Lesser Virtues, Greater Goals | Tomarry

Chapter 11 : Problems

A/N: There's a brief mention of suicidal thoughts.  If you are triggered by this, you may as well skip it. I put the stars symbol on that part. (***) It's only one sentence, but I had to say it anyway.
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It's quarter to eight in the evening.

Harry doesn't dare to get out of his bedroom. If he has to stay without food, then so be it. He values his mental health more.

The other had not visited him. Not yet.
The savior hopes Riddle will get the memo and won't bother him -

There's a double knocking sound coming, from outside of the room. "Harry? Harry, come down. It's time for dinner. What have you done to the door?"

And of course that doesn't work out. When anything that Harry wished for worked out after all?

"Go away!" He shouts, legs crossed, arms wrapped around them. "I'm not coming. Eat by yourself."

He sees Hedwig flying a few meters behind the entrance to his room, with her claws ready to strike and probably tear an eye out. (Riddle's eye, to be precise). He feels grateful to have her.

He hears a definite grunt. "Now, don't be so uncooperative and come down to eat."

"No! I prefer to starve than be in the same room with you!"

The door begins to move with distinct shrilling noises.

Harry is pretty confident that his face has lost all its blood supply and is now white and his heart is going pitter patter.

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'Someone kill me, please. At least the Dursleys are stupid. At least, Voldemort, I got used to. But this? I cannot get used to this.'
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The door is now open. Honestly, fuck his life.

Tom steps inside and his legs bump on the desk. He sees the chairs. He moves them to the side with his own hands.

He finds the Gryffindor curled up, like a sack, at the side of the bed that is furthest from the entrance, head bowed down.

His mouth twitches. "I recognize the fact that I might have reacted in a way that was unessesary."

"There's no 'might' in the sentence. It was unessesary." Exclaims Harry, fury quite detectable in his vocal tone. "It was completely unessesary and yet, you still did it, out of sick enjoyment for inflicting pain!"

"I am a sadistic person." Replies the teenager. "I won't deny that."

The green eyed looks up, at last. The bags under his eyes are red from crying earlier. "That is not my problem to deal with."

Tom doesn't respond. He merely places a plate with three large enough pieces of meatpie on the small bedside table, to the left of the bed. "Here's your dinner, if you want it."

Harry makes no move to touch the plate.

"Can I have my wand back?" He asks instead, the sudden desire for earning an answer to that question surprises even him.

The older looks up and meets the boy's eyes. "Not yet." He says and with a few steps - seven, Harry counts - leaves him to his own twisted nest of thoughts.

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Two days later, Harry has not forgotten about the feeling of dread during his time inside the 'limbo' spell, as he calls it.

He doesn't talk. He has made his stance quite clear. This isn't something to forgive, like a passing storm. Tom has to try harder than this, if he 'cares so much'.