Harry potter and the breeding darkness

Prologue

At the top of the stairs, Tom paused and turned to look at Harry over his shoulder.

"Oh, and Harry?"

"Hmm?"

"Welcome home." Harry looked around the stairs and down at the entrance hall for a long beat before a wide smile began to spread across his face and he turned back to Tom.

Home... Yes... this is home.

A powerful warmth spread through Harry's chest. His eyes burned slightly with the most inexplicable urge to tear up. Not out of sadness, but out of pure happiness. He realized, in that moment, that he had never had a real home before. Not really. Even Hogwarts hadn't really been a real home for him. It had been a sham. A trick. It was lies and deceit hidden behind sparkly magic tricks. But now? Now he was being offered a new home. A real home. A home with Tom. Could he really hope to rely on this? Could he come back next summer, and the next? But did 'coming back here' even matter? Even if Tom eventually left the manor to live in some other location, it wouldn't change things. Harry realized that it wasn't the manor that made it home... it was Tom. Where ever Tom went, he would follow, and where ever they were together, was home.

Harry smiled softly, having only just barely stopped the tears from escaping his long black eyelashes, and turned to Tom. "Thank you." Tom looked at him curiously for a moment before the corner of his mouth turned up. But it wasn't his normal smirk. It was softer. It was deeper. "You're welcome, Harry. Now, come. Let us go up stairs." Harry nodded his head and followed Tom, as the pair ascended the stairs.

Miles away, in an ancient stone castle, tucked away in an unplottable section of the Scottish highlands, bells, whistles, and little alarms coughing puffs of smoke began to sound in Headmaster Albus Dumbledore's office. The wards around Privet Drive had fallen.