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

you saved my soul, held me for ransom

The world is over. No longer can he repeat the opposite as a sort of desperate self reassurance. The world, he says, is over. He is trapped here forever. His one hope, his one possibility of escape, was a failure. He would blame Charlus, would like to, but he knows that it isn't his fault.

It's Tom's. He is like Job, who, despite losing his family, wealth, and livestock, refuses to forfeit God's name -- except that with Tom, 'God' is hope, is attempt after attempt to escape. He has lost so much during his time here, but refused -- against reason, now that he considers it, now that failure has struck him again over the head -- to stop trying. He refused to forfeit hope.

But he is until Job in the way he is giving up now.

Tom finds his door is gone again. Punishment, discipline, training, care -- Harry would have a million words for it.

He finds also that, excluding Klippers and Kreacher, he is now isolated. Someone spilled that it was Tom that got them reported to social services and these elves, these naive, believing, trusting elves, reportedly did not like that. Sneers are thrown in his direction. It is no longer just Corbin harassing him.

Klippers and Kreacher try to reach out to him. They have plans underway, they tell him. This is not a be all end all.

And Tom... hides. He retreats to his room, the kitchen, wherever they aren't. He has failed them. They are too nice to say it, but he knows he has.

So he hides from their comfort, their reassures, their white lies, and basks in despair.

And oddly enough, he isolates himself... but is not alone. Again he meets late at night in the kitchen, Harry by his side with a cup of hot cocoa. These meetings, in the past held maybe weekly, now are a daily occurrence.

Harry forgives him. "You were ambitious," he tells Tom. "And you took matters into your own hands. I admire that, truly."

Tom bows his head, staring intently into his mug. He says nothing.

"But, Tom, I need you to understand something." Tom looks up, ready for reprimand. But Harry speaks, slowly, softly and gently, as if he knows how fragile Tom's psyche is. "I cannot be defeated. Not by magic, man, or force. Don't you see that now, Tom? Isn't it easier to just give up?"

"Why aren't you mad?" Tom croaks out. "Don't you see I have to keep trying?"

"Why?" Harry asks genuinely. He takes Tom's hand. "You have a home here. You're my ward, and I will always act in your best interests."

"You hurt me," says Tom, not as an accusation but as fact.

"Because I need to. Not because I want to."

"You keep saying that," snarls Tom, exasperated.

"Because it's true," says Harry simply. "Stay here with me, Tom, and you'll reach your full potential."

Tom knits his fingers together. "I can't stand to be forced to hurt anymore," he says, quietly.

"Soon enough," promises Harry, "no one can force you to do anything."

So yes, Harry forgives him. The one person that really, really shouldn't -- and the only one he believes actually does. Harry has forgiven him for everything, even if Tom cannot say the feeling goes both ways. He knows everything Tom has done -- everything terrible, horrible thing -- and has forgiven him. The same is not true for Klippers and Kreacher, though it is perhaps unfair to hold them to the same impossible standard.

The world, Tom's world, is over. He cannot change his situation. He will try out accepting it. He lets himself be taken under Harry Potter's wing... and does feel some remnants of peace.