A/N: Reading an old fic by FalconLux I rather like again gave me inspiration for this. It's a bit shorter than I expected while I was typing it, but I do like my mystery setup considering how often I play with it in my Assembly~

I might continue this, I might not. We'll see. I have a vague idea for a second chapter and almost no motivation to actually continue it.

Review and I might change my mind though~

"Why the bloody hell should I help you?" He sneered; an expression he'd taken upon copying from his old potions professor more and more often these days, though usually not in correlation with those one might think the expression would go paired with.

"Dearest Harry, surely you are not still disillusioned with the world?" And those you formerly held dear. Though unspoken, those words hovered in the air between them. The boy looked away bitterly, his expression contorting in a myriad of emotions the boy likely no longer truly knew how to express; while the man gave show of a patient smile, as though he knew better than the illusion the boy was trying to paint.

Harry Potter had long lost illusion with the world, and his former friends, this was true. They had all left him here and while many offered him their deepest regret and guilt and whatnot, not a single one had lifted a finger to remove him from his new hell. One might call it a step up from the Dursleys, just without the beatings.

It had been five years since then, and the boy could only show a semblance of sanity because the man allowed him so. He was not known to the rest of the world - not known beyond his proud little island of the condemned and the hungry - but that was exactly as things should be. Yet now...

Now someone foolish and ignorant wished to try and remove from him his home, and that was simply not acceptable. Ah yes, not even one but two people, pathetic and floundering beings with foolish skewered visions of the world, wished to remove his faithful pets, his collection of the tortured and his home away from him.

Not that they knew he existed, but that mattered little when one threatened your home. And the boy faking a pout in front of him was his ticket to keeping his home safe. He could not step out into the open, but the boy could.

"You know my history, why would you ask this of me?" The boy asked instead, after a moment of pause, the attempt at mimicking emotion dropped as quickly as he had attempted to adopt it. He no longer had enough memory of proper fuelled emotion to be able to mimic it accurately.

"You would compare me to the old goat?" A chuckle resounded through the air, though it did not sound amused and nothing lit in the dark abyss that was the man's eyes. He watched the boy flinch back and avert his eyes, murmuring an apology under his breath.

This man, his lord, had done much for Harry. He had allowed him to keep his sanity, trained his magic, although only indirectly and subtly at first, and he had taught him much, had shown him the world as it happened around them, none the wiser that their private conversations held in trust weren't as safe as they would have liked to believe.

Dumbledore had well and truly abandoned him here, this Harry knew to be fact, and it had been three years since he had begged his lord to allow him to learn, a desire for revenge flowing through him unlike what he'd felt before even for the Dursleys.

That emotion had faded over time, just as every other emotion had, but he had learned so much! Oh his head still spun and his heart still filled whenever he thought about it. The magicks he could call to his fingertips in moments was remarkable and he adored it like he adored little else. Those he had formerly sought approval from certainly would have been disgusted with him, would have demanded and pleaded for Harry to give up this moral-less hunger for power. They would have been so wrong though.

There was nothing wrong with the shadowed magic that now flowed freely through his core. Tom Riddle was no longer a threat to his mind and Dumbledore would never again be able to spin his sweet lies over Harry again, for he could instinctively tell truth from lie now. His new magic allowed him such power that he had never thought he could be capable of, all gifted to him by his lord.

Never once had he figured out why though...

Certainly, the castle liked him, favoured him along with her master even, but for that to be the reason to gift Harry with such opportunity seemed farfetched to him, though his lord was long known to him as a eccentric by now.

"Worry not, Harry." The man spoke again, snapping the boy out of his thoughts and memories. "I wish not to control you, but we both know the world has nothing to offer you now, and my dearest castle has become your home now too. It is only reasonable that we protect her together."

Harry nodded, relaxing as the castle's magic reached out to him. She too, welcomed him, wished for him to stay like her master stayed. And really, there had never been any doubt, but perhaps he was simply stubborn for old times' sake. Shaking the thought away he looked up and smiled.

"It would be my honour, Lord Azkaban."