The Anti-Heroine || A Harry Potter Fanfiction

Chapter LVII

CHAPTER LVII:

Harry's POV:

Harry was actually surprised that Tom managed to hold off until he'd apparated them back to their home before demanding, "Is it done?"

"I'm fine thank you," he muttered sarcastically. "Yes, Tom, it's done."

"Are you alright, Harry?" Hermione asked, concerned.

"I..." For a moment Harry thought he was about to cry, but instead he blurted out, "Weasley didn't actually have to die, did he? We could have just wiped his memory."

He wasn't sure whether he wanted to laugh or scream or sob when Tom nodded. "An obliviation would have worked– it wouldn't be suspicious for an attacker to obliviate their victim and using Legilimency to pull apart a memory charm in a majority of cases causes a significant amount of mental damage. For all his eagerness to be rid of Hermione, I doubt Dumbledore would have dismissed Weasley as collateral and risked leaving him even more of a vegetable then he already is." Tom paused, a cruel, malicious smile curving his lips. "Or was." Before Harry could say anything about that, Tom spoke again, his eyes shrewd. "But you knew that already. Not the specifics, but you knew enough and you killed him anyway."

Harry closed his eyes, partly in shame but partly to hide what he was afraid Tom would see in them.

All his life, Harry had never been the sort to crave power. Acknowledgment, yes; and there'd always been a part of him that had thirsted for greatness, that had desired to prove himself, but power? It was never something he'd really dreamed of or desired– which was why he was finding it so damn confusing that there was a part of him that hadn't been disgusted by what he'd just done. Oh he felt horrified and sort of panicked and definitely sick to his stomach, but there was also a thrill buzzing through him– having the power to decide that someone would die was terrifying, but part of the reason why was because there was a part of Harry that had almost enjoyed that power.

It scared him and thrilled him; not in equal measures, but enough to for him to notice in the aftermath. Enough to make him feel guilty and genuinely afraid of himself. Over the summer he'd never found any enjoyment in dealing death to Tom's victims– not even in killing Greyback. There was something very different, though, about Weasley's death; in the cold efficiency of a premeditated murder, planned and carried out not in the heat of the moment or as an act of pity or mercy, and it was something that had affected him in a way he didn't think he'd ever be able to say out loud. But he could answer Tom's question.

"I killed him despite knowing I probably didn't have to," he whispered, opening his eyes again to meet his lover's burning gaze, "because he was worth more to me dead then he was alive."

And that was the truth, plain and simple.

"You shouldn't be ashamed," Tom said, a bit dismissively. "You were helping Longbottom."

"Except I wasn't thinking of Neville when I agreed to kill him, I was thinking of myself," Harry confessed and Tom made a low noise. His eyes were hungry and cruel and Harry's breath caught in his throat as the older boy lashed out suddenly, long fingers gripping him by the wrists and yanking him forwards into a hungry, bruising kiss that stole the breath right from his lungs.

"You have no fucking idea what you're doing to me!" Tom snarled when he pulled away so they could breathe, and Harry wanted to answer that maybe he didn't, not exactly, but Tom's tone and expressions were giving him a fairly good indication. The words, however, were lost to him as Tom hissed, "I want to fit myself in your bones– I want to go so deep you can't tell where I end and you begin!" He emphasised this by tightening his grip enough that Harry was pretty sure the bones in his wrists were grinding together.