Chapter Text
The Astronomy Tower had never felt so isolated from the rest of the castle. On this September night, the air was unnaturally heavy, thick with a sticky humidity that clung to one’s clothes. Harry leaned against the stone battlements, his fingers gripped tightly around the cold ledge. Since the morning of his sixteenth birthday, he felt as though he were going mad.
It wasn't just the scar on his forehead that burned; it was his entire body. His senses had sharpened to the point of pain. He could hear the beating of owl wings miles away; he could see in the dark with frightening clarity, and above all... there was that scent.
A sweet, musky, almost sickening fragrance emanated from his own skin. It was like the scent of crushed lilies mingled with the heat of blood. Harry frantically rubbed his forearms, but it was no use: the perfume continued to grow, saturating the air around him like a silent call cast into the night.
Suddenly, the wind shifted. The sounds of the Forbidden Forest fell silent, petrified by an invisible terror.
A scuttling sound, like leather armor dragging across stone, rose behind him. Harry spun around, his wand raised, but his hand shook so violently that the Lumos spell flickered out in a pathetic sizzle.
— So sweet... so ripe...
The voice sounded as though it came from a throat filled with gravel. From the shadows of the arches, a shape unfolded. It was neither man nor beast. The creature stood seven feet tall, its emaciated body covered in translucent, oily skin that revealed knotted muscles. Its head, devoid of a nose, was nothing but a massive jaw lined with razor-sharp teeth, surmounted by six bulbous eyes that glowed with a yellowish light.
— The Fruit of Prosperity... the monster salivated. Just one piece of your heart... and I shall be eternal...
Harry wanted to scream, but his throat was constricted by a primal fear. The creature lunged with supernatural velocity. Its claws, long and curved, swung toward Harry's face. The young wizard closed his eyes, already feeling the beast's fetid breath upon his cheek.
SCHLACK.
The sound of tearing flesh echoed, followed immediately by a sharp crack, like a large tree trunk snapping in two. A warm, viscous liquid splashed across Harry's face. He opened his eyes, gasping for breath, and what he saw was even more terrifying than the monster itself.
Tom Riddle stood there.
He was no longer the gaunt specter Harry had faced in the graveyard a year earlier. He was tall, possessed of a terrifying aristocratic elegance, dressed in a black silk frock coat whose coattails fluttered like wings. His hands, bare and marble-pale, held no wand. One of his hands was plunged into the monster's chest, his arm sinking up to the elbow into the creature's gaping ribcage.
With a sudden movement, Tom ripped the still-beating heart from the beast and crushed it in his fist. Foul, black blood dripped between his long fingers.
— "Filthy scavengers," Tom murmured in a deep, glacial baritone. "You dare lay your impure claws upon what has been mine since the dawn of time?"
The creature collapsed into a shapeless heap before being consumed in black smoke. Tom did not even deign to look at the corpse. He turned toward Harry. His eyes were no longer brown, but a flaming scarlet red, his pupils slitted like those of a bird of prey.
Harry tried to recoil, but his legs betrayed him, and he slid against the wall. In the blink of an eye—literally faster than a heartbeat—Tom was upon him. He did not walk; he moved like a shadow cast by the moon.
He knelt before Harry, towering over him. Tom's scent was different: it smelled of ancient earth, ozone after a lightning strike, and precious sandalwood. It acted as a balm on Harry's exhausted nervous system, forcing him to relax despite his terror.
— "Look at me, Harry," Tom commanded.
He seized the boy's chin, forcing their eyes to meet. His fingers were cold as ice, but where they touched Harry's skin, an electric heat spread.
— "You feel your blood boiling beneath your skin, don't you? You feel the hunger surrounding you? This is only the beginning. Your fragrance has traveled beyond the borders of the magical world. For the Yōkai, for demons of my kind, you are the ultimate banquet."
Tom brought his face closer, his nose brushing against Harry's neck, right where the carotid artery throbbed frantically. He inhaled deeply, a low growl of satisfaction vibrating in his chest.
— "I have left you in the hands of these foolish wizards far too long. They treated you as a hero, as a target... they never understood what you truly were. But I, Harry... I have waited sixteen years for this moment to arrive."
With unbearable slowness, he licked a drop of blood that the monster had sprayed onto Harry's cheek. The contact of his tongue felt like a burn.
— "Dumbledore has accepted the terms of the contract. As of tonight, Hogwarts Castle is no longer your prison, but your nest. And I am the sole master of these grounds."
Tom drew himself up, and at that moment, the shadows behind him tore open. Two monumental wings, of an iridescent black like oil, unfurled, masking the moon and plunging the tower into total darkness. Harry felt an immense pressure on his chest as Tom lifted him from the ground as if he weighed nothing.
— "Sleep now, Harry Potter. Your life as a human ends here. Your existence as the consort of the Tengu Clan begins."
Harry wanted to protest, to ask what this "contract" meant, but the darkness emanating from Tom's wings enveloped him like a warm shroud, and he sank into a dreamless sleep, carried away by the King of Demons.