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

the world is flooding

The morning that Harry receives a letter from Hogwarts approving his request for the Defense position, and the morning after Charlus drinks himself to sleep, Tom is missing from his bed.

Klippers stands on the porch, a cup of coffee in her hands, staring out into the horizon. Her eyes are red and bloodshot, tired after a full night of crying. Kreacher is beside her, sitting. He's reading a book on English 2.

It is raining. In Harry's home, it rains often.

"How'd you sleep?" Klippers asks.

"Poorly," says Kreacher. "I was up all night."

"Me, too," says Klippers, eagerly. "I was thinking about the finer details of our plan--"

"Klippers." He sounds tired.

Klippers sighs. "Yeah. I was thinking about Tom, too."

"He's a right git."

"I know," moans Klippers. She takes a sip of her coffee. "If only we had a second chance to talk to him, a second chance to--" She stops talking.

Kreacher looks up at her expectantly. "Klippers?" he says, after it is clear she will not be continuing.

"It stopped raining," she notes, an odd quality to her voice. And it has; suddenly, and without warning, the sky is clear again.

Kreacher blinks. "Huh," he says. "I wonder."

And then, interrupting the strong moment of quiet: a large crash, the sound of rushing water, more like a stream than rain. Klippers head swerves to the source of the noise. Running over and through their large wooden fences is a waves of water. It keeps coming and has no intention of stopping. With wide eyes, she grabs up Kreacher and retreats into the house. They slam the door behind them.

As if that will help.

Klippers' mug, the coffee inside spilled out, and Kreacher's book lay, abandoned, on the ground. The tide swallows them. Washed up beside them is the wrapper of a Nature Valley granola bar.

Water rushes under the door, through the vents, cracking the windows. Water is everywhere. Screaming. Children are screaming and crying and waiting for help. To be told what to do, how to survive this. Most of them will find this more traumatizing than seeing their former owners tortured, their mind erased, than seeing each other beat down every day.

This is an invasion, an invasion of their sanctuary. The one place that is supposed to be untouchable. It is now being harassed -- invaded -- demolished. Is this an act of nature?

No. And as Kreacher enters Tom's room in a hurry, hoping to carry Klippers, who is now unconscious, out of the window, he sees a note left of this bed, and he knows one thing:

God promised that he would never again flood the world. And he is a lot of things -- of terrible, pretentious things... but he is not a liar.

No. It is not God who is once again flooding this world.

It's Tom.

Earlier:

Tom leaves the house in the middle of the night. He had let Harry kiss him on the forehead before Harry left the kitchen, retreating to bed. "Finish your hot cocoa and go to sleep, hm?" he'd called to Tom as he went up the stairs.

"Of course," called Tom. He will not return to him room, not ever again. He is Ananias, lying not to men but to God.

And that is the caveat, the one thing that could bring his masterplan crashing to the ground. God is the caveat.

Will God see what Tom is doing? Will God be able to stop him? But hours into the journey, Tom comes to the conclusion that, despite what he said to Klippers, and despite what he believes... God is not all-knowing. God is not all-powerful. If he was, none of this would have ever happened.