the gift of fear (tomarry) (harry x death)

his mind's a running

Harry Potter's body is mapped with scars. Tom imagines a lifetime of stories behind them.

There is the one on his forehead, the one shaped like a lightning bolt. Tom asks around and cannot find its origin scattered in stories -- Tom had thought Harry would take to his guardianship like a father in that way, eager to share his life experience with them.

But Harry has never been a normal father, and he's not about to start now.

It looks like it's engraved, the lightning bolt. Tom wonders if it was carved -- and wonders furthermore who carved it, why they would want to. It looks deep, inflamed, and forever fresh, no matter how much time passes. How old is it? Did he get it as a child, an adult, was it recent?

It's hard to give it a proper date, especially considering the ongoing mystery of Harry's age in general. Old, he'd said. He's old. With greying hair and wrinkles around the corners of his eyes and mouth, that much is obvious.

Tom still cannot determine the reason behind his ambiguity.

Also marring his body is a scar on the back of his hand, a string of letters is eerily similar handwriting to Harry's own. "I must not tell lies." Such an odd wound to have. Is it self inflicted? If so, why? And if not, does that not just raise more questions?

Tom's heard rumors of ones on his upper arm. Harry had said they were a snake bite, but the scar proves too large for that to be true. It if it not a lie to cover up an even more confounding truth -- which is not plausible and not; Harry's never been big on lying... which is another reason that the one on his hand may be a strange form of self harm -- then that must have been one Hell of a snake.

And then there is the web of veiny, deep red scars that trail down his entire body. They pulsate sometimes, a blurring red. The spiral around his arms and down his neck, traces of it existing on his face.

Tom's own scars -- rug burns and scrapes on his knees, signs of bruising and battering -- arouse similar such questions, but none of the mystery. Tom was evil. Tom fought people. People fought back.

It's not the same with Harry.

With Harry's newfound connection to God -- the God, and it's not even like Tom didn't suspect it, like he hadn't known something like this was true deep down in his heart -- it makes Tom see these scars in a new light. They are holy, divine, beautiful, the marks of a warrior -- but, and Tom can't help but wonder, can't help but think, what else are they?

Harry is a being of pure power. This fact is undeniable. And if Harry is so powerful -- then who is there to scar him? Who hurt the unhurtable?

But the answer has already been supplied. Now that he thinks about it, it was laid on his fucking lap.

Did he give you those scars?

A smile. Which ones?

God. God hurt Harry and he might've deserved it -- in fact, given his history, Tom has no doubt that every wound inflicted was more than earned. God hurt Harry and Harry still loves him; Harry has still welcomed him into their home. Tom, despite how many times he's tried, has not gotten an acceptable answer behind this blind, unseeing trust.

"I love him," he'd said. He's hurt me, he's admitted. Is there any way that these two sentiments can coexist?

But isn't that -- "I was hurt; I love in spite" -- the entire fountain of Harry's makeshift orphanage? Isn't that indicative of how he's so adored, despite him letting his child maim one another with little to no consequences? I was hurt and I love in spite. The only other option is to die. That's it; that's what this house is laid upon.