted Section of the Hogwarts library. Tom was furious, but, for some reason unknown to Tom, Harry agreed with Dumbledore, giving reasonable explanation of this being the summer holidays and "why would you need books if not for assignments? It's not like you definitely going to return in time for the beginning of the school year, or is it? Give it a rest, Riddle!"
Tom responded with a nasty comment about Harry's scar: he implied, that Harry's empty head cracked from the echo in there. After this Tom slammed the door behind him and went to brood in the next available room.
Harry stormed into this room about a quarter of an hour later, fed up with the feeling of constant yanking of his hand on the invisible leash (or his own conscious nagging at him, maybe, Tom hadn't decided, which it could be, yet). Tom tried to appear calm and almost regal-like while standing on his knees in front of the door, trembling from pain and struggling to breathe.
Harry, growling through his teeth, enveloped him in the reluctant hug, long enough for his pain to recede and breath to go even again, after which he released Tom and showed something in his hands.
"Here, you can read this, I don't need it anyway!" Harry grumbled.
"What..?" Tom's voice still was a bit rasp. "What's it?" for once he chose to speak in shorter and less complex sentences, due to his condition.
"Someone gave it to me as present. I don't need it at the moment, you can read it." Harry said. "And don't you dare throw away or damage it, smart-ass, you get it?!"
Tom just nodded: he could totally understand and respect the wish to cherish one's valued possessions, what's with Tom himself being in possession of a rather small amount of items bearing any value for him whatsoever. If this book was good enough, he even could relieve Harry of the pressure of it being in his hands, and instead get it for himself, Tom thought. Of course, with this ludicrous spell on them both, not allowing to part from each other enough to truly admire or at least thoroughly hide anything, it was rather challenging task—to expand one's collection, but it should do for now, Tom decided.
Alas! The book happened to be pretty boring, as its subject was Quidditch. Tom never really cared for the sport enough to seek books on this matter. The blasted game' times clashed with Tom's reading habits, of course. He was not going to admit to being scared out of his mind at the mere thought of flying high up in the air with only a stick with a bush at its end to rely upon.
Tom still remembered his one and only practical lesson on Flying: he'd got on the broom alright, hovered for the couple of minutes above the ground, stepped down upon the whistle of the instructor and never again had he returned there. It was too unpredictable and unreliable to put his trust on the stupid wooden stick and to put his life on the line just for the dubious fun (and where was fun in falling to the ground from several hundred feet high?!). Later on Tom tried with all his might to avoid the matter: he'd trade small favours for yet another favours, and finally got the Flying Instructor to mark him based on theory only.
And now he was back to Quidditch, or rather to the book in his hands, "Quidditch through the Ages". Scowling he decided to give it a try. Surely, Harry didn't expect him to play this cursed game, as they were still practically locked up in the house, and it should be quite hard to fly among staircases, old furniture and morbid decorations lining up the walls of the house.
Next day Tom had found out just how hard flying in there was: Harry managed to get his hands on the broom (and, thanks Merlin, it was only one broom!). First two times Tom hadn't managed to catch up on foot with Harry, who was flying on his broom, on time, which led to him fuming in the corner silently after yet another time of the Spell going off and the following hugging session, while Harry tried to talk him into sharing yet another thing—the broom.
"No, no and no!" Tom violently shook his head in refusal. "It's too risky!"
"Please-please-please! Pretty please!" Harry tried to whine, but Tom was unmoved.
"Too many objects around," as was usual of late, Tom resolved to shorter and simpler sentences, while waiting to his throat to soothe a bit and the trembling of his limbs to recede.
"Don't worry, I'm good on the broom!"
Tom shook his head again.
"Come on!"
And next moment Harry grabbed him by the arm and forced him on the broom behind himself. "It'll be fun, you'll see!"
Then they proceeded to fly along the corridor, gradually going higher and closer to the ceiling.
Tom tried to hold onto the broom with both of his hands, but there was little space between their bodies to do it properly.
Harry laughed.
"Hold onto me!"
Tom cursed under his breath and reluctantly grabbed Harry's waist, as at that moment the broom abruptly turned left. Another yank of the handle and they were turning again, Tom swore loudly and clutched Harry tighter.
Harry just continued to laugh happily.
They circled the second floor corridor and hovered just above the staircase. Tom squeezed his eyes shut, not wanting to see the ground so far below him.
The broom swayed in the air. And swayed once more. Enough so, that Tom felt himself sliding sideways and desperately tried to melt into Harry's form in front of him, all the while cursing, mixing Wizarding and Muggle metaphors.
Harry laughed madder and louder at some phrase or the other, speeding and turning the broom. They knocked some ugly vase on their way, bumped on the door frame, clashed with a portrait, loudly crashed another painting, causing it to fall off its place on the wall. Then Harry at last lowered the broom enough for Tom to slide from it, with him landing in the ungraceful heap on the floor, hugging the ground and still swearing — cursing Harry, his possible relatives and flying instructors, this hole of a house and Tom's own luck, which had brought him here.
Harry managed another circle under the high ceiling, before landing beside him, laughing manically.
"Hey, you okay? Is it the Spell again?" calming somewhat, Harry asked, a bit worried.
"Leave me alone!" Tom spat. "Never again—"
"Eh?"
"Never again I'm going on that menace of a broom of yours!" Tom breathed.
Harry, giggling, poked him in the ribs with the broom' handle.
"That was fun, admit it!"
"Get lost!"
"Err— You didn't mean it, do you? Or do you have a death wish?"
"That's you who has it!"
"Wha—?"
"Death wish! Flying inside! And that portrait of a woman—!" Tom, annoyed to no end and fed up with everything, abruptly jumped on his feet and stormed downstairs to the loudly shrieking portrait, brandished his wand with some nasty curse almost on his lips—
And Harry knocked him over, not bothering to use the stairs proper, choosing to dive down on his broom instead.
"Are you mad?" Harry barked, pinning Tom to the floor with his body and wrestling his wand out of his hand. "No magic!" he all but shrieked, deafening even the portrait above them, surprising it enough to successfully shut it off.
"Potter, get off me," Tom drawled, trying to throw the other teen off with no luck.
"You were warned, I think, of not using magic, while in here!"
"I am fed up with this ugly place, this disgusting woman and with not using magic!"
"You will get us both in trouble!"
"And I'm fed up with you, too!" Tom finally managed to throw Harry off, stood up, turned on the heels and stomped up the stairs.
"Argh—!" Harry quickly followed, not ready for "healing hugs" while they were arguing.
Yet another accident occurred shortly afterwards, and, again, it was Tom, who was to blame. He was bored out of his mind and was going through the books in small part of the library, which they were allowed to use. Harry was sitting in a chair beside the window, reading what looked like yet another useless textbook on Quidditch tactics. Tom, glancing over that corner suspiciously, took out his wand, discreetly hiding it up his sleeve, and pointed towards the far end of the bookshelf: he noticed some interesting old book there, but that shelf was out of the boundaries, which Dumbledore's set up earlier.
"No magic!" Harry all but barked from his corner. "Or I'll take your wand!"
Tom huffed annoyed, but put his wand away reluctantly, not ready for yet another pointless fight between himself and Harry after the recent confrontation. And who knows, the brat might just take him up on the broom again, if only to prevent him from doing anything outside the swearing and holding broom or Harry's scrawny form tightly, so he won't fall off.
Returning to the shelves in front of him, Tom scanned the titles briefly, but none of them piqued his interest – he'd read most of these already, some of them even several times, either in his own time-frame or when being already here.
Still undecided, Tom went to the next line of shelves, but here, too, none of the books attracted his attention for more then half a minute necessary to read their titles. Tom went to the next row of bookshelves and began searching here, only to stumble in the middle of the row. It seemed, that was the boundary of the Spell, as he felt slight tugging in the direction to where Harry was. Ignoring the slowly building up pain, he stubbornly went further along the aisle, trying to find a good reading material.
Again these titles were mostly either old, or useless, but something caught his eye, at last. The book at the end of this row seemed as if it was pulled out recently and not placed back properly, the layer of dust there was almost absent.
Tom made another couple of steps forward, but was forced to grab the nearest shelf for support, as, finally, the Spell caught up with him proper, magic-infused pain shooting through his system abrupt enough, that his knees gave way under him. He took in a breath of air with some difficulty, as always refusing to acknowledge the need for help or to return back inside the boundary of the Spell. He even managed to get to the end of the shelf, but, when tried to reach for the book (it being on the shelf slightly above his height), the hand, with which he supported himself upright, slipped. He still tried to remain on his feet and get to the book, but fell only a moment later, with a loud crash bringing half the books on the shelf down with him and his temple colliding with some corner with so much force, that his vision gone black and he slipped into unconsciousness.
Tom came to his senses some time unbeknownst to him later to find himself in the bed, half-naked (with only his underpants on) and feeling someone's warmth beside him. Tom could make a good guess as to whom it might be. Harry. Of course, it would be Harry, as no-one else had the audacity to sleep naked under the same blanket as Tom "just for healing purposes", as Harry put it once.
His head pounded with dull ache, probably from his collision with the book-shelf, or from the lack of oxygen during the Spell in action. He brought up one of his hands to the wounded temple and felt something akin to bruise there, half-covered with the thick layer of bandages, which someone (probably, Harry again) had put around his injured head. Also he felt a stab of pain in his other hand, the one, with which he tried to grab the blasted book. Raising this hand had proved rather difficult, as the wrist was heavily (and not very accurately) bandaged with some clean cloth, layer upon layer of which made it look like there was a small ball underneath. He snorted and looked sideways at the sleeping form near him. Harry stirred in his sleep and whimpered lowly, probably seeing another one of his nightmares. Tom frowned at that. Not that he cared, but -
Not really understanding his own reasoning, Tom hummed quiet melody, calming his neighbour. Harry mumbled something illegible, but clearly his sleep became more peaceful after this.
Still frowning, Tom left the bed in favour of his favourite spot near the window, looking around on his way towards it in search for his clothes. Strangely enough, he could not see either of their robes. And, if left unattended, Harry had the tendency to create a makeshift carpet out of his discarded clothes, evenly covering all the floor in their room with them. Again snorting, Tom turned his attention towards the landscape behind the window, ignoring the slight chill along his spine. He'd been used to the cold long, before Harry has got it to his head, that they need as much skin to skin contact as possible, while reversing the effects of the Spell by the means of long hug-sessions or by sleeping naked under the same blanket. They had already had this conversation at least three times, though Tom still had his hopes. One way or the other he would convince Harry that all of this wasn't necessary. Or, probably, Dumbledore would, at last, release them from the humiliation of being bonded to each other.
Although, Tom was curious as to where his clothes could have vanished and, more importantly, exactly how that happened, as Harry was so insistent on not doing any magic. Never mind the quite disturbing thought (or rather image in his mind-eye) of Harry carefully stripping Tom's helpless and unconscious form (and why would he need that, exactly?) and appraising his body, while Tom was out cold.
He shivered at the alarming thought, scowling and trying to wish the image away from his mind, before it started haunting him proper.
"Hey, you alright?" came the mumbled call from the bed, yanking him to reality.
Tom turned around abruptly.
"Mind explaining, what possessed you to vanish my clothes?" Tom demanded harshly, choosing to ignore for the moment the awkwardness of being so exposed under other's intent (worried?) stare, as well as small part of his consciousness reminding him about carefully put bandages and "healing skin-ship" session, despite Harry himself being quite disturbed by his (or male in general) touches.
"I asked a house-elf to wash them, while we're sleeping," Harry replied calmly, shrugging. "It's not like you need them under blanket, no?"
Tom scowled.
"Nobody asked - "
"Look, if you have a death wish still, it's your problem, not mine! You crashed half the library, spilling blood everywhere! - How's your head, by the way? - So you should at least be thankful, that I am not forcing you to wash your bloody rags by hand! - How's it feeling, eh? - If you don't have the decency to be thankful for the help, just shut up and come to bed! - It's freezing, is it not?"
"Err – You do realise, you're rambling, Harry?" Tom felt his head spinning, while he tried to catch at least half of Harry's heated speech. "And it's seems there are two Harrys speaking," he snorted, although just a second earlier he was ready to punch the brat for stealing his – only! - clothes.
For a moment there, he really felt, like there were two persons speaking, with Harry's emotions juggling between annoyance at one second and compassion at another, and all these - in one flow of breath, almost in one long word.
Harry blinked owlishly, abruptly cutting off his ranting.
"Wha - "
A house-elf chose that moment to pop in with two piles of their clothing in his hands. He dropped them, snarling nastily, and was gone without a word, only sending another grimly glare to Harry.
That successfully interrupted any potential fight, as Tom quickly grabbed his things and began putting them on, clumsily moving his injured hand, but, stubborn as always in his refusal to ask for help. Harry silently stood up and, too, started on his clothes. When Tom got to the task of tying the shoelaces, muttering curses under his breath, as his injured hand did not want to work properly, the laces slipping from his cramped fingers, and his head began to spin from him leaning too far down, Harry (already finished, as both his hands and his head were fine and healthy) still silently get on a knee and, batting away Tom's hands, began tying the laces for him. This brought on even more curses from the latter, though after short struggle he allowed the help.
"Breakfast?" Harry offered peacefully, standing up. Tom resisted the urge to roll his eyes at the question and just silently followed Harry out of the room, inwardly cringing from his own obedience.
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