Title: The Artifice of Eternity

Prompt: s20 Harry/Tom Riddle. However you can make this work. Maybe time travel? Harry is horrified but turned-on. I'm not particular about who the Veela is.

Pairing(s): Harry/Tom Riddle Jr., mentions of Bill/Fleur

Word Count: 12,300

Rating: R

Warning(s): Dub-con (at first), desperate sex, very odd magic

Disclaimer:Harry Potter characters are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No profit is being made, and no copyright infringement is intended.

Notes: So this is a pairing I've never written before, but I thought I would give it a go because the prompt was so intriguing. I hope you enjoy it, nicevenn! The title is a line from Yeats's "Sailing to Byzantium." Many thanks to my beta Linda, who has never yet beat me about the ears for making her read a story of mine.

Summary: A chain of unlikely circumstances lead to the reappearance of Tom Riddle, Jr.—not exactly a Horcrux, not exactly a Veela.

The Artifice of Eternity

"Someone needs to go through Hogwarts," Fleur was saying, her accent leaking back into her voice the way Harry had learned it did when she was being emphatic. She turned her head to the side, and the firelight caught and gleamed in her silver hair. Harry blinked. A piece of it seemed to be gone, sheared off just above her shoulders. "There's so much dust and so many old artifacts there. They could be doing good, out in the world! Madame Maxime, she would never have allowed Beauxbatons to become this way."

Bill smiled and rolled his eyes at Harry when he thought Fleur wasn't looking. Harry knew that Bill fully supported Fleur's ambition to take up teaching Care of Magical Creatures at Hogwarts—she said it was a disgrace that they hadn't had someone who qualified as a magical creature for the past few years—but he thought Hogwarts was superior to Beauxbatons.

Unfortunately for Bill, Fleur saw his eyes roll. She sat straight up, and her voice quivered with outrage. "When one of the artifacts in the school, it has injured me, I am not wrong!"

"What do you mean?" Harry asked, startled. He hadn't heard about anyone being injured in the school. There had been all sorts of lingering magical residue from the Battle of Hogwarts, and sometimes traps the Death Eaters had prepared and then hadn't got time to use, and McGonagall had become a lot more vigilant about patrolling the school since last year, when it reopened. One small wound would have meant the papers were squawking for a fortnight.

"Oh." Fleur turned to him. "It was a book. It ate a piece of my hair." She touched the oddly shorn place above her shoulder.

"It ate it?" Harry couldn't help his own grin, although he knew Fleur would probably hit him for it. He did at least try to keep from bursting out laughing, since Victoire was asleep upstairs. "Where were you, the Restricted Section?"

Fleur sniffed. "We understand those books better, in France. We keep them locked up. No, this was an innocent book in the Headmistress's office. She had told me I might look through her tomes for books that would aid me, and this one was small and black and snapped open when I touched it. It took the lowest piece of my hair and slammed shut again."

"By the time she could get the book open again, the piece of hair was gone," said Bill, shaking his head with slow gloom. "It was horrible."

"It was!" said Fleur, and pushed him. "You are not being understanding."

Fleur sounded as if she was a minute away from tears, and Harry didn't really want to be in the middle of a lovers' quarrel—he got enough of them from Ron and Hermione, sometimes—so he cut in hastily. "What kind of book was it?"

"I told you—"

"I mean, besides small and black," Harry said soothingly. "Was it a book from the Restricted Section that had got left in the Headmistress's office on accident?" That was the only kind of book he could think of that would be interested in munching on Veela hair.

"No," said Fleur, looking disgruntled. "I did not even think it was a book that had anything in it, at first. It had a hole in it. And when I managed to get it open again, it had no writing in it but a faint name. I could not even make out much of that. Only an 'iddle.' Is it an English joke?"

Harry lost the impulse to laugh suddenly. He licked his lips and started to ask something else, but Bill interrupted. "Well, all's well that ends well, and anyway, it was probably just a coincidence. The book didn't snap at you again after that, did it?"

Fleur sniffed. "No. But I was advising the Headmistress to put it in the Restricted Section anyway. "

"I think you did right," said Bill, and then obviously changed the subject. Harry didn't think he could bring the book up again without sounding awkward.

Besides, it was probably nothing. He knew Voldemort was dead. He would have got a twinge in his scar, at the very least, if the bastard was still alive. Or his body just wouldn't have died. And the diary had been in Dumbledore's office for years. If it had still been dangerous, Dumbledore would have known.

Wouldn't he?

Harry managed to concentrate on having fun the rest of his evening at Shell Cottage, but it was difficult, and when he left, he had already decided he would pay that visit to Hogwarts that McGonagall kept nagging him about taking. It would do no harm to go into the Restricted Section and look for a small, black book and make sure it was inactive. Surely.

"Of course, Harry. Do whatever you like."

Harry had smiled bashfully at McGonagall and murmured something about just wanting to walk around the school, and she had immediately waved a hand and said that, then added, "I'll be here when you come back."

From the eager way she looked at him, Harry was afraid he knew what she wanted to talk about: his becoming the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, which she had already mentioned more than once when Harry was helping to rebuild the school. Harry smiled weakly and made his escape.

He did want to do something that wasn't Auror training. He had spent a whole year thinking that he would know the answer after he had come back to Hogwarts and taken his NEWTs. And then he had left school with an Outstanding in Defense and Exceeds Expectations in a few other subjects, and still no more idea of what he wanted to do than before.

McGonagall seemed to think that he wanted to come back to Hogwarts for a few years. Harry didn't want to disappoint her, which was the main reason he hadn't said no so far.

But he did still want to protect the school if it was in danger. So he wandered down the corridors to the library, paused for a moment so the smell of dust and paper could cease reminding him of homework and Hermione, and then walked cautiously into the room.

Madam Pince was nowhere in sight, and she was the only inhabitant of the library Harry would have to worry about right now, in the summer holidays. He strode towards the Restricted Section with more confidence.

The alarms were laughably easy to dismiss after some of the spells he had handled in the last two years. Harry hesitated for a moment once he was back among the shelves, though. He hadn't asked McGonagall where she'd put the bloody book inside this labyrinth, he realized.

Finally, he shrugged and held up his wand. "Accio Tom Riddle's diary."

It was in his hand in seconds, leaping out from behind a shelf of larger books with disturbing eagerness, as though it wanted someone to take it up again. Harry shook his head sharply. It was possible that something still remained in the book, some kind of intelligence, or even more likely, some lingering magic that Voldemort had imbued the book with.

Either way, Harry was here to take care of the danger now.

He leaned his wand on the book and closed his eyes. He had found that in the last year, he could often pick up a vibration of Dark magic through his wand if he just touched something and waited.

This time, the reaction was immediate and enough of a buzz to jounce his teeth in his head. Harry swore softly and pulled his wand away from the book. Fleur's hair must have strengthened it. She hadn't said there was any blood that went with the hair, but she was part magical creature, and Harry knew that Veela hair could be a wand core. Maybe that had "helped."

He laid the book on the floor in front of him. Without telling anyone, he had visited the Chamber of Secrets last year, and done it again and again, until he was reasonably sure that he could Transfigure a harmless object into a basilisk fang, complete with venom. Granted, he had never tested it against a Horcrux, but it should be sufficient to take care of this nuisance.

The minute he raised his wand, though, the diary levitated off the floor in front of him, and swooped warningly towards him, buzzing all the while. Harry leaped out of the way, and the diary collided with a shelf behind him. For a second, it struggled there, as though something sticky on the pages had made it cling to the wood.

Harry immediately cast the spell. He wasn't about to waste time taking advantage of this unexpected good luck.

The basilisk fang, Transfigured from a quill he was carrying in his pocket, weighed down his hand. Harry lowered his wand carefully to the side, since his magic seemed to make the book respond worse than before, and stabbed out with the fang.

The book was writhing, though, still pinned in place and going translucent, and the fang Harry held did nothing but pass straight through the book. Harry swore, eyes narrowed, fixed on the bloody book, and wondering what kind of chaotic white swirls were filling the space where the pages had been.

One of the swirls welled upwards and took on a semblance like a head, and a second later, there were arms where some of the broader swirls had been. Arms that extended out to the sides. Arms that appeared to be growing hands.

As far as Harry was concerned, if it had hands, it was dangerous. He struck again.

This time, his fang seemed to stick in something, but it was something that flapped back and forth and struggled weakly, like the book, not like flesh. Harry whirled the fang out and watched hopefully. Maybe that was a sign that the thing was about to start shrinking again and put the Horcrux back into its container.

His scar still hadn't burned, Harry noticed grimly. Maybe that was because the Horcrux in him was gone. That wasn't entirely good. It meant Voldemort could come back, and they really wouldn't have any warning.

The shape grew again, though, and this time, when Harry stabbed with the fang, a hand came flying up as if to stop him. But it was still transparent, and passed through Harry's own arm instead of stopping. Harry gasped aloud. The jolt that raced through him this time was nothing like a buzz; it was heat like being bathed in magma, shattering and painful. Harry leaped back and drew his wand. This was too much for him to handle by himself. He'd have to call someone for help.

But the figure shook its head and muttered in loud, tranquil accents, "Ah," and the voice wasn't the cold, high one that Harry would always remember about Voldemort if he died a hundred and fifty years in the future. This was a deep and pleased one that reminded Harry forcefully of second year, instead.

A second later, the figure whirled and formed completely. Tom Riddle, Jr., stood there in the library aisle, smiling at Harry, looking exactly the way Harry had seen him when he was draining life from Ginny.

Except for the pair of short black wings projecting from his back, and the talons that seemed to have replaced his hands, and the ring of gold around the outsides of his eyes, wild and bright as a hawk's.

"You know," Riddle whispered, "feeding me your magic may not have been your smartest idea."

Harry tensed, once. He thought he understood now. Somehow, the spells he'd cast had strengthened the book.

Which didn't explain the wings or the claws or the golden eyes. But Harry was mostly interested in protecting the school right now and making sure that Riddle didn't go anywhere, not in getting answers that would be lies anyway.

Harry cast a spell that should have snared Riddle around the wings and belly and dragged him back against the bookshelves. It had certainly worked that way when Harry practiced it in Defense Against the Dark Arts, although usually it had grabbed someone's arms instead of someone's wings.

But Riddle leaped effortlessly into the air, his wings twitching a little in a way that made it look as if he was just fluttering them, and then came down nearer Harry instead. He reached out a hand as if he wanted to use his talons to part the skin on Harry's cheek.

Harry spun aside. Fighting in the narrow confines of the shelves was hardly ideal, but he'd done more difficult things. He cast another spell that made Riddle hiss as his skin began to heat up. For a second, he threw back his head, and Harry dodged around him, already aiming for the entrance to the shelves and an angle he could set up a capture web.

But Riddle was turning with him, his arms around Harry's waist, his wings opening and then closing hard, clasping around Harry's neck and face. For a second, Harry spat black feathers, and Riddle whispered to him, "I told you, your magic feeds me. And yet you persist in casting it on me anyway. I suppose you might want this as much as I do. It wouldn't surprise me, given what I remember. What I know, from the touch of your mind on mine." He leaned in and kissed the back of Harry's neck.

Harry froze. He defied anyone to continue moving when your worst enemy had just done that. And then Riddle leaned in, smirking, and kissed harder, his lips pressing down firmly enough that they hurt.

But Harry could fight physically if he couldn't with magic. He kicked and stomped, and this time Riddle's sound wasn't one of pleasure as he let Harry go. Harry made straight for the entrance out of the shelves again. He had some sort of weird symbiotic link with Riddle, so someone else would have to take care of him.

"Harry."

The word was right in his ear, enough to make Harry jump and spin around, although he knew logically that Riddle couldn't be that close. Harry would have felt him if he was.

Riddle was, in fact, leaning against the bookshelf, watching Harry with the sort of patient, hungry gaze that Harry would assume was coming from someone who wanted to—

Who wanted to fuck him, not wanted him dead.

Even as Harry stared, his wand gripped tightly enough that he thought he would break it for a second, Riddle kissed his claws and held them up to Harry. "Go and tell them about me," he said softly. "It won't help you."

And he flicked his wings and rose. In seconds he was a shadow, one that traveled sideways and out through a chink between books. Harry cast a Tracking Charm as fast as he could, but it missed the fleeting being that Riddle had become.

Harry swore bitterly.

"What are you doing, Mr. Potter?"

And as if that wasn't enough, he now had Madam Pince to deal with.

"I understand. I should have suspected something like that."

Harry winced. He hated to see the deep, dead look in McGonagall's eyes as she stared over her desk and at one of the silver instruments Dumbledore had left her. He shook his head and cleared his throat when she looked as if she would go on ignoring him and instead look at the wall until her eyes froze. "Headmistress—Minerva—please. I'm the one who knew what he was and still fell prey to it. And there are ways to defeat even a Horcrux."

McGonagall turned towards him and seemed to swallow enough air to inflate her whole body. "Of course there are," she said. "Next time, we'll need to trap him in a place that he can't escape from."

Harry smiled a little. "I think we might have the perfect bait for that."

"What?" McGonagall asked, and then reached up and stabbed a finger at him before Harry could even make his suggestion. "No. Mr. Potter. You've already done more than enough."

"In this case, it was my mistake that made him come back," said Harry. "Listen, you design the trap. You think you could Transfigure the Horcrux into something else if you could get close enough to it?"

"The Transfiguration of spiritual objects is a tricky business," said McGonagall, still frowning at him. "But yes, I think so."

Harry nodded. "And I'm going to go talk to Fleur. Somehow, eating her Veela hair transformed the book into a part-Veela or something. She might have more ideas about what we need to do."

McGonagall's back straightened again, and she sighed. "Thank you, Mr. Potter. All I could think for a moment was how both Albus and Severus had died to defeat this horror, and now it was returned, and it seemed all to be for nothing. But you defeated him last time. We will defeat him this time." She peered curiously at Harry. "You aren't afraid? What you described sounded graphic to me."

Harry laughed. "Of course I'm afraid. But next to being killed, being raped doesn't seem all that bad."

"It will not come to that."

McGonagall's voice was so fierce that for a moment, Harry was actually more frightened of her than he had been of Riddle. He cleared his throat and shook his head. "Of course it won't. I have a lot more help this time, and there's no bloody prophecy that says I have to be the only one to defeat him."

McGonagall didn't even scold him for his language. She simply nodded and said, "Go and talk to Mrs. Delacour-Weasley, Mr. Potter. I am going to research the methods of creating traps for spiritual Transfigured creatures."

Harry smiled, stood up, and left the school.

His mind was on Fleur and what she might tell him, but a flick of shadow overhead made him pause and look up.

There was a shadow wheeling there, on those short wings that were, Harry thought, a lot more like a hawk's than like the wings of swans Veela had always reminded him of. The figure dipped and danced. It was small. Harry could have taken it for an ordinary bird if he was being stupid.

He wasn't being stupid.

He shivered and hurried to the edge of the school grounds to Apparate. The shadow danced lazily above him.

Fleur hadn't closed her mouth for the last three minutes. It was getting on Harry's nerves. He put the cup of tea down and leaned in, ready to shut her jaw if that would help him get to the bottom of this problem.

But Fleur recovered herself before then. She looked extremely upset, though, and close to tears as she stared down at her fingers. "This is my fault," she whispered, and her voice trembled. "Mine."

"Can we stop talking about whose fault this is and start talking about how we're going to fix it?" Harry asked impatiently. "What does this mean? Did the Veela hair blend with my magic? Could I use another piece of your hair as a weapon? What does it mean?" In his own view, those were the important questions they had to answer.

"I must think."

Harry nodded. Well, it was kind of unusual for a magical Horcrux-book to eat your hair and then come to life to hunt your adopted brother-in-law. It made sense that Fleur wouldn't have the answers at her fingertips. He leaned back and nursed his tea, waiting, while Fleur pressed her hands to her temples.

In the meantime, Harry thought, maybe it would help if he contemplated why he wasn't nearly as afraid of this Tom Riddle as he had been of Voldemort or the one he had met in the Chamber of Secrets. He was a Horcrux and he was back from the dead and Harry had no idea how he was going to defeat him this time.

On the other hand, this time he wasn't a kid. And he had meant what he'd said to McGonagall about being more afraid of death than rape, even though of course he hoped he wouldn't have to face that.

Finally, Fleur made a soft sound and turned to face him. Her face was set and strained, and she was gazing at Harry as if she wanted to commit his face to memory and convince him this was important that way. "You have to listen to me," she whispered.

Harry blinked, then nodded.

"Veela hair is a powerful magical material," said Fleur. "What you said is true. I have never heard of a book eating one, or a—Horcrux." She still shuddered when she pronounced the word. "But what you said about his wings and claws—I am afraid that my hair may have given him the traits of a predatory Veela."

"Okay," said Harry. "Does that mean he's going to fling fireballs at me? Or try to charm me?"

"Neither," said Fleur. "Your magic passed into him, and that means he wants you."

Harry felt his face heat up. It was one thing to talk about this with McGonagall, who it felt as if he'd known forever, and something else to discuss it with someone pretty and much closer to his age. "Um," he said.

"I do not think he will be interested in hurting others," Fleur was continuing, her voice and eyes both distant. "At least, he should not be. A predatory Veela is a Veela gone—into a trance state, of sorts, where what he wants and hunts is his mate and nothing else. He will not hunger or tire until he finds you. He will not think of anything else until he finds you."

"I think he can find me already," said Harry reluctantly, and told her about the winged shadow above him on his way out of Hogwarts.

"Then perhaps I am wrong," said Fleur, and hugged herself as though she was trying to protect her skin from cold. "I do not—this is strange, then. What does he want? Why does he not close in on you at once?"

Harry thought about it, and in a second had the answer. He laughed grimly, and shook his head when Fleur looked at him anxiously. "He wants to stretch the hunt out," he said. "He wants to play some kind of bloody game with me."

"A perilous game," said Fleur, and bowed her head. "By the time he gives up on that and comes to you, he will most likely be desperate and hungry."

"I think he's that way already," Harry said, and sighed as he thought about how Riddle had tried to hold him in the library. "Anyway, I can't use magic against him, right? Because it'll feed him and he'll grow stronger?"

Fleur hesitated. Then she said, "I think you would be able to use magic against him if he attacked someone else. But he is made of you. The magic that you touched him with and the lingering spiritual connection…it has called him up. You are bound together, and that means you cannot fend him off with what brought him to life, any more than you would be able to use the hair of your head if it was your hair that had given him strength in the first place. I am so sorry, Harry."

"It's not like you knew," said Harry, and he gave her a smile and a quick squeeze of her hand. "Believe me, Fleur, I know what it's like to be helpless against someone who wants me dead. And I would much rather have someone who's hurt me accidentally than someone who's out to hurt me deliberately."

"Except that now you have both," Fleur whispered, and looked at him.

Harry shrugged, and made sure that it really looked as careless as he wanted it to, leaning back on his stool. "Anyway, you're still the one who knows the most about Veela. That I know, I mean. What tips can you give me?"

Harry sighed as he stepped into his flat, his head spinning. Fleur had been more than willing to tell him about Veela mating games—that was the only way Harry could think of it—as soon as she saw that he was serious.

But she'd kept warning him that all this information might be useless when Harry was confronting a being made of magic and darkness. "I don't think he would do this, but he might," had begun a lot of her advice.

Harry was starting to take off his trainers when something stirred in front of him in the dim corridor. He spun around, and managed to keep from firing off a spell just in time. Riddle was coming slowly towards him from the corner where Harry kept the rack for his cloak and robes.

He looked more solid now, his black wings trembling as though they were beating in time with his heart. He circled towards Harry with a slow, wild look in his eyes that made Harry want to gasp and run. But that wasn't going to happen. This was his home, and he had to face Riddle sooner or later.

And honestly, between the two of them, he had the best record of winning.

Harry stood there and let Riddle inspect him, although it felt uncomfortably as though Riddle was running his hands beneath Harry's clothes. Still, Harry had been tortured and looked at by someone who wanted to torture him to death. Riddle unsettled him, he'd admit that, but he didn't make Harry want to roll on his back and give up.

Riddle finally spoke, his voice a distant whisper. "There are so many things to learn about you. I've gone and listened at windows and keyholes, and your name is whispered everywhere."

"Then you'll know all my weaknesses," Harry said. "One of them is a dislike of listening to dramatic speeches about how I'm going to regret things. Why don't you attack me and get it over with?" He was tensed to toss aside his wand and engage Riddle with Muggle violence. Fleur had been sure that Riddle, while he had advantages like the claws and wings that Harry didn't, wouldn't be stronger.

"No," Riddle whispered, so softly that for a second Harry thought he had said "Now," and he moved to the side, anticipating an attack. Riddle moved with him, but he kept to the floor and his eyes were wide and unmoving. "I heard many other things about you. Like how you haven't had a mate since the battle."

"The Battle of Hogwarts?" Harry blinked. Riddle had the time to spy out his weaknesses and to come up with plans to break into his house, and he had…decided that Harry's dating track record was the most important piece of information he could possibly have?

Then Harry remembered something Fleur had said.

"His priorities will be a Veela's priorities, from the way you described him," Fleur had murmured when Harry had given her as good a description as he could of Riddle's wings. "Only dark and twisted. He'll be possessive, but I don't think he'll want to show you off, the way that proudly mated Veela do. He'll probably want to keep you all to himself."

Harry had no intention of being a prize for anyone, but he could understand that in his own way. Riddle was like one of his fans who wrote him letters about how no one understood Harry as well as they did, and they and Harry were going to spend all of eternity (usually underlined) together.

"Yes," Riddle breathed, and paced slowly towards him, his wings jerking. Then he stopped and spent a moment paddling his claws in the air, as if he was stroking the edge of another Veela's wing. It looked strange enough that Harry wanted to laugh, but he had a good idea of what would happen if he did.

Suddenly, Riddle paused and stared at him. His eyes had gone wide and wild and shining, and the ring of gold around the edges of them made them look so crazed that Harry once again moved to the side before he could stop himself, sure the attack was beginning.

"In fact, never," Riddle whispered.

"What?" That word might go on his tombstone, Harry thought the next second, in exasperation. What did it matter what Riddle meant, what he was saying? The thing of real importance was what he was going to do.

"Never," Riddle whispered. "You've never had a mate." He laughed, deep and joyous, and his wings flexed. "I am going to enjoy this."

And he lifted and flew at Harry.

It was too quick for any of the plans of dodging Harry had formed to work. So he stood firm, and when Riddle was hovering in front of him, staring dreamily into his face with his lips parted and soft panting breaths washing over Harry's mouth, Harry kicked him in the groin.

Riddle gasped, but he didn't draw back and he didn't try to slap Harry with his claws. Instead, his eyes glowed all the harder, and he nodded. "I like someone who fights back," he whispered. "Someone whose surrender is sweet enough to satisfy my desire."

He flew back out of the way as Harry tried another kick, and shook his head. "You're crude," he observed. "Of course, one wants a crude lover under the right circumstances, but these aren't them."

Harry nearly launched a spell at him before he remembered what would happen to any magic he used against Riddle. He leaped back and concealed himself behind a half-wall that separated his kitchen from the entrance hall.

Riddle settled to the floor in a leisurely way. "Hiding doesn't matter, you know," he said. "I can sense you across any distance, and I can cross any barrier." His voice seemed to waver for a second, as though he was getting further away instead of closer, and then suddenly he was on the same side of the wall as Harry, reaching out to catch his chin. That brought his talons close to Harry's eyes, and Harry instinctively froze. Riddle laughed softly. "Yes, you forgot that, didn't you? Although you should have remembered it from the library."

"He can find you," Fleur had told Harry. "You can't do anything about that. But there's the chance he'll be so obsessed with being near you that he won't notice if you try to do something else with your hands while he's staring into your eyes."

Harry hoped that "chance" was pretty large. He started to inch his hands towards Riddle, while Riddle uttered another murmur of pleasure and leaned in so that his mouth rested against Harry's.

It wasn't a kiss, though. His lips were moving. "What charming thoughts you have," he whispered. "But I'm a Legilimens as well as a Veela, and I know what you're thinking. I'll foresee any move you make against me, Harry Potter."

Unless, Harry thought, and he didn't allow himself to think, any more than he would if he was falling from a broom. He just twisted to the side and went with the impulse of the moment, falling out from under Riddle and rolling on the floor.

Riddle gave a wild shriek that sounded like a hawk's, and leaped into the air again. His wings prevented him from falling, but the walls were too close to let him really get an advantage. Harry ducked under him again, then raised a quick shield in front of himself. It shouldn't count as magic that could give Riddle more power, since it wasn't being cast against him.

Riddle landed in front of him a second later, so close on the other side of the shield that Harry could make out the trembling, excited flare of his nostrils. He was licking his lips as he gazed longingly into Harry's eyes, and Harry blinked back, unnerved. At least that gesture was totally unlike either the Voldemort or the Tom Riddle Harry had known.

"I'm not either of them," Riddle whispered, answering Harry's thoughts again. "Not precisely. You brought me back to life—but there was little enough of me left sleeping. Just a mindless hunger that reached out and grabbed the first bit of magical creature power it could. Only that had the strength to resurrect me. Mere human magic would not have." He spread his talons out delicately and rested them on the shield, which prickled under the touch and showed visible dimples where his claws rested. "This is the most fascinating bit. Are you listening?"

"I always listen to people who want to kill me," Harry said. "At least, the first time."

Riddle arched his neck, and a small ruff of dark feathers around his throat that Harry hadn't noticed before stood up and reached towards him. Harry blinked. That was another different thing, so different that it was hard to go on seeing the boy in front of him as Tom Riddle.

But Harry had to. He knew that. Riddle could lie and play tricks with the best of them, and now he had new physical features that would help him in his deception. But Harry was the worst of fools if he trusted him.

"What can I do to convince you that I don't want to kill you?" Riddle whispered. "Not anymore?"

"Not almost clawing my eyes out would be a good start," Harry said dryly.

Riddle shook his head. "I wouldn't have done that. That was merely a way to get your attention."

"Says the one who wasn't in danger of getting his eyes clawed out."

Riddle made an abrupt hissing sound, and his wings twitched. That wasn't something Harry remembered from the diary memory, either. That Riddle had seemed possessed of a mastery over his emotions that might have let him get angry at an enemy, or amused, but not this—this combination of anger and whatever else it was that made him stare, lost, at Harry.

"No," Riddle whispered. "How could you think that? It was Veela hair that brought me back to life. And then your magic ran through me and awakened me. I would lose all my wakefulness and crumple back to a shadow in a book if you, the source of the magic, died." He reached out and drove his talon through the shield before Harry could realize what he was doing. "And besides, why would I want to murder someone who could give me this?" His claws touched Harry's arm.

Harry expected the "this" to be blood and torn skin. He was prepared to spring aside and retaliate the best he could, when—

There was so much of a thrill in his veins. That was the way it started, a thick thread of heat that seemed to trace the same path as Harry's blood, rising and winding back and forth. Harry thought it could curl around his heart and he would still stand the way he was right now, his head thrown back, body locked in a desperate stillness to get more of the heat.

Then the heat did touch his heart, and burst into fiery flower.

Harry had never felt anything like it before. He went to his knees, and Riddle followed him down, still touching Harry nowhere but on his arm. Harry was turning his head to the side, his mouth open, wanting a drink, and that was when Riddle kissed him, a pull on his mouth that made Harry wonder if Riddle was drinking his spirit like a vampire.

Harry felt as though all the anger and fear of the war had been turned inside out and revealed pleasure underneath. That was the only time he had ever felt anything like this brightly-colored, trembling intensity, flower and flame alike, whirling and banging through him. During the war.

In conflict with a variation of this man who crouched in front of him now and watched every motion with shuddering wildness of his own.

Finally, Riddle pulled his hand back. Harry sagged forwards, but Riddle caught him before he could fall on his face and tenderly arranged him back against the wall. His hand smoothed up and down Harry's forehead, and he leaned near, until he could breathe into Harry's ear.

"That only happened because I wanted it to. I could have affected you that way in the library, but I desired privacy. That is what you shall be. Mine in private, mine to keep."

For a second, because Harry was human and couldn't help it, he wondered what the full mating would be like, if that was only a touch.

But this was still a version of the man who had murdered his parents, and been responsible for the deaths of so many people, and Sirius's imprisonment, and Harry growing up with the Dursleys, and even hurting Hagrid when Hagrid was still a student just because he needed a handy scapegoat. Nearly everyone Harry knew had been hurt by Riddle in some way, and succumbing to his desire was out of the question.

Harry struck out with one hand held flat in a way that he thought would have broken Riddle's nose if it had landed, but Riddle had somersaulted back. He hung almost parallel to the floor, supported by his rapidly beating wings, never taking his delighted eyes from Harry's face.

"Well," he said. "There's nothing a hawk enjoys more than the hunt. I shall enjoy this one."

And he turned and rocketed out the window, turning again into that little shadow to pass through the glass. Harry wondered if he should be glad that at least he didn't have a broken window on his hands, and then shook his head violently. That thought was as silly as the ones about what could happen if he yielded willingly to Riddle.

He knew why he had reacted that way. Because, yeah, he hadn't ever been with someone, for reasons that might be silly to other people, but were his. His alone.

The way that Riddle thinks I'll be his alone.

Harry stood up and kicked the wall, not caring about the way it made his foot ache through his trainers. At least it got his mind off the other ache that was traveling through his body and clouding his bloody judgment right now.

That ache was so dim and distant that Harry managed to believe, until he undressed and slid under the covers that night—after a whole afternoon of back-and-forth firecalls with Ron and Hermione and McGonagall—that it was from his foot. He believed that until he rolled over and his arm where Riddle had touched it slid up and across his bare skin on his side.

And then the pleasure came hissing and snarling to life, and this time, it felt like the reverse of what had happened when the basilisk bit him. Harry had felt the poison coursing through him then. Now there was the fire that Riddle had stirred up, and Harry cried out hoarsely before he remembered what he was thinking, what he was doing, who had touched him like that.

He put his arm across his eyes and lay there, riding it out. It faded a lot faster than it had when Riddle was present. Harry shuddered, and wished he'd dated someone, after all. Surely he wouldn't be this vulnerable to a little touch if he'd had sex before.

And now he was hard.

Harry lay there and resisted in utter silence and utter immobility for so long that he was startled to finally open his eyes and realize only a few minutes had passed, according to the clock. Of course, the clock didn't know what it was talking about when it came to time, he thought. Not really. It was only a construct of metal and springs, wasn't it? And wood. He was—

Oh, hell.

His hand slipped down, and he found himself gripping and stroking his cock so fast that it seemed for a second like a stranger's hand. Like Riddle's hand.

But Riddle wasn't a stranger, was he? A stranger didn't show up to brood over the worst moments of your life.

Harry's arm was burning against his face. His cock burned against his hand. It wasn't enough, his touch. He could admit that now, and he screamed silently in frustration. He wasn't about to show it aloud, even if no one else was around. Riddle would probably be listening and laughing from somewhere. He wasn't going to know.

But the minute Harry had that particular thought, then Riddle was in his head again. The way he had looked that day, not the way he had looked in the Chamber, with his black wings quivering and his expression of driving desire and possessiveness fixed on Harry.

Driving. The way a hawk would drive down at its prey in the dive, the way that a predator would fly after fleeing prey, and—

And Harry imagined himself falling into Riddle's talons, and came spectacularly all over his trousers.

The plans and counterplots of his friends swirled around him, and Harry sat in the middle of Ron and Hermione's kitchen and stared at his hands. He didn't know how he could tell them that Riddle's image burned in front of him every time he closed his eyes now, so that he saw those waiting wild eyes instead of darkness. He didn't know how to tell them that the longing that hadn't bothered him at first, the same longing that seemed to be consuming Riddle, had been scorching the middle of his chest since he woke that morning.

He didn't know how to tell them. But someone did.

"A moment," said Fleur, who had been invited along, Harry thought, mainly because Hermione didn't know a lot about Veela and wanted someone to tell her just in case she got it wrong. Fleur leaned forwards and put a gentle hand on Harry's knee. "There are certain things we cannot do. He feels it."

"He feels what?" Ron was sweeping his foot back and forth across the wooden floor, his face fierce. "If Voldemort thinks he's going to mess with my friend again—"

"This is not a spell," said Fleur, and her face had gone grave in a way that made Harry think she wasn't sad or happy about this. Only knowing. She studied Harry's expression for a moment, and then nodded. Harry sighed. Her touch on him soothed the burning in his chest a little. "This is a mating bond. He feels the same connection to the Veela that Bill did when I chose him."

There was a silence, a moment so profound that Harry should have been wishing for some way out of this embarrassment, instead of for Riddle to be there. He lowered his head and clenched his hair in his hands.

"He's what," said Hermione. It was almost polite.

"I do not think he meant to," said Fleur, and Harry nodded fervently. That much wasn't private or burning or anything else that he wanted to keep secret. She tried to pull her hand away, but Harry flinched at her, and she nodded and kept it in place. "Riddle probably came to his house and touched him in a way that was meant to entice—"

"Do we have to talk about this," sang Ron into his hands clapped over his face.

"This is for Harry, Ron," said Hermione, and that made Ron sit up and look at her with a serious face Harry had never seen before. He wished he could have appreciated it more. He wished his mind would stay on thoughts of his friends, and never stray away from them.

Anything but this wish that he was back in the Chamber, but the age he was now, and the memory-Riddle was leaning towards him and gloating. At least that time, he had shown no indication that he wished to fly away.

He's the one who has the wings. He's the one who can decide when we're going to meet and what he's going to do to me when we do.

Harry shuddered. That thought made him feel cold, and he went colder as he thought about how sadistic Riddle had always been. That was the only thing that would quench the fire inside him, beside Fleur's touch. He hunched on the stool now, and his arms were wrapped around him because Riddle's arms weren't there.

Fleur uttered a quiet hiss. "This is worse than I thought," she said. "Riddle must have passed on some of his own desperation to complete the mating bond."

"Wh-why?" Ron sounded dignified, and not like he was going to run out of the room or empty his stomach. He was better off than Harry was, then, Harry thought dimly, and twisted on the stool, on the end of his particular hook.

"Because most Veela mates are more patient than the Veela," said Fleur. "Bill could appreciate me and want to go on more leisurely dates than I did." Harry did have to open his eyes to see how Ron was taking this revelation of his brother's sex life. Ron had the patient expression of someone who didn't care, because he was going to use a Memory Charm on himself the minute this was done. "But when something is happening—when the Veela's life might depend on the completion of the bond, for example, or it feels as if it does—then the Veela can infect their mate with the craving to do the same."

"There has to be some other choice." Harry hadn't realized how close Hermione was to tears until now. "This is the man who murdered his parents."

"No," said Fleur calmly. "This is his Veela."

Harry managed to find his voice and tell them one of the things he hadn't mentioned. "I do think he's different. He said that Fleur's hair brought him to life, but he's not a Horcrux. He's sort of a memory. And he's my mate because he fed on my magic."

Fleur nodded. "That was enough to bring him to life and focus him on you, but the Veela hair had already changed him, in a way that You-Know-Who could never have been changed." Her voice was helping Harry to focus, so he kept looking at her and listening to her. "His obsession survived. The nature of it has changed. He will never kill you. He will never rape you, because he wants you with him to stay." She hesitated. "But I cannot say what else he might do to people who are not you, at least if we try to keep you from him."

Harry cracked a smile. It felt as though his lips had gone so dry that they literally cracked, but at least he knew what he had to do now, and that was better than sitting there dazed while other people argued over his head. "So I need to find him and persuade him to—what? Sleep with me and go away?"

"He isn't going away," said Fleur. She was the one who shot him a stern look now. "He will stay with you, you understand? That is what a Veela and his mate do."

Harry closed his eyes. God, his head ached. He wasn't sure he was making the best or most rational of decisions, but he did know a couple of things. He wanted Riddle. He didn't want Riddle to hurt anyone else. And he wanted to get close enough to Riddle to see if brilliant things could happen.

He wasn't going to lie back and think of England, that was for bloody sure.

"Fleur!" Hermione, sounding scandalized. "You can't just tell him things like that! If there's a way to send Riddle away for good, then of course Harry should—"

"He will get worse if he tries that," said Fleur, her voice holding the cold snap of an expert. It surprised Harry. Fleur didn't sound like that, or at least he'd never heard her sound like that. "Both of them will. Riddle will become more aggressive, and might turn his claws or his magic on someone else. Whoever he thinks is keeping Harry away from him will definitely become a target. And Harry will get weaker."

She paused, and Harry managed to look at her again. His eyes didn't burn as much as they had. Maybe the decision to seek Riddle out had done him some good. "I do wonder why this is so strong," she murmured. "Even passing on his desperation should not have worked so well for him. He is, in some ways, a magical construct, not a true Veela."

Harry hesitated, but hey, they were already discussing his sex life and thinking about things that he would have died of embarrassment a few days ago if he even thought about sharing. "Does it matter how many people someone dated before?"

Fleur looked blank for a second, and then gasped. "You—you are a virgin?"

So I can still wince when someone puts it like that, Harry thought, but at least he wasn't suffering as much as Ron, who yelped, "I didn't need to know that about my sister!", even if his face stung from the blush.

"Yeah," Harry said, and shrugged a little, while Fleur looked at him in patent disbelief. He wondered if she had thought he'd slept with Ginny, too, or if she was just surprised that Britain's most popular wizard hadn't pulled someone. "Riddle acted delighted when he discovered it."

"It will make the bond stronger," Fleur agreed. "And he can pass on his desperation better because you have no experience of a different kind of desire, no resistance that would enable you to pit your memories against his."

"But he's also rejoicing because he's a bastard," Harry muttered.

Fleur nodded. "Yes. I suspect this will increase his possessive streak." She looked pensive for a second, her head turning as if she listened to mysterious Veela senses beyond Harry's power to comprehend. "In fact—"

Harry felt it at the same moment as Fleur did, but then, he didn't have much choice. The window broke, and the wards broke with it at the same moment. Harry bent over, gasping, because the sudden heat in his belly was like a pleasurable Portkey. It certainly pulled him to his feet and over towards Riddle.

Riddle, who stood in the entrance of the room with his wings spread, looking longer and wider than they had before, and said to Fleur with a menace that was liquefying Harry's senses, "You touched him."

Harry wondered dazedly what Riddle could mean, because Fleur hadn't touched him at all, and then he remembered the hand she'd put on his knee. He did his best to stop Riddle as he started to march murderously forwards.

"No! She was just trying to ground me, telling me about Veela bonds and things." It was such an effort to make his mind work, and Harry hated it. He managed to work some spit up in his throat when he saw the way Riddle was staring at Fleur, though. "L-look, I w-wouldn't—please don't!"

"Was she telling you that a Veela can have more than one mate?" Riddle paused and slowly curled one talon so that his claws extended outwards. Even Fleur looked at them in horrified admiration, Harry saw, and she was probably familiar with some even more formidable Veela weapons. "She was lying."

The word shook the house. Ron and Hermione fell to the floor. Fleur was the only one who looked as if she might be able to resist, but she was standing with her eyes on the floor and her body held very still instead.

"No!" Harry caught Riddle around the waist and the wrist and said the only thing he thought he could that might make Riddle focus on him. "She was the one who was telling me that because I'm a virgin, I'll belong to you all the more."

It was like wandless magic. Riddle pivoted to face him in a second, his eyes wide with something that Harry might have mistaken as delighted surprise, except he knew better. Riddle's hand came up, and Harry flinched, but the claws had sunk back into the talons, and there was nothing when Riddle touched him except the torrent of pleasure that the touch had brought before. Harry closed his eyes and moaned and slumped against Riddle, who cradled him with strong arms and wings at the same time.

"You acknowledge my claim?" Riddle whispered. "I don't need to stake it?"

Harry forced open heavy, hanging eyes. He knew one thing. Well, he knew lots of things, including that Riddle was a bastard even as a Veela, and that he would hurt Harry's friends if Harry didn't do something, and that he had no idea what was going to happen next, after Riddle—well, fucked him.

But the most important thing, the fact branded into his mind, was that he wanted this. He might only want it because Riddle could touch him and make him feel like that, but damn, he wanted to see what was going to happen in the fucking, too.

"You don't," he said softly, holding Riddle's heated gaze. "Although maybe something is going to get staked around here."

"Mudbloods and blood traitors," said Riddle, and tightened his hold on Harry, "it's been a pleasure."

And, holding Harry close to him, he flew out the window.

Harry wasn't entirely surprised when they ended up back at his house. Riddle had been there that once before, and where else would they go?

Riddle flung him on the bed and moved closer to him. His eyes were so dark that he looked as if he was in pain. He stood for a moment, and then he pulled at his shirt. It looked like woven shadows, anyway, and dissolved before the beat of his black wings.

"Do you even have an idea what you're doing?" Harry muttered, taking off his own shirt. He didn't know if Riddle had ever had sex before he became a memory trapped in the diary, but he knew he hadn't had sex as a Veela before.

Neither did Harry, but at least Harry wasn't the one who went around gathering people up and flinging them into walls and beds.

"I think I'll manage," said Riddle, and spent a moment curiously flexing his wings, as though he thought they would hurt more when they came free of the shirt. Then he looked at Harry, and Harry's throat dried out before the meaning, the message, the passion in that gaze.

Riddle strode towards him. His wings had spread and drooped out to the sides, and his gaze was directly pointed, between Harry's legs. Honest, in his own twisted way, Harry thought, and he didn't feel the terror he'd half-expected, the terror of being back in the Chamber of Secrets with the basilisk coming for him.

Harry didn't have experience at sex, or being a Veela's victim-slash-mate, or any of a hundred other things that other people might have done better than him. But he'd always known how to hold Voldemort's attention. And even Tom Riddle's, if you counted the gloating way the memory had spoken to him in the Chamber.

He leaned back against the pillow now, and lifted his hips.

Riddle hissed. His trousers, or the ghost of the trousers he had been wearing, was gone somewhere. And he reached out and ran his talons so gently along the top of Harry's leg that he never drew blood, only cloth.

Harry watched as the cloth unspooled, running away from Riddle's talons, splitting apart to reveal his flushed skin, his hard cock. He cried out when Riddle touched him with one clawed hand that didn't hurt, but it was his own cock that kept his attention. No wonder it almost hurt. It was so dark. He wondered why in the world he hadn't come before now.

"Because you won't come until I say so."

Harry snapped up his eyes, suddenly alert, listening, watching. Riddle leaned towards him and hovered above him, his wings spread out, the depth of his eyes making it impossible for Harry to look away from his face and tell whether the hovering was literal or not.

"We're connected, now," Riddle whispered, and gave him a vicious kiss. "What you do is what I say."

Riddle seemed utterly taken by surprise when Harry returned the kiss, powerful, languid. Harry liked the sensation of a tongue in his mouth. It could almost be any tongue, and if they were all like this, warm and wet and strong, then he could get to like kissing.

This is me. Not just anyone!

Riddle's voice was in his head now. It might have made Harry wonder about going mad if he hadn't already been through what he had. But he had lived with someone else's madness, and accusations of madness, and Riddle had simply lost the power to make him afraid.

I'm thinking of it like this because otherwise I'd have to think about having sex with my worst enemy, he replied, and his voice entwined about Riddle's the way his tongue was curving around Riddle's. Unless you can make me forget about that, then this is a way to get through, and have some fun, and not blame myself.

"Not your enemy," Riddle said aloud. It was impossible for Harry to be sure at the moment whether it was in English or Parseltongue. "Let me show you."

And he fell atop Harry and shoved him back, out of the bed after all, and up against the wall. Harry gasped. Riddle's strength was holding him up. Perhaps a Horcrux-turned-Veela could do that. Riddle reached up and curled his talons, and held them against Harry's lips.

"Lick them," he whispered.

"They'll still hurt me when they go in," Harry said, and stuck out his tongue to curl it around the talons. The scales on them were rough and rasping, and he thought for a second he would cut his tongue. But in a second, they were ordinary human fingers, save for a gleam of horn here and there.

"I am capable of making you comfortable." Riddle shifted so he was holding him with one hand and magic, and slid his licked fingers down to Harry's arse. Harry gurgled and thrashed. One of them went in without any other preparation, and it was rough and dry and it hurt.

But then the finger began to move, and Riddle murmured something, and there was extra wetness moving along with it, not just Harry's saliva. Harry relaxed with a sigh, then felt surprise flare through him almost as hard as pleasure when Riddle reached what must be his prostate.

"You've heard of it, then," Riddle whispered, and his voice conjured up evenings thinking about rumors and gossip and wondering if it was real, and Harry's hand on his own cock, and his fingers in his own arse. Harry had tried not to even think about those consciously lately. It had seemed so likely that he would just be normal and get married to someone, and—

No.

The voice was in his head like the beat of great dark wings, bigger than Riddle's, wings that overshadowed the sky. Harry tossed his head back and closed his eyes, and there were fireworks going off behind his eyes that had a lot to do with his prostate and not a lot to do with Riddle.

"Yes," said Riddle. "Anyone could touch you there and get much the same reaction." With a single vicious motion, he ripped his fingers out, and left Harry to gape in shock at the loss. But then Riddle was lining up his cock, and Harry was wincing in anticipation, and Riddle paused to give him a single dark smile.

"But this," he said, "is me."

And he drove in, and proved why the daydreams Harry had had when he was touching himself were not enough, were impossibly far from enough.

It hurt. But the pain was mingled with something else, something that moved like honeyed blood through Harry's head and down over his eyes. For a second, he blinked, thinking he was going blind. And then he almost wished he had, so that he didn't have to look into Riddle's smug face as the arsehole fucked him, using what seemed like his hands only to hold Harry against the wall, but was proved to be the power of his wings when Harry saw the stirring way they moved.

"I can go faster," said Riddle. It sounded like a taunt.

"Why don't you?" The words came out in a gasp, but at least, with Riddle in his head, Harry knew Riddle wouldn't interpret that as a sound of pleasure. "Since all I'm really getting out of this right now is a stretched arsehole."

Riddle paused for the briefest of moments and stared at him like he couldn't believe his own mate was saying that. Or maybe just that someone was talking back to him in general. It had to be a rare occurrence. Harry glared back, and folded his arms.

Riddle hissed, and then began to drive him into him with longer, faster surges.

"Still just stretched," Harry said after a second.

Riddle's eyes were wild now. He paused again, and Harry wondered if he would pull out and try some other position. Harry couldn't really blame him if he did. He was a Veela, and he needed to fulfill his mate, and maybe it was bad for him if his mate didn't get fulfilled.

But he didn't pull out. Instead, he leaned forwards, and held his face a centimeter or so away from Harry's face, and then he hammered.

Harry gasped. The waves that traveled through his body all came from his arse, and they were stretching him, yeah, but also opening him, and there were so many of them that Harry didn't get a chance to recover before the next one came along. There was just the endless, wild pounding. And Riddle was panting and gasping now, from effort, and Harry laughed aloud, because he could make someone who pretended that he was cool and in control all the time lose that control.

It was pretty amazing, actually.

Riddle hissed at him again, but his pleasure was too great for him to really hold back his movements, or his reactions. His hands curved in and held Harry's shoulders, and his wings fluttered, beating feathers and a deep scent like spices into Harry's nostrils. He tossed his head back with his hair dancing around him. That probably came from the wind he was creating with his wings, too.

Harry had to admit, it was pretty hard to keep his eyes off Riddle.

Riddle was grunting now, his sounds loud and low and oddly arousing. Harry would have moves a hand down to stroke himself if he could possibly stir his hand from the wall. But Riddle had it pinned there, and the most Harry could do was arch and rub himself a little against Riddle's moving hip. Or groin, or something. He was going so fast now that it was a little hard for Harry to tell what he was touching at any given moment. He angled his own hips to the side and arched, but it was still impossible.

"You'll take the satisfaction I give you," Riddle croaked. There was sweat rolling down his face and getting in his eyes. Harry grinned at the sight.

"And you'll take what I give you," Harry said, making it into a sort of threat, and squeezed down with his arse at the moment when Riddle was the deepest inside him.

Riddle tossed his head back, fingers opening and closing in irregular ways. Harry could feel blood rolling down his shoulder, and he didn't care. There was blood rolling down Riddle's face from his bitten lip, as if from the intensity of his pleasure, and that was all Harry cared about at the moment.

He waited for the feeling of Riddle coming to subside, and then leaned forwards as far as he could and licked at the blood.

Riddle's eyes were open in a second, insanely intense, focused on him. His fingers reached out and scraped up and down Harry's shoulders, and Harry winced as he felt the skin there parting. Now Riddle wasn't the only one who was bleeding.

Honestly, though, Harry had never anticipated that being the case. He stuck out his chin and faced Riddle head-on, not sure what was next.

What was next was Riddle moving a little to the side and up, and Harry bowing his head before the crippling waves of pleasure riding up from his belly. And then Riddle was moving, either hard again or in a place so sensitive that it didn't matter, hissing out obscene demands against Harry's ear.

"You will come, that doesn't belong to you. It belongs to me. It'll break you and leave you falling down, and there will be no one to catch you but me. No one's hands to wring something from you but mine—"

Harry came, at last.

It was like nothing else he had ever felt. His neck was splayed back, he was spraying, and his legs were trembling so hard that he was sure he would have fallen if he had been standing on the floor. It was pleasure so intense that it sliced him when he moved, and he couldn't help trying to hold still so that it would be keener. But Riddle jostled him, bounced him, and made him move, made him ride it.

By the time Harry sank to the floor, in the unrelenting embrace of Riddle's arms, he was ready to admit how deeply and thoroughly Riddle had ridden him.

Harry opened his eyes what felt like a long time afterwards, although the sun hadn't moved much across the windows. Riddle was standing at the foot of the bed, looking curiously out the window. His wings still fanned back and forth as if a current moved them.

Harry sat up, and Riddle was on him in a second, gliding over to the bed and sitting down to stare at him. Harry stared back. Now that pleasure and shock were out of sight, he was conscious of a little fear again.

But he honestly didn't know what would happen now. Fleur had made it sound as if it was uncommon for Veela to kill their mates, but Riddle was hardly a normal Veela.

"Now," said Riddle, and his voice was soft and demanding, "I want you to tell me all about this world. How it's changed since I was last alive. It's so different. I want to know all about the differences."

Harry tensed himself to resist. It was what he did best. "I won't tell you anything that would help you conquer it."

Riddle blinked. "Oh. Is that what my ambition turned into in my last incarnation? No matter." He made a sweeping motion with one hand. "I have different ambitions now. To understand what I am, and how I came to be this way. To figure out what I'm going to do now." He smiled then, and Harry felt himself bound and held like a mouse in a hawk's talons by the force of that smile. "You."

"But—surely you're not—like a normal Veela," Harry said. "You don't want to stay with me as my mate or whatever."

"Not like a normal Veela," said Riddle, and lifted his short, rounded black wings as if to emphasize the point. "Faster. Stronger. Better at magic." He reached out and stroked Harry's shoulder with his talons. Harry winced, expecting another cut, but realized that the wound had already scabbed over, and Riddle's touch actually felt soothing. "But going to stay with you, yes."

Harry buried his head in his hands. "How can you?" he asked, and he didn't care if his voice was muffled. Riddle would still be able to understand him, he was sure. "You're not—it's not like you're harmless, or not known. People will know who you are. They'll try to kill you. I was your enemy, your greatest enemy. You can't sit there and tell me that you're just here to learn about the world when all of that is true."

"There are special laws on the books dealing with Veela like me," said Riddle, and laughed when Harry looked up. "Surely you don't think I spent all my time stalking you? I went and looked up the current state of the laws."

"But if you're not a normal Veela—"

"No, but I fit into a category." Riddle had never sounded so smug, Harry thought, not even when he was explaining how he had persuaded Ginny to trust him and pour her strength and spirit into the diary. "People Transfigured into Veela by magical means. And here I am, and here I am going to stay." He reached out and laid his hand on Harry's shoulder, and this time, Harry had to shudder from the sheer weight of it. "I can stay alive and do what I like as long as I live with you, don't kill anyone outright, and attend a boring meeting in front of the Wizengamot once every six months. Wonderful, no?"

Harry peered between his fingers at him. "You don't fit into my life," he said bluntly. "Not with what I want to do or the way I was picturing myself."

"Then repaint the picture," Riddle said, and leaned towards him. "I'm not going anywhere. You are mine, Harry Potter." He paused as if thinking Harry would respond to that, and then added, "You'll have someone on your side who will make sure that others never mistreat you. Or spread lies about you. Another thing I did was look up old Prophet articles. I assure you, no one would have got away with calling you crazy, evil, or a liar if I was around."

"They only did it because of you!" Harry exclaimed in frustration.

Riddle laughed, and there was a soft, cruel, exultant edge to his voice. "That was a different me. I don't even remember doing it, although the articles provided some useful background information. And I don't want to do it anymore." He crawled forwards until he was kneeling right in front of Harry, and his eyes were serious enough to distract Harry from the sudden realization that they were both naked.

"I want to be with you," Riddle said. "Protect you. Have you. Care for you."

"You don't even say love," Harry muttered, and sneered when Riddle flinched. "What's the matter? Scared, Riddle?"

"My name," said Riddle, reaching out to take Harry's fingers and hold them instead of crushing them, which had been what Harry had reckoned he would do, "is Tom."

"I thought you hated that."

Riddle shrugged. "That was a different person. A different life. I think I told you. Even my memories of my time at Hogwarts and my time in the diary are fading; I remember them as if they were a book I once read, not a time I lived." He leaned in and whispered, "I can be ambitious enough to make up for my mistakes and try new things. Or do you not think I can be?"

He thinks of even that as a challenge, thought Harry, and shook his head minutely. Riddle spread one wing, and Harry flinched, but Riddle only leaned the wing on his shoulder almost companionably and said, still in a whisper, "I can set out to conquer your heart instead."

Harry stared at him. Riddle's eyes had that burning sheen of—well, Harry would have called it madness once. Not now. It looked saner, and maybe more dangerous.

"You're not going anywhere, are you?" Harry asked in resignation.

"Never," Riddle declared.

Harry thought about it, trying to shape his mind around things. It was true he hadn't started his "real" life yet, the way he had wanted to define it, and equally true that he couldn't imagine Riddle fitting into anything he had considered.

But maybe—it would take so much work that it was only worth it because Riddle wouldn't leave him alone—he could change the picture. And he was as stubborn as Riddle, as much of a fighter. There were things he could refuse to do, and that would stop Riddle cold as Voldemort wouldn't have been stopped.

"Fine," said Harry. "As long as you don't leave, and you don't hurt one of my friends, and you apologize for possessing Ginny and getting Hagrid expelled and try to make it up to them—" He paused, but Riddle was nodding, so he must remember that enough to know what Harry was talking about. "I don't know how you can make it up to them, but you've got to try."

Riddle only nodded again, not taking his gaze from Harry. Harry hesitated one more time. "And that's not too great a price to pay?" he asked, because it did seem strange that Riddle wouldn't consider that a gigantic price.

Riddle's smile made Harry's blood heat in spite of himself. "Never," he said again, and kissed Harry's palm.

And then he urged him onto his back, and Harry went with the motion, burning with curiosity and desire and impatience.

To get on with the next stage of his life, and see what would happen.

The End.