You Made Me What I Am

Chapter 22: Rewards for Patience

After dinner and after he had recuperated from earlier, Tom went to the study to do some last-minute paperwork that had come to immediate priority for him while Harry had made himself scarce to the rest of the group. Hermione wondered what her soon-to-be real brother was up to, but she wasn't in the mood to pry at him or to snoop on him.

Draco seemed more sedate now after he came back versus the more angry and volatile version of himself, and she thought maybe it was because they had finally settled differences and were friends now. Of course, she really had no idea why and this was just guess. Draco had already told her Harry had been around the block here with as many as four to six people having graced his accompaniment in the more intimate ways. He even said it may have been more since he truly didn't know how many people Harry had slept with since he arrived here.

She sighed; it could have been worse she supposed, but she noted while he had outed that Severus had been one of those six or more companions...he had not said that he had been one? Had he and she just didn't know?

Whatever was up with them, it wasn't really bad...so she decided to read some before turning it to lights out mode.

--

Tom was now heading to Harry's room to see what he wanted. His mate said he had something to share with him and that it might be important for him to know in the future in case it should affect him aversely. Tom was hoping Harry would budge some more and be willing to allow more interactions between them.

While he had forgiven him of his earlier transgressions, Harry had still been reluctant to engage further in intimacy than he already had before he was captured. Tom wondered if something had happened that he didn't remember, but innately caused him to shy away now.

Tom's fist clenched as he walked; if Albus and that Darion Westwood man had hurt him like that...there was going to be hell for them to pay. As he reached the door, he sighed softly and forced himself to calm down. It would not do to have entered like that.

He reached up and knocked to the door in case Harry was working on his new project.

"Come in." Harry called softly with a lilt

Tom wondered at that as he shivered in the beginnings of desire. He then opened the door and stepped in the room. Harry was sitting in his chair by the fire and curled with a book on some form of magic or another.

"You wished to see me, Harry?" He asked

The raven-haired young man nodded with a gentle smile as his eyes seemed to question whatever he was thinking about.

"Please sit. This will take some time for me to tell you." He said

Tom sat down across from him and worried whatever this was truly about. Harry normally didn't beat things around the bush like this, so his nervousness set him at edge.

"When I was captured, I told you I was held in the lowest part of the Hogwarts dungeons and that was true. I told you a man named Darion had created an elixir to target my incubus blood and cleanse it of the demonic or creature taint it had. That was also true."

Harry then looked to the fire and his eyes seemed faraway and distant now, "Before I left here, we were not on good terms and I took your punishment too far. I was, for lack of better words, unafraid of sexual activity amid those here regardless if they knew who I was or not."

"But during the capture, there are places in which my memories don't match what I see." Harry told him, "And my behavior; while mellowed by my ills and recuperation; it has changed drastically as well in some ways."

Tom watched as he listened to Harry intently. His gut was clenching and his anger at Albus was rising further again.

"I think something happened to me there that I can't remember. I don't know what it is, and I am unsure if I do want to know about it. Whatever it is though that is unable to be seen, it has made me more keenly aware and cautious of the people around me."