A/N: I should mention before that there's some dub-/noncon in this chapter, so if that's not at all your cup of tea watch out.
################################################################################
Standstill, Asphyxiating
Chapter 4
Later in the afternoon, Harry made a trip first through several bookstores in Muggle London and then to Knockturn Alley to pick a variety of new books for his prisoner. Away from the awkward situation at home he felt at ease, so he took his time browsing through the shelves, trying to imagine what might interest the Dark Lord. Although by this time this was normalcy to him, he found it a little bit disquieting how he often thought about Voldemort with something like fondness, how much he enjoyed, even cherished doing something for him. After all these years, long after life with Ginny, as wonderful as it was, had become a matter of course, the man never ceased to fascinate him, continually challenged him, and then again proved to be a nearly indispensable source of comfort. Eventually the sun began to set and it was time to make his way to the Leaky Cauldron where he and Ron had arranged to meet for a drink.
Ron was already there when Harry arrived, slouched on the wooden bench of a corner table with his back to the wall and waving Harry over as soon as he had spotted him. "Oi, Harry! I've already ordered drinks for both of us, hope you don't mind."
"No, course not," Harry said and sat down on the bench as well. "How's everything?"
"Eh, I'd be better if I could take a really long holiday now. Other than that, just fine though. And you?"
"Meh, alright. I wouldn't mind joining you on that holiday."
"Oh, and I got a letter from Rose today, I might've jumped off a bridge if not for Hermione. Rosie wrote, and I quote, that 'Scorpius Malfoy isn't really all that bad, actually he's pretty nice once you bother to get to know him'. I wrote back that I didn't want her to get to know him in the first place."
The waiter brought them two butterbeers and for a while they just talked about this and that. In between looking after his family and sneaking away to see the Lord when he could, Harry had not often played Quidditch in a while, much less bothered to keep up with scorings or watch a game, and as Ron relayed to him in detail the most recent match of the Chudley Cannons against Puddlemere United, he was reminded of what he was missing out on. He resolved to take his children to see a Quidditch game at the first available opportunity.
When Harry lifted his by then third glass of butterbeer to drink, Ron suddenly frowned. "Are things alright between you and Ginny, by the way?" he asked.
Harry hesitated. "Pretty much. I suppose any couple that's married for so long has a few conflicts every now and then, never anything serious though. So it's really fine." He hoped that Ron would be satisfied with this. A protective brother was something he didn't need.
"Okay... just wondering, because you're not wearing your ring today, and usually you always do."
"Oh... yes, I had to put it off earlier today, forgot to put it back on."
"Right then. Sorry, I'm not meaning to pry, it's just that Hermione did mention something about Ginny talking to her about your relationship. Wouldn't tell me exactly what, though... women's talk, she said."
"Hm, no idea... in any case I guess we get along way better than you and Hermione," Harry laughed, "not that everyone's not used to your constant bickering after all these years."
"That is never going to stop. I might even say it's one of the main foundations of our relationship."
"I've always figured it must be like foreplay to you two."
"The very best kind." Ron smirked. "You might wanna try it sometime as well. Makes the sex that follows so much hotter."
Harry thought that he knew all too well what Ron was talking about.
############################################################################
Elena was welcomed with open arms into the house of Karina and Nikolaj Swoboda. Nikolaj and his brother Andrej were distant cousins that she herself had never met before, but they were all united by the same desires, and took to each other almost immediately.
Nikolaj and Andrej, both lean, dark-haired men, dressed in impeccably elegant robes, were certainly not of the most friendly sort of people to meet, but they were both good companions, treating Elena as though she was an old friend, and the shapely dirty-blond Karina showed her around the old building that would for the time being be Elena's home as well.
Gathered around the table and plotting the next steps, they all were delighted at the sight of the object which Elena had after a long search finally found and brought along with her from Britain and reverently held it in their hands one after another.
Something was going right for once.
############################################################################
It was late when Harry finally returned to Grimmauld Place, and Ginny was already sleeping. He rushed downstairs into the basement, barely acknowledging Voldemort at all as he scanned the desk where he had last seen his ring.
"Hey," he greeted distractedly as he searched under scattered paper and parchment, without success. "I forgot my wedding ring, where is it? Sorry I couldn't come back, by the way, Ginny was already home."
Voldemort didn't answer, merely looked at him expressionlessly.
"I asked, where is my ring?"
The Lord shrugged. "Haven't seen it, didn't you put it back on?"
"No, I just told you I forgot it here," Harry said irritatedly. "Stop fooling around, you must have seen it. You put it right there on the table last night."
"Maybe the helpful pixies put it away? I've been suspecting for a while now that we have some of those running around here. They must have confused it with rubbish and gotten rid of it."
"You have it," accused Harry, "give it back to me."
"I don't know what you are talking about."
Harry gazed at Voldemort's fingers, thinking that perhaps he had put it on himself, but that was not the case. "If you really don't, then surely you won't have a problem letting me look through your pockets," he said.
"Feel free."
After a close inspection, Harry had to come to the conclusion that the Lord didn't have the ring on himself at any rate. "Just give it back, you damn bastard!"
"If I don't have it?"
"Screw you," Harry grumbled. This was no use, obviously Voldemort wasn't going to be any help. He continued searching, systematically going through the room, looking on the floor, under the furniture, pulling out any drawers and emptying the contents to look them through, not caring about the mess he was making. It was Voldemort's own fault if he had to clean that all up later. Meanwhile, the Lord lounged on the sofa and watched Harry's fruitless efforts with mild interest.
Eventually he had thoroughly searched every corner of the room, even roughly pushed Voldemort off the sofa to look inside the cracks and under the pillows, then ripped them open and took them apart. Nothing. Seething, he went on to the hallway. When he had been through the entire accommodation, certain that there was no place that he could possibly have left out, he stalked furiously back to Voldemort and stood in front of him, glaring daggers, but tired and out of ideas what to do.
"Seriously, this is fucking ridiculous."
"I quite agree."
"Give me that ring, for Merin's sake! Ginny's going to have my head, how do you expect me to explain that to her?"
"Not my problem. I cannot give you something I don't have. You've seen for yourself that I don't, have you not?"
Harry snapped. With an almost bestial growl, he pounced on Voldemort, knocking him back onto the floor again, and began punching him as hard as he could. Taken by surprise, the Lord could not suppress a high-pitched shriek. As soon as he got over the initial shock he tried to deflect the blows and clawed at whatever piece of Harry he could get his hands on, although he hardly succeeded at all. The healthy young man on top of him was stronger, and had the force of blind rage on his side.
"Calm down, Potter, you little freak!" he screamed at Harry, who barely even heard him, much too busy shaking him and repeatedly bashing his head onto the floor. Voldemort managed to grab a handful of Harry's hair and pulled. He could slide his other arm around Harry and clung to the other man, pressing his own body so close against the other's that Harry had no room left to hit him very hard anymore.
"Get over it," he hissed into Harry's ear while resisting the Auror's efforts to break his hold, "Do I look like I care what petty troubles you'll get into with your sweetheart?" He bit into the ear. "Why don't you just tell her the truth, Harry? Tell her that ring never meant a thing, tell her you've always belonged to me. Or even better yet, let me do it. You can trust me to make the point perfectly clear."
Harry pushed him back down and pressed their mouths together, forcing his tongue inside Voldemort's mouth when the Lord gasped as the back of his head hit the floor again and Harry's weighed crashed onto him. Harry kissed him roughly, intensionally bruising the pale lips and making them split. Voldemort went limp under him, allowing Harry to do as he willed.
"I'd say that in your current situation, you belong to me much more than I to you," said Harry when he stopped the kiss to breathe. There was a wicked, twisted smile on his usually friendly face that Voldemort suspected he was the only one who had ever gotten to see. "You're just my dead little fucktoy now, my Lord."
Not giving Voldemort time for a comeback, he smashed his lips back onto the other's. Deeply offended and trying to protect his dignity, the Lord bit his tongue and tried to escape his hold. Harry hit him again.
"Leave," Voldemort bit out, "You've let your anger out on me, unjustified if I may say so, and now it is enough. Get yourself out of my sight."
"But I don't feel like getting out of your sight," Harry hissed back, "I feel like fucking you now, and since you're nothing but my personal whore you will let me."
Like an electric shock, he felt a jolt of pain coursing through Voldemort's hands into his body, and had no choice but to let go. He stood up and deceivingly walked away, just to return a few moments later with a few large nails and a hammer in his pocket.
Voldemort who had in the meantime sat up and was feeling his wounds looked at him quizzically. "I thought I had told you to leave."
"So..." was all Harry said. Quicker than the other wizard could react he ripped him up onto his feet and dragged him over to the desk. Staggering, Voldemort had to follow in order not to stumble and fall. Harry pushed him face-first onto the table, immediately standing behind him to hold him down with his weight. The Lord struggled with all his might, cursing and hissing furiously and lashing out at Harry, but Harry resolutely subdued him, forced one of his hands down on the table while he pushed a partially rusty nail through it and into the wood as far as it went. He was surprised at how easily the nail pierced the white flesh while he paid no notice to Voldemort's protests and the free hand that was pinching and scratching his arms, causing angry red marks all over the skin. Then he did the same to the other hand while Voldemort continued his pointless struggle.
When the Dark Lord's hands were firmly fixed on the table, he stood back and laughed. Voldemort turned his head towards him as far as possible, looking positively dangerous, the slit pupils in his cold red eyes thinning to an extreme as he realized he where this was going, that he was trapped and not going to get away with his dignity undamaged. "Let me go," he demanded even now.
Harry shook his head, that damn smile on his face again, and petted Voldemort's haggard cheek, immune to the look in his eyes, traced the bone that was sticking out. "My lovely little doll doesn't want to play... aww... but play we will."
He was aware that he was going too far. He didn't like the side of him that he was showing himself, that incalculable, almost insanely cruel side that only this most infuriating of infuriating bastards could bring out in him.
This awareness, however, did nothing to stop him. "I'm clearly granting you too much freedom. You don't understand how fortunate you are," he said sweetly, "I didn't have to save you. I don't have to treat you well. You would do right to see it as a privilege that I do. I could as well just let you rot in here."
"And you expect me to be grateful, do you?" spat Voldemort defiantly, "Oh, how merciful you are... how much better than me... I wouldn't have thought so, but your fame and all-around popularity really do seem to have gotten to your head, expecting me of all people to worship you now... if any of your precious friends could see you now, see you as I do, do you believe that they would still adore you so much?"
"They don't see me now, do they?" Harry replied casually, "And if you really wanted me to leave you alone, all you'd have to the is tell me where my fucking ring is."
"Forget about it, my dearest."
"Right then," Harry told him, "Your choice." He pushed Voldemort's robes up, and possessively rubbed his hands over the thin body, not at all gently, and almost expecting one of the bones to crack under his hard touch. The Lord's body reminded him more of that of a small bird than that of a grown man, fragile as it was. He never got over the fear, or hope, that he would break something without meaning to. His unwelcome ministrations were simply ignored, Voldemort had taken to pretending he didn't even notice Harry was there.
"By the way, do you have any idea how... cute... you look when you're all helpless and hating me?"
"Do you hate me, Harry?" Voldemort asked snidely without looking at him.
The question made Harry feel uncomfortable, because he didn't know the answer. Sometimes, at this moment, it felt as if he did, but... it was no longer the pure, white hatred that it once had been, no, instead there were dark traces of affection tainting it.
Resolving not to spare Voldemort's words another unnecessary thought, he pulled both of their pants down and began to stroke his own half-erect cock while still inappropriately touching the Dark Lord, fueled by the exciting awareness of absolute control over this eternally fascinating being.
This creature was his alone, ever since the resurrection had practically been his creation. He felt terrible for it, but he assured himself that he had every right in the world to enforce his will on it. Although their relationship, if it could be called that, had already existed for so long, it still felt somewhat unreal. Sometimes Harry thought about the enemy in his home, and wondered if it was not all just a dream. And even when he stood before the Dark Lord, saw him, looked into his eyes for as long as he needed to, heard the familiar, cold voice speak to him, to him alone, and felt every small detail of the icy skin beneath his fingertips, he still felt as if this simply could not be real, as if it could all just disappear at any minute, and he would wake up and find that none of this had ever happened.
Every once in a while it occurred that for a split second he was on the edge of true comprehension, very nearly grasping the enormity of their shared reality. Judging from these tiny glimpses, he imagined that this was all that his mind was able to take, that it must close itself to the full extent of the situation because likely it would not be able to take it, would figuratively explode.
He slipped a finger inside Voldemort's asshole, feeling the muscles clench around it in protest. He flexed the finger, applying pressure against the other man's inner walls, and added another one. "You cannot get away, My Lord," he said sweetly, "Stop trying, you're only making it harder for yourself if you don't."
Voldemort reared up again, rebelled against Harry's intruding touch, despite knowing beforehand that it would be in vain. He was used to the fact that Harry tended to address him as 'My Lord' whenever he wanted to ridicule him, to rub his ignominious defeat into his face once again, but to be truthful he partially liked that, although he had never admitted that to Harry, because was also a reminder of his former glory. And that was something no one would ever take from him, his very own dark chapter in history that the world was not going to forget about any time soon.
Harry removed his fingers and without a moment's pause replaced it with his cock. Heedlessly he moved in and out of Voldemort, not trying for any rhythm or to make the intercourse feel particularly pleasurable for either of them. Right now, it was all about the act of penetrating his ingrate dead doll without showing him any undeserved respect.
"You like this, My Lord?" he jeered.
"If I said yes, would that make you stop and piss off?"
"Eh, no."
"You are greatly enjoying yourself, though, are you not? Do you ever feel this way with her?" Voldemort forced himself to speak with an air of dark amusement. "No, Harry, only ever with me. Only ever with me."
"Ginny's worth a hundred of your kind, you don't even feel human. Nothing but an animated corpse, you're more worthless than ever." Mechanically, Harry continued his thrusts, until finally, stimulated by the physical motions and the all-encompassing feeling of power, he came and spilled his seed into the Lord. "See? This is all you're good for anymore, my helpless, pathetic little bitch."
"Shown me good, have you now? Oh Harry, Harry, Harry... all you just did is prove how much I am worth to you... more than anyone else, much more than flawless darling Ginny. Admit it, she's so perfect and simply oh-so-right for you that it bores you to death. She cannot hold your attention like I can, as much as you try you can never desire her like you do me. You can hurt me now, indeed. I will give you that on the outside you have attained a certain amount of power over me. Not on the inside, however. You're still the same immature boy that will never admit even to himself that he's not who he is supposed to be. My hopes are low that you will ever realize the full extent of how drawn you are to me, Harry, how pitifully dependent on my approval. And if it is not my approval that you seek, then at least it is my disagreement, so you can feel better about yourself if you defy that. As a matter of fact, one could say that, unofficially of course, you are like a misguided Death Eater in denial."
The Auror stepped back, pulled his trousers back up and looked around the chaos around him again. The rage inside him had numbed, all that he felt now was apathy and an overwhelming desire to be left alone.
"Have a nice day. And you can see for yourself how you get free, that's not my problem." With these words, Harry left.
Still nailed to the table in a position he was all too glad no one else could see him in, the Lord glared at the door even after it had fallen shut behind Harry.
He still hadn't gotten his books.
###########################################################################
"Are you seeing another woman, Harry?" Ginny asked in a choked whisper, sounding afraid of the answer. "Tell me the truth!"
"No. No, I'm not," Harry told her in the most trust-inspiring fashion he could muster. "Look at me, Ginny, I'm not lying."
"Then what is it? What is wrong with you? And don't you dare say it's nothing, it's not just that you somehow managed to lose the ring that's supposed to be the sign of our love, if it was only this one thing I wouldn't get so worked up about it, but it's everything! Whatever you say, I know that you're keeping secrets, you won't share with me what is going on with you. Who are you, Harry? I'm not sure I even know you. You are always so far away." Tears were forming in her eyes.
"Hey... don't cry, honey..." Harry wrapped his arms around her and looked into her soft brown eyes, wiped away a tear clinging to the lashes. "I'm right here with you now. I'll never leave you, we were made for each other. Who else could possibly take your place in my heart?"
Ginny returned his hug. "I know, I know... I just wish you could show me that as much as I need you to. I'm not saying you mean to, but you keep on hurting me, and I can't shake off the feeling that my love for you is greater than yours for me. Merlin knows I tried, I have told myself so many times that perhaps your way to show love is just different from mine, but it still hurts."
Suddenly Harry noticed Lily standing in the doorway. He let go of Ginny and indicated to her to turn around.
"I hurt my knee," Lily said shyly.
Ginny wiped her eyes dry. "Show it to me, sweetie. I'm sure I can heal it at once."
############################################################################
It took Voldemort a long time to get his hands off the table. He was exhausted and the nails were driven all the way into the wood, but he shoved the pain to the back of his mind and concentrated on moving one of them out, one millimeter at a time. Then, although any movement of the hand that he had gotten free hurt even worse, he could use it to loosen the second nail.
When he was done, he dropped onto what was left of the couch, aching all over. He stayed lying there, first inspecting the bloody holes in his hands and then hugging his torso with his bony arms, and looked at the ceiling, waiting for the world to stop spinning madly around him and making his eyes hurt and his stomach turn. Cleaning up the complete mess that Harry had made of the room was something he didn't even want to think about yet.
He was angry at Harry, yes, beyond angry. He hated nothing more than feeling so powerless, not being treated with the appropriate amount of respect and unable to do anything about it. And Harry had done precisely that, something that he would have to pay for.
Still... he did have to admit quietly to himself that he found the younger man exceptionally attractive when he was like this. Years ago the teenager's unyielding ways had captured his interest, and held it for all this time. It was what made him different from all of those pitiful excuses for human beings that he had always surrounded himself with, those fawning cowards that never failed to delude themselves that they were not entirely expendable. Not a single one of them could hold a candle to his Harry.
People had rarely ever managed to surprise him, normally he had them all figured out right from the start, yet despite the long time that their lives had been so closely intertwined, the Boy-Who-Lived was unpredictable, still something of a familiar and at the same time obscure mystery to him. Harry was the only person he had ever known that he considered worthy of him, after all.
His fucktoy, he had dared to call him... his whore... oh yes, sooner or later there would be hell to pay. He did not forgive, and he did not forget.
#################################################################################
A/N: *ducks* This one turned out a bit weird, and I know Harry was being an asshole son-of-a-bitch, but it just had to be done.
Anyway, writing Ginny feels like dissecting some body that's been rotting in the heat for too long. You have to work past all those maggots and worms, and the smell just makes you want to puke. Yeah, that sounds like Ginny.