Nose to the Wind // tomarry

Chapter 12: The Heart Yearns

Voldemort kept quiet in all the ways, following Harry's birthday, and Harry determined that he really didn't fucking care. (He did, but he'd had more than enough practise at pretending the dark lord didn't bother him.) He cared even less when he started at the local secondary – he'd had the option to board at a better school, but had insisted he'd rather stay at home, despite being told he'd have better luck with some of the courses he wanted to take if he went elsewhere – because it was one adventure he'd never had before. There were a number of students he'd never met before, as they'd gone to a different primary, and there was a very different air than Hogwarts, between it not being a boarding school and there being no magic.

As the holidays approached, however, Harry realised he wasn't sure what to do about Voldemort's birthday. He'd never actually been angry with the dark lord, per se, and his disappointment had always been second to a sense of resignation, so he saw no reason to avoid passing on the copies of Inventio Fortunata and Itinerarium that he'd managed to hunt down and repair, with help from those in the Realm of Death. But he couldn't guarantee that Voldemort would accept the gift.

Right. And when had that stopped Harry?

But should he leave a note on them? What would he even write? 'I think you're an inconsiderate jerk, but I'm not going to hold it against you'?

"What would you write to let him know you still love him, even though you want to beat his head against the nearest brick wall?" he asked Merope one evening.

She sighed, having made it clear that she thought they were both being children (though she was actually on Harry's side in the debate, he knew). "You could just talk to him."

"I could commit suicide, too," Harry replied agreeably, flashing her a bright smile.

Merope just gave him an unimpressed look.

Harry slumped back against the boulder that had appeared for him to lean back against when he sat down. "I know. But all of my experience with Tom says that, if I come to him, he's going to think he's won."

"And this gift isn't coming to him?" Merope asked.

Harry snorted. "Not if I leave a note saying I still think he's wrong."

Merope sighed again and shook her head. "Is it too much to ask that you two actually be happy together?" she complained.

Harry wrapped his arms around his knees and hugged them to his chest. "Wouldn't that be nice?" he whispered, closing his eyes.

Merope shifted closer after a moment, wrapping one arm around his shoulders and drawing him into a hug. "You could be less stubborn," she murmured.

Harry laughed. "Have you met me?"

She let out a helpless sounding laugh into his hair. "Yes," she admitted.

Harry turned his face into her shoulder, taking a deep breath of the cold death that made up her being. "I miss him," he whispered, his voice so very small, it should have been embarrassing.

"I know," Merope whispered back, and it was as cold a comfort as her hug, but at least there was one person in his life – save Death – who understood exactly how hurt Harry was by the whole mess.

-0-

Harry was up first thing on the fourteenth of December, making breakfast for everyone before they'd even begun to rouse. When Lily finally made it downstairs, James not far behind, she laughed. "Harry, the train doesn't get in until the evening."

Harry fluttered his fingers at her, which had James laughing. "I know that. You think I don't know that? I'm allowed to be excited about making a new friend. Jeez, Mum."