Title: Quiet Moments
Fandom: Harry Potter
Author: Batsutousai
Rating: Teen
Pairing: Harry Potter/Lord Voldemort
Warnings: Insults-turned-petnames
Summary: Harry groaned and dropped back onto his bed. He felt...restless. Bored. Lonely.

Disclaim Her: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

A/N: roisu, in response to my request for fluff prompts, requested 'Harry sneaks out of Hogwarts to see Voldemort because he was lonely?'

I actually sort of forgot about these. And then, there I was, snooping through fics on my iPad, feeling listless, and I found the folder of fluff prompts. And my muse was apparently just looking for a short little HPLV piece to tackle, because he fucking did a cartwheel over top of this prompt.
This isn't really meant as a follow-up to any of my fics, just an unrelated one-shot.

Cross-posted to Archive of Our Own, HPFandom, tumblr, and LiveJournal.

-0-

Harry groaned and dropped back onto his bed, teaching robes puffing with displaced air next to him, where he'd tossed them earlier. He felt...restless. Bored. Lonely.

He didn't think it had anything to do with his classes, because he honestly loved teaching Offensive and Defensive Magic to Hogwarts' current students, and his duties as Deputy Headmaster under Headmaster Flitwick were, while occasionally exhausting, a bit of an old hat after three years in the position. He had plenty of friends on the staff – though he was near positive a few of them only played nice to keep on the good side of his lover – so he was never lacking for someone to spend a couple of hours chatting with, so it couldn't be that.

He turned his head towards the window of his rooms, watching the way sunlight faded along the horizon.

"Maybe that's it," he murmured to himself. "I just need to get out."

End-of-summer jitters, or something. But where would he go?

Harry snorted to himself. "Right. Like that's even a question."

He pushed himself up off his bed and summoned his Cloak with an absent twitch of his wand. Not that he needed to sneak out like some truant, but it was the best way to avoid being called to help with one of the myriad troubles inherent to a school full of teenagers. Anyway, maybe he was feeling a bit nostalgic for the second half of his seventh year, when he'd constantly been sneaking out, like a drug addict looking for his next hit.

Harry bit back another snort; that wasn't a bad description for him all those years ago. He'd been absolutely addicted to his lover after their first accidental encounter, and finding out that it'd been Voldemort he'd slept with hadn't done much in the way of hindering him, in the end, though it had been a valiant inner battle.

He crept past portraits and the handful of students who had yet to retire to their common rooms, finally stopping next to the one-eyed witch and taking one cautious glance around before whispering, "Dissendium."

He climbed into the passage and was just about to let the statue close behind him before duty nearly choked him. With a sigh, he pushed back his hood and peeked out, letting out a sharp whistle to catch the attention of the nearest portrait, the residents of which immediately pinned him with disapproving looks. He rolled his eyes at the lot and ordered, "Someone pop up to Filius and let him know I'm off for the evening. If he needs me, he can send word to the manor." Then he ducked back into the statue and let it close, avoiding any replies.

It didn't take him long to get past the castle wards, and he pulled his hood back up and made sure his Cloak was covering him with an idiotic little laugh, half nerves, half victory. As soon as he was sure he was properly hidden, he apparated to Voldemort's massive manor, landing just inside the gates. (He could have apparated straight into their apartment, but that rather destroyed the sense of nostalgia for his student days, when Voldemort didn't trust him enough to let him appear anywhere he pleased, especially not in his Invisibility Cloak.)

The manor, being the seat of Voldemort's power, was far busier than Hogwarts had been, despite it being after dinner. To be fair, most of the people who worked in the manor also lived there, having never bothered to acquire their own homes after they had been officially cleared of any charges levied against them by the previous administration and free to make purchases in their own names.

He made it to the stairs before a voice called from behind him, "Why are you emulating a burglar?"

Harry grinned, caught, and pulled off his Cloak as he turned to face his lover. "Hello to you, too, my Lord."

Voldemort snorted, red eyes gleaming. " 'My Lord', am I?" he returned, tone dry. "What have you done this time, Potter?"

Harry ducked his head. "I may have snuck out of school."

Cool fingers caught under his chin – Voldemort always had trouble keeping his extremities a normal temperature – and Harry looked up into the familiar eyes. Something in his chest stuttered and he pushed forward, wrapping his arms around his lover and pressing his face against the other's sternum.

"Yes," Voldemort murmured as arms came around Harry in return, completing the hug in a way that Harry'd once thought his lover incapable of, "it seems you did sneak out."

"My Lord?" Rabastan Lestrange called from up the stairs, and Harry couldn't help but stiffen, too used to Voldemort pulling away whenever he was caught being affectionate by anyone other than Harry himself.

Voldemort's arms tightened around him, a promise that he wasn't leaving, and he coolly informed his Death Eater, "I have an escaped Deputy Headmaster to deal with. Inform Lucius that we'll continue our debrief tomorrow."

Harry grinned against his lover's robe, victorious, even as he heard Rabastan passing them with a quiet murmur of, "As you order, my Lord."

"Doubtless, that will feed the rumour mill for the next two months," Voldemort muttered.

Harry didn't bother suppressing his snicker as he pulled away to grin up at the unfairly tall man. "As if our sex life hasn't been the driving force behind it for the past six years."

"My sex life, you mean," Voldemort retorted with a flick of his chin that was all for show.

Harry rolled his eyes. "I'm going upstairs before your self-importance crushes me." So saying, he turned and started up the stairs.

He had one foot on the steps to the second floor before Voldemort joined him, likely having to wave off at least one more person. "Please tell me I won't be woken by a panicked professor who seems to think you've gone missing," he muttered, and Harry glanced over quick enough to see his distasteful expression before it vanished behind the blank mask Voldemort had long mastered.

He reached over and caught Voldemort's hand in his, folding their fingers together. "I left a note for Filius."

"A note," Voldemort repeated flatly.

Harry rolled his eyes. "I told a portrait to pass on that I was leaving and where I was going. I don't expect there to be any complications, however, not two months into term."

Voldemort mulled that over in silence for the rest of the stairs, then allowed, as they stepped through the first set of wards protecting their wing, "Very well. I won't be forced to make you sleep in the hallway for causing me undue stress."

"You're an absolute bastard, you know that, right?" Harry commented rhetorically.

Judging by the way Voldemort's lipless mouth curled up, he was more amused than anything else by the insult.

As soon as they passed the wards on the door of their private suite, which only they were able to pass through, Voldemort's appearance melted away into the human form that Harry had, all-unknowing, slept with years ago, beginning the partnership that had so drastically changed their world into something everyone could live with. (Well, save for the occasional name- or curse-slinging session between muggleborns and the less-adaptable purebloods, which always ended in a night sharing a cell down the hall from the night auror staff in the Ministry.)

Voldemort used their connected hands to pull Harry against him, still-red eyes glinting with fondness under his perfectly-styled black hair. "Now, my troublesome love, what's really brought you home in the middle of term?"

Harry stretched up and hooked his hands together behind Voldemort's head. "I missed you," he admitted, refusing to be ashamed.

Voldemort snorted. "Gryffindor."

"You love it."

Pale lips curled with a smile and Voldemort leant down to press a brief kiss to Harry's own lips. "I missed you as well, Harry," he murmured, voice low and warm.

Harry couldn't help but squawk when Voldemort caught him under the arse and proceeded to carry him over to the couch in front of the fireplace, but he laughed it off and, once they were settled on the plush cushions together, smacked the Dark Lord's arm. "Bastard."

Voldemort snorted and pressed a kiss to Harry's forehead, just to the left of his scar. "Tell me of the troubles of your precious teenagers, so I can recall how it's like to think a pimple is the end of the world."

Harry laughed and settled in to tell his lover the disasters of youth. After, he knew, Voldemort would tell him of the current issues in the world outside Hogwarts, those few that he considered too sensitive to put in owl post, or so pointless that it didn't occur to him to mention them until he had relaxed in front of the fire and was trying to find something to say so they could stay a little longer, warm and comfortable in each other's presence.

It was the quiet moments, Harry had eventually figured out, that his lover enjoyed the most. Those times – these times – when he could pretend they were just two men with no bloody history, no expectations hanging above their heads.

And, Harry had to admit, they were his favourite moments, too.

.