The Anti-Heroine || A Harry Potter Fanfiction

Chapter LVIII

CHAPTER LVIII:

Harry's POV:

Harry really thought that with everything that had changed he would feel different. He'd killed a classmate in cold blood, had dragged Neville with him to the point of no return– whether the other boy realised it or not– and had then had sex with Tom. Everything should have felt turned upside down and inside out, but it just... didn't. After the murder, after the sex, nothing had changed; he'd woken up from his post-coital doze for dinner then gone back to bed, slept dreamlessly and wandered to the kitchen for breakfast after waking up the following morning. Everything felt normal, felt ordinary and unchanged; only the open copy of Prophet on the dining room table where he usually ate with Tom and Hermione was different to any other morning at their countryside manor-home.

A MURDER AT HOGWARTS! The headline blared. SCHOOL STUDENT SUCCUMBS TO FATAL INJURIES!

"Harry?" Hermione asked, her voice soft and face visibly concerned. Harry swallowed roughly, pushing the paper away and standing back up.

"I'm not actually hungry," he mumbled. "I'm just– I'm going to go have a shower."

Locking himself in the bathroom attached to their bedroom, he turned on the shower to drown out any noise and then sat on the closed toilet lid and waited for the tears. Despite the way his mind was spinning and his breath was short, no tears came.

His chest felt a bit like it was full of broken glass, shattering and shifting under his ribcage as he tried to breathe and Harry forced himself to inhale deeply as he touched the cuff fastened securely around his wrist, almost startlingly dark against his pale skin. The feel of the smooth, buttery leather against his fingers centred him as guilt wormed its way into the corners of his heart and mind and pulsed there, sharp and relentless. And yet he still didn't feel upset. Guilty yes, but not any more so for Weasley then he had after Tom's victims, or even Black. He'd just planned and carried out the premeditated murder of his classmate and he didn't feel any grief, regret or remorse over it as he sat on a loo and waited for tears that just weren't coming. And it was with a heavy, sick sort of feeling that Harry faced the realisation none would come.

That almost did make him get a bit weepy, but even in his confused, emotional state he realised just how ridiculous it was to cry over not actually crying and shoved it away. Maybe... maybe he was closer to being like Tom and Hermione then he'd ever realised. A sick sort of laughter wanted to bubble out of him at that thought and he wasn't sure whether or not to just let it.

Someone knocked sharply on the bathroom door then and Harry didn't bother to hide the fact he was dry and fully dressed as he reluctantly opened the door when the insistent knocking continued. Tom raised an eyebrow but Harry didn't even acknowledge it and Tom sighed.

"I hoped we could avoid this," he murmured, more to himself then to Harry. "Come on, silly boy–" Harry let Tom strip him then push him under the warm spray of the shower, unsurprised when the older boy shed his own clothes and stepped in after him. He was surprised, though, when Tom kept his hands firmly above his waist, instead simply standing under the water with him, his slender arms wrapped firmly around Harry in a way that made him feel oddly secure.

It was probably wrong that he felt so safe in Tom's arms while knowing just who and what the older boy was, but he did and he couldn't resist turning and pressing a soft kiss at the base of Tom's neck, in the little hollow where he could feel the vibration of the older boy's breath. It made Tom seem more... vulnerable, wasn't the word– human, maybe? Yes, it made him seem more human.

Tom stayed surprisingly placid, keeping his hands above Harry's hips, and it was that silent acknowledgment and respect of his boundaries gave Harry more courage then he'd have had otherwise. He wanted to lose himself, to forget the turbulent emotions lurking inside his head, and Hermione had always advocated sex as a way to do that– he saw no reason why he shouldn't try it.