Notes: AU in which the war was lost. Gen, meaning no romantic entanglements. As complete as it's going to get. Ever seen how green eyes look after crying if the white of the eyes get really red? It looks pretty dramatic.
Warnings: Nonspecific character death(s). Mentions of torture. Brainwashing. Dark.


the colour of your eyes

"You look good when you weep," the Dark Lord says. "It brings out the colour of your eyes."

A heavy hand brushes through his hair in the mockery of a caress as they drag the body out of the room.

All bodies, now, Harry thinks. He wishes he was just a body, too; a body without useless thoughts and feelings.

He knows Tom would never let him.

"What are you thinking of, pet?"

"Bodies," Harry whispers.

Fingers dig into his neck; not unpleasantly so, but enough for the threat to register somewhere in his lizard brain.

"Look at me."

The hiss seems to fill the room, yet slither carefully into his ears. Harry isn't too bothered by it; he's used to contradictions by now.

Harry looks.

The Dark Lord fills his vision, and he doesn't find the sensation of another mind seeping into his strange at all. It feels just like watching blood seeping from a body into the water and filth around it, and Harry's familiar enough with it that it doesn't bother him much anymore.

The Dark Lord looks closer than anyone.

Sometimes the bodies seem familiar, but their names mean nothing to him, and their pleas fall on silent ears. Harry knows this is Tom's mercy, in a way, that he doesn't have to listen to the unimportant opinions of half-strangers, nor their screams, and he's flattered that he's important enough for the inconvenience; he knows the Dark Lord cares little for pesky icons, and Harry's an icon, or so he's been told, and it's important that these people see him as such.

"Yes," the Dark Lord says, and a content feeling spreads through Harry's mind, bleeding into his body until his muscles feel loose and relaxed. "They merely happened to think you were an icon of the good, when you were in fact a iconl of the greater good."

Had the Dark Lord cared for a response, Harry would have nodded. The Dark Lord can see it – there's not a thing he can't see, Harry's sure, and it fills him with a strange sort of pride to have so much of the Dark Lord's attention to himself.

The Dark Lord indulges him. "You are my favourite," he says, brushing long, skeletal fingers across his cheek, sending a shiver down Harry's spine.

Harry would thank him if he remembered how to speak.

"Yes, pet," Tom agrees. "You are my favourite."