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batsutousaiTitle: Abandoned: The Re-Write
Author: Batsutousai
Rating: M/R
Main Pairing: Harry/Tom, Harry/Voldemort
Side Pairings: Ginny/Theodore Nott, Seamus/Blaise Zabini, past-Ron/Hermione, Hermione/Luna, others
Warnings: SLASH, mentions of child abuse/rape/torture, language, character death, minor Dumbledore bashing, Grey-to-Dark!Harry
Summary: A complete re-write of Abandon: Before the start of his seventh year, Harry Potter is abandoned in London by his muggle family and finds himself befriending Lord Voldemort.
A/N: This chapter has the rewrite of an event that occurred in chapter seven of the original Abandon.
Chapter Four: Debates
-0-
Harry hummed to himself as he finished his cleaning duties for the day. He got the second floor that day, and the tenants up there tended to be pretty clean, as opposed to the partiers on the first floor, so he'd really only had to change a few sheets and soap down the showers.
He made his way up to the third floor hall to the cleaning closet and put his supplies up, then wandered through the common to the kitchen for a snack. On his way back to his room on the far end of the floor, he ran into Ashley, who did minor repairs in the hostel. One of the toilets on the second floor had taken to not flushing properly, so he stopped and told her about it before continuing on his way as she collected her plumbing supplies from under her bed.
Harry shouldered his way into his room, returning Rosie's irritated greeting from the stairwell. His room door was only just closed when a voice asked, "Are the muggles really so incapable of cleaning up after themselves that they have to have you do it?"
Harry spun and stared at where Tom was leaning against the wall next to his small bathroom. "How the hell did you get in?" he demanded, trying to calm his racing heart. Of all the things he'd expected to randomly find in his room, the Dark Lord wasn't even on his list, not after he'd already made such an impression on the muggles in the hostel and especially not with the Order posting a guard across the street.
Tom sighed. "A glamour, Potter."
Ah. Harry rubbed at the back of his neck. "So, why are you here, then?"
"I got bored," Tom replied. "You haven't been out in four days and it's boring."
"Is that Dark Lord speak for 'I miss your company, Harry?' "
Tom scowled and didn't bother with a response.
Harry smiled and sat down on his bed. "Well, as long as you don't start cursing me, you're welcome to hang about. I'm not going out or anything, though."
"You expect me to be entertained while being required to sit around in this muggle hole?"
Harry snorted. "You came to me, and I am staying in."
Tom scowled a bit more and looked around the room. "It's so tiny. How do you live in here?"
"I don't. I sleep and study magic in here. I 'live' in the hostel."
"You don't even have a place for guests to sit."
"The only 'guests' I have are the sort that I can entertain out in the common," Harry replied drily. "If you want a place to sit, conjure it yourself."
Tom considered the room for a bit, then pulled out his wand and made a complicated series of movements. As soon as he flicked his wand down one last time, the room doubled in size and Harry clutched at his bed in surprise. "Much better," Tom said, conjuring himself a comfortable armchair.
"Tom," Harry hissed, hands still bunched up in his blankets. "I live with muggles! They're going to notice it if my room is bigger!"
Tom sniffed. "No, they won't. As long as you don't move the original furniture beyond the original boundaries of the room, they'll only see an illusion of what they'd expect to see; anything beyond those boundaries will be invisible to them, unless you tell them there's something there. That also goes for the wizards who visit you."
Harry blinked at his guest and realised that Tom was, in fact, seated outside the original boundaries of the room. If he concentrated, he could even see the overlaying illusion of a window between himself and the Dark Lord. "Huh. Cool. So, I could set up a potions station behind the illusion and my hall mates would never know?"
"They would be able to smell that you are brewing something, but they wouldn't be able to see the cauldron unless you told them exactly where to look," Tom allowed.
Harry considered that, then asked, "Could you cast a scent ward on the doorway?"
Tom cocked an eyebrow at him, but waved the ward at the door.
Harry grinned and jumped out of his bed to get out his potions things. Oh, the things I can make! All those potions I wanted to work on. "Thanks!" he called to the Dark Lord.
Tom just leaned back in his chair and watched as Harry dashed between his trunk and the new corner between his bed and the expanded toilet, setting up a full lab with the cauldron and advanced ingredients cabinet he'd pull out of his trunk, each item unshrinking with a command word. "I was under the impression that you hated potions," he finally said as Harry placed the ingredients cabinet with a self-stick charm on the wall.
Harry glanced back at him, opening the cabinet to make sure his ingredients had survived the summer so far. "I don't like the way Snape teaches it," he explained, turning back to his ingredients. "Potions is the sort of art that you need to really study and understand to get anywhere with, like chemistry or cooking. Snape just gives us a list of directions and expects us to follow them, but actually understanding what you're doing..."
Tom was nodding halfway through the sentence. "Muggle-raised may have some understanding of chemistry or cooking, but potions require a distinct set of ingredients, and if you don't know how those ingredients interact – or only know how they act without a magical influence – potions are almost impossible to do right."
Harry grinned back at the Dark Lord. "Exactly! See, I always thought potions was just like cooking, so I made potions like I cooked, but it wasn't."
Tom nodded. "Most muggle-raised don't ever realise there is a difference," he commented, fishing for answers without actually asking a question.
Harry rolled his eyes, reading the question in the statement, and replied, "Yeah, and I wouldn't have, except you possessed me."
Tom blinked. "What does my possessing you have anything to do with your realisation that potion making isn't just like cooking?"
"You studied chemistry before you started Hogwarts."
"I did," Tom agreed. He'd continued to keep up with the science during the first war, even, but he hadn't yet found the time to learn any about the advances since his return; he'd been more interested in studying the muggle advances in electronics.
"You had to figure out the difference," Harry explained when Tom still wasn't getting the connection. "You had to understand that there was a difference, and that understanding sort of transferred to me a bit."
Tom's eyes widened in understanding; he had gained the ability to track the teen, and Harry had learned a crucial lesson that he might never have understood otherwise. "Did you get anything else?" he wanted to know.
Harry shrugged. "Don't know. I mean, I've got a better grasp on some spells that I struggled with, and silent casting wasn't as difficult for me to learn as it was for some of my classmates, but I don't know if that's because of you, or because of my growing up a bit."
"I suppose so. But most students don't find themselves with such improvements until their seventeenth birthday."
Harry grimaced. "I'm not 'most students'," he pointed out, then sighed and flopped down on his bed. "And I don't get what's so important about your seventeenth birthday."
Tom raised an eyebrow. "You'll reach your majority."
"Yeah. Thanks. What, exactly, does that entail?"
Tom sighed and silently bemoaned the lack of understanding of the muggle-raised. Admittedly, there weren't any actual books or studies on the subject, since the majority was something that had existed for as long as there were wizards and witches, so they didn't see the point in writing about it. "There are two parts to a magical majority," he said, resigning himself to the position of teacher. "The first, and most obvious, is the coming into your power."
Harry nodded. "Yeah, but what does that mean? Like, does your magic suddenly grow or what?"
Tom kneaded his eyes. "Your magic has finished growing at that point. Ever since your first accidental use of magic, it's been growing, but a portion has always been put towards helping your own development. Once you reach seventeen, your magic is done giving you that little boost and you finally have full access to it. For most people, that doesn't mean much of a difference, but for those children whose magic had to support them more than usual through their childhood because of abuse, it can mean a significant increase in power."
Harry hummed. "So, do children who were abused tend to be stronger wizards and witches as adults?"
Tom grimaced. "I'm not sure," he admitted. "A lot of magical strength is dependent on the magic of those around the child before they're born, but some of the strongest wizards and witches were abused as children. Not necessarily to the same lengths you or I were..."
Harry nodded. "Okay. You said there were two parts to the magical majority?"
"Yes. The first is being able to fully connect with your magic. The second is a part of that: the ability to access any latent gifts that full access to your magic might have blocked."
Harry blinked, then requested, "Could you clarify that? Latent gifts?"
Tom sighed. "Magical gifts, such as speaking Parseltongue or being a seer."
"Metamorphmagi?" Harry wondered.
"Yes. There's also the gift of being more inclined towards a certain branch of magic, though that's rarely latent."
Harry nodded his understanding; he was particularly good with offensive curses, but he knew that his mother had been better with charms and his father had been particularly good with transfiguration. "Did you have any latent gifts?"
"They aren't as common as you might think," Tom replied drily. "Most latent gifts were bred out of magical families when they wanted to focus more on one gift than another. Say, for example, a family that had the gift of metamorphmagi, and who occasionally popped out a child with a latent gift over the element of wind. If they didn't care for the metamorph gift, they would have tried to marry with another family who had a gift with wind and, in time, the metamorph gift would become latent as the wind control became more common."
"Eventually, they wouldn't birth metamorphmagi any more," Harry realised.
"Exactly."
"So you didn't have a latent gift?"
"Why are you so focussed on this?"
"Just curious."
Tom sighed. "No. Any latent gifts were bred out of the Gaunts by the time I came along, and the muggle component wouldn't have had any gifts." He watched Harry for a moment, then added, "When I got my body back, however..."
Harry blinked. "You got a gift from your resurrection ritual?"
"Essentially."
Harry thought about that, then said, "You received the blood of two other wizards; could that have allowed you access to a gift Wormtail or I had?"
"Possible," Tom allowed. "It's also likely that, like your ability to speak Parseltongue, I received a magical gift on that night."
"Oh. I suppose that's possible, yeah. So, what gift have you got, then?"
Tom's mouth twisted with amusement. "I'm a metamorphmagus, as well as an animagus."
Harry blinked in surprise. "Being an animagus is a magical gift?" he asked. Then, before Tom could answer, "Is Wormtail a metamorphmagus?"
Tom snorted. "No. The metamorph gift is from you. And, yes, being an animagus is considered a magical gift. It's usually latent, however, which is why it's frowned upon to try learning it before you've reached your majority."
"I'm a metamorphmagus?" Harry whispered, not really hearing the rest of what the Dark Lord had said. His mind flashed back to how his hair had always stayed exactly the same, even when Petunia had chopped it all off. But then he glanced up at Tom, frowning. "If I'm a metamorph, why can't I actually change myself?"
"I believe it's a latent gift," Tom replied, rolling his right shoulder in a half-shrug. "It's possible that it wouldn't have been latent, but the Killing Curse that back-fired changed your magic a bit and it became latent."
"But I've used the gift before. I think..."
"A latent gift is a part of the magic which was being put towards supporting you as you grew up," Tom reminded him. "In times of emotional turmoil, it might have become accessible to you, even if it was only to your unconscious."
"Oh. That makes sense." Harry rubbed at the back of his neck, then shrugged. "You're also an animagus? That could have come from Wormtail or myself."
"That was my conclusion as well, and since there's no way to tell for sure..." Tom shrugged.
They both fell silent, thinking their own thoughts for a while.
After almost ten minutes, Harry groaned and climbed out of his bed. "Well, I need to get some ingredients for a potion I wanted to try."
"Which potion?" Tom asked, getting up and brushing down his trousers a bit.
Harry shot him an amused look. "Not telling."
Tom snorted, more amused than annoyed. They both knew Tom would end up following Harry, so it wouldn't be a secret for long. The Dark Lord cast a quick glamour to make himself look like one of the other residents of the hostel. "I'll meet you outside," he said, then slipped from the room.
Harry grinned and gathered his money pouch, cap, and sunglasses before making his way out of his room and downstairs. He could stop in Gringotts and refill his money stores while he was out. He could also see if Gringotts would give him francs instead of pounds for some of his muggle money. Fletch didn't seem to care, sure, but it was a nice thing to do for the Frenchman.
It took almost five minutes for Harry to get past Becca at the front desk – he loved his hall mates, really he did, but he didn't need them going out shopping with him, and it only got worse when it had been in the paper that there'd been a fight in the grocery down the street the last time Harry had gone out shopping.
Finally, Harry left the hostel and met up with Tom a bit down the pavement. "Ugh."
"You're the idiot who wanted to live with muggles," Tom informed him drily.
"Yeah, well you're the idiot who came into the hostel, acted threatening enough to put them on their guard, then started a fight in the grocery down the way," Harry snarked back.
They then proceeded to shoot glares at each other out of the corners of their eyes for the next two blocks.
Harry decided it wasn't worth being irritated about first and asked, "If you're a metamorphmagus, why do you bother with glamours?"
"Glamours take less effort," Tom replied after a moment.
"Less effort?"
Tom sighed. "A glamour is an illusion, and you can set the illusion to walk a particular way or to have a certain accent. Being a metamorphmagus only changes your outer appearance; everything else is done through hard work."
"Ah." Harry nodded in understanding.
They continued their walk in silence. As they stepped into the Leaky, Harry commented, "I need to stop by Gringotts. Is that okay?"
"Not a problem," Tom agreed with an easy shrug. "You know, you could request a money pouch that's connected to your account."
Harry glanced back at him curiously as he stepped through the back door of the practically empty pub. "Oh? Don't think I've heard of those."
"They're a bit of an expense. However, knowing your family, you should be capable of affording it."
"Hm," Harry agreed and let them into the alley. "Could I get muggle money that way as well?"
"Not sure. It's not something I worry about."
Harry raised an eyebrow. "What do you pay Fletch with, then?"
Tom smirked. "Pounds. I usually come by Gringotts before I apparate there."
Harry snorted. "You would."
They got to Gringotts and Harry enquired about the special money pouch. He paid the four galleon fee and handed over his key so it could be connected. Once everything had been returned to him, he asked after using it to retrieve muggle money and was answered in the negative. So, with a sigh, he went over to the window for transferring money and got himself enough pounds to last for another month – he hoped – as well as enough francs to eat at Fletch's shop for a couple of weeks. (Tom had proceeded to laugh at Harry when he found out that the teen got francs.)
Once they were done at the bank, Tom started towards Knockturn, making Harry look at him oddly. "Where, exactly, are you going?"
Tom looked back at him with an irritated expression. "Apothecary."
Harry pointed up the road to the apothecary next to the Leaky. "Apothecary."
Tom sneered. "The one on Knockturn is better."
"The one on Diagon is less shady."
"So now you care about something being shady?"
Harry sighed. "I don't care," he replied, "but others might."
"I promise not to tell Dumbledore's goons that you went shopping in Knockturn," Tom said drily.
Harry snorted at the mental image that conjured: Lord Voldemort telling the Order that he'd dragged Harry into Knockturn Alley while gleefully cursing them to death.
"Come on," Tom ordered, then turned and started down the alley.
Harry rolled his eyes and fell in next to the Dark Lord. "This apothecary had best be really good."
"Severus only ever shops at this one."
"Hm..." Harry nodded at that. He knew that Snape, as good with potions as he was, would only shop at the best of the best.
The apothecary in question, Fresh Picks, was as dirty as the other shops around it, but it was a good shop. All the ingredients were freshly collected within the past forty-eight hours by the owner or his house elves. He also kept a number of restricted or illegal ingredients and was willing to sell them to anyone who knew to ask, rather than demanding their licence.
Harry enjoyed picking out the ingredients he needed, as well as a few he didn't. Tom had pointed him to the pile of restricted potions books near the back of the shop and Harry had picked out a few that had potions which could be useful.
Once they were done at the apothecary, Harry let Tom lead him around to various other shops. For the most part, Harry picked out books that looked interesting or, twice, that had been among the books Mad-Eye had given him to read. Tom had raised an eyebrow at some of his choices, but Harry had just smiled and put them in the expandable shopping bag the apothecary had given him.
Tom, himself, had found the occasional book that he didn't have yet, but he mostly bought cursed artefacts. When Harry asked after those purchases, Tom had replied, "I study them, find out how the curses work. Teach myself how to re-create them, and how to dismantle them."
Harry could understand that hobby and made a mental note to take the practice up himself, once he was of age.
Two hours later, the two stepped back out in Diagon Alley, pleased with their purchases. They made their way out of the magical shopping district and into muggle London, quietly debating some of the books Harry had picked up.
"They're just not the best out there," Tom was saying again.
Harry rolled his eyes. "They're the best legal books out there."
"You bought four other books that aren't legal, so don't give me that tripe. And I doubt you'd be reading those books around anyone who might report you for them, unless I've seriously overestimated your intelligence."
Harry huffed. "Yeah, fine, but these books are enough for me."
"They're crap! How do you expect to learn any of those spells from books like that?"
"Who said I wanted to learn them?"
"Why else would you be reading up on them?"
"To learn about them. I don't really want to cast them."
"So, what? You'll only cast Dark magic that's legal?"
"Exactly."
"Oh, get off your bloody high horse, Harry," Tom snapped, stopping as they reached their usual parting spot.
Harry raised an eyebrow at him, amused by the irritated expression on the Dark Lord's face. "I have the urge to neigh at you," he admitted.
Tom stared at him for a long moment, disbelieving, then snorted and shook his head. "You..."
Harry grinned. "Lunch on Saturday?"
"I'll meet you here at noon," Tom agreed and they parted ways.
Harry and Tom continued their strange companionship for the following weeks, snarking about the muggles Harry lived with and avoiding the heavier topic of the war. One afternoon, Tom insisted on showing Harry around Lyon and surprised himself by enjoying the boy's happiness at seeing a foreign city.
On Sundays, Harry took the Knight Bus out to Chelsea and had lunch with Hermione, where they joked about classes and their fellow students. Harry enjoyed his days with his friend, but surprised himself by enjoying arguing with Tom more.
The Monday before Harry's birthday, he made a trip to Gringotts to refill his pouch with francs, much to Tom's amusement.
"I don't know why you think it's so funny," Harry was commenting as they stepped out of the doors of the bank.
"It's just such a Gryffindor thing to do."
"What, did you forget my House?"
"Not hardly," Tom shot back, wrinkling his nose. "I just don't see the point. Fletch is more than willing to take pounds, and you always ensure you've got more than enough muggle money..."
"It's just the nice thing to do."
"Niceness is overrated."
"I rather think it's underrated, myself."
"Many things are underrated," a voice commented from behind the two dark haired wizards.
"Things like keeping in touch with your friends," another voice agreed.
Tom's wand was out and pointing at the two gingers who had come up behind them without him noticing before the second one could complete his sentence, but Harry chuckled and reached out to force his companion to lower his wand. "I've been in touch with Gin, you know. If you'd wanted an owl, you should have sent me one first."
Both Weasley twins appraised Tom, making the Dark Lord scowl and try to shake Harry's hand from his wrist. "Harry," he hissed.
Harry rolled his eyes. "Gred, Forge, this is an old... acquaintance of mine, Tom. Tom, Fred and George Weasley."
The twins finally looked away from the trigger-happy Dark Lord and turned eerily similar smiles on the Boy Who Lived. "He's quite the looker, mate," one of them commented.
Harry huffed. "Go be gay elsewhere."
Tom twitched at that, while both twins laughed and stepped around Harry to drop their arms around his shoulders, ignoring his flinch. "Come now, Harry," one of them said.
"Gay is such a...restrictive word."
"Close enough," Harry snarked.
"That's enough," Tom snapped and pulled Harry away from the twins. He didn't like seeing Harry's friends and the muggles at his hostel ignore his flinch at being touched; he usually ignored it, but he'd felt the echo of nausea through their link and he knew that the Gryffindor wouldn't refuse his friends on his own, no matter how uncomfortable it was making him.
Harry sighed at his protective enemy – and, yes, that did seem like quite the odd statement, but Harry was getting used to it – and said, "Tom, it's fine."
Tom just gave him that look that reminded Harry that he knew every emotion the teen was feeling, even if he didn't know why Harry felt queasy at the thought of being boxed in by his friends.
Harry cleared his throat, uncomfortable, and turned back to Fred and George, who were eyeing the two black haired wizards like they would have a puzzle. "So, why are you jumping me in the middle of Diagon?" he asked.
"Oh, we just saw you–"
"–thought we'd say hello–"
–badger you about how you never write–"
"–and make sure you were coming to the Burrow on Thursday."
Tom scowled in irritation at the twin speak, but Harry just rolled his eyes, used to the two. "Yes, I'll be there. Was there a particular reason why I'm being ordered there?"
"Can't tell you," the twins chorused.
"Isn't Thursday your birthday?" Tom wondered, eyeing the younger wizard at his side.
"Hm? Yeah, it is. Why?" Harry glanced up at him, curious about why Tom would point out the personal significance of the day.
Tom caught the pained expressions on Fred and George's faces at Harry's question and understood the feeling. "I believe it's called a birthday party."
Harry blinked in surprise. "Huh." He glanced over at the twins. "Really?"
"Of course!" one of the twins replied.
"It's an important day," the other agreed with a smile.
Harry shrugged. "Okay. I'll be there."
The twins traded looks, then nodded and turned back to Harry, determined. "You could use some fun," one of them said.
"Or something to use which can create fun," the other agreed.
Harry smiled. "Yeah? You two got anything new in?"
" 'Anything new' he asks," one of the twins said to the other.
"Not only have we got 'anything new'–" the other replied.
"–but we've got loads new," they both said, looking back at Harry with maniacal grins. They started towards Harry, intent on dragging him down the alley to their shop, but the dark-eyed man with their friend got in the way, expression threatening.
Harry laughed at the twins and stepped around Tom. "Well, let's see it all, then."
The twins shot wary looks at the Dark Lord, then led the two to their shop. The place wasn't overly crowded, but there were enough people in there that the twins were able to separate Harry from his protector without either wizard really realising that it had been done until it was too late.
"That Tom chap is quite protective of you," Fred said once George had managed to lead a reluctant Tom away.
Harry glanced up at Fred with a frown, then looked around them to find they were alone. "Fred," he warned.
Fred rolled his eyes. "Who is he?"
"An old acquaintance," Harry replied, crossing his arms across his chest and feeling defensive at both the apparent interrogation and the similarity between the twins and a member of Dudley's gang.
"Why hasn't anyone heard about him before this?"
"What is this, an interrogation?"
Fred sighed. "We're worried about you, mate. Something happened end of the year and no one'll tell us what. Ron's about shut down after it all, and then you're thrown out on your own in London?"
"I'm fine."
Fred stared him down with the expression that said he knew better.
Harry scoffed. "I'm as fine as I've ever been."
Fred sighed and shook his head. "Harry, who is he? Can't you tell me at least that much?"
"An old acquaintance," Harry repeated. "Someone I've known as long as I've known you and your family. Longer, maybe."
"Why doesn't anyone else in the Order know about him?"
"Maybe because I like having something I can keep to myself!" Harry snapped. "The entire bloody wizarding world knows what I'm doing practically every moment of every day–"
"They don't."
"The Order does. They know where I'm staying, when I go out for groceries, when I have lunch at the pub down the way–"
"We're worried about you," Fred said again. "You've got You-Know-Who and every one of his followers out for your blood and you can't even defend yourself."
"I've got a wand," Harry hissed. "I'm perfectly capable of using magic, and there's always the defence clause, if it comes to it. I don't need you lot hovering about me all the time!"
"And that bloke isn't?"
Harry gritted his teeth and tried to reign in his temper. "Tom doesn't hover," he ground out. "He's an obnoxious bastard who follows me about and calls me an idiot at odd times."
"It sounds like he hovers to me."
"Well..." Harry floundered for a response to that for a moment before blurting out, "Well, maybe I like it when he hovers!"
Surprise echoed both ways across their link even as Tom stepped out from where he and a helpless George had been listening to the altercation. "If you're quite through talking about me behind my back?" he snapped.
Fred and Harry glanced up, both looking surprised by the appearance of the Dark Lord. Harry recovered first and stepped over to Tom, glancing between the twins. "I'll see you on Thursday," he told them, then followed as Tom turned to leave the shop.
The trip back to the hostel was made in silence. They stopped around the block from the building, both uncomfortable in the silence, but uncertain what to say.
Tom broke the silence first, saying, "I'll see you next week."
Harry frowned. "Next week?"
Tom nodded, resolute. "Next week. You have a birthday party to prepare for; wouldn't want to ruin that for you."
"Tom, you wouldn't–"
"Don't finish that sentence," Tom said, and the hint of fear across their bond had Harry's mouth snapping shut.
They stared at each other for a long moment, confusion and hurt echoing across their link.
Then Tom turned and walked off towards the alley he usually apparated from, leaving Harry to stare after him until he'd disappeared into the crowds.
-0-0-0-0-0-
A/N: Poor boys. They're both so confused about their feelings for each other. XD
~Bats ^.^x
Abandon the Prequel: Sixth Year
Abandon chapter 01
Reclaim chapter One
Abandoned Chapters:
One || Two || Three ||
Eleven || Twelve || Thirteen || Fourteen || Fifteen || Sixteen || Seventeen || Eighteen || Nineteen || Twenty
INCOMPLETE
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