"Ohhhhh..."

He sighed one of those relieved, full-breath sighs that comes after a long stream of laughter. Tom cleared his eyes, pushed forward an empty plate streaked with something resembling a spicy burrito, and raised a glass of muggle-Coke towards the strangely-clothed, shadowed figure before him. The figure, whose eyes were also clouded with spilt-over tears of laughter, raised an eyebrow in interest at Tom's unusual display of muggle custom.

"I tell you," Tom grinned widely, and licked his lips as though to lap up every ounce of Coke on them. Again, almost thoughtfully, he muttered, "Yes. Yes, I tell you..."

The figure sitting across from him leaned forward into the light of the yellow overhang stained glass lamp. His forehead gleamed under the light, partially sweaty from the heat of the area, but the scar that bolted down the center of his forehead was dull and brown, no longer a prominent feature about him. He took a sip of his own drink and held the sweating glass up, clutching it as though he vacillated between taking a final drink or setting he watery remains down for good. He stared quixotically at Tom. "Tell me what?"

Tom laughed. It was more of a half-laugh, half-giggle, actually, but Harry preferred to see it as "laughing," as he could not imagine the future dark lord giggling. "I really don't know," he said as seriously as he could, and then slumped back in his chair, giving a final satisfied chuckle before sighing contentedly.

"Oh, this is precious," Harry smirked darkly, brushing a wet strip of hair behind his ear. "I've gotten Voldemort drunk." Tom sat up straight in his seat at mention of the name. "I guess the thing to do now is get you pregnant."

"Don't call me that!" Tom snapped tersely behind clenched, glittering white teeth.

Harry took no notice of his partner's sudden, sharp tone. He shrugged and waved his glass into the air. "What's it matter? No one knows who he is here."

"You don't get it," Tom snarled; he made an attempt to relax his shoulders though, from their stiffness, he believed he failed. "That is not who I am. That is not who I will become. And--" his forehead creased in drunken deep thought, "--Why would you ever want to get me pregnant?"

Harry grinned. "Just one of the many ways I could take advantage of you. Have another drink."

The thought of alcohol temporarily rubbed away the sudden tension in the air. Tom called the waiter over and asked for two more shots accompanied by two more Cokes. "If anything's going to be taken advantage of tonight," he said when the waiter had left, "It'll be your wallet."

****************

"You know," Tom spoke lazily, leaning upon Harry's shoulder for balance, "You had a perfect chance to do what you wanted with me before..."

Harry shrugged as best as one could under the weight of a 220 lb. man. "Yeah, but it would have been the equivalent of taking advantage of a child. You were too cute, too innocent... too dumb."

"I was not dumb!" Tom declared indignantly, pushing Harry away and then pulling him back when he thought better of it. "I was just... er.. new."

"You thought underwear was a type of dish and you sat in front of my wall for two full hours, fascinated by the effect crayons had on wood. Hermione started calling you her 'little Tommy boy'."

Tom cringed at the name and shot Harry a dirty look, knowing that he couldn't see the expression in the dark. They were walking--or rather, he was wobbling along, and Harry was walking--now, under the dark shadow of a starlit, moonless sky. The restaurant was a mile back and in front of them loomed a distant, flickering sign that read: 'Motel 26'.

"That's what happens when you're brought back to life," Tom mumbled. "You get a fresh start. Even in the brain."

"Yeah," Harry said thoughtfully, regretfully.

Tom noticed his tone of voice and sighed. He pushed himself off of Harry and sat down right onto the road. Harry looked at him as if he were crazy and then, shrugging, sat down with him.

Lightning bugs buzzed somewhere far off; a glittering swarm of yellow bulbs played in between the trees and then shot off high towards the moon. Tom pulled out a long, thin wand from his pocket and wove it around, pretending that he was performing a luminos spell and the lightning bugs were the result. He turned towards Harry. "I'm sorry things had to come to this."

Harry laughed briskly, a laugh rather unlike his past laugh of childishness and joy. "Don't be sorry. I wasn't exactly expecting a welcoming parade after I defeated him."

"You should've had one. There could have been a big balloon-Harry floating around, and they would reenact the battle with overgrown puppets and actors singing and dancing to your song."

"I have a song?"

"An annoying, repetitive song that everyone will hate to love."

Harry tugged at the end of his shirt; it was humid, even moreso out here than it was inside where there were at least fans, and the aggressive night was relentless in its sweltering task. "Somehow I think I prefer seclusion and exile better, thanks."

"You're such a moody little boy," Tom joked, because it was apparent that Harry had exited boyhood long ago. He sighed; his head was just beginning to clear, and he didn't feel quite so dizzy as before. A part of him still longed for that delusional world that the muggle-drinks provided him, but for now, for this conversation, he was grateful to have his mindset set straight. Tom continued, "Honestly. If I had managed to save the entire wizard world from an ever-growing threat by simultaneously bringing to life someone I would eventually fall for and be persecuted for consorting with, I'd be simply chipper!"

Harry shoved him, grinning slightly. "It was a brilliant idea. It wasn't even my brilliant idea. But I couldn't let Hermione take the fall. She has too much of the world on her shoulders as it is."

"Well if it makes you feel any better, it took her wit to find the spell and your inner strength to perform it. So technically, it is your fault," Tom said.

"But sometimes I wonder if it changed me," Harry whispered quietly, so quiet that the crickets chirping off elsewhere seemed to scream in comparison. "I used Dark Magic to bring you to life, it was that same Dark Magic that destroyed Voldemort... while, coincidentally, he used that magic to destroy my parents and attempt to take over the wizard world."

Tom was playing with his wand lazily throughout Harry's fret-filled speech. When he stopped speaking, Tom lifted the wand up and used it to brush through Harry's hair. "Remember that wizard magazine we used to read through when we were bored? The one we found under Fred and George's bed?"

Harry scrunched up his nose as though he were smelling a foul odor, and wondered briefly if Tom was far drunker than he thought. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"Do you remember what their slogan was?" Tom continued as though bored, but Harry could see the slightest wicked smiling creeping onto his face. "It's not the length of the wand, it's how you use it."

Harry held back a smile but could not help raising an eyebrow. "And?"

"It's all about how you use your power, Harry. All of us in the wizarding world are given an enormous privilege," Tom rose the dull brown wand up and twisted it around, making it seem less dull with every word he spoke. Harry knew he was right; as small, as plain, as normal as the simple stick looked, the deceiving appearance masked a power greater than any could imagine.

Tom continued, "There is dark and light magic. But light magic can be used for selfish reasons, as much as dark magic can be used for selfless ones."

Harry rested his head on Tom's shoulder as he spoke. "But very few believe that."

"Dumbledore believed it," he whispered quietly. "And I know you believe in him more than you do magic, or me, or anything else."

"Is that why?" Harry's eyes were wide, as wide as one's eyes are when the fear of realization dawns within them, as though he were literally opening his eyes to a conscious thought. "Is that why he died? Because he refused to use Dark Magic?"

"Because he couldn't. He was the light, the weakening force. But you are the dark, the final blow. It took two extremes of each before the finishing move could be delivered, and Dumbledore knew that."

There was silence for the longest time; Harry spent the next hour concentrating on the still heat of the night during his attempt to push away terrible memories. He almost forgot he was even sitting on a road until headlights flooded through the quiet and Tom lead him off the road into a safer place.

It was when Tom continued to hold his hand when they were off the road and on a bike path that Harry finally believed what he'd said earlier. Tom, as evil as his former was, was the good that came out of this. He wasn't the right that came from two wrongs-what Harry had done wasn't wrong at all, and Tom was evidence of that.

The curse he'd used to bring Tom back to life was actually a tool of rebirth. Two Toms could not exist at the same time; Harry himself had discovered that when he began to read more into the art of dark magicks. Of course the Tom he'd met from the diary wasn't real, but if that Tom had succeeded he would have eradicated the Voldemort in that present. A good thing, aside from the fact that that Tom was evil as well. It took a replacement curse, a curse of rebirth that destroyed the Dark Lord and all of his memories and reasons for becoming what he became.

The new Tom, the one reborn and sitting next to Harry at present, was brought into this world a 16 year old with the mind of a newborn. But the one blessing of the curse was that he learned far more quickly than any child, nearly eight times faster. In a month he learned to speak properly, by the third month he could walk as regular as an adult and by six months he had learned to love.

"Harry," Tom whispered to him one night, many months ago. "Harry, your eyes!"

"What's wrong with them?" Harry had asked, wiping them, thinking something he could not see was stuck within his eyelids.

"I can seem myself in them," Tom grinned and gazed at Harry's eyes fondly. He was four months, then, and still learning. He leaned forward, astonishingly close, and Harry could see the smooth skin on his lips move up and down as he spoke, "They're like mirrors!"

Harry had laughed because Tom loved mirrors. He probably would have become even more enraptured the the mirror of Erised than he, himself had, if the small boy had ever had a chance to see it. "Thank you."

"I love your eyes," the wide-eyed Tom whispered, and now the stare between them no longer glared friendship.

Presently, Harry had found himself sitting under a tree, still being held by Tom. In Harry's mind their roles had switched; Harry was no longer himself a teacher, no longer the figure to look up to, and Tom, growing smarter and more mature by the day, would not need him soon.

But in Tom's mind, Harry would always be his mentor, would always teach him something of this world even if it seemed like he was being taught; each moment gave him a new role. Today it was drinking buddy. Tonight it would be lover. Tomorrow it is forever.

End.