Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.
Rating: This is ridiculous; I don't write for children. …M for Mature.
Summary: Life after a war in which Voldemort was not killed, his magic sealed away, and a Ministry appointed Harry Potter to watch over him. HPxLV, among others. Contains some elements of HBP and DH…but not enough to make HBP or DH terribly relevant.
Spoilers, I suppose, for HBP and DH.
Chapter 1: If you kneel, perhaps you'll get a glimpse at another life.
0000
In Godric's Hollow, where the scenario had begun, came the end.
Harry Potter had been careless to let himself to fall under the magic of a Tracking Spell. The Death Eaters had come for him, again. Again, like they always did. Voldemort was after him, like always. But he didn't want to fight. People died when he tried to be heroic. And no matter how much magic he knew, someone always got hurt or, worse yet, perished.
In the early evening hours the small village town was settling in for the night. Or they had been, until the home next to the ruins of the former Potter home burst with a ground-shaking explosion. They had been, until a Death Eater, with no prior warning, blew the second story of the home next to his and a good portion of his own yard away.
The Order had come the moment news had reached them of the attack on Godric's Hollow and The-Boy-Who-Lived.
Death Eaters were around every bend and it had come to the point where Harry had been quite literally pushed himself into a corner between two civilian homes with nothing but stone wall at his sides and back. It was then he realized he had been herded like some animal to his execution. This fact angered him like no other: he had had enough with the mind games and the manipulation schemes.
But he was too cowardly to end it. He knew how. But the possibility of failure lingered.
A good portion of the Death Eaters succumbed to the wandless Killing Curse as he performed the Unforgivable with decisiveness. Yes, he meant it.
It was only with the corpses of his men falling when the Dark Lord chose to approach in the mist of the early evening.
"You murder now, Potter?" The Dark Lord whispered softly. "How…unlike you."
Harry swore under his breath as the Killing Curse was directed his way without forewarning. It took an extreme effort to throw himself to the ground in time: he could feel his reflexes rapidly deteriorating from the blood loss of various wounds he'd been foolish enough to receive. He'd been so careless!
Behind him, the stone wall exploded in a flurry of rock and dust. Fragments struck his skull and back, but Harry left himself motionless until the wreckage stopped falling. After a few moments he chanced a look upwards and found the elder wizard had not moved. Or perhaps he had: the emerald-eyed teen found his head spinning as he came to an upright position.
From a distance, Harry squinted at the figure who perhaps had rage in his ruby eyes. "So…weak. I will end you now: your irritating presence will trouble me no longer."
It was likely the stupidest thing he'd done in his life, and such a Slytheirn option at that, but at that moment, Harry turned, hopped over the broken wall behind him and ran away, hoping this stretch of his imagination would play out. He just needed time!
Not a second later, it was in relief that Harry heard the Dark Lord's coldly amused voice call after him.
"Where will you run, Harry? I will always find you."
It did not take long for the younger wizard to lose sight of the elder, but in a few seconds Harry realized his movements were fruitless: he couldn't run forever.
In his one moment of uncertainty, the one time he couldn't afford uncertainty he felt more than heard the quiet movement at his back.
"Harry, you foolish child…I'm glad you understand you cannot escape me."
The younger wizard turned around sharply and there was the Dark Lord a few feet away, his wand trained on Harry, unmoving.
Harry knew he had to do something….or he'd die…they would all die. Words burst unbidden from his lips. "I'll kill you Voldemort!"
Could he?
Voldemort tilted his head to the side at the Boy-Who-Lived's words, a thin lipless smile crossing his waxen features. "I think not, boy. Here is where you will meet your end." The older man's voice was quiet, but easily distinguishable across the small distance.
But the younger wizard was not ready to surrender to that which he could easily destroy had he the courage to do so. And he did….now he did, though he did not know why. All he knew was that he didn't want to die anymore…Voldemort deserved to die….he deserved it….deserved….what was coming to him.
He wove his wand into a fluid succession of complex curves just as he had practiced an infinite amount of times alone to make sure he had absolute precision. There could be no mistakes. Or he would be seeing his mother, father and Sirius again without aid of that…thing.
"Avada Kedavra!"
A flash of blinding light engulfed the scene and burst outwards just as the Killing Curse was cast.
0000
When the Dark Lord opened his eyes, the most bothersome thing that came across his line of sight was the radiant and unforgiving view of sunlight. Disoriented, he turned his head to find the source. But the result hurt the cornea and head reeling, Voldemort relaxed into where he lay. For awhile, he floated in a limbo of dull agony and a subdued feeling of false peace. It was in this drifting he then recognized the sensation of being engulfed within the reaches of the remnants of a foreign, yet soothing magical presence that entwined up along his system, gently urging him into complacency. The energy compelled sleep and it did not occur to the Dark Lord to protest or even muster the strength to ask himself where he was.
Distantly, he had the irrational urge to voluntarily pair his magics with this other unknown force that felt…familiar and powerful and beautiful and that hurt him in its possession of him quite unknowingly. Because he felt very protected.
As he reached into himself in the need to couple with the foreign presence, he encountered the motions of pushing through a thick sea of sludge. The surprise of encountering a void where his magical energy should have been disturbed him more than in a little ambiguous off-hand manner. Absently, Voldemort thought that this seemingly small facet of change in himself very important. But the other inoffensive force tied extensively into all matter of his cells gently took hold of his body and began to tug him downwards into slumber.
…
Perhaps it all had been a dream, Voldemort thought idly as his mind re-entered consciousness: he felt no other magic within himself forcefully manipulating his limbs into submission. But the sunlight was still too bright and a reverberation of pain bubbled onto cracked lips and escaped into the air. But he couldn't help it: everything seemed just hurt with an odd-ended pulse that went to the tempo of his heartbeat.
But as the Dark Lord pulled inside himself for the seamless pool of his magical energy to assuage this source-less pain, he touched nothing. There was no trace of magic of any kind and as he probed deeper, the emptiness threatened to swallow him whole. He lurched back in horror and as he came back to himself and opened his eyes, his spine arching from the whiplash. Gasping and choking, the former wizard's entire frame went into a series of spasms that shook him to the bone. At the end, Voldemort was left exhausted and terrified: what in the seven reaches of hell had happened to him? How could there be not even the barest hint of a trace…?
And he was so tired again…
…Perhaps he had fallen asleep again…yes…maybe he had…because his eyes had found the gaze of someone who was so well-known and who was plotting out his death with no attempts at concealing the means of doing so… …But the name escaped his tongue…and then the comforting magical energy returned…or maybe he was becoming delusional… Regardless, at the return of the consoling power, the figure he wanted to question blurred and faded from sight.
Quietly, Voldemort let himself sink back down into the impartial black waves of nothingness. And no matter how a small newly emerged part of him wanted to deny it, this was an action he appreciated beyond measure: down to the nerve-endings there was a profound fatigue that littered the edges of conscious thought. How long had he wanted to sleep without concern…without fear of a coup d'etat…or paranoia over the latest of Dumbledore's schemes with the…? With the…?
In his mind there remained no image of the individual he thought of and for a moment the Dark Lord sensed that this person who had been suddenly ripped from remembrance was somehow a vital aspect in his memories.
0000
For a time- a time Voldemort bothered not to measure from the beginning since there didn't seem to be a "start," only a sense of being- there was only the awareness of slipping in and out of conscious time. It was almost as if with the stroke of a pendulum, the merest beat of the heart, he would slip away again into oblivion. And in the ambiguous existence there was always the ache from his removed magical power and the seemingly undying torture of a binding pain that knew no limits and no reprieve. The former wizard knew he slept, but in this state, the acute agony affixed itself to him in a manner similar to the way his magic used to. So in the back round there was always the same niggling distraction at the edge of unawareness that prevented him from fully submitting to whatever it was he seemed to be holding at bay with the barest reaches of his will…
…And as sudden as his drift within unconsciousness began, it ended with the same abruptness. There was no great upheaval when the former wizard opened his eyes, nothing to signal his return to current time except a small shuddering exhale as consciousness returned. A dark canopy overhead flickered in and out of his unexplainably cloudy sight as he slowly blinked in detached confusion. This was certainly not his home.
And he couldn't have possibly have dreamt that Harry Potter of all people had-
In a motion that only served to reassure him of his forthcoming demise- without his magic he would be finished before he could possibly utter one word of question- Voldemort softly pulled at the void where the magic that made him him should have resided. But there was only a blank emptiness that ached when bothered.
Without realizing he had actually done so, the former wizard opened his eyes once more, feeling faintly nauseous along with the barest stirrings of panic.
He lay there for awhile, contemplating his situation, or rather lack of one. He was magicless. That meant a powerful wizard had cowed him. But there was only one person he had remembered seeing last, and surely the boy had not the extent of the power-
"…And he shall have the power the Dark Lord knows not…"
…But the boy was weak and completely useless…he could not have possibly done anything to bring him to this state beyond lesser humanity. He couldn't even shield his own mind and was so easily manipulated…
He was only Dumbledore's puppet…!
Almost as he started the recognize the first motions of blind fury, the sensation was compressed with quite a finished edge and the loose emotion of being at ease sidled in without difficulty. The Dark Lord immediately drew himself back together from the muddled mess he'd become: he was near certain someone had administered a Languor Solution to him. Otherwise he was sure he would be beyond livid and would have done more that breathe out at the sheer thought of that treacherous boy who struck numbers of nerves in his psyche…
Ah, but someone had the audacity to deal him a Class 5 Illegal Substance- something that had been banned for more than the deterioration of the muscles in short term use and swift corrosion of the primary motor cortex with the span of prolonged use. He wasn't dealing with some mediocre low-level caster.
Well then. Here he was, the infamous Dark Lord, in a foreign residence, bedridden, magicless and doped up six ways to Sunday.
At the thought of being confined to a bed he knew not the owner of and not being able to defend himself if necessary, Voldemort discreetly flexed his fingers and clarified he had not been deprived of use of his basic means of movement. However, he knew very well that if his…caretaker…meant for him to die, there would be nothing for him to say about it because he would already have been eliminated once and for all.
No, that would not happen. Or rather that could not happen: he had assured his survival through his Horcruxes. He would remain in stasis until he could regain himself once more and-
But would the same means apply when he had not the magic to support himself and the things connected to him?
Could he have pieces of his soul scattered around in various parts of Europe without having magic to recognize their presence? After all, that had been the energy that connected the fragments separate from him so he was aware of their existences. Yet, if this was the case, then he would have died already: Muggles weren't able to split their souls into pieces; the strain would kill them outright.
Troubled for a moment until the calmness from whatever he had been medicated with squashed the endeavor, Voldemort slowly gathered himself together in order to sit up. This was not the time to be scholarly when he had no idea where in the hell he was or what was going on.
With limbs that felt as if they had not sustained use for a number of years, Voldemort shoved himself into a sitting position, and leaned forward heavily, curiously lightheaded from the simple action. Breathing deeply, he shut his eyes and focused on regaining himself once more.
But when he next allowed himself to open his eyes, there was a neatly folded, unlabeled piece of parchment on his lap. All at once wary and, though he would not admit it out loud, somewhat concerned, Voldemort stared at the innocent looking object, at a loss on whether to open the paper or not. It could be a trap; he could unfold the note and it could explode…or it could be nothing important.
Hesitantly, the former wizard slowly turned the parchment over and found a glossy red seal he did not recognize on the back. He slowly broke the waxen crest while glaring down at fingers which did not seem to want to cooperate fully. He smoothed out the paper to read. In flowing penmanship there was an uncomplicated message:
If you feel like getting out of bed, I am outside. Once you are at the bottom of the stairs, follow the hallway to your left. Please be careful: mending broken bones is irritating.
Voldemort found himself glowering at the paper with as much anger that could be mustered despite the emotional repressive magic that flowed in his veins. Who in the fuck did this person think they were?
Without a thought to the repercussions, the former wizard quite literally threw himself out of bed with a strength that surprised him. But not a second later, the sudden movement after such a long period of no movement caught up with his body. So the magicless wizard collapsed in an undignified heap upon the hardwood floor. Cursing, he let his head fall back against the frame of the bed and then banged it against the stout wood weakly not a few seconds later in frustration.
It shouldn't have been this damn hard!
Careful not to let one single emotion completely cover his sights, lest the repressive catch hint of it and demolish it, Voldemort shoved himself upward with what would have been brutal force had he retained his former strength. But as it was, the push only moved him a few inches or so and the once wizard gave a loud and vehement curse at his situation.
But he was anything but one to wallow in his despair, so while gripping onto the oak bed frame, Voldemort painfully drug his way to the bedpost which seemed miles away. Once there, chest heaving with the extent of his effort, the former wizard wrapped ever so thin fingers over the carved extension to the bed. At that present moment he did not notice the oddly natural fingers clutched around the wood. If he had, the fact that he had a natural pigment to his skin would have been brought the forefront of his muddled mind.
And so he crept his way laboriously into a half-standing position with his torso thrown over the bed's deep emerald coverlet and laid there for a few more precious moments as he attempted to just breathe. Exhausted but not willing to concede himself to the will of his body, a whisper of a groan escaped his lips as he tried to convince himself that it was for the best to continue. The former wizard wanted to give up now with his limbs feeling as if they were made of rubber and his head had someone pounding upon the inner skull with a sledgehammer.
He wasn't weak!
The former Dark Lord's liquid bones argued a very compelling stance otherwise.
Gritting his teeth against the curious lancing pain in his spine and temple and a lifetime's worth of fatigue that lay just beyond the view of the horizon, Voldemort drew himself upward, swayed precariously for a few moments but remained upright. Oh, how accomplished he was, performing this most menial of tasks with the undertaking of one who was doing it for the very first time.
In taking a step forward he veered immediately off to the side like some drunkard and nearly toppled over again. Yet he forced himself to raise another leg and predictably his leg buckled under the unaccustomed weight. So he took a step forward quickly to not crumple. That was how it went until he made it to the door and Voldemort found himself hanging onto the bronze doorknob as if his life depended upon it.
Furious and then suddenly not, he used the split second of adrenaline to wrench the ornately crafted door open…and then promptly keeled over.
0000
Head throbbing in time with his pulse, Voldemort found himself staring up at a high ceiling that looked quite enchanted. For one delirious moment he wondered why he was in the Great Hall at Hogwarts. Then the realization of where he was, or rather lack of said information made him sit up sharply. And that made him clutch his head in his hands as he fought to regain function through the blinding pain burning a path through his skull.
How long had he laid here, on the hardwood floor? What did his caretaker (or was it captor now?) intend for him? Why was he still alive?
These questions needed answers and perhaps the best way to get them answered would be to find the source. And that involved getting himself off the floor. Absently, he raised a trembling hand to the back of his head and distantly thought that it wasn't a good thing that his fingers came back to his eyes sticky and wet with a dark red substance.
Hm…was he bleeding?
Suddenly hysterical, he gave a bar of harsh laughter as he pulled himself to his feet with twice the effort and swayed absurdly just as he had before in the bedroom. The ground heaved beneath his feet as he found his legs moving unconsciously, as if someone was pulling him by a string, to a beautiful staircase. In the back of his mind, Voldemort thought that this was perhaps noteworthy: hadn't it been mentioned somewhere?
Or maybe, he thought to himself with a choked snicker, he had dreamed it. Maybe the stairwell had been in the dream where he was laying prone on his bed in the nude and Nagini had been curled about him, flicking her forked tongue along his-
When he found himself on his back staring at his arm at the oddest angle he had ever seen, Voldemort realized he was at the bottom of the stairs. The fact that his head was turned in the direction of the ascending staircase only served to prove this fact. With eyesight spinning, he pulled himself up again and found himself chuckling softly to himself. He should have been dead by now. Why was Lady Luck on his side now of all times?
Lucky, lucky, lucky, lucky, lucky…
He was never lucky.
That truth made him sober up quickly. But as Voldemort pictured himself in a wooden box with flame-like décor underground and Harry Potter dressed in drag weeping over his gravestone, he burst into a fit of giggles. But no, he told himself solemnly, Dark Lords did not giggle. That thought induced another round of raucous mirth.
With mad laughter spilling from his throat, along with a liquid he found very coppery and he also choked on every so often, the former wizard who was currently unaware that he was a former anything stumbled along aimlessly until his found himself in front of an unassuming door. Voldemort had a fleeting reflection that it would do good to check the keyhole. Perhaps that's where Alice had skipped off to? And that rabbit with his trumpet and scrolls…he would have stolen the key, wouldn't he? Well, he would catch that bunny and make him give back his Hearts even if he had to gut him for them.
It was really a shame he didn't have any skewers because he really did enjoy rabbit roasted over an open flame.
When he tried the handle with his good arm, leaving his crooked appendage at his side (it seemed like the natural thing to do though it didn't occur to Voldemort as to why this was), the door gave way easily. And then came the damned sunlight that was literally trying to burn his eyes from his sockets. But he wasn't going to turn all crispy like those undead fellows. No siree.
Maybe he could finally relate to that Potter boy: he'd heard the boy was near blind without his glasses. Hey! Maybe that was why the survivor boy could barely see in the sun! He was one of those vampire…thingies. …But that was a bit of a stretch, even for him.
…Tsk. He shouldn't be thinking so much about a boy who wanted to kill him.
Or was he supposed to kill the boy? Hadn't there been some kind of…prophesy?
There was a recollection of a small child with bright emerald eyes staring up at him. Hm…there was a spell that looked exactly like the infant's wide, unafraid orbs.
As his eyes adjusted to the new brightness, Voldemort took in his surroundings distantly, as if he was slowly being pulled away by a hook on the back of the collar and into an unpromising luminous light. There were rosebushes of varying shades along the back of the high stone wall, each and every one pruned back and watered. A carpet of grass covered the area and there was an ancient oak tree nearby with a moderately sized, lavishly carved bird-bath standing even farther away. With the same air of remoteness, he understood he was still in the throes of mad laughter.
In the back of his mind he realized there was a small figure sitting amongst the growing roses with their back to him.
Oh, so they planned to steal all his red roses, did they? Well, his retribution would be paid back tenfold….Where were his Guards? …No good Cards…They should have been beheaded.
While he blinked and clutched his side through his chuckles, the figure beyond him was quite unexpectedly no longer sitting among the roses. Confused and abruptly especially grim (with this came the cessation of laughter), Voldemort did not acknowledge his limbs folding beneath him. He fell to the stone steps, very unsure as to how he had come outside. What was…happening to him?
There was the sensation of something lightly stroking his back in reassuring, thorough circles. He hadn't realized he's closed his eyes until he made himself open them once more. It took a few repeated blinks to focus but then he found a young male face studying him. Oh, he knew those piercing emerald eyes. Yes he…yes he…did…?
Didn't he?
Perhaps…he'd killed someone with those eyes. Maybe that was it… That's why the color lingered, branded into his sight when he blinked slowly. The logical part of himself disregarded this: when had he ever remembered those he killed with that kind of precision?
"…Was I unclear in my instructions for you? You weren't to break bones, Voldemort," The man's voice was soft and despite the reprimand, the tone gave no anger away.
And then sense returned as swift as a downward sword stroke and Voldemort gave a sharp, choking gasp and toppled off the steps.
"Potter!"
"That I am," returned the Potter boy quietly.
From his position between the stone steps and dirt the former Dark Lord hissed furiously at the man sitting calmly with his arms draped over his bent knees gazing at Voldemort impassively. "You did this to me!"
The last of the Potter line shrugged lightly with a shoulder but his face did not change in expression. The flippant action enraged the older man and he saw red. Before the boy or Voldemort himself was able to stop himself, he'd crushed a fist into the boy's nose, knocking the younger man's head back into the stone steps with an appalling crack. Chest heaving as the repressive wound him down, the former Dark Lord looked down at the green eyed man, waiting for the counter attack.
With a soft sigh, Potter pulled himself upward, wiping his now bleeding nose with the edge of his dark sweater. And then he turned his eyes to the man who struck him in challenge, gaze icy. The boy's cold stare suddenly unexplainably made the former Dark Lord furious once more. And just as soon as the anger had risen, it was quashed not a second later. But that made fury rise up again. Which was then eliminated.
"Potter, remove this magic from me!" The sudden change in emotion made Voldemort nauseous as he again felt his, as he believed, completely justifiable wrath subdued.
Seemingly unconcerned, the Potter boy smoothed out his sweater, and cocked his head to the side as if he knew nothing of what the older man in front of him was speaking of.
"Don't try to toy with me, boy! I know you did this to me!"
The raven haired man's expression suggested he was amused though none his features actually moved to support the action. "And if I did?"
The former wizard made a noise that sounded like a growl that turned into half-groan after the feeling behind it disappeared. "I'll kill you!"
"Will you, really?" The tone abruptly turned grave and the Potter boy slowly pulled himself to his feet without looking at the former Dark Lord. "And how will you go about doing that…Muggle?" At the last word, the younger man turned his gaze to the older at his feet with a stone face.
Voldemort reeled back in horror at the one word he wouldn't dare classify himself as even in the seven reaches of hell. "How dare you!"
"…How dare I? You should be content with the fact I didn't slaughter you in your sleep."
"…Sleep?" The boy had changed…or maybe it was Voldemort who had regained good judgment. The Potter boy was ready to kill him. But he hadn't. …But why? And just how long had he slept?
"You have been in a stasis for around a year and five months, if I have kept track correctly." Voldemort had a feeling the boy wasn't often wrong now a days.
"You lie," the older man hissed and there was an echo of memory…perhaps he'd had a forked tongue once…?
"I don't have the time to fuck you over mentally," The-Boy-Who-Lived said softly. "And now, because of your carelessness, I have to mend your broken bones. Since you seem to think I…Are you bleeding, Voldemort?"
Said man blinked in confusion and merely stared at the individual above him who was his…enemy? Was he still the enemy? …Yes, he was. And he would kill him, like he was supposed to. Yet…did the prophesy…apply to a situation like this? But how was he supposed to know what this ever mysterious prophesy went on about? He'd never actually heard the thing in its entirety…
"Hold still."
Voldemort jerked in a sudden terror at those two words. "Don't….!" The fear was exterminated. And this time enough was enough and the former wizard was violently ill from the abrupt change in feeling. Or rather, he would have been if there had been anything in him besides bile. So after a humiliating period of dry heaves, he found himself hunched over but not exactly fallen over. A firm arm around his waist ensured this.
"That repressive is becoming quite troublesome…Here, drink this."
A small vial was pressed to his lips and the former wizard choked down the bitter tasting liquid, cursing weakly through his coughs at his unreasonable contentedness. And as he felt the crippling substance stripped from his frame at last, Voldemort went limp in the younger man's grip, in the hold of real emotion for the first time in decades.
"Voldemort?"
The man in question made a faint attempt to rouse himself from the depths of exhaustion and, now that he was focused and the adrenaline had worn off, pain. What had he done to himself? He couldn't remember…
"Where do you hurt?" the Potter boy inquired softly. Voldemort felt himself being drawn upwards and back so he was leaning against something he couldn't quite put into words. It was pleasantly warm…
However, the boy's question echoed in his mind with a bell-like clamor and the former wizard tried to pull himself back into sense because he did hurt and he was more than willing to accept healing if it meant he could rest.
"I…" His voice came out in a hoarse whisper, as if he'd shredded his vocal cords, and Voldemort closed into himself in humiliation. He had his pride!
"Yes? Could you tell me so I can Heal you?" the boy prodded gently. But Voldemort wasn't planning on responding if he was going to sound so weak!
Perhaps Potter knew this as well because after a few minutes of no answer, fingers drifted over his forehead and to the back of his skull, an area where the former wizard realized felt as if it were throbbing. The touch was delicate and Voldemort felt Potter's magic begin to weave the broken skin back together effortlessly without suspension. And that damn boy's magic was urging a meld with his conscience again. Did Potter even know what his magic was attempting to do? Obviously he did not because he wouldn't dare consciously bond with something as mutilated as he was…
The touch fluttered to his broken arm and the Dark Lord gave a small start in surprise as magic began to seamlessly and painlessly knit his bones back together. Where in the hell had the boy learned to wandlessly cast and perform Healing magics?
Smooth fingers glided across his midsection and then to his lower back where the touch flickered upwards without the slightest hesitation to the back of his neck where warmth seeped into Voldemort's clammy skin.
And then it was unearthly quiet where the only sound was the former Dark Lord's fragmented breathing.
What in the hell was he supposed to say after all of that?
"Potter," murmured Voldemort quietly, voice hoarse.
"Yes…Voldemort?"
"Why did you…Heal me? It was unnecessary. I should suffer…for all that I have done," muttered the elder man roughly, unable to believe the words he himself was spouting.
"Oh, don't start on the self pity. I will not appease this kind of behavior. Take what you have wrought upon yourself like a man." Potter's grip seemingly contradicted his words as his hold remained unmoved from the former Dark Lord.
"But why…did you do it?" asked the elder man quietly.
"I chose to. Is that not reason enough?" the younger wizard returned tonelessly.
"Potter, that is-"
"-Not a reason?" the younger man interrupted sharply. "I deem it reason enough," the man repeated, this time with firmness.
Voldemort opened his mouth to protest but before he could Potter's grip shifted and left him.
"You should not be outside at this time in the condition you have reduced yourself to. Come, I will assist you back inside," the younger man said with no inflection in his voice, as he came to stand before the former wizard before his feet, offering a hand in help for him to rise.
Something sparked in Voldemort then, and he looked at the hand offered to him with a sudden sharp disdain. "I have taken care of myself for more than seventy years. What makes you believe that I need assistance now, and yours at that, Harry Potter?"
The elder man knocked away the hand before him with less force than he could have wanted but the action was clear nonetheless. Potter said nothing and let his arm fall to his side silently. Knowing the younger man had his gaze trained upon him, Voldemort pushed himself up sharply.
…And collapsed immediately.
It was the oddest thing. He wasn't falling.
"Stupid man," Voldemort heard whispered quietly.