Cold. Blue. Everywhere. The ship was sinking just beside them and the only thing that Harry could make out through the gloom of it all was Tom and the massive white letters which spelled out TITANIC as the liner plunged down and away. The pressure in his head was immense. He felt as if his eardrums would burst at any moment. His glasses were gone. Even if they hadn't been he doubted he'd have been able to see through the cloud of silver bubbles that swarmed his face like furious bees.

Tom's warm hand clutched his; his only point of reassurance as the brunet's larger form was twisted and thrown about by the vortex of the now submerged vessel. The cuff and short length of chain still around his wrist flashing through the gloaming like the silver scales of a giant fish.

Everything was overlaid in shades of navy, as if they'd fallen into the giant diamond which had arguably been the start of all their troubles, and Harry could no longer tell which way was up and which was down.

Tom reached up with his other hand to seize the collar of the life belt that he wore. Shaking him and then pointing. Harry could only assume that he was indicating the surface. Moments later, in a great surge caused by the sudden rotation of a propeller, the taller male was ripped from his grip. Dragged downwards. Spinning away into the encroaching black.

He tried to scream, forgetting for a moment where he was, and water flooded into his mouth. Instantly, Harry began to drown. Left with no other choice if he wanted to live, he swam madly towards the surface. His head breaking over the churning waves just as his vision was about to go black and hacking up salt scoured lungfuls of water before finally getting his first breath of air. Looking around in hopes of seeing Tom.

He was met instead with the sight of a sea of humanity. White life belts. Dark, saturated hair and clothing. Flailing limbs. And the screaming.

Without his glasses there was no hope for him of identifying Tom by sight, and even if he had had perfect vision the chance of seeing his lover in this crowd would have been slim to none.

"Tom!" Another person came up just beside him and he spun in relief only to realize that it wasn't him. The man had no lifebelt and tried to cling to him. To drag him down. Harry flung him away and floundered out of reach. Wide eyed and gasping and still screaming for the only person he wanted, needed, to see. "Tom!"

The legion of pin wheeling limbs sent a haze of frigid droplets into the air around them as the ocean heaved them back and forth like a colony of man-o-war adrift, making seeing across any real distance impossible. A few people were floating absolutely still. Some face up. Some face down.

Dead.

Some from the impact of falling off the ship or being fallen on. Some for being dragged down by the desperate looking to use them as floatation devices of their own. Some washed up from beneath where the stern had fallen. They bobbed against Harry like floating detritus as he struggled passed but at the moment he didn't have it in himself to care.

"Tom!"

How many people were in the water? To Harry it looked like hundreds. Thousands even. Maybe even the entire ship's worth of passengers. Had the lifeboats gone down as well? Flipped? Buckled?

Something grabbed him by the ankle and his immediate first thought was shark. He flailed wildly, pin wheeling his limbs in an effort to dislodge the hungry predatory, only to have a familiar arm wrap around his waist.

"Stop, Harry! You're going to need that energy later!" Tom! It was Tom! He was alive! Wet, bedraggled, his skin displaying the first signs of turning blue with cold, but he was alive. Harry wanted nothing more than to leap at him but restrained the urge. Knowing doing so would risk accidentally drowning them both. "Come on!" He grabbed his wrist now instead. "Swim, Harrison! We needed to get away from the main hoard before we're pulled down like some of the rest of these poor bastards!"

He was exhausted, both mentally and physically, despite his terror and his muscles were beginning to seize up because of the extreme cold. Tom couldn't possibly be any better off, and yet he was still able to swim like a predatory fish even while dragging Harry behind him like a husky would a sled.

"Come on, love! It isn't much further now! Just keep swimming; you'll be out of the water in another few moments."

Out of the water? How? They were in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean with nothing around for hundreds of miles. Their ship had likely reached the bottom by now and the next nearest one was hours out. Had Tom lost his mind? Was he becoming delusional? Or was he saying whatever he thought he had to in an effort to keep Harry moving.

"Here." Harry looked up as Tom released him and started to swim to the side. Floating directly in front of them, not even an arm's length away, was a piece of debris large enough to fit on. A floating bit of wall crowning or broken door. "Get on it, Harry. Get on top; I'll hold it steady."

The raven didn't need the encouragement though the push from his hand was appreciated. With some difficulty he hauled himself up onto the door and then began to slither his stiff body further along its tilting face.

Tom tried to follow but the wood protested with a low groan and reared upwards. Almost capsizing and narrowly avoiding throwing Harry back into the water.

"Tom!"

"Just stay on there, Harry."

"But Tom, you need to come up."

"I can't, love. It'll flip."

"There's room for-."

"It won't stay afloat, Songbird. Not with both of us on there."

"But what will you do?" his voice was barely audible as his head hit the wood with a thunk, his body beginning to give out from its exertions made over the course of the very long night. "What will…so cold…freeze." His lips were almost matching the color of his eyes now and a veil of frost had formed in his hair. It was concerning. Harry didn't like it. He reached forward as Tom dropped his head out his arms. Clinging to the debris by his upper body.

"I'll be fine, Songbird." He sounded equally as tired. Shaking violently. Their breath mingling in a silver cloud as he took one of Harry's reaching hands in his own. Cold, now. The raven mewled in distress and he touched his other hand briefly to his face in reassurance. "It'll be alright, now."

They weren't the only ones clinging to debris, but they had the largest piece and Harry was the only one fully out of the below freezing water. Nearby, grasping what looked like the hood of the grand piano, a man in an officer's uniform tweeted his whistle and yelled in an attempt to summon the lifeboats back which Harry now realized were floating just off in the distance. To no avail.

"They'll come back for us, Harry. We just…have to hold on a while longer. They had to row away from the suction so that they wouldn't get sucked down too but now-."

"They aren't coming back Tom."

"You're wrong! They are. Just hold on for me. Hold on for me, Harrison." Even his words were like shattered ice with how hard his teeth were clattering together; broken into clattering shards left barely distinguishable. "Hold on."

"You're the one in the water. You're in more danger than I am."

"I'll be fine."

Harry closed his eyes, a bitter smile pulling at his own blue lips. "Neither of us are going to be fine, my love. But at least we won't be apart. We'll never be apart now. Because we're going to-."

"We're not!" He no longer had the same strength behind his shout as before but none the less Harry flinched. "Listen to me, Songbird."

"No, Tom, you listen to me. Better yet, just listen. Listen to the quiet! I may not be as worldly as you are, but I'm not stupid and I know what that means."

Even the man with the whistle had fallen silent. He now floated still, hooked on the debris he'd been using to keep his head above water with the mouthpiece frozen to his lips.

"Look at you." Harry was having trouble doing so even as he said it. "You're blue. Your eyes are losing their color. Your hair is white from all the ice that's in it. You're going to die. I'm going to die. We're both going to die, just like all the rest of them, because they aren't coming back."

"I might die, yes, but you won't. You could last. You could live."

"I don't want to. Not without you."

"Promise me something."

"Tom-."

"If you love me, Songbird, if you truly love me, promise me something."

"Oh, Tom…" his head dropped back onto the wood. "What would you like me to promise?"

"That you'll live through this. For me. For both of us. If I…that you'll be happy. Promise me that you'll find someone, if not fall in love again, and have the family that you deserve. Promise me that you'll live to an old, old age and die warm in your bed. If you love me, promise me."

"Too…many words. Too tired for so many words."

"Then promise me you'll never let go!"

"…Oh, Tom…" He murmured into his arm, closing his eyes.

"Promise me, Harry!" The brunet shook his arm. "Promise me! Promise! Promise me, please!"

This went on for a while but when Harry continued to refuse to respond the brunet eventually gave up on shaking him but didn't let go of his hand.

"Stay awake, my love." Tom's voice was weak now. "You have to stay awake. Stay awake. Stay…"

Everything around them had gone silent and still but for the rushing of the waves and Tom's hushed but labored breathing. Harry was too beyond himself with exhaustion and cold to notice when even that eventually stopped.

He fell asleep, then, or lost consciousness. The next thing he registered was a distant beam of light sliding across his eyes and a shouting voice.

"Is there anyone alive out there?" The sound of splashing oars. Of water breaking against a bow. A life boat. "Can anyone hear me?"

With difficulty Harry forced his frozen lashes apart and turned his head, not daring to believe his ears alone. Expecting to see nothing but dark and death. The sounds little more than the products of his dying mind. Yet there it was. Perhaps twenty yards away approaching them, soon to pass by.

He shook the hand still clutching his with all the strength that he could muster. "Tom." No response. "Tom, you were right! They came back!" Still nothing. Harry lifted his head and prepared to shake him again. "Tom, they-!"

As the beam of light slid by once again it caught in his lover's frozen eyes. The deep blue swallowed up completely by the dull grey-silver of the ice crystals which had formed there, locking them into a blank stare. A stare which had been aimed directly at him. The last thing he'd focused on before he'd died.

"Tom." No. No! He couldn't be gone. He couldn't have left him. They were supposed to either die together or survive together. They weren't supposed to be parted. By anything. Ever!

There was no point in him going for the lifeboat now. Of being rescued. It was better to die here with him than to live the rest of his life without him so here was where he would stay. On that floating board. Waiting for death to come. He'd stay there and watch his last chance slip by without so much as noticing him and-.

'Promise me.'

Tom's last wish had been for him to live. He'd died for him. Because of him. Died staring at his face after begging for him to do one simple thing. One simple thing which amounted almost to nothing in the face of all that he had done for him.

'Promise me, Harry.'

"I'll never let go." He pulled his hand free of his frozen grip, his tears freezing against his cheeks before they even had the chance to fall. "I'll never let go." He stretched his stiff body forwards, pressing his lips to the brunet's a final time; more like stone, now, then flesh. "I'll live my best for both of us. I promise."

'That's all I'm asking of you Songbird.'

The lifeboat was moving away from him now. Continuing on its futile effort to find more survivors. Leaving him behind. As much as he desperately wanted to take Tom with him, to have him buried properly in a place that he could visit, Harry knew it wasn't possible. With a final look at his lover's frozen face he pushed him off into the water.

Tom's form stood out ghostly white against the abyss as he sank down into the darkness and disappeared from sight.

Harry followed him into the water a moment later, floundering through the cold waves and through the sea of ice and death towards the man with the whistle. Knowing it to be his only chance.

Survive. Survive. Survive. For both of them. For Tom.

He grabbed at the whistle, shoving it into his mouth so quickly that he almost swallowed it by accident. Blew once. Twice. Finally managed to produce a shrill trill. Then another. And then he heard it.

"Come about!" The life boat turned. The light of its search beam fell full across his face. Blinding him as it drew closer. Then hands reached down and pulled him up out of the water. Over the side. Onto the deck. Draping a thick blanket around him and leaving him to lay there and gasp for air. Staring up at the silvered night sky. Raising a hand to a particularly bright star.

'I made it, Tom. I made it. And I'll keep my promise to you, provided that you wait for me.'

"Fifteen hundred people went into the sea on the night that the RMS Titanic sank. Of the twenty life boats floating nearby only one came back…one. They pulled a total of six people from that water, myself included. Six. Fourteen hundred and ninety four died."

He took a shuddering breath, glancing briefly at the grim faces surrounding him.

"The sound of a person drowning is indescribable. First there's a great splashing. And then there's a terrible silence. That sound has haunted me in my dreams almost every night since, though Tom comes to me sometimes. To keep the nightmares at bay and help me think of…kinder things."

He blinked rapidly to clear away the threat of tears, unwilling to break down in front of all of them.

"To this day I have moments where I wonder what it might have been like if I hadn't killed him. And make no mistake, the fault of his death lies with me. True as it may have been that only one of us could have lain on that bit of debris without it flipping over, had I just stayed on the lifeboat like he asked that person would have been Tom. He would have been rescued. We'd have met up on the Carpathia and continued to our new life in America. What would life have been like, considering that the whole Riddle family died as well? Would Tom have continued his work as an artist or would he have claimed the name and fortune of the family he never wanted in some misplaced obligation to care for me? That's something I'll never know, now. But it still troubles me."

He wrung his hands.

"I never saw Pansy again, aside from a near miss encounter on the Carpathia, though I heard she never married. Something to do with a disfiguring scar on her face that she'd gotten from 'some lunatic with a knife'. I'm not sure what ultimately happened to her. And I don't care to know either. All that mattered was that I'd lived. That I'd reached New York. That I had a promise to keep to the one I still hold dear."

Rain poured down atop him as he stood on the disembarking dock, staring up at the torch bearing Statue of Liberty's towering form. His hair dripped into his eyes. His clothing was sodden. He needed new glasses. He'd left his heart behind.

"Can I take your name please, Sir?" he looked over at the clip-board bearing man in officer's regalia who so kindly held out his own umbrella to him.

"Gaunt." He returned his gaze to the statue. "Harrison Gaunt."

"Thank you." The man moved away as quickly as he'd come, leaving the raven to his musings.

'I'm going to do my best, my love. I swear that to you. I'll do as you asked of me and I'll live as happily as I am able without you until I can see you again.'

Resolution made, he dismounted the dock and set out into the city streets with a goal in mind and not even a penny to his newly taken name.

"We never found anything on Tom. There's no record of him at all."

"There wouldn't be now would there, Mr. Malfoy? Tom's father's family and their money would have seen to that much. And until now I've never spoken of him. Not to anyone." The look on his ancient face somehow managed to look both somber and bemused. "But now you know that there was a man named Tom Gaunt, and that he saved me in every way that it's possible for someone to be saved. I don't even have a picture of him. He exists now only in my memory…and somehow I don't think he minds that fact too much. Being a treasure so precious that it's never let out for fear that even the barest hint of daylight might damage it beyond repair."

His eyes once more drifted to the portrait in the tank.

"To be honest, speaking of him…it hurts. Because of what was. And what could have been. But I'm glad that I endured it. I am old. I doubt I'll live much longer and I've now assured that Tom, and our love for each other, will not be forgotten so easily. To be remembered…that's the best that any man could hope for."

"Wise words, grandfather."

"Wisdom comes with age, Albus."

"Lucius was the last with the diamond, wasn't he?" George asked.

"And you had his coat on, didn't you?" Fred seconded.

"You've had the Heart of the Ocean all along!"

Harry smiled and shook his head. "The pockets of his coat were empty. Perhaps he put it elsewhere before he found us again. Perhaps it fell out when Tom and I were sucked under. I'm sorry, boys. But I don't have your stone. I'd advise you to check the debris field."

Both of the twins looked put out. "I'm afraid that we've already done that."

"Check again."

"But-." Harry cut them off with a sharp look. "Right then, Georgie. How about we set that up for tomorrow, then?"

"Right then, Fred. I'll have that scheduled right away."

"I wish you both luck, and who knows. Perhaps the ocean will give up its heart."

"Let's hope so, mate, because we're in trouble if it doesn't."

"We're over the debris trail now?"

"We are," Draco told him. "Why?"

Harry smiled softly in return. "Just curiosity."

"Shall I take you back to your room now, grandfather?" Albus stepped forward and offered him his arm but the once-raven waved him off.

"No, no Albus. Thank you, but I'll be able to manage on my own tonight. I wish to speak with Tom a bit before I go to bed, and I'd rather that bedroom in private."

"Of course. Good night, Mr. Gaunt. And thank you for your assistance."

The deck was slick with sea spray but Harry stubbornly managed to click his way across with the help of his cane and the rail. Enjoying the caress of the North Atlantic wind as he made his way towards the stern. Checking to make sure that no one was around to see him, he reached into his pocket and pulled out the giant diamond. Cradling it in his wizened palm for a moment before pressing the hard stone lightly against his lips.

"Carry this to Tom."

The necklace hit the water with a small splash and vanished from view almost instantly. Though he couldn't be certain for a moment Harry felt sure he heard Tom's laughter on the wind and smiled at the small joke between them.

It was up to the Weasleys to find it now.

"Good night, my love. It shouldn't be much longer now before I rejoin you on Titanic."

For now it was time to head back to his bed and curl up beneath the covers and prepare to endure another night of relived terror in the hopes his love would reach for him and take him away into the dim carriage of the luxury car or the party in third class instead.

Tom would never speak in those dreams, but he was there. And for him that was enough. That would always be enough. Taking a deep breath to prepare for the horror, Harry closed his eyes.

When he opened them again he was in a familiar gilded hallway, a doorman smiling at him and holding open the grated door into the foyer of the grand staircase. Harry was amazed as he stepped through it, looking around at the people that crowded the room. He'd never had a dream like this before. Workers and passengers. Third class and first. People that he recognized and people that he didn't. Dumbledore stood at the base of one of the railings, eyes once more twinkling, and there before the clock grinning down at him was-.

"Tom!" The brunet seemed to have been prepared for his lunge, catching him against his chest and spinning him around before his mouth descended ravenously onto his. Applause erupted around them in a deafening chorus as Tom's hands explored his shoulders and back and gripped his once more black hair. Tongues rolled and teeth clicked and tears pricked at his eyes. Tom's warmth. Tom's taste. Tom's scent. It all felt so real. But it wasn't. He knew that it wasn't. It was a dream and when Tom pulled back he wouldn't speak and-.

"Eighty four years, Songbird," Harry's eyes went round in shock at the sound of his lover's voice as he tilted his chin up for another softer kiss. "You've really kept me waiting."