“You’re familiar,” Harry swore, as Tom backed him against the wall besides their hammocks, both of them knowing all the other sailors would be too busy digging in at the mess hall to give them any trouble, “That’s it. It’s-”

Tom dropped that officer-worthy attitude of his whenever they were alone, and now, with his golden ears glinting, carrying his casket wherever he went, he looked rakish. Crooked teeth and orphan hunger— if not for the meat of his build, the muscle they’d built, Harry could almost imagine him to be the same urchin he’d scrapped and clawed his way up the streets with. 

Stealing rags off corpses to be sold; begging to sweep chimneys and to swipe bakery bread; play-acting at sweet when the merchant’s daughters swept through their part of the city, their blind mercy taken advantage of without a second thought. The merchant’s sons were a different beast, tossing them coins to see who could run the fastest, slap the hardest. Harry had gotten knocked out one time, bashed his head and woken up with dried blood seeped into every pore of his body, gained a thick, jagged scar crowning his forehead for five shillings. They'd eaten well, for a while.

“Aye,” Tom mocked, “I’m familiar, am I? No other reason that we keep finding ourselves here, swaying with your hammock, all loose-limbed, lips swollen, tongue-”

The ship rocked. They’d both had their sea legs for a while now, but Tom stumbled with a slight nudge, giving Harry just a second to turn them both around, watching as Tom impacted onto the thin fabric they’d gotten used to sleeping on. Better than the dirty streets they’d grown up on.

It was nearly a comedic sight, how his legs opened, bracing himself, arms shooting outward, only to meet air. His middle was supported by the hammock. Those earrings of his, those small golden hoops, glinted. Harry knew the ones through his ears did the same, catching on what little light leaked through the portholes. 

“What’s a ring on a finger,” Tom had whispered to him, when they’d been younger, and somehow, despite it all, nothing more than two fools with enough of their paycheques saved up, “Compared to two on the lobes?”

I love you, Harry mouthed now, where Tom couldn’t see it. 

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Harry continued, as he reached out a hand, just centimeters from touching Tom’s back, the ridden-up sliver of their uniform exposing his dimples, hovering, refusing to make contact, “It’s not uncommon, it’s-”

Tom’s leg shot out, foot hooking around the back of Harry’s knee, and then he was falling, about to fall, but no, his hand, that damned reached out hand, braced onto Tom far too quick to be a reaction.

“My lips are cold,” Tom murmured, pressing up against that hand, arching, “They are without purpose, when not pressed against yours.”

“Fuck,” Harry could have screamed, instead barely breathing it out, so weak, too weak, “Bloody fucking cunthole-”

Tom huffed a scoff, always adamant that Harry pursue a more proper vocabulary, not that of their fellows, and, in a blink, was stood again, but still, Harry’s hand was placed upon the small of his back.

“Do you remember,” Tom leaned in, so that their every breath was shared, “When we found the corpse of that whore, under the bridge?”

Harry’s erection did not flag. Tom’s antics were, if anything, extremely familiar.

“Do you remember that long gash parting her body? The sight of her stomach, her liver, her heart? That small, round muscle, silent, without another beat?”

Harry resisted the urge to kiss Tom. To shut him up, and delay this conversation another day. They’d weathered storm after storm, literal and figurative, and yet this— this he wasn’t sure of.

“I love you,” Harry blurted out instead, because he'd done far more impulsive things in his life, fingers stained with gun power and blood, “I love you instead of my port girl, ‘stead of Ginny, and I think I’ve loved you for too long to stop. Fuck.”

Tom’s eyes went still. They didn’t glint, didn’t consider. For a moment, he was just empty, as if the winds had forgotten to fill his lungs with air. Stagnant, abandoned, a ship dead at sea.

Then, he grabbed at Harry’s jaw, fingers resting at the junction of neck and lobe, pressing against those gold hoops they both carried everywhere, the asymmetry to their pair, for Tom had Harry’s right, and Harry his, and he smashed his teeth against his, and they kissed, and kissed.

The wind exhaled, carrying them forward. The waves were calm, though a storm was expected, and for the time being, before Captain Dumbledore’s suspicions were confirmed, those searching glances of his, his questions of corruption, of too long at sea and without the Lord, before Tom made officer and was inevitably transferred, before Harry was alone, he let himself fall in, fall into Tom again.

There was little nuance to his job. Harry showed up when he was needed, camera in hand, and he took photos. 

There was an art to it, he supposed distantly, difficult to articulate and derived entirely in the way that he was so reliant on his own movement, the intricacies of his own proprioception, rather than that of others. There was little that could be done with his subjects when they were ready for him. No instruction could be given loud enough to be heard; no guiding touch could inspire their limbs to arrange themselves correctly. There was no will to be molded, no askew and awkward side smile that could be coaxed into a carefree grin, no blush to be painted on that could restore a rosiness that captured well on camera.

Harry would kneel and he would up his zoom, and he would capture their every pore, the moist shine on their upper lips, the remnant of their last breath; that look in their eyes, always different, but never different enough to persuade him, or the others, that they were dealing with a new killer, but he could never capture them. The photos were dull. Clinical. Love notes in a bottle that no one would ever want to read. Evidence. 

It was his job, and he was glad to do it, but he always wished, that somewhere, in some universe, he encountered his subjects in a photography studio, that he had the privilege of asking them to adjust to his camera, rather than adjusting his camera to them. 

Voldemort’s victims always looked resigned. No matter the angle he stood from, no matter the time of day, golden hour or midnight, that look remained. It was unusual, the frequency of those dry eyes, dry cheeks. Only the cold logic that they were about to die, and there was nothing to be done about it remained. Tears were not a luxury they were allowed. 

Harry hoped, one day, that the jury would cry for them. 

The last victim had been torn to shreds. Each and every one of those deep, yellow-red slashes had engraved into his memory. He reviewed the photos after, noted what his eyes didn’t allow him to see: the too-clean edges, the lack of serration, no evidence of resistance, writhing.

Voldemort articulated cold, locked up limbs and he dug gloved hands into cheeks to force rictus smiles. He used anesthetic, but not for long, evidenced by the commonly raised levels of cortisol in his victims, that familiar spike. He was charming enough to ensure none of them ever saw death coming, not until he woke them up, right at the end. 

Cedric Diggory was the latest to be killed, to be captured by Harry’s camera. He’d had his heart sawed out of his chest, ripped out while it was still beating, and placed between his teeth, before Voldemort forced his jaw to clamp. His hands were bound in front of him by his own intestines, still internally intact, other than the portion yanked out by the long cut across his navel, and his achilles tendons had been carefully removed on both sides, stretched and then knotted together to bind his feet.

He was sitting on the same barstool he had been the other week, when he and Harry had met up for drinks.

*

There was nothing to be said about Harry’s relationship with Tom. Once upon a time, they’d been inseparable— felt like it, at the very least. Two halves of one whole; a whirlwind romance that lasted; potential. 

Harry hadn’t been a forensic photographer then. Gig work every day: running errands, cleaning houses, walking dogs, thinking of university and giving it a go, taking shitty cityscapes of London all the while. Tom had still been in medical school. They’d meet during his lunch breaks and would eat together, sleep together—really, fuck, in the oft empty men’s bathroom on the third floor—and there’d been a facsimile of love there.

Come home, Harry interpreted the familiar knots in Cedric’s intestines, the ones Tom taught him, that pretty double coin that would leave burns on his fingers because Tom only ever wanted raw jute on his wrists, I hope you come home. 

*

Harry and Tom had met by chance— was what Harry believed, before the concept of chance erased itself from his mind.

Harry and Tom met because Tom had wanted them to meet. Maybe he’d known that for a few days before Harry’s social worker had found his Aunt and Uncle, they’d shared air in the same orphanage. Maybe he’d seen Harry before he’d graduated Hogwarts, when Harry had joined on the same scholarship, decided to look into the teenager who’d received the endowment after him. Maybe Harry had delivered his groceries one day, and picked a rotten bag of potatoes. Maybe he’d randomly rearranged the alphabet and stumbled upon Harry Potter for whatever fucking reason, and decided that it was as good a name as any to pursue.

“I picked you,” Tom nearly raised his voice that night, the last one, “I picked you, and I love you Harry, don’t you know what that means?”

*

Harry still had photos of Tom. Taken on his old personal camera, far cheaper than the one he used for work. Saved on an SD card, on his laptop, on a spare hard drive he’d picked up at a pawnshop. 

Do not need this camera anymore, the personal Harry had stumbled upon, all those years ago had read, glowing letters on a library computer screen, Free to anyone who picks it up.

Tom had been waiting in that public park, their meeting spot. Sometimes, Harry wondered how he knew it would be him that showed up.

Sometimes, Harry didn't dare to believe in chance, that everything really had boiled down to coincidence. Wrong place, wrong time.

*

“Why photos?” Tom had asked once, brown eyes focusing back in from whatever hazy, dilated place they went after Harry tied him up and sucked him off.

They were laying close, not exactly side by side, but one of Harry’s legs was thrown over Tom’s middle, grounding him. One of Tom’s hands had begun crawling up that leg, twisting only slightly awkwardly to accommodate their perpendicular position. Intersecting, a point in time. They were never meant to run along each other, with each other, for too long.

Harry had shrugged, best he could, lying down.

“I dunno,” before he let his heart crack open, spill goo all over Tom’s eager hands, “Photos were all I ever had of my parents.”

Tom had grabbed Harry then, roughly pulling him by the thigh, then the waist, then maneuvering so they were face to face. Harry had already removed the rope from Tom’s wrists, his ankles, but the imprints were fresh. Flushed red blood, unignorable. Harry still had photos of those wrists against his ridiculously scratchy bed sheets. 

“I’ll make sure,” Tom had breathed against his lips wetly, eyes bright, scouring Harry, “That you always have more than just photos of me.”

*

Harry nearly hesitated before he blocked the latest number. Voldemort had been in the game longer than Harry had been. He’d been killing, right before they went to dinner, before they slept together, before their first I-love-you’s.

UNSAVED NUMBER:

I’ll stop.

Harry, please.

UNSAVED NUMBER:

You know what I want.

“Tom,” Harry had said then, avoiding eye contact, looking nearly sheepish as he stared out the window of some impersonal cafe they’d never been to before, would never go to again, “It’s really nothing to do with us,” he’d lied, easy and without pause, “I just can’t have a relationship right now.”

Tom took a controlled sip of his espresso, barely registering the sub-par bean, focusing all of his energy on not lunging across the small, round wooden table they shared, taking grasp of Harry’s chin, and wiping away any idea of leaving him.

“And why is that?”

Harry’s expression flickered, a deep frown nearly succeeding at pulling his lips downwards.

“My,” he paused, “My apprenticeship with Dumbledore will be consuming. It’s not fair to you, all the time I’ll be gone.”

“Oh,” Tom surmised, a perfectly placid smile pulling at his white teeth, “You’re rather considerate, aren’t you, Harry. Thinking of me like that.”

So lost he was, that Harry barely detected the warning in Tom’s voice. Maybe it was because he didn’t remember, not yet. Usually it was Tom that needed to be convinced of their bond. Usually, at least one of Harry’s parents were dead. The both of them having made it past Harry's eighteenth never boded well.

“Yeah, well, I’ll be gone longer than we’ve been dating. Seven weeks.”

Tom finally put down his espresso. It barely mattered that he’d just been holding it awkwardly aloft, frozen. Harry wasn’t looking.

“It’s been a pleasure,” Tom said, standing, smoothing his coat, barely tolerating this farce of a break-up and the garishly hippie decor of the establishment around them, knowing there was no use to arguing now, knowing that all he needed to do was let himself linger, let a seed plant, “A shame, though.”

Harry finally tore his gaze away from whatever was interesting about Muggle sidewalk and city, people walking by. It was odd, seeing him without his scar, and perhaps, that was the reason for the stilted interactions that had so far characterized their relationship outside the bedroom.

They’d had duds before, Harry had told him. Lifetimes where one thing or another made it so Tom was stillborn, and Harry wasted years searching; where the basilisk had been too hungry to care he was the heir; where Voldemort died in a forest in Albania. One where Tom killed himself by smashing his face with a hammer— having inherited far too many of Merope's features, having been far later than usual.

This could be Tom’s turn to endure.

“A shame?” Harry dully echoed.

With a smile, his real smile, the sharp one his Harry had spent years biting at, that he could phantomly feel, all snide remarks, hard kisses, Tom answered.

“You were just beginning to be a good lay.”

*

In one lifetime, a very Muggle lifetime, they’d both ended up in the same underground boxing ring. Tom, because it allowed him to vent the anger he felt at his attending, Slughorn, and make money on the side; Harry because Lily had survived the Muggle-typical car crash that time, but not without a caveat, the expensive, pancreatic cancer kind. It was after Harry had broken The Rat’s right arm in a fight, and they’d agreed to rig their games to cash in on the bets, that they’d ended up sharing a cigarette outside the appropriately industrial and isolated London warehouse in which everything took place, that Harry said he remembered, choking not because of the smoke, as Tom had laughed at him for.

It was only later, when they’d met in the hospital, Lily grey, hand limp in Harry’s, that he remembered. Horrible timing to want to fuck one's soulmate.

*

In another, Tom had been Tommie, and she prowled the streets, the same she did her school in the mornings, avoiding a passed out Merope all the while. Good girl, straight A's, but with a more than poor home life, and a desperate need for cash. It was ripped straight from the cliche, Harry a roaming cop, Tommie mistaking him for john until the very last moment. 

In another, they’d met on the beach, two eager girls on spring vacation, all hands and unknotted bikini strings and sand in horrible, horrible places and long, long walks with nonsense, delightful conversation; another, Harriette’s car had broken down on a stranded portion of the highlands, and Tom was the not-so-kind stranger that stopped by her with a convenient cottage a few kilometers away, only little coincidences delaying his plans, until the inevitable, until the memories stopping him from tearing open Harriette’s chest and eating her heart.

Here, all Harry had wanted was a lover, but Tom knew Harry better than he knew himself at this point, and if there was anything that would keep him going, keep Tom in those thoughts of his, it was a potent mix of mystery and indignant rage.

Tom made sure to wipe the mind of his neighbors, his landlord, in the flat he’d been renting when he met Harry, this go around. Made sure to be overt about it.

*

“Thomas Riddle,” the doorman seemed puzzled, eyes flicking up towards the ceiling, as if attempting to recall the name, “No, can’t say I’m familiar.”

Harry knew they had been. He didn’t even remember Harry, despite the time he’d refused to let him up to Tom’s flat until Tom called, formally putting him on the accepted guests list, a fiasco that had taken a better part of an hour. It’d only been a few months since then— the lack of familiarity didn’t seem like natural memory loss, the fog of time.

Something’s off.

He’d finished his time with Dumbledore, but hadn’t taken him up on his offer to become a permanent apprentice, to formalize their relationship, to continue as a battle-mage. He’d wanted time to think, and maybe even time to prove Tom wrong. Completely wrong. Just a few times. The sex had been good, hadn't it?

So, whatever this was, the obvious gap in the doorman’s memories, Harry had all the time in the world to investigate it.