If I survive you survive

Chapter 32: It end in destruction

It felt like somebody had turned off the volume. The castle felt paused around them as they stood alone in the corridor. Harry was looking at the charred stone around where the entrance to the room of requirement would have once been.

"I wonder if all this would have happened regardless of what happened with you in the Chamber," Harry mused out loud although more to himself.

"You can't blame yourself for everything, Harry," Tom rolled him eyes, "sometimes people end up on a path they never really meant to."

"It's just," he stopped, "I'm just a kid. I know nothing. I don't even know what I want to be when I grow up but I'm the reason for so much death."

"Don't be so narcissistic. He's after you because he's lost the plot and that means all you want to be when you grow up is alive."

"Do you think of him as someone completely different to you?"

"I would never attack Hogwarts like this. It was, or really, it is the only place that has ever felt like home to me. The only place I've ever felt like I belong."

"I used to feel like that too," Harry looked up at Tom through dark lashes, "then I met you. I belong with you. Like you said, I'm yours." Harry sighed, "but you're going to leave me."

Tom sighed and looked away from Harry's sad, emerald eyes.

"We need to go find the snake. Let's move."

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The closer they got to the main door and the Great Hall the more chaotic everything around them seemed. There were Death Eaters sending unforgivable curses towards teenagers, Order members fighting to remain in control. Harry was worried about which way to look in case he got hit with something. He felt a spell pass by him missing him by a hair and looked up in time to see Tom firing back a blast of familiar green light.

"Tom, no," Harry grabbed at him and pulled him farther away from whoever had sent the spell. He was trying to scan the room to find Ron and Hermione.

"Stop being so pathetic about the unforgivable. They are casting them at you!" Tom spat at him, and Harry thought he saw a flash of red in his eyes. It must have been a trick of the light.

Harry again felt as though the sound had been turned off. Everything felt muffled. Until a voice that chilled Harry to his core came ringing across the castle.

"Enough magical blood has been split. I order my followers to retreat from the castle. Harry Potter, it is time for you to face me. Alone. I will give you thirty minutes to come meet in the forest and if you do not come, I will ensure everybody to continues to fight in your name dies."

"Harry, no" Tom pulled at his arm as Harry turn and made a beeline towards to the main doors.

"Don't be ridiculous Tom," Harry pulled at his arm.

"Just STOP" Tom shouted pushing Harry hard into the stone wall, "please just stop and think about this. We can think of a plan."

Harry rubbed at his shoulder where it has connected with the cold stone, "I don't need a plan. I just need all of this to stop. We only have him and the snake left, and I know that someone will take care of the snake. Please, you must let me go."

Tom pulled Harry towards him. Their lips crashed together. They devoured each other like starving men desperate and wanting. When they broke apart Tom noticed not for the first time how beautiful and wild Harry's emerald eyes shone when he was looking at Tom.