A/N: This is my QLFC round 5 entry! I'm a super slow seeker...
Seeker Prompt: Use a title of a story written by your Captain for inspiration
My captain's story: pitch (by belle parole - go read it!)
Word Count: ~2350
Pitch black: the absolute absence of light
The darkness was absolute.
Harry struggled against the magic that bound him, thrashing desperately in the dense black. He saw nothing. He felt nothing. The only sounds he could hear were the unsteady pattering of his breath and the dull thumping of blood in his ears.
Harry screamed, only to have his voice swallowed by the endless void.
Trapped. His friends were still at Hogwarts, battling for their lives, and he was trapped.
How had this happened? He'd been in the forest, walking towards his inevitable fate. He'd been ready—ready for all of it to be over. Voldemort had been waiting for him, a sickening smile stretching his pale mouth as he'd raised the Elder Wand high.
Harry had closed his eyes then, waiting for the Unforgivable. Waiting for the end.
Only…it never came.
Something had changed. Harry had felt it, somehow, through the connection that tethered them.
Voldemort knew. He knew.
It wasn't the killing curse that Voldemort had screamed in the forest, but something else entirely. Something that Harry had never heard of before.
And now he was here, suspended in the dark.
Gritting his teeth, Harry thrashed once more, but the attempt was fruitless. He needed to find out where he was. But more than that, he needed to find a way out. He needed—
—An idea clicked in Harry's mind like the latching of a bolt. He stared up into the endless black, his breath coming too hard and too fast. "Voldemort."
Like the whisper of dry leaves, something shifted in the darkness. Cold lanced down Harry's spine, and trepidation danced along his flesh.
"Harry Potter." The hissing voice was unmistakable.
Harry lurched, his head whipping around in hopes of catching a glimpse of the snake-like man. But the darkness was thick, and he could see nothing beyond it. "Where am I? What have you done to me?"
A chilling laughter rippled through the void. "You're in a secret place. A safe place."
"Why?" Harry asked. "You were going to kill me. Why haven't you killed me?"
"You know why."
Tears burned in Harry's eyes, because he did know why. Only, it shouldn't have been possible. This wasn't what was supposed to happen.
"Coward." The word came out dry and cracked. "Kill me!"
"Never, my precious soul," Voldemort whispered. "You will never die."
"No!" Harry lashed out violently, the magical bindings crackling as they struggled to keep him still. "Kill me, you weakling! You coward! Kill me!"
But the cold was gone, and silence was the only thing that had been left in its wake.
"Voldemort!" Harry screamed, tears streaming down his cheeks. "VOLDEMORT!"
~xOx~
The darkness was absolute.
Harry had no way of knowing how much time passed in the void. He never hungered or felt the need to relieve himself. He never even grew tired.
There was no restitute from this place. The black was a constant, oppressive force, burrowing down through his eyes and slowly filling every inch of him. It was a disease; a plague. His own personal hell that had been carved out just for him. There wasn't a moment when he was free from it.
Sometimes he wondered if he had been shoved back into the cupboard under the stairs and left to die. Voldemort had always been so fond of cruelty.
"Voldemort," he whispered. "Voldemort. Voldemort. Voldemort."
No one answered.
~xOx~
The darkness was absolute.
There were times when he hoped that someone would find him. That he'd hear the familiar pop of someone apparating, and he would finally be free of this place. He'd imagined it more times than he could count. Sometimes it was Hermione. Other times it was Ron. Sometimes it was people he knew could never come for him. Dumbledore. Sirius. His parents. He'd even imagined Snape a few times.
But no one ever came.
He was just here, existing instead of living.
It was getting harder and harder to find a reason to hope. Every means of escape that he'd tried had been foiled. Every sound he thought he heard had turned out imaginary.
"Voldemort."
Even Voldemort had abandoned him here. But Harry kept saying his name, just in case he could still hear it. Harry wanted the bastard to know that he was still here. And maybe, if he ever came back, Harry could get the chance that he needed.
Maybe…
But there was little hope left in maybes now.
~xOx~
The darkness was absolute.
He sang to himself sometimes. Or told himself stories, just to pass the time. He was half sure that he was dead. It made sense, all things considered; more sense than anything else did.
Maybe that was why no one had come for him. Maybe he'd died and they'd won the war and everyone was happy now.
Ron and Hermione and Ginny and…and…and the others. He couldn't quite remember their names, but at least they were safe.
He'd died and they were safe.
All was as it should be, and really, the darkness wasn't so bad.
~xOx~
The darkness was absolute.
Sometimes Harry could conjure a picture that would allow him a brief moment of release. Whether those images were made from memory or were mere figments of an idle mind, he had no way of knowing, but they comforted him nevertheless. Sometimes he imagined a castle perched on the edge of a still lake, its spires like strokes of ink against a pale sky. Sometimes it was a lovely woman with flaming red hair, whose smile was as bright as the sun. Sometimes it was eyes the color of blood.
"Voldemort."
Those had been Voldemort's eyes. He was sure of it, without knowing how he was sure.
"Voldemort."
They seemed to hover above him even now, full of crimson power. Full of sorrow and burden. Or maybe those were his own eyes...
"Voldemort."
The eyes burned, a living flame amongst the black. Harry stared at them, not knowing where he ended and the void began.
~xOx~
The darkness was absolute.
Harry was crying, but he couldn't remember why anymore. The black was all he knew now, and it hadn't left space for anything else.
"Voldemort."
It was a word he said sometimes, though he didn't know why. He repeated it over and over again, like a mantra. He wondered what it meant. He wondered why it was the only word that wasn't tainted by the void.
"Voldemort."
The word had become a reverence, like a prayer to some higher power. And perhaps he was just imagining it, but sometimes, for a moment, he thought that he could feel something respond. It came in different forms: a trickle of warmth brushing down his arm, or a soft wind against his cheek.
"Voldemort."
Something sharp skittered down the length of his spine, making his toes curl.
For a moment…he wasn't alone.
~xOx~
The darkness was absolute.
Harry no longer spoke. He no longer knew how.
He no longer hoped. He no longer despaired. He no longer knew anything that wasn't darkness.
But there did seem to be something else...something beyond the black. It was a mere speck at first—grey and blurred around the edges. Harry stared at it, a peculiar lightness stirring inside of him.
The grey grew steadily brighter, until it was a shining beacon in the distance. Perhaps he should've felt frightened or excited, but he didn't. Rather the light brought with it a sense of peace. It felt like...an ending.
It reached out to him, tendrils of light spiraling around his body. Harry could've fought it—its pull wasn't strong—but its embrace was warm and sweet. To end—to finally stop being. He'd wanted that for so long now...
"No."
A familiar, high-pitched voice echoed at Harry's back, and something in his stomach pulled taut. The light shuddered.
"No!"
Harry could feel himself being dragged back down into the darkness. Hands, cold and scaled, wrapped around his chest and squeezed. The warmth began slipping away—his end becoming lost in a sea of black.
Something inside of Harry snapped.
He screamed, the sound tearing through the void—shattering it. The world rumbled, magic quaking in Harry's bones and thundering in his skull. The hands on his chest squeezed harder, nails threatening to pierce Harry's skin. But the pain was nothing compared to the storm raging in Harry's veins.
"NO!"
The darkness burst.
~xOx~
Harry awoke with a gasp, air flooding into his lungs and light piercing his retinas. Panic jackhammered in his chest as color flooded over him, overwhelming and painfully bright.
"Hush." A hand fell over his eyes, dimming his world to lines of muted black and red. "Breathe."
A shudder pulsed down Harry's spine as he took a deep, settling breath.
"Again."
Harry complied, air tightening his lungs before it stutter-stepped back out. Over and over again he breathed, until his heartbeat came down to an easy lope. Slowly, his senses began falling in line.
He was laying down on something warm and soft and unmistakably solid. He shifted, testing his weight against it. Heat and pressure battled at the backs of his eyes as his fingers closed around real fabric. It had been so long since he'd felt something...
His starved senses soaked in his surroundings like a sponge.
Silken fabric covered nearly every inch of him, sliding like liquid against his skin as he moved. The air smelled of rosemary and lighting and his mouth tasted of ash. The world was silent, save for the evenly matched breaths of him and his companion.
The touch of the hand covering his eyes was familiar somehow, and Harry was acutely aware of the warmth and size of it. He remembered it like he remembered breathing.
And there was something else too—some incessant effervescence in the pit of his stomach that somehow wasn't his own but belonged to him all the same. It churned and fizzed with yearning and trepidation. It didn't know what to do.
"I'm going to take away my hand now," the voice—a man's—said.
The hand withdrew from Harry's face, leaving chilled, open air in its wake. Harry blinked, blurred colors swimming into view. There was still something painful about them, but it was bearable now.
"How are you feeling?"
Harry's head turned and his heart jumped into his throat. He was struck, as if by lightning, by the blood-red eyes that stared back at him. Inky curls hung over a tense brow and alabaster skin was pulled tight over high cheekbones. There was no feature that wasn't perfectly refined-no blemish that served to usurp the supremacy of his frame. He was seated barely a metre away, in a wing-backed, leather chair, his limbs draped over its edges in a series of dark, elegant lines.
There was something hauntingly lovely about him.
"Answer me," the man demanded.
Like a fish yanked from water, the words leapt up Harry's throat. "I'm fine."
The man's face didn't move, but Harry felt a relief that wasn't his own flood through him. The man leaned into the back of his chair, propping his elbow on the arm and resting his fingers against his temple. He stared at Harry as if he wanted to pry him apart.
Harry's gaze shifted to the window just beyond the man's right shoulder. There was little he could see beyond the sky and a cream-colored flag that hung from an iron post on the window's outside ledge. A black 'V' was embossed on the flag's face, wrapped tightly in a serpent's emerald coils.
Harry stared at it for a long while before his eyes finally shifted back to the man. "Voldemort."
The man's red eyes flickered dangerously.
"You're Voldemort."
Ever so slightly, the man inclined his head.
Harry swallowed, and it felt like swallowing sand. His senses, which had hungered so desperately just moments before, were becoming overwhelmed. Everything hurt.
"Did you save me?" Harry asked.
Voldemort continued to stare at him, his features betraying nothing, but Harry could feel something akin to hope stirring in his chest. "Save you?"
"From that place," Harry said. "From the darkness."
Again, Voldemort's eyes flickered; a light dancing in a pool of blood. "Yes. I did."
Harry nodded, tears burning in his eyes and slipping over his cheeks. "Thank you," he said. He took another breath and nearly sobbed from the pain of it. He felt exposed-raw-like his flesh had been peeled back and his nerves were prey to open air.
"You would have died if I had not saved you," Voldemort said. "Do you remember who tried to kill you?"
Kill him? Had he even been alive before this moment? All he remembered was the dark. Terrifying and vacant and endless and-
"Hush." Like a shadow, Voldemort swept forward, his hands cupping Harry's jaw. "My precious soul."
Harry stared up at him, locking onto his piercing crimson gaze. He was so achingly lovely…
"You're safe. I almost lost you once, but I swear to you, it will never happen again."
"It hurts," Harry whispered. "It hurts so much."
"Living is painful," Voldemort said. "But it is a pain that you and I must bear for as long as there are days to bear it."
"But you'll stay with me? I can't be alone again. Please." He couldn't return to the darkness. "Please don't leave me..."
"Never."
Voldemort smiled, and Harry was decimated.
A pleasant humming feathered between them, sending a soothing shiver across Harry's limbs. It felt right, somehow, like two pieces of a puzzle slotting together. Voldemort leaned forward, his cold lips brushing against Harry's forehead.
Harry's eyes fluttered shut.
The darkness was absolute.
A/N: So this definitely feels like the start of a longer fic, but we'll see if it continues. Also, for the judges, I'd like to clarify a thing or two:
1. In the last scene, this fic features a re-humanized Voldemort (hence why he has hair etc.). I would've added an explanation for this, but it didn't seem to fit with the flow of the story. If I decide to continue the fic, it will be expanded upon. :)
2. The flag outside of the window implies a couple of things: A. Voldemort won the war and B. He has abandoned the Dark Mark for some (yet to be disclosed) political reasons.
Hope everyone enjoyed!