What These Past Few Days Have Felt Like

Tom and Harry dont fuck with pet names like “baby,” it’s “the light of my life, the flame of my soul, my only and dearest kindred spirit” or nothing

Diary Tom and Harry sneaking into the forbidden forest so Tom can kiss Harry because he thinks it’s romantic to do it under the moonlight

Not to mention the fact that Israel sniped another journalist, and gunned down their OWN HOSTAGES who were holding a white flag.

Another Al Jazeera journalist had lost over 20 members of his family today. Mo'men Al Sharafi had lost his mother, father, siblings, nieces and nephews who were all taking refuge in Jabalya refugee camp in Gaza and were targeted by Israeli shelling that destroyed the whole block.

He was asked why was his family in such a dangerous area in Northern Gaza, and he explained that his family had to move five times already and that his father, an 87 year old man, refused to be forced to leave his home again, stating that he didn't want to repeat the what was done to him during the Nakba.

This is just heartbreaking.

HOLY CRAP THIS IS AMAZING

Second version of sculpture Harry done! This time, inspired by the Gorgon creature :D

Other Tomarry fanarts. Also in Twitter and AO3.

Sometimes I see fanfiction that is so good, I'm just like, HOW DARE YOU! HOW DARE YOU WRITE SOMETHING THAT IS LITERALLY RIPPING MY SOUL APART FROM THE SHEER BEAUTY OF WHAT YOU HAVE CREATED?

And then I proceed to weep with joy and anguish, simultaneously.

relent

Harry gaped as he watched Ron disapparate, his heart shuddering and squeezing tight in his chest. The actual audacity. The fucking cheek of Ron.

Harry stood in the middle of the Forest of Dean, mouth agape, as Hermione quietly began to cry. Every molecule in Harry's body burned and his vision blurs; it's not until he feels the hot splash of tears against his cheeks that he realised he had begun to cry silently as well.

Hermione's fingers threaded through Harry's and he held her hand tightly. It seems like it's just going to be the two of them.

It is fine. They can do this.

They’ll have to.

"I guess it'll just be us against Vol – " Harry began sourly before Hermione's hand squeezed tightly.

"Don't say his name, Harry," Hermione whispered. "I don't know why, I can't explain it – but just, don't say his name."

Harry sealed his lips in a tight line, frowning, as they looked at the spot Ron had once stood.

— — — —

"Do you remember, Harry," Hermione began pensively, rolling her wand in her hand, "When Dean Thomas nearly ran into us in the forest?"

Harry looked up from his spot near the fire, pulling himself from his dark thoughts. His chest still ached from where Hermione had cut the locket off his flesh the night before, the searing oval scar shiny and tingling.

“I do," Harry answered at last. He tossed the sealed Golden Snitch between his hands, finger pads gliding over the engraved gold. He used to play with his wand this way, before – before it was splintered into shards. The wound of losing his wand sears hotter than the locket scar, than Nagini's venom-less bite.

"Remember when Dirk said... That he thought you'd run off?" Hermione continued slowly. “Abandoned the wizarding world?”

Harry was too tired to bristle at her carefully chosen words, too exhausted to get annoyed at her slowly leading questions.

After the last twenty-four-hour's events, Harry would very much prefer to not go into the subject of eavesdropping on Thomas and Dirk, as the immediate nasty row that occurred following said eavesdropping had resulted in Ron leaving. Abandoning them in the Forest of Dean.

That's a subject both Harry and Hermione are too raw to broach, despite all of the time that had since passed.

Ron’s cold laughter echoed in Harry’s head. 'I get it. You choose him.'

Harry sighed and nodded.

"I think... I think maybe Dirk had a point," Hermione whispered, brown eyes glazed as she stared into the inky forest.

Harry's head jerked up at that, mouth dropping open. "What are you suggesting?" Harry asked through a rushed exhale, shocked.

Hermione did not look at Harry as she laced her fingers together and gripped until her knuckles grew white. From her seated position on the log across from the fire, Harry could see the dark bags under her eyes, the sallow dip of her cheeks.

They've been in the forest too long, lost as to what their next step should be. They’re starving, scared. Barely no longer children in a world that is too dark and cold.

"It's a zero sum game, Harry,” Hermione said slowly. “The muggles are war driven. As are the wizards. Once the muggles discover the threat You-Know-Who poses, they'll deploy their armies. They'll attack. And the wizards will fight back just as hard. Muggle weapons are stronger than any single spell, but magic will disrupt their systems. It'll be a standstill and yet they'll just keep fighting," Hermione whispered, lips pale from cold and fear. "The wizards and the muggles will treat you as nothing other than a threat."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Harry asked, words heatless. He genuinely didn't understand her point.

"You're... You're a horcrux, Harry," Hermione answered so quietly he barely heard her over the sound of the crackling fire.

Harry's heart froze for a timeless moment and then it near exploded in his chest, beating with the frantic tempo of a startled rabbit.

"How do you – what are you – " He began to stammer, horrified, before Hermione quickly continued.

"It's just a theory," Hermione said sharply, voice growing louder as she began to rally her resolve. "But please, just think about it – the connection you have with him, your ability to speak Parseltongue, Dumbledore's insistence that it has to be you to fight him. I think Dumbledore knew, that he's been raising you to fight Him to the death. That you won't survive this war."

Harry felt something shift inside him, like a cog sliding into gear. The idea fit too well; within a moment, Harry could see it all through the eyes of the new perspective. The Parseltongue, the mood swings he feels and unintentionally acts upon, the dreams.

In his mind’s eye, Harry sees the strange way Dumbledore introduced the horcruxes to him, carefully and gently, leading Harry down a path to knowledge.

"I have to die," Harry whispered weakly. It feels true, like everything Harry has ever been taught, like everything Harry has ever known has suddenly accumulated in this single, morbid epiphany. "I am going to die."

The Snitch breaks open in his hand.

Harry jolts, surprised, and in his shock he drops the small thing on the ground. At his feet, a gold ring with a cracked black rock falls out of the snitch.

Harry looked up at Hermione and was startled by the look of icy anger on her face.

"He charmed it to open when you accepted your death," Hermione stated blankly, appalled. She stood abruptly and pinched the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger.

Harry knew this look – she was attempting to console two opposing thoughts in her head, cognitive dissonance burning her logical mind to the ground. "Dumbledore knew you had to die. He knew. And he made it so that you could only inherit the ring once you accepted it."

A feeling of complete, overwhelming betrayal stabbed through Harry's heart. Was that... Was that all Harry had been to Dumbledore? A martyr to a cause? A weapon, his grand Chosen One?

For the Greater Good.

"We have no help. Ron is long gone. We led Vo-ugh, You-Know-Who to discovering the identity of the thief," Harry hissed quietly, reeling, "We're being hunted. I have no wand and no idea where to look for the next horcrux – well, we know where at least two horcruxes are," he said, waving at himself and to the tent where the locket had been stashed. Harry released a barely-human noise disguised as a brittle laugh, a sound he'd never made before. It was high pitched and weak, bursting through his throat without warning. "Hermione," Harry said, turning to his best friend. "I – I'm going to have to die."

Hermione looked as if he had physically slapped her. "No. No, that's not going to happen," she protested vehemently.

"But it is," Harry answered dully, sitting down at the fire. "There's no other way."

Just as Harry said those words, something strange shifted inside of himself. Something oddly feral and desperate, an idea borne from a creature backed into a corner.

"We'll figure something out," Hermione promised solemnly.

"Yeah," Harry agreed, mind whirling with the new idea, breathless. "Yeah we will."

— — — —

That night, after Harry finished his lookout shift and was tucked into his chilly cot, he thought of the people who had supported him over the years. He thought of the names that well wishers carved into his dead family home's miserable epitaph in Godric's Hollow. He thinks of Remus' quiet support and Sirius' wild grin. He thinks of Hermione and Luna and Ginny and Neville and Ron –

The memory of Ron sours the growing feeling of happiness in Harry's heart. Harry thinks of Ron's betrayal, his best friend's cruel words and demanding that Harry do something. As if Harry was supposed to know it all, as if he were failing them. Harry thinks on the fury Ron had expressed that Harry had no plan. Harry then thinks of Sirius' glazed eyes, when he called Harry James. He thinks of Remus disappearing from his life after Sirius' death, of Dumbledore avoiding Harry in fifth year, scared he'd see Voldemort lurking in Harry's eyes. Of Dumbledore hiding secrets from him, that Harry is a horcrux, even after he promised no more secrets. Harry thinks of the Dursleys, being left at their doorstep. Of the teachers who saw his skinny body and bruises and never said a word.

Harry got out of bed and relieved Hermione of her post. She was so dead on her feet that she nodded off immediately.

Harry lifted her wand and strengthened the spells around the camp-site, makes sure no one would ever be able to find it from the outside. He laid Hermione's wand at her side and slipped off into the night, passing through the camp wards. He turned back to where he knows is a warmly-glowing hearth, a spacious tent, his best friend – but all he sees is dark vacant forest. Harry turned his back on his closest friend and walked deep into the Forest of Dean.

Only when Harry had walked far enough to feel confident Hermione wouldn’t be caught in the cross-hairs, Harry parted his lips and whispered, “Voldemort.”

— — — —

The capture was swift and merciless. Harry was taken to Malfoy Manor in Wiltshire and Harry can only feel relief that Draco Malfoy isn't there to laugh in his face, though the cold look of darkening glee on Lucius Malfoy's face raises the hairs on Harry's neck.

They ask him questions, try to make him speak. All Harry lets himself say is, "Voldemort."

They grow tired of shooing away summoned Snatchers when the tabooed name calls them over and over, and they stop asking him questions eventually. The cruciatus hurts, yes, but it does not make Harry speak.

After, Harry sits in the dank dungeons of Malfoy Manor, fingers pressing against the thick fabric of his battered coat hems. They've searched him for weapons and only found a golden snitch. That had been taken from him, yes, but the ring on his finger wasn’t. Harry wondered why – does it have something to do with how their eyes skate over it, unseeing? Can the ring hide itself from others?

Harry didn’t know but he struggled to care.

— — — —

Harry's scar has always been a better Voldemort detector than any Sneak-O-Scope, than any seer ability or omen. Harry flinched as his scar sears and he looked up through his eyelashes from his dozing spot, seated against the wall in the dank dungeon.

"Harry Potter," Voldemort whispered from the other side of iron ore bars.

"Voldemort," Harry greeted him quietly, eyes flicking down. He has no interest in testing how long his terrible Occlumency wards would last against the greatest mind reader of the millennia.

"Have you come to surrender?" Voldemort mocked, his terrible voice burning shudders of disgust down Harry's spine.

"Never," Harry replied with defiance he does not feel, tilting his head back against stone and glancing up at Voldemort with wry amusement.

"You are pathetic," Voldemort snarled.

"That only reflects poorly on you," Harry countered, laughing.

Voldemort hissed, low and dangerous, and he raised his wand to Harry’s chest.

Harry closed his eyes, the magic burning so luminescent at the end of Voldemort's wand, so bright, that Harry can see it through his closed eyelids – soft relief echoing in his mind, it's over its done he can rest now –

The wand lowered. Harry opened his eyes in surprise. He's... Alive.

"Relief," Voldemort said abruptly, head tilting eerily in a mockery of a human behaviour. "Why do you feel... Relief?"

Harry closed his eyes once more. "Because I know without a shadow of doubt that if you try to kill me, you'll just fail again. And again. And again. Like every other time. In fact, I'm safest when you try to kill me," Harry jibed back, unsure why Voldemort has stopped. But Harry found himself unwilling to play games with the monster. The quickest way to return to course is to insult Voldemort.

For the first time in Harry's life, the monster does not let his wounded ego get in the way of thought.

"You want me to kill you," Voldemort said. There is a strange quality in his voice, contemplation perhaps. "You, Harry Potter, are many things, but you are not a coward. You would only willingly come to me for one reason: self sacrifice." Voldemort spat the words as if they burned his thin lips as he spoke them.

Harry jolted, surprised, eyes opening as the words hissed to him grew near. Harry flinched back in horror as he realised Voldemort was right there, directly in front of him not two feet away, crouched and boring his hellfire red eyes into Harry's wide, blown pupils. Voldemort had melted through the bars of Harry's cell silently, a ghost with no presence.

'What is your secret, Harry Potter?' Voldemort hissed.

'Not everything is a conspiracy,' Harry replied sharply, his running mouth barely audible over the sound of his thundering heart in his ears.

'Nagini was correct – you can speak Parseltongue,' Voldemort whispered, his vertical pupils dilating, 'But you are no Slytherin ancestor.'

Harry felt his heart freeze in his chest, terror race through his blood – did he figure out – could Voldemort know he is a –

There's a rough, jagged glass-shard scrape of Voldemort's mind brushing against Harry's own and it catches his thoughts, brutally sharp in its cruelty, diving deep into Harry’s mind with reckless need to understand.

'It cannot be,' Voldemort breathed, red eyes flaring bright, reptilian pupils lost in sea of fire.

Before Harry can respond, can attack, Voldemort strikes out, presses his fingers against Harry’s forehead, pain searing burning agony, and all Harry knows darkness.

Tom: Harry, you love me, yes?

Harry: …normally, I’d agree without hesitation, but I feel like this is about to go somewhere I won’t like.

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Tom: I can't love anyone more than I love myself.

Harry, exists: ...

Tom: What a relief that the Horcrux in you is a convenient loophole.