Author's Note – I know I have a lot of things to do and finish but This...This! Gawd...
Warnings – I'll just say what my inspirations are and that will be enough. Carmen by Lana Del Rey, Heavy in your arms by Florence and the Machine, Decent of the Archangel by Kamelot, Hannibal by NBC.
That should do it.
Kinda takes after IASUTS – As in the Harry Potter universe is the tree trunk and the branches and leaves are the stories. Echos of what happened in their old lives will show up but the people won't be the same because Nature vs Nurture and all that jazz.
Disclaimer – I hope you don't mind how I had to change Voldemort (no magic and all that) or Harry. His version in particular wouldn't leave my head once the seed was planted so...yeah.
Sorry for any mistakes of any kind, (Mother of Bad Grammar strikes again!) and for any corn that you may find.
* ~ "Kissing Death and Losing my Breath..." – Mr Ms: Bones ~ *
Voldemort heard the ticking clock in the hallway, seeing the pendulum swing inside his mind. The gold inside illuminated by the fluorescent light bulbs, giving off the effect of flames. In his mind he saw them turn to flames, and the circle pendulum cut in half, swinging back and forth as it inched towards the faceless man down below in the pit.
The man was laying on a cold slab with interlocked fingers, his arms unbound. He laid on the metal, not because they wanted him to, but because he could. The faceless man enjoyed toying with the ones who thought he was imprisoned.
The faceless man raised his hand, not to plead for the pendulum to stop, never to plead for something that trivial, but to touch it before it cut through him.
The faceless man didn't fear death. He knew that death had no meaning to him, that death existed only to create new life.
He felt his own hand hover over the pit, noticing the blood that dripped from his hand. He watched a few drops hit the outstretched hand and slide down the pale bare arm.
The faceless man brought the hand down as if to taste the blood before reaching out again.
Red veins appeared out of his fingertips, spreading upward like extended fingers. The veins slid up the pendulum and around the shaft, moving with it. Branches started to form out of the veins, and from the limbs bloomed forth six rosy buds before becoming six closed flowers.
One by one they opened, revealing several shades of red apples in each one.
Something made him look down at the faceless man, and he saw a flower in his head, the roots embedded in his face down to his neck. The man tore the apple off and held it in his palm for Voldemort to take.
He saw his hand reached down the pit, his fingers stretching out like spider legs, ensnaring the apple and the faceless man's hand as if they were insects.
But if the apple was a fly, the man was a moth. A rare kind that grew the ability to pierce human flesh and drink the sweet nectar inside.
He thought he heard the man gasp in surprise as thunder crept through the walls. The thunder was faster than the swinging pendulum, but not by much. He looked down as he felt the faceless man's fingers graze his as they fell, taking the apple down with them.
"You have company," he thought the faceless man said before remembering he had no mouth.
Voldemort opened his eyes. The faces of the subjects looked up at him with Bellatrix to the side with dull eyes, her stomach cut open. 'Brown eyes, Blue eyes. Green eyes.'
He heard a soft knock at his door, "you in there?"
Voldemort looked down at the papers and considered putting them away for a moment. He took Bellatrix's file and put it in a draw, "come in."
The door opened and in walked his former ward, dressed in comfy yet not embarrassing clothes, carrying two containers of what looked like spaghetti, a bottle of wine under his arm, and utensils.
"Thought you would need food," the young man said.
He put one container in front of him and the other besides himself. He gave him a fork as he put the wine bottle down before walking to his wine cabinet.
"I was just about to get some lunch."
Harry laughed a little as he walked back with two wine glasses, "you must be working really hard." He took the wine bottle and took out the cork, "its past dinner time."
Voldemort tilted his head slightly as he looked at his laptop, which was black. He moved his finger on the pad and logged back in, knowing that if Harry was interested about what was on it he would either ask or hack it.
"Hack," he said, holding out the filled glass.
He took it, "sorry?"
"I'm in a hacking mood."
Voldemort watched him pour his own glass as he gave him a short smile, 'still have that annoying ability where you can read me while no one else can.' He looked at the golden color and sniffed the wine inside. "Apples, with this dish?"
"Have I ever led you astray?"
He glanced up at Harry, who was opening his container. He took a sip and said, "I didn't know there was such a thing as apple wine."
"Made it myself. Got inspired when I passed an apple farm while traveling. These the suspects for Trixie's murder?"
Voldemort gave his own short smile to mask his irritation as Harry grabbed the papers, "why am I not surprised you know about a case I wanted to keep secret?"
His green eyes shined bright as he smiled, glancing over his glasses to meet his eyes. He opened his own container as Harry ate while reading.
"Didn't know that was his middle name," Harry commented to himself as he heard him flipping papers. "Hey, why am I a suspect? I was out of the country."
Voldemort took a bite before staring at him. Harry continued to stare at him with an innocent, hurt look. 'Yet there is a darkness there, an immoral abyss deeper than hell that would welcome me with open arms. For I was the one who set it free.' "She cut your throat," he said after he swallowed.
Harry shrugged, "I had worst."
"She put you in the hospital and you almost died."
"I almost died from an overdose when I was fifteen, but you don't see me killing the guy who gave me the drugs."
"She killed your godfather the day after you met him."
He saw the light hint of teeth clenching behind his lips as his eyes gave away nothing, "a man I barely knew. Do I look like the kind of man who would kill for someone I barely know?"
Voldemort tipped his finger as he held the glass, "you were seventeen. Hormones can cause the worst reactions in people."
"Do you really think I would have waited for six years if I was that invested? Hormones and all."
He stared at his green eyes, as bright and warm colored as a Dispholidus typus.
"I thought you would have taken revenge after you healed," he answered honestly. "You two were always butting heads, I was surprised she died without giving you one last lashing."
His smile seemed hallow, "that's the funny thing about children. Some learn to grow up while others seem to miss the train completely."
Voldemort hummed before taking another bite, this time tasting the food.
"What meat is this?" he asked.
Harry turned the fork in the container, "rabbit."
Voldemort felt his brow crease, 'rabbit for pasta?' "you hunted the rabbit yourself or brought it?"
He picked up the fork and answered before taking a bite, "hunted, skinned, gutted, cleaned and cooked."
Voldemort licked his dry lips, taking a sip of the wine. He felt Harry's stare and saw him smile before swallowing, "don't tell me you have a weak stomach for that sort of thing? Mildly disappointed. Are you so afraid of death that you won't even touch the dead?"
He stared at him, "I'm not afraid of death."
"Yes you are," Harry said with a smile. "Why shouldn't you be, it's a scary concept. But I've learned that those who think about their death constantly will live happier lives than those who ignore their inevitable defeat."
Voldemort twirled his fork inside before taking another bite. He thought back on the time he had rabbit and changed the subject, "are you sure this is rabbit meat?"
Harry's head was bowed as he continued to read for a moment. He looked over his glasses to met his eye, "I felt the creature's heart pump its last beat beneath my fingertips. Is that sufficient enough? Besides, what would a crime boss know about rabbit meat? Don't you usually dine on money hungry executives and power greedy politicians?"
Voldemort gave a short chuckle, "cute..." '...power greedy.' He looked down at the meal before looking up at Harry, who was back to reading the paper again.
"I'm not addicted to sex," Harry said with an angered tone while slamming the papers down before he could speak. His eyes blazed as he looked at him, "what I did in that one moment of weakness should not count against me."
"Are you forgetting when you were all but thrusting against Carrow to get what you wanted from her."
"That's using my 'naive' sexuality to get what I want, that's not being addicted. It's the same technique you use, hypocrite."
"I use the lust people have for me to get what I want," Voldemort corrected. "What you do is...hard to explain."
Harry tilted his head slightly as his lips twitched in humor, "it's the same. I am just, more approachable than you."
Voldemort raised an eyebrow, "more approachable?"
"Yes. You are a snake, or rather, a large python, circling around your prey while they fall asleep to your lullaby hisses, not noticing the venom leaking from your large fangs.
I'm more of a...lion. Stalking in the bushes, licking my catch before I bit down, with men and women wanting to come near me and run their hands through my mane, hearing me purr as I open my jaw."
Harry demonstrated by yawning loudly, not even trying to cover his mouth. "The people can see that we are predators, but they want to hug and pet me because I remind them of a larger version of a kitten. I just happen to be prideful."
Voldemort want to penetrate his fork into Harry's open hand at his innocent's look, but he only took another bite of the food he made, the meat making his buds spike with interest whenever they grazed the other.
A thought came to his mind and his eyes looked up before he could stop them, studying Harry for a quick moment. He saw the hidden joy as he twirled the fork in his container, disappearing before Voldemort could blink. He saw Harry flick his eyes to his, "is something on my face?"
He took a drink as he thought, 'to play or get to the point?' He swirled the wine around with his tongue before swallowing, "what did the rabbit do to deserve becoming our food?"
Harry smiled as he leaned back, moving his thumb under his fingers. "Now Tom," he began, his cursed name rolling off his tongue like an exotic word, "surely you heard the saying 'Trix are for kids?' The slow minded rabbit shouldn't have tried to eat my carrots."
Voldemort felt his eyes start to burn from the air but he kept his gaze locked with Harry's, waiting to see a chink appear in the other's armor. The emerald eyes gave nothing away as the body crossed its long legs together.
Harry looked away first, surprisingly, and took the papers in his hands, putting them in a neat stack. He seemed to look for something to hold them together before holding them out for him to take.
'When signing you soul to Satan,' he remembered a voice telling him as Harry's hand brushed against his, 'let a hand accidentally graze his as you sign the contract, some brief eye contact. Love is more real than souls.'
Harry was holding his gaze, smiling like he did when he first took him home. The thankfulness that made his poisoned eyes shine, the innocent smile that showed no hint of his past.
He had the urge to dig his fingernails into his soft pale skin of his hand and curl his fingers around his thin neck to make him look at him in fear and submission, not like he was his equal.
'No one is equal to me.'
"You seem to be curious," Harry said after he put the papers in a drawer. "How about you go on a hunting trip with me? I can teach you how to spot the best places to hunt from, how to skin your kill, and to properly cook them. All within reasonable hours because of your work, of course."
"I know how to skin a rabbit," Voldemort told him.
Harry gave him a smug smile, "I bet I can skin them faster than you."
There was only a flash of white teeth, the bottom canines fang–like before hiding behind a veil of pink lips.
This time Voldemort looked away to grab his phone, "I'll check my schedule."
He could feel Harry's excitement across the table, jittery at the prospect. Voldemort felt a thrill of his own bloom as he told him when he was free. The thought of something new, something fresh, something that he could do with the boy and show him that his place was below him and not beside him.
A strange smile made Harry's lips spread, something he could only name when the boy left after commenting about how he needed to sleep in a proper bed before his spine becomes permanently hunched over. He stared at his bedroom ceiling in anger, his hands clenching with his teeth.
'You wouldn't deny me, would you Tom?'
The faceless man appeared in his mind's eyes after the thought, the vines still embedded in his flesh. He watched, curious that the world tipped over, as he brought a finger to his mouth and cut a hole where his mouth should be, opening the blackness and bit with no visible teeth on the apple he offered him before. He heard the crunch it made, like cracking bone.
He felt something sharp tug and cut his clothes, hearing the swing of the pendulum as he laid his body flat on instinct. He looked over his shoulder and the pendulum slow to a stop as the veins grabbed the walls and gripped tight, creating a perverted form of a spider web.
The body shifted below him and he turned his head to look back. His lips brushed the shiny surface of the dark purple apple, seeing that bits of red were highlighted in the thin skin.
He started to move but the eyeless man moved with him, keeping his lips on the cold fruit. He could smell it, a foreign scent that was enticing. His lips started to spread open as did his teeth when he breathed in deeply.
He felt his teeth puncture the weak flesh as his thoughts tried to speak to him. A small portion of the juice trailed over the sides of his lips and his tongue acted, moving to taste the warm liquid.
All thoughts stopped as he bit and tore off the chunk, closing his lips as he tongue moved the piece to his teeth.
It was ambrosia. Sweet, sour, and metallic all at the same time. The soft center crushed under his teeth without feeling rotten, the skin itself was soft and had an indescribable flavor. He swallowed and felt it slid down his throat before biting into the flesh again. And again. And again.
He bit hard into the core, snapping it in half as he breathed hard. He wanted more.
The eyeless man spread his lipless mouth as veins brought another apple, this one slightly lighter, to his lips and he bit into it, throwing the piece in his hand away and bringing the hand up to grab the sinful fruit.
Only when he took the last bite of the seventh one, the nectarous of all, did he noticed that the eyeless man was straddling him, his own back on the cold slab. He lowered his hand as he licked his smooth lips, the core slipping from his fingers and bouncing into the abyss below.
He could tell the eyeless man wasn't breathing, didn't need to breathe, and found amusement when Voldemort noticed. He didn't need sleep either, nor food or water. The eyeless man tilted his head with a spreading mouth telling him that all he needed was this shelter that was Voldemort's.
He felt a spike of anger at this creature living in something that was his. The thing found more amusement at his thought, his lipless mouth spreading further, threatening to split his face apart.
His eyes flickered to the tattered flesh of what the thing had for a mouth, fascinated and disgusted by the sight. A sound came out of that opened darkness, making the thing's shoulder's shake in mirth.
Voldemort started to glare at the creature that dared to laugh at him before the sound finished analyzing in his ears. There were two pairs of voices, both familiar in their own way.
They were melted perfectly together, caressing each other in their dance instead of clashing. They was operatic, only coming from one body yet had the force of an entire choir.
He blinked his eyes and he was staring at his ceiling again, the duet still singing in his ears with laughter.
* ~ "Speak my friend, you look surprised. I thought you know I'd come disguised on angel wings, in white..." – Kamelot: Descent of the Archangel ~ *
"No matter what lives they live, Harry Potter will always be Voldemort's downfall." – Hela's Hand thinking too much into her own world (I think someone already had to have written this but I'll put my name there)
Fun Info – Look up Moths that drink blood. Just–Just look it up. Trust me...I'm a doctor (that's what I always hear when I read/hear someone say trust me).
Funny Image – Thought about the small council meeting in season 3 of Game of Thrones. Cersei just up and sat next to her father, moving her chair and all. Tyrion goes a step further, moving his chair to the other end of the table, letting it drag on the floor making as much noise as possible, than ignoring everyone's stares for a moment.
Someone make an image of this in the Harry Potter universe. Bellatrix sits on the Lord's left immediately and Harry dragging a chair to the other end of the table and sits, ignoring their stares for a moment before asking a question (so rebellious). Don't know if Voldemort would be amused or angered...hmm...
Info #1 – Got the 'Brown eyes, blue eyes. Green eyes' from Game of Thrones with Arya and the Red Priestess.
Info #2 – For Hannibal watchers. Get it? Rabbit? Cause beer is people. (A joke, nonHannibal watchers. That would be ridiculous...)
Info #3 – 'When signing your soul' came from Tumblr. Tried to find the credited person who say it but couldn't so if you know, please tell. I wanna hug the bastard.
So – Obvious who the Faceless/Eyeless man is, right (probably not)? {I'll put the answer right here so if you want to keep guessing stop reading Now:
...you want to know? Really? Sure you don't want to guess some more? Alright...It's Voldemort. "How?" Well, I just thought about how Voldemort's soul was sliced up and that the souls maybe were not permitted to return to Tom Riddle when he was reborn in a new life so a new, blank soul was put in his body. After a few lives of this the souls decided to reunite with their body. Least, that's what I think.
If you're wondering why I'm not making this a multichapter fic, well...I would lose interest too quickly. It happens (just look at my stories, I'll go back to them but it's depressing).
I like reading stories as well as writing so if any readers wanna take this concept and run with it (or draw it. The visuals that I cornily typed would be beautiful) feel free. Back story, present, future, whatever. Maybe not pairings because it'll be a distraction for the characters while they plot with or against each other(well, distraction for Harry. Voldemort could give no *curse* about the person he sleeps with).
If you see things I need to improve tell me cause I am Not a college graduate writer. Mistakes are probably everywhere (I know bad grammar is somewhere. It stalks me in the day and haunts my dreams at night).
Review at your leisure. I write to entertain others, not my ego.