Part VI
The evening was filled with the excited chatter and speculations of Harry's housemates. Leanne took Katie to the dormitory straightaway, but Harry, Ron and Hermione remained after dinner in the common room with the other Gryffindor sixth years – all of whom were eager to hear about the excitement of the day and Auror Savage's heroics, which were made even more extravagant by Ron's blind veneration of him. By Ron's umpteenth dramatic retelling for those not fortunate enough to have witnessed the thrilling episode, Katie had been attacked by a great shadowy monster that Auror Savage fought off himself in a spectacular demonstration of duelling.
Harry, for his part, remained silently in an armchair, not speaking very much to anyone. He was lucky to avoid too many prying questions concerning his mysterious disappearance - he told his friends that his escort had spied something suspicious in a back alley and they had gone to investigate, an explanation that Ron accepted readily and that Hermione did not press him on. But even though everyone else was much more interested in the events following Harry's hour of separation rather than his disappearance itself, Harry found that all he could think about was the time he had spent with Voldemort that day. Now that the excitement of Katie's rescue had passed - as well as the lost opportunity for Harry to prove his suspicions about Malfoy's ill intentions - his mind was completely stuck on the fleeting happiness they had found and how quickly Harry had gone and ruined it.
Harry buried his face in his hands as Ron launched into yet another recounting of how gallant Auror Savage was, how brave and generous, and do you think he might have been in Gryffindor? Even Harry's irritation at Malfoy's plan, of which Voldemort seemed to have intimate knowledge, could not make Harry feel any better. How could he begrudge the Dark Lord for the cursed necklace when Voldemort had acted so quickly to save its victim?
There had clearly been a misunderstanding. After replaying the events of the afternoon in his head for the dozenth time - taking care not to linger on certain parts, lest he start blushing right there in the common room - Harry had come to the conclusion that, somewhere along the way, there had been a vast miscommunication between them. For Merlin's sake, Voldemort had honestly thought Harry wanted to do that with other people! The very notion made Harry feel extremely uncomfortable. He'd never even considered touching another person that way before Voldemort had put the idea in his head - it was unnatural, awkward, embarrassing - but what they had done today had been the most natural thing in the world. Harry simply could not imagine being so intimate with another human being, especially when the connection between their souls was already about as intimate as two people can get.
But instead of expressing all of this, Harry had thrown a tantrum. He hadn't bothered to understand why Voldemort had become so incensed; he had only assumed the worst of this person who had spent the day treating him with nothing but kindness. Harry had seen an entirely different side of the Dark Lord - he had seen a glimpse of hope for the future, one that didn't involve Harry's inevitable death or a war that would ravage all of wizarding Europe - and it had just as quickly been snatched away by his childish behaviour. Voldemort had barely even said goodbye to him. It had not been until the Dark Lord had Disapparated and Ron had begun to sing his praises that Harry had been able to think about the situation without being blinded by the fog of his frustration - and by then, it had been too late.
"Isn't that right, Harry?"
The beleaguered Gryffindor looked up at his name. Ron, Ginny and Dean were all staring at him expectantly, and even an irritated Hermione, exhausted by Ron's wild exaggerations, glanced up from her schoolwork to observe.
"Yeah," Harry answered distractedly. "Yeah, he was brilliant."
This seemed to satisfy Ron, who immediately took centre stage once more. Hermione, however, was still looking at him thoughtfully, and Harry decided that it would be a good idea to make an escape while they were all still preoccupied.
"I'm going to head up for the night," Harry mumbled as he rose to his feet. Hardly anyone noticed his departure but for a few half-hearted waves, but Harry could feel the weight of Hermione's gaze on his back as he climbed the stairs. He knew that she wanted to talk with him more seriously about what had taken place today, but that particular conversation, prepared as he was for it, would have to wait. Harry had something much more important to salvage, and he had a feeling that Hermione would wait for it a lot more patiently than Lord Voldemort.
The Dark Lord had always found it hard to be idle. That evening, he busied himself pouring over ancient texts – less to renew his interest in such magic and more to occupy his thoughts with the linguistic exercise such antiquated glyphs presented. He felt oppressed by Potter, as though the boy had ripped a layer of skin from his body, leaving him raw and smarting where they had touched. He could not sit still without effort; he needed to move, to pace, to kill.
This lack of control infuriated Lord Voldemort, who ruthlessly overrode such desires and forced himself to concentrate on descriptions of complex Akkadian rituals. The Dark Lord would not allow Potter to conquer his reason, to stir his thoughts so.
But the boy remained: ancient scripts curling, slurring as the hours drifted by, into Potter's defiant features; ink flowing into dishevelled black hair until Voldemort clawed furiously at the pages of his rare books – sharp nails tearing fragile parchment. Weakness, Potter's soft lips whispered from the darkness of Voldemort's mind. How foolish you were – you – who know how unwise it is ever to trust. You did not wish to read my thoughts because you were afraid…
"I FEAR NOTHING!" Lord Voldemort screeched into the abyss.
But there was no one there.
He held his wand before him, searching for the invisible voices which hissed insults from beyond; his night-hunting, scarlet eyes flaming in the dark and his slit nostrils flaring. Blue wandlight shivered across wet, black rocks and the rancid air was thick with salt. Yet the lake was nowhere to be found, hidden within a subterranean labyrinth of dark, damp stone.
"Come out…" Voldemort called softly toward the insolent, numinous sounds echoing from the shadows. "Come… and Lord Voldemort shall grant you the mercy of swift deaths…" But the unseen, jeering creatures continued to move about him – just ahead, just behind – and the Dark Lord screamed in fury, a jet of brilliant green light splitting the darkness of the cave like lightning.
The darkness here was absolute. Harry might have believed he was still sprawled out in his four-poster were it not for the heavy scent of the sea filling his nostrils, the nip in the air that raised goosebumps along his bare legs. Just a dream, Harry thought to himself; I am in control. He closed his eyes as Dream Warrior had instructed. When he opened them again, his shorts had been replaced by trousers, and Harry began to walk.
This was not a pleasant dream. Harry could tell immediately from the undercurrent of distress churning beneath the stone which grew more slippery the deeper he went into the cave. It frightened him. For a moment, Harry considered calling the image of his wand from his memory - his real wand, not that silly little thing that Filch had given him - but decided hesitantly that a weapon probably wouldn't make the best olive branch in this situation. He would confront the Dark Lord without his wand - a sign of his regret for what had happened.
He ignored the niggling voice that reminded him that, if Lord Voldemort truly wished to punish him, Harry might as well snap his wand in two and throw it clattering to the cave's floor for all the good it would do him.
A sudden shriek, loud and furious, echoed from the depths of the cave, and Harry nearly slipped on the wet floor in his surprise. The black stone walls were briefly illuminated by a sudden burst of green light - and for a moment he needed to stop to calm his racing heart.
Could Voldemort kill him here? Dream Warrior had emphasized the importance of distinguishing between dreams and reality - subconscious and conscious behaviour, the power of one to overtake the other inside one's mind and the opposite in the world of the waking. Dreams were a very useful source of information for the skilled Legilimens, but they did not and could not affect reality. It was imperative not to forget this - a whole chapter was spent reiterating the import of this idea.
But the author had never encountered a scenario such as this. Harry held a piece of Lord Voldemort's soul. Had this thrown everything else off-kilter? He remembered the golden snake that had followed him from the island in the Pacific to his bed in Gryffindor Tower, and his stomach lurched violently. He saw Ron pulling back his bed curtain the next morning to see his best friend, green eyes glazed over with the classic Avada Kedavra stare, the life drained from his unmoving body in his sleep.
And then Harry shook himself. This was how he had gotten himself into this situation in the first place - assuming the worst of a person who had tried so very hard to show Harry kindness. Swallowing, the boy forced himself to continue onward, following the bend in the cave that had been revealed in the brief flash of light, bare feet slapping on the cold stone.
He emerged into open darkness. A breeze drifted across the wide space and lifted Harry's fringe from his forehead, but there was no other movement. The boy stood stock still, heart pounding furiously, squinting into the dark for any sign of life. "Voldemort?" he called, his voice much steadier than he felt. The name echoed across the huge, empty space gutted out of the mountain. He struggled to fight his rising fear with memories of Voldemort's hands, so tender and wonderful, touching his naked body - hands that would not hurt him. "It's me. It's Harry."
His chosen name called back from the darkness. A taunt: one of them using Potter's voice - Potter's lips - to torment him. The yew wand wavered. It's me. It's Harry.
Harry, Harry, Harry... The rocks whispered the word, twisting and repeating until it grew, crawling into Voldemort's mind in a vicious cacophony. The Dark Lord hissed, long fingers tightening around his wand. They would not trick Lord Voldemort. His curses illuminated the cavern in a storm of verdant light, but still the words would not stop. They pressed down upon him, laughing at his spells.
Then silence. And the stillness was somehow infinitely more terrible than the words. A viscid void which swallowed his flesh layer by layer. Voldemort screamed as blood spilled from his hands; too slick to grip his wand. He fell, scrabbling for his wand with fingers of sheer bone in the ever-increasing pool of blood which began to fill the cavern like the rush of the sea. But suddenly he could not smell the stench of his own blood, or feel the shredding agony of the threshing of his body. And then Voldemort truly screamed, a soundless shriek of thwarted terror, as he saw his mutilated corpse float upon the tide of his own blood.
There was nothing Harry could do. He could only stand, helpless and blind, as Voldemort's horrified screams filled the cave, terrifying flashes of magic throwing light on his thrashing body, flesh red and dripping no matter the colour of the spell. There was the sound of the yew wand bouncing against the rocks, and then - Harry's hand flew to his mouth in horror - the unmistakable smell of blood overtook the sea salt in the air.
"Voldemort!" cried Harry, but the Dark Lord's screams had fallen silent with the darkness. There was no sound but Harry's heavy breathing, the rush of blood loud in his ears, his heart thudding furiously in his chest. Just a dream, just a dream - he managed to swallow his panic long enough to imagine his wand, so wonderfully familiar between his fingers, and, with only the briefest moment of hesitation, cast a brilliant Lumos to light up the cavern.
Lord Voldemort's body floated, motionless, upon a small lake of blood.
Harry couldn't remember how to breathe, how to think. The only thought that occupied his mind was a golden snake that had slithered underneath his pillow in the dormitory, and how very dead Voldemort looked right now. And then Harry was running to the foul pool of Voldemort's blood, calling the Dark Lord's name over and over again, and terrible emotion welling up in his chest. His fingers were shaking as he attempted to summon the body, the result being that Voldemort was only pulled a few feet toward him, but it was enough - Harry ran in knee-deep, fingers grasping slimy, flayed flesh, dragging Voldemort to the shore of his own gore.
"No, no, no, no -" Harry threw his lit wand to the ground and knelt down, pulling the Dark Lord half into his lap on the dry stone. Voldemort's eyes were wide and unseeing, his body almost completely stripped of his skin - skin that had been so smooth and cool and wonderful to the touch, Harry remembered - so that muscle and bone peeked out grotesquely in places. Harry knew that this was his enemy - the one he was destined to kill - but all he could feel was the cruel, aching pain of loss, of denial, the same pain with which he struggled whenever he thought of Sirius' body as it fell through the shimmering veil. "No, no, please."
Harry's fingers turned the Dark Lord's face upward to look him in the eye. Emotion rose in his throat. He would never get to apologize. He would never get to see that thin, wonderful smile twisting Voldemort's mouth, to feel the brilliant pulse of their connection rushing through his veins. There had been hope and beauty and happiness, not only for Voldemort, but for Harry as well. "No, Voldemort, please," he whispered brokenly, cupping his shredded face, indifferent to the blood that smeared across his fingers. "It's only a dream, it's only a dream. I'm here, I'm sorry; I'm sorry, please..."
Voldemort watched with astonishment as Harry Potter clutched at what remained of his body. It awoke the Dark Lord from the fear of his dream. Feeling bled out of Potter just as blood still seeped from Voldemort's dead flesh. He remembered those emotions: they had burned and ravaged his spirit as he had fought for control of Potter's mind at the Ministry. Yet now the wash of the boy's feelings comforted him; this was truly Potter - not some cruel, wishful illusion - and though the child's distress mingled with his own emotions, it did not hurt him as it had before.
Harry... Voldemort called, reaching out with hands of shadowy vapour. The grief on Potter's face was such that he forgot his anger, touched by the sentiment etched into the boy's features. Potter was here. Potter would perform the magic he could not and restore him to a body. Potter would not... would not abandon him. Harry, I shall never die. You know, perhaps more than any other, the steps I took to guard myself against mortal death...
Harry… His name had never sounded so sweet. The Gryffindor looked up with huge, shining eyes, searching for the speaker - for the voice came not from the unmoving body in Harry's arms, but from inside of him, around him. From their connection, which had not been severed, which meant that Voldemort was still -
A small, terrified sound escaped Harry's lips when he saw the shadow coming for him. It was a collection of swarming darkness, powerful magic that seemed to repel the air around it with its gloom. And yet it was Voldemort's voice that whispered from within the shade, Voldemort's aura that reached out to him even as it was bereft of its body. There was nothing to fear here. Voldemort would not hurt him.
A fierce wave of relief swept over Harry, a weight lifting from his shoulders. His embarrassment at being caught nearly weeping over Voldemort's corpse was nothing in comparison to the happiness he felt; never had he been so glad to be wrong about something. "You're all right," said Harry, voice hoarse. "I was – you frightened me. You looked - hurt, and you weren't breathing -" His eyes darted briefly from the heavy body on his lap to the shadow that rippled on the air. "Are you in pain?"
I have learned that there is always pain. The mist of Voldemort's spirit whispered around Harry. But I now know that this is but a dream and thus am not in the agonies I might have been had you not come. This nightmare is not... uncommon for me, Harry. I dread a return to this existence. Yet you came for me... Cold darkness swirled, hovering against Harry's cheek. Voldemort chuckled softly: a mirthless, insane sound.
Yet would you come for me if my body died, Harry? Would you seek me out - come to my aid as none of those who called themselves my servants did when Lord Voldemort had need of them? Ah... I think not.
"I would so," said Harry fiercely, hardly sparing a moment to think over the question. Voldemort's doubt stung. "I'm not your servant. Your servants are afraid of you - of course they'd be happy if you disappeared. I'm your friend." He shivered a little where Voldemort's shade sent a dark tremor coursing through his cheek. "And friends don't let friends suffer."
Your devotion is touching, but you have other friends, Harry. How happy they would be at the news of my demise. You were a mewling infant that night. But I saw it through the veil of my agonies as I fled, powerless as the weakest creature alive. Jubilation. Fireworks. Wizards and witches dancing, embracing one another in the streets. Would you be Lord Voldemort's friend then, my treasure? Could you slip away to betray your companions' celebration? Betray the purpose for which they say you are destined and all of the deluded fools relying on you to save them from the Dark Lord? You cannot lie to me, Harry, as easily as you seem able to deceive yourself.
Harry faltered, chest tightening. He hadn't thought past the horror of seeing Voldemort's body, lifeless and drained of all its grace and elegance - a horror he had just experienced only moments ago. He was silent for a very long time.
"I wish there was another way," Harry mumbled at last, looking down at his lap into the dead, glassy eyes of Lord Voldemort's corpse. His stomach turned, and he forced himself to look away. "I don't want you to die. I don't want anyone else to die. I couldn't just sit back while everyone else celebrated. There's got to be another way."
Understand, Harry, I want to kill your friends. I desire to see their bodies at my feet. I should very much like to see you weep for them; watch it slowly dawn upon you that I, Lord Voldemort, am your entire existence. I demand absolute loyalty from my servants - yet you, a boy I must trust with my very soul, are not even bound to my service. So what am I to do? I must charm you. But I am tired, dear Harry. My patience is not what it once was. And I cannot end your companions' lives because then you will remember what I am and I need you, Harry. I need you to count to ten for me. I need you at my side, to awaken entangled in your skin. It is necessary that I possess you utterly.
"You're asking so much of me." Harry's head was still bent over Voldemort's body, but his gaze flickered up to the seething shadow that floated on the air, above him, around him. "And in return, I have to watch you kill everyone I love, destroy everything that I care about. I didn't want to leave. That's what I came here to say - that I'm sorry. But I can't stay when staying means I'm abandoning my friends. They're going to fight you, every last one of them... and I can't just stand by and watch while you slaughter them."
I will rule, Harry. By late next year I shall be in complete control of Wizarding Britain. And those who dare resist me will be slaughtered, yes, you are quite right. But I am not a monster. If you wish me to spare the lives of your friends, my treasure, then I may consider doing so... The ghost paused for a moment, letting the offer sink in. I was made to rule our world, Harry! Can you not see it?
Harry blinked up at the Dark Lord's spectre in confusion. "I've… never really thought about it, I suppose." In truth, he'd never thought much about the future past the terrifying moment where he was supposed to vanquish Voldemort once and for all. He'd certainly never considered the possibility of Voldemort winning. The images that came to mind were not pleasant - burning villages, dead bodies, Dark Marks painting the sky.
Harry cringed and shook his head. "But you hate people. Why would you want to deal with them all the time?"
Hatred is too strong a word for what I feel for, as you say, most people. Indeed, I hardly think of them at all - it would dignify them undeservedly. But my plans are rather more complicated than that, Harry. I have simple tastes. I do not require a throne. I shall keep the Ministry and its Minister. Even the Wizengamot. But everyone shall know that I rule. Why should I sully myself with bureaucratic drivel when there are scores of ambitious wizards - who foolishly believe the path to power lies through the Ministry - ready to serve me?
"Simple," Harry repeated, and he very nearly snorted. On an impulse, he raised his hand, still streaked with blood, and dipped his fingers into the cloud of swirling shadow. A dark quiver ran down his arm, the connection between their souls somehow more powerful without the barrier of skin in between. "This is simple," he whispered. "Our dreams are simple, our connection is simple… ruling the world isn't simple." He took a deep breath, not withdrawing his hand from where it was anchored in the gloom of Voldemort's spirit. "Let's go somewhere else, please, before we wake up. I hate seeing you like this." He wasn't sure if he was referring to the mangled body in his arms or the broken phantom of Voldemort's soul.
Of course, Voldemort let the cold words drip into Potter's mind. If you had waited for an invitation, I might have had somewhere more pleasant prepared for you... His anger was mollified by the hand thrust into the mist of his spirit. White fingers coalesced, curling around Potter's wrist and pulling him from the cavern, parting beads of liquid darkness into spice-laden air and soft, tasselled cushions.
Blue smoke drifted across a jewel-coloured ceiling. A haven Voldemort had discovered long ago in Egypt. The Dark Lord reclined, taking a delicate puff from the ornate hookah at his elbow, exhaling breath the colour of lapis lazuli through anguine nostrils. Hieroglyphic texts were spread out around Voldemort's couch, which he shifted into a neat pile with his wand in order to make room for Potter. The old, drug-addled Egyptian wizards who snored on other couches paid them no attention.
"Harry, I speak ten languages and can write in seventeen." Voldemort said matter-of-factly, without a trace of pride. "As a child, I could already consciously perform magic without a wand that most only attain in their second or third year of Hogwarts. At school, I was considered the most brilliant pupil who had ever attended. By the time I left, I was immortal. As an adult, I travelled the world mastering the most advanced magic in existence. I devised a means to fly without the aid of a broom in a month. Do any of these things seem simple to you, Harry? I am determined to rule Wizarding Britain precisely because many have said that I, Lord Voldemort, cannot do so. I have given you my view of impossibility. Some of the most powerful witches and wizards of our time are arrayed against me. All the better. No one can thrive without challenge."
Voldemort's long, white fingers stroked through Potter's hair. His emaciated, porcelain figure was wrapped in robes of crimson silk - the same shade as the glittering, slit-pupilled eyes which stared dreamily into the distance. "I once read that, when Anaxarchus told Alexander of the infinite number of worlds, he wept and cried: is it not a matter for tears that, when the number of worlds is infinite, I have not conquered one?"
There were a good few moments of silence before Potter realized that Voldemort had stopped talking. "Er… yes," he said eventually, with very clearly no idea what the Dark Lord was talking about. "'That's, er, very sad, isn't it?" The boy had sunk happily into the couch, curling up against the Dark Lord and leaning unconsciously into Voldemort's touch, eyelids drifting half-shut. Potter sighed heavily and leaned into Voldemort's fingers, his gaze drifting across the room and observing the dark-skinned men sprawled across couches similar to their own. "Where exactly are we, anyway?"
"An island of quiet I once found in the Wizarding district of Cairo," Voldemort explained silkily, offering his Horcrux the hookah. "Shisha, my treasure? The proprietor always insisted his blend contained powdered Runespoor eggs, but I have my doubts..."
The air was heavy with perfume and smoke, not unlike Professor Trelawney's classroom, and Harry found it very difficult to pay attention while Voldemort spoke, the intoxicating scent of incense having its usual effect on Harry's attention span. He accepted the device uncertainly. He'd never seen anything like it before, but it was a beautiful thing - coloured glass, blue smoke wafting out of the end - and Voldemort was giving it to him, so it couldn't be all that bad, right? Imitating the Dark Lord, Harry took a very deep drag - and began to cough violently, clouds of blue bursting from his lips as his lungs convulsed.
It was a few seconds before the coughing subsided. By the time he had finished, Harry was very close to glaring at his companion for suggesting such an unpleasant thing - and then the world shifted in the most wonderful way. A haze of pleasure descended over Harry's mind, dousing any other thoughts with lazy satisfaction. The boy looked about the room as though he were observing it for the first time - the colours were stronger, bolder, blending together and swirling. Harry turned with a grin to Voldemort, whose silky red robes were shimmering along with the rest of the room. A butterfly separated from the gleaming material and landed on Voldemort's face. Harry let out a giggle.
"Oh," said Harry, and he buried his face in the satin of the Dark Lord's soft robes, the hookah forgotten on the couch. "Ohhh, this is very nice." He curled as close as possible to Voldemort's body on the couch. Had they been fighting before? Harry couldn't recall - but it didn't seem to matter now. He knew only that being close to Voldemort was a very wonderful thing, and there was no reason that he shouldn't - not that he could think of, anyway. "Will you keep touching my hair?" Harry mumbled into Voldemort's shoulder, smiling. "I like it when you touch me."
An odd collection of emotions drifted across Voldemort's mind. Potter seemed lazily contented in his embrace, his only thought to have Voldemort continue to caress him. It reminded the Dark Lord of Nagini by the fireside. His familiar would coil around his chair whispering to him contentedly as Voldemort stroked her green scales possessively. His Horcrux. His Nagini. His sole companion in immortality.
And now he had another. This foolish boy who had shown him what true connection could be. Of course Voldemort would always treasure Nagini, but Potter spoke to him with more than animal intelligence. Most of what he said was drivel, but Voldemort had responded to it, telling Potter a few of the many secrets of Lord Voldemort. Personal things he had never discussed with anyone. Why? What did it profit him to disclose such knowledge? It troubled the Dark Lord.
But as long, white fingers played languidly with black hairs as irrepressible as the boy to whom they belonged, Voldemort hit upon the answer. He had wanted - the desire hidden for so many years in a ridiculous, dusty corner of his mind - Potter to understand. He talked because he imagined his human Horcrux, of all beings, might be able to grasp his great purpose. A foolish notion indeed. Potter's eyes lost focus whenever the Dark Lord spoke for too long or used large words. He was alone. No one could ever comprehend Lord Voldemort.
Even as Voldemort's thoughts hardened with such knowledge, he took pleasure in Potter's abrupt pliability, vaguely considering whether it might be worthwhile to keep the boy drugged in future. Though the connection hummed sensually between them, Voldemort felt very distant from Harry. Perhaps this is what it is to feel old? he wondered, exhaling azure smoke, his enigmatic reptilian eyes gazing contemplatively at his Horcrux.
Dumbledore had never believed in Voldemort's desire to teach, but the truth was that the Dark Lord had a keen desire to uproot worthy wizards and witches from their limited ideas and show them true power. Had he not devoted much to the tuition of both Bellatrix and Severus? Did Harry possess any desire for greatness at all?
Without the Dark Lord, he would be but a commonplace boy with no real talent but Quidditch. Now Voldemort wanted this ordinary child - his child through an accident of fate - to be worthy of the honour circumstance had heaped upon him. The Dark Lord sighed, pressing a melancholy kiss against the nape of Potter's neck. I have always known myself to be extraordinary and that this boy is simply an accident. I have no equal. But the thought was not as comforting as it should have been.
Wrapped in an intoxicating haze of blue smoke, it was very difficult for Harry to think past the lovely fingers stroking through his hair. But he could sense that there was something not quite right between them. Harry's lazy fascination with the pattern in the collared swirls of smoke was suddenly tainted; concern rippled through his drug-induced satisfaction. Sitting up slowly, Harry rested his chin on the Dark Lord's shoulder, staring thoughtfully into eyes that matched the colour of the silken robes beneath his fingers. His gaze, so many shades of crimson, was brighter, even more beautiful this way.
"You're unhappy." Harry could see this with perfect clarity - the drug had fine-tuned his awareness of everything in the room, from the silky fabric under his chin to the waves of unsettling darkness emanating from the serpentine man beside him. With a little frown, the boy nuzzled his nose against Voldemort's neck, but the pleasure that gathered with their connection did not dispel the disquiet lingering in the air. "You're unhappy with me," he amended sadly after a few long moments. "I can tell." He sighed against the Dark Lord's shoulder, trying not to sulk, but his dejection was somehow intensified by the drug still working through his system and the sum total of everything that had happened that day. "I'll bet you wish Malfoy were your Horcrux instead," he mumbled, bitterly remembering Katie Bell's package and Voldemort's great amusement. Perhaps it had all been a private little joke between them.
"Lucius?" Voldemort raised a hairless brow in cold surprise. "You imagine I would prefer the faithless servant who never searched for me, who lost me the prophecy, and who sacrificed one of my Horcruxes on the altar of his own petty revenge against Arthur Weasley?" The Dark Lord paused, realising that Harry had not meant Lucius. "Draco Malfoy?" Voldemort laughed the name incredulously. "A cowardly weakling of scant magical abilities, who clings to his mother's skirts? Hardly, Harry."
He gently pulled Harry from his shoulder so that they were facing each other. Voldemort's lean, spidery fingers cupped the boy's face, the clawed thumbs against Harry's lips as they had been in Dumbledore's office. "You would prefer to be bound to any wizard alive rather than Lord Voldemort, would you not? This was done against our wills, my treasure. Unhappiness is to be expected upon occasion. We have little in common but these dreams and our miserable, Muggle childhoods."
A frown tugged at the corners of his lips, taken hostage by the tender press of those long fingers. "That's not entirely true," protested Harry, who was momentarily distracted by the way his mouth moved against the pads of Voldemort's thumbs. "We both get angry very easily. And... we both like to fly," he added with a grin, remembering the smile that had brightened Voldemort's sharp features as they'd spiralled together through the clouds. "And, er," his cheeks collared, "we enjoy doing other things together as well." Shut up, Harry. Just shut up. He bit his disobedient tongue before it could mortify him any further. The magical smoke seemed to be carrying the words from his brain straight to his mouth before he could even process them properly.
"Ah... yesss..." Voldemort placed a thin smile almost to Potter's lips and both of their mouths pressed against the milky, long-nailed thumbs which bracketed the kiss while the rest of the Dark Lord's pale fingers cradled Potter's cheeks possessively. It was a waste to disregard the simple pleasure offered to him in these dreams. Voldemort could devote more serious contemplation to the matter of his young Horcrux when awake. For the moment, this would have to suffice. Patience, Voldemort schooled himself, patience... "Perhaps you would remind me as to the particulars of those things we both enjoy so much? To what precisely, dear Harry, are you referring?" The forked tongue slipped out to playfully lick the air just shy of Potter's lips.
Harry's next exhale was not very steady, but he was extremely proud that he shivered only slightly, head still spinning with Voldemort's sudden proxmity. "Oh, I, um..." he smiled softly, suddenly bereft of the traitorous words that had flown so readily to his lips only moments ago. Voldemort needed only to press his mouth against his own, and Harry's coherence seemed to simply evaporate like the rising azure smoke on the air. "I think you know exactly what I mean," he breathed against the Dark Lord's fingers, looking up through his lashes with darkening eyes. "But… but maybe we could do with some reminding." His fingers wound of their own volition into Voldemort's robes, and he took the tip of one of the slender white thumbs between his lips, his cheeks flushing as he kissed it tenderly.
"Indeed, I do not know." The crimson eyes were wicked. "Now, how shall we, ah..." Voldemort shifted atop Harry with a rustle of red silk, "stimulate our memories?"
A hot shiver wracked through Harry's body. He was getting lost in this pleasure - all the places Voldemort's body touched Harry's, eyes so bright and burning and glimmering with lovely promise. The boy squirmed beneath the Dark Lord's weight, barely resisting the urge to pull him down against him. Excitement was climbing steadily in his veins - it had been a very long time since he'd bothered protesting the feverish rush of sensation that Voldemort's touches and kisses brought him, and Harry could no longer deny how much he enjoyed this, thought about this, longed for this. Dreamed of this, even, regardless of whether the Dark Lord was there to join him. Such a pleasant escape from the complications of the rest of his life, and Harry was more than happy to seize the opportunity, even if Voldemort would make him beg for it before he was through.
Well, Harry wasn't going to beg, not if he could help it. "We could always try retracing our steps," he whispered with a shy smile instead, raising his mouth to Voldemort's, not quite touching. He could feel the Dark Lord's breath ghosting across his lips, the promise of pleasure buzzing heavy in the wonderful space between their mouths. Eyes fluttering shut, the boy leaned slowly forward, heart pounding hard against his ribcage -
And his lips met only with cool night air, the robes unravelling like vapour beneath his fingers. For one long moment, Harry hoped desperately that Voldemort had simply vanished his clothing the way he had vanished Harry's earlier that day - that he would still be there, long fingers and scarlet eyes trailing fire across his skin - but when Harry opened his eyes, he saw only the dim outline of his four poster curtains, a very empty bed.
Thankfully, none of his sleeping dorm mates awoke at the very loud groan of exasperation from Harry's bed as the Gryffindor flopped back down on the mattress, frustration welling up cold and painful in the space that had so shortly ago been filled with happiness at Voldemort's touch.
"We could always try retracing our steps..." Voldemort gave an anticipatory hiss, leaning forward into Potter's lips as they curled into a smile. Harry's bright eyes lost their playful gleam as he abandoned the game of words and gained an eager, sultry light. Voldemort had the feeling of one who awakens from sleep only to turn again and drift back to slumber. Except he had been dreaming all this while and here rest was not closing his eyes but losing himself in the blissful sensation - yet it was more than mere sensation. An indescribable bliss which at once repelled and enraptured the Dark Lord.
Then Harry fell away into soft darkness still undisturbed by dawn. Grinding his teeth, the Dark Lord let out something between a hiss and a grunt, rubbing his eyes. His interactions with Potter still appeared to abide by the cruelly perverse timing of common dreams - ending precisely when one most wished for them to continue.
Voldemort rose, robing his nakedness, and walked slowly towards a swathe of black damask. White fingers drew away the curtain of fabric, behind which lay a reflection; ghostly in the darkness. The Dark Lord stroked a hand down the cold glass. The livid eyes staring back at him were half-closed and thoughtful. It was a beautiful mirror, its edges decorated with fine silver. Much time and thought had gone into its enchantment: such sweet irony.
For Lord Voldemort, inspired by the bitterness of past defeat, had chosen not to keep his precious Horcruxes in a strong box or a vault. Though he would never admit as much, Dumbledore's notion to protect the Philosopher's Stone had been a brilliant one, and it pleased Voldemort to have the old man's own trickery brought to bear against him. Only those whose deepest wish it was to treasure his Horcruxes and keep them safe from all harm could retrieve the vessels from the glass.
"Show me..." Voldemort whispered, for to any but a Parselmouth it was nothing more than a commonplace vanity. There was no backwards writing announcing its function to all, merely a tiny serpent hidden in the ornamentation, which hissed its acquiescence as the surface rippled to comply with the Dark Lord's desire.
Yet he had not come to retrieve his Horcruxes but to gaze at the vision the mirror revealed. The Voldemort in the mirror was entwined in Potter's limbs. Although the two figures were mute as glass, their mouths moved with words of passion as their skin and breath mingled. Voldemort watched the two figures for a long while, a sigh misting the image, before he turned away, letting the curtain fall once more across the mirror.
He needed to kill something, watch a pair of eyes grow dull and lungs gasp out their final exhale. Some simple pleasure to ease his mind.
Dumbledore's hand was still black and shrivelled, the wrinkles in his face exaggerated with exhaustion. Harry couldn't help but cringe when he entered the office, looking upon his headmaster with the terrible, certain knowledge of his death fresh in his memory. Within the next year, Voldemort had said, and didn't Dumbledore look it now, his face so strangely pale and tired, and his body sagging in the big headmaster's chair. His expression lightened immediately, however, upon Harry's entrance, and his good-natured, twinkling gaze set him somewhat at ease. For now, Dumbledore was still alive and powerful. Dumbledore would still look out for him.
"You've had quite the exciting weekend, I hear," said Dumbledore as Harry seated himself across the desk. "Miss Bell is very lucky that you and Auror Savage arrived when you did."
"Yes," Harry agreed, trying not to look uncomfortable. "How is she doing, sir?"
"She is currently under the care of the best and brightest at St. Mungo's. I expect she will be making a full recovery, especially after Auror Savage's quick thinking. It was - fortunate - that Auror Savage seemed to be so familiar with the Dark Arts."
"Yes, sir," said Harry, feeling distinctly uncomfortable now.
Dumbledore fixed Harry with a piercing look. "Is there anything you'd like to tell me, Harry?"
Harry's heart caught in his throat. No way, there was absolutely no chance that he was telling Dumbledore about anything that had happened. Not only would Dumbledore think Harry had gone completely round the bend - kissing Voldemort? snuggling with Voldemort? - but he would surely lock Harry up somewhere remote and horrible if he knew how intimate the Chosen One had become with the Darkest wizard of their time.
So, naturally, Harry blurted out the first thing that came to mind. "It was Malfoy!"
Blue eyes lined with crow's feet blinked from behind half-moon spectacles. This apparently had not been the answer the Headmaster had been expecting. "Malfoy? Draco Malfoy?"
"Yes," said Harry quickly, eager to finally voice his suspicions to someone with authority - and to seize such an opportune distraction. "He's been acting strangely ever since term started - we saw him in Borgin and Burkes, Professor - and Auror Savage himself said that it must've been an amateur. It must have been Malfoy, sir, I'm sure of it." He tried not to look too proud of himself for this bit of detective work.
There was a short pause in which Dumbledore gazed thoughtfully at his withering hand before he spoke again. "I assure you, Harry, that I am thoroughly investigating anyone who may have been involved in the incident." The old man frowned. "But I believe it is past time now to begin our next lesson. I have a very important memory to show you today."
The wizard lay spread-eagled in the snow, pale eyes staring up at stars he would never see. A stark, black-robed shadow stood over the dead wizard in the small garden of a cottage on the outskirts of Upper Flagley.
Voldemort had given his prey enough time and enough memories to make his report to the Ministry and Dumbledore, and then come for him in the early evening – just before sunset – when even aurors might imagine themselves safe. Light slowly vanished from the winter sky as Voldemort smiled coldly down at the dead man. Pathetic. He had held back on the Killing Curse - it had been a proper duel to merit the magic Savage had cast on poor Katie Bell. Fortune had favoured his plan. Rasalhague Savage had drawn on some of the memories Voldemort had given him, so that when the Ministry examined the wand lying beside the dead hand, they would find evidence of a surprising knowledge of ancient magic. The sort of knowledge the Dark Lord had to have on his side, or else extinguish as a threat. Everyone knew that Voldemort had spies everywhere. Of course he would have heard of Auror Savage's impressive display in Hogsmeade.
The Dark Lord turned and pulled out three books from under his cloak. Long, spidery fingers released the tomes, which floated across the snow-covered lawn through the open door of the cottage, settling on Savage's bookshelves, slipping in among more innocuous volumes as though they had always been there.
Yet Voldemort was dissatisfied. It had not been enough. Certainly the man was talented, but it would have taken four such experienced sorcerers to provide Lord Voldemort with anything resembling a real fight. The Dark Mark exploded into the sky, raining brilliant green light upon the snow as Voldemort vanished into the darkness.
"She sold Slytherin's locket, just like that?" said Harry, almost an hour later, after they had surfaced from the Penseive. "And only for ten Galleons?-!"
"She was quite desperate," said Dumbledore as he sat back down behind his desk. "You see, Harry, it is my suspicion that Merope stopped using magic altogether after she was abandoned by her husband. It is very likely that she no longer wished to be a witch after his rejection, to the point where she would not even use her magic to save her own life."
"But what about her son?" said Harry, aghast. "She wouldn't use magic even to stay alive for him?"
Dumbledore suddenly fixed him with that piercing look again, and Harry wished he hadn't said anything. "Could you possibly be feeling sorry for Lord Voldemort, Harry?"
There was an awful beat of silence in which Harry's mouth went dry, his lungs constricted, and his eyes widened with the sudden certainty that Dumbledore knew - he knew everything - it was all right there in his blue eyes with their knowing twinkle that suddenly did not seem so good-natured anymore. "I - of course not - " Harry stammered quickly, but he was mercifully saved from elaborating by three short, urgent raps on the office door.
Dumbledore's gaze softened and he rose from his seat. "You'll have to excuse me for a moment, Harry," said the Headmaster. "I should only be a minute." And he exited the room, his hand looking black as ever against his lavender robes.
The portraits immediately began to murmur in Dumbledore's absence, the most prominent among them Phineas Nigelleus, who was none-too-quietly expressing how he would deal with Harry Potter's impertinence if he were still headmaster. Harry ignored them, trying very hard to regain his composure. There was no chance that Dumbledore could know. Suspect, perhaps, but no more than that. If Harry simply got a hold of himself, perhaps he could still convince his headmaster…
Voldemort was reading when he felt it later that evening. A spike of fear. The Dark grimoire fell from Voldemort's lap, its arcane pages spilling from their old, haphazard binding. Crimson eyes widened as the Dark Lord saw the Headmaster's office, bedecked with its usual quota of pointless silvery devices. He was wearing Hogwarts robes, his heart pumping with the terror of discovery. Had the old man found proof that he had been the one to open the Chamber of Secrets? But... it was Dippet who had been Headmaster in his time, not Dumbledore...
Harry? Voldemort called softly into what he suddenly realised must be Potter's mind and not his own.
I didn't mean to disturb you, Potter whispered, and Voldemort felt another body sagging with relief at his presence. Sweaty hands, calloused by a broomstick, rubbed compulsively against the sides of a chair. The Dark Lord's lipless mouth stretched wide in pleasure as Voldemort closed his eyes and relaxed into Potter's nervous thoughts. It was like sinking into a hot bath. Such a welcome host. He would not have to face Dumbledore's scrutiny on his own. Voldemort would protect him. And - and I didn't mean to leave you last night, Potter added, chewing on his lip, and Voldemort felt the brief pain of teeth pulling at skin. The boy was wondering whether Voldemort had touched their connection with thoughts of rebuke. Nothing was further from the Dark Lord's mind.
I do not believe either of us wished to awaken last night, Voldemort said gently - eager to reassure Potter - staring curiously up at the portraits of past Hogwarts headmasters who were loudly talking amongst themselves, stopping only to shoot his Horcrux disapproving glances. The Dark Lord glared out at them, unseen. None of the portraits had ever treated Tom Riddle with such callous disregard and Harry was his to own, his to chastise or reward. These dead fools were nothing.
Why Harry, what is it that has you so fearful? Are you perhaps not aware that you have called to your side the greatest liar who ever attended this fine school? Voldemort chuckled and the link between them thrummed with his amusement. Now, I cannot – naturally - teach you Occlumency in five minutes but if you concentrate on what you feel to be true, then even Dumbledore cannot catch you in a lie without forcibly penetrating your thoughts. Also – as with any battle – it helps if you are able take the high ground. Use Dumbledore's own weapon against him. Guilt was ever his favourite tool to pry at the minds of students. And of what crime, after all, are you guilty? I daresay that by secretly meeting with me you saved the life of Miss Bell.
Relief coursed through Potter and a smile stretched across his face to match Voldemort's own, the portraits and their jarring insensitivity forgotten. The truth. That's... brilliant. We really did save her life, didn't we? Perhaps I can convince Dumbledore to send you a thank-you note, the kind with the frilly silver ribbon. A full-fledged, playful grin now. I recall you're quite fond of that, aren't you? He'd make it out to Savage, but I'm sure you could find a way to get at his post.
Lord Voldemort swallowed his irritation at Potter's impertinence, loathing the boy's stifled laughter. At the same time, the Dark Lord could feel amusement and new found confidence calling to his spirit. He quivered within Potter's mind – caught between warring emotions. Eventually he determined that such familiarity was (for want of better description) a necessary evil. Potter was attempting to share his presumptuous, juvenile humour with Voldemort. Better to accept such gestures and reap the false security they provided. Still, it cut the Dark Lord's pride deep to reign in the urge to chastise his young Horcrux with a vicious flash of psychic claw. Voldemort did his best to cleave to the matter at hand. Ah, regarding Auror Savage –
Dumbledore walked back in, cutting off Voldemort's words as the Dark Lord's attention immediately snapped to the Headmaster. He was very pleased to see that the old man's hand was as blackly shrivelled as ever. Dark satisfaction thrilled through him, quickly followed by the ever-present, bitter fury: it was far, far less than Dumbledore deserved for destroying his grandfather's ring.
Harry had only a moment to consider how ironic this situation was - seeking Lord Voldemort's advice on how to lie to his most favourite professor - before the door to the office swung open and Harry was forced to wipe the goofy smile from his face. A goal that was made much easier when the boy caught sight of the very grim expression that Dumbledore wore.
"Is everything all right, sir?" Harry asked with genuine concern. All worries of Dumbledore's discovery of Harry's tryst with the Dark Lord was momentarily forgotten; the headmaster looked very disturbed as he closed the door behind him.
"I'm afraid not," said Dumbledore. His gait was slow as he returned to his desk; Harry was once more briefly struck by how small and withered he looked in the big chair. Dumbledore could fill up the huge Great Hall with his presence by merely rising to his feet, but the curse in his hand was clearly burdening him tonight with every one of his many years.
But his gaze, when he turned it on Harry again, was as piercing and unnerving as ever. "I am sorry to tell you, Harry, that Auror Savage has been killed."
Harry felt like he had been kicked in the stomach. Shock and betrayal welled in his chest; Harry only remembered to curb his expression at the last minute before Dumbledore could notice how deeply affected Harry was by this information.
"His body was found outside his home below the Dark Mark just after sunset." Dumbledore, looking very troubled and quite unaware of Harry's distress, gave a heavy sigh. "I have a confession to make, Harry. I did not think Auror Savage capable of the sort of magic that he displayed in Hogsmeade yesterday, and I was concerned that he was compromised - and that, further, you were intentionally concealing his peculiar behaviour from me. It is clear from the Ministry's investigations tonight, however, that Auror Savage was very well-educated in the sort of ancient magic necessary to cast the counter-spell he did yesterday. I believe I owe you an apology."
Harry hardly heard what Dumbledore was saying. He felt at once numb and consumed by anger. At the very last minute, Harry recalled Voldemort's advice, but his attempt at worsening the headmaster's guilt was half-hearted at best. "You said you wouldn't keep anything from me anymore," he responded hoarsely, only barely managing to make his tone accusatory. An Auror was dead. An innocent, well-meaning man had been killed tonight, and it was all Harry's fault.
"A mistake I shall not repeat again, my dear boy," said Dumbledore as he leaned forward in his chair, blue eyes shining with sincerity. "You've been very distant lately, Harry. Your friends are concerned for you. I was beginning to fear that the Horcrux was affecting you more than you realized."
Harry's heart wrenched in his chest, seizing Dumbledore's words and remembering Voldemort's part in this conversation. You did this, he thought fiercely at the Dark Lord, anger burning in his gut. How could you do this? Savage didn't do anything to anyone! He didn't even remember what had happened! But deep in his heart, the worst of Harry's loathing was reserved for himself. It was his, Harry's, fault that Auror Savage had been murdered so brutally. Harry was the one who had invited Voldemort into Hogsmeade; it was Harry's selfishness that had created this entire mess in the first place.
Poisonous triumph rose within Lord Voldemort to have tricked Dumbledore so easily and so thoroughly. He ought to know better than to trust to Ministry investigations. How weak the headmaster appeared! A diminished, old man with death creeping up upon his wrinkled flesh. Voldemort drank deep through Potter's senses, glutting himself on Dumbledore's fast-approaching expiration. The Dark Lord bit down on a mad, icy gust of mirth. How foolish the Headmaster had been to denounce Dark magic when - thanks to that same beautiful, deadly power - Dumbledore would be mouldering in his grave while he, Lord Voldemort, pursued life immortal.
A stab of rage shot through his chilly amusement as Potter began to berate him on behalf of the dead wizard. He was hardly a child, Voldemort spat at the boy. I have not broken my word. For thirteen years the Aurors hunted me and now it is my pleasure to hunt them in return. I have granted the death of Auror Savage purpose! Instead of a pointless demise at the hands of my followers, he has been given the rare honour of having been of service to Lord Voldemort. Cold, irrepressible laughter wriggled out through the cracks in the Dark Lord's psyche. Do you not think my plan was brilliant, dear Harry? I believe I may have a knack for whisking you out from under Dumbledore's crooked nose and into my waiting arms.
Harry thought he might be sick. Voldemort's macabre delight overwhelmed him, completely discordant with the aching responsibility that Harry felt for Savage's death. He was innocent, Harry insisted furiously, clinging to his anger - seemingly the only thing he presently shared with the parasitic Dark Lord lurking in his soul. Rage, hot and vicious, was climbing in his chest - at what Voldemort had done, at what Dumbledore was concealing from him, and especially at the Dark Lord's callous implication. You'll have a much worse time whisking me anywhere if you go on killing innocent people.
"It's just been a lot to take in," Harry bit out through gritted teeth. He was aware that he needed to respond, but he was unable to look his professor in the eye as he struggled with the conflicting emotions warring inside him. "That the only way to stop all of this is for me to - to die."
"Do not resign yourself to death so soon, Harry," said Dumbledore gently. "There may be another way. We may yet be able to destroy the Horcrux in your scar - but that is a conversation for another time."
"Right." Harry rose to his feet, stomach churning with repulsion, the scar in question still throbbing with Voldemort's icy anger. Destroy the Horcrux? The idea was beyond Harry's comprehension, especially when said Horcrux was nearly engulfing his own emotions with Voldemort's at the moment. Harry did not even trust himself to look at Dumbledore again. Would his headmaster see Voldemort lounging so comfortably in the forefront of Harry's mind, the colour red seeping into the whites of his eyes? How could he speak of destroying the link between them when he knew nothing - when he had no clue of how intertwined their souls had become? "I think I need to go, Professor."
Harry hardly heard Dumbledore bid him goodnight. He did not head toward the Gryffindor common room, but to the Grand Staircase.
He began his descent down the stairs with steadfast determination. He wasn't so far gone - he was still the master of his thoughts, notwithstanding the Dark Lord that had curled himself around Harry's mind like a snake. Harry was in control. Harry would not be affected.
Thinking of sacrificing yourself, Harry? Voldemort leered. The high, chilly voice was utterly dismissive. Then the Dark Lord's words softened to something that might have been gentleness were it not for the threat implicit in each softly hissed syllable, silken tone waspish with cruelty: This is not a battle you can win. Only Lord Voldemort can kill you, Harry Potter. What would your Muggle mother think – after all the effort she went to in order to save her precious son?
Harry saw red.
"Don't talk about my mother!" Harry's bellow echoed against the stairway's high ceiling, and his stupid, useless wand was in his hand in about three seconds flat even though there was no one there. He brandished it before him anyway - ("are you sure those glasses are working, four-eyes, there's no one here for me to curse") - his eyes wild and furious. "Don't you DARE - you can't just -"
In the next moment, Harry's skull split clean in two, and his words got lost in a strangled cry. His scar was a fiery brand on his forehead, and Harry forgot about his mother and the staircase and his wand. He fell to his knees, slipping and stumbling down the steps (like another staircase but that was dark and there was glass in his skin and the air stank of a dead man's blood). He was hardly able to keep from crying out, icy-hot pain he hadn't felt in many weeks - not since the dreams had started and Voldemort had transformed from something terrifying and deadly to a person who drank white wine and kissed his forehead and knew a childhood in an orphanage just as lonely as Harry's cupboard and understood.
But he was still terrifying and he was still deadly. And Harry, whose knees were throbbing almost as badly as his scar as the pain receded, who had caused an innocent man's death today with his own foolishness - Harry could not afford to forget this.
"I hate you," he hissed, face hot with anger, but Voldemort had vanished.
"You're not such a pleasant bloke yourself," the wand Filch had given him retorted from a few steps below. Harry stuffed it in the waistband of his jeans before it could say anything else.
The corridors were deserted this time of the evening, so thankfully none but the portraits bore witness to this episode on the stairs. Thoughts of his mother swam through his pounding head as he continued down, feet moving mechanically, leading inevitably to thoughts of his father, then Sirius. What would they think of him now? Luring Lord Voldemort to a quiet wizarding village outside the school, endangering the lives of hundreds of students - after everything they had gone through to keep him safe and alive, and here Harry was, handing his life over to the Dark Lord that had spent the better part of sixteen years trying to murder him.
When he arrived at the huge, wooden doors at the Entrance Hall, Harry came to a stop, bewildered. He realized his legs were carrying him to the Quidditch Pitch - an instinct born of many restless evenings relieved by the slice of his broom through the air, the smooth wood that followed the call of his fingertips as naturally as his holly wand. This thought was a kick to his stomach. His Firebolt was still at Malfoy Manor with his wand, probably rotting beneath the bush where he had left it during yet another foolish and ill-advised meeting with the Dark Lord.
Swallowing, Harry resolved himself to an aimless stroll through the corridors, rubbing his scar with the heel of his hand every few moments as a stray prickle of pain shot through it like an aftershock. He could at least avoid his friends until curfew. Besides, he needed to think, to plan. And most importantly, he needed to figure out how to stop Voldemort – or how to stop the dreams and the heat and the confusion - before it was too late.
Jealousy, older than Tom Riddle could remember, raised itself within him like a threatened cobra. His mouth was full of venom. Aching, swollen glands leaked poison, mixing with bile that had burned its way up his oesophagus. The Dark Lord passed beyond rage in that moment, gripped instead by a numbness of spirit he had seldom felt since his rebirth. Voldemort hissed and spat the poison into a pale hand, where it steamed oddly against his white skin. The gift of Nagini – dear Nagini – who had hosted his mind longer than any other creature. Her will was a bulwark against death as much as Voldemort's own. It was only fitting – since his snake had cared for him and nurtured his weak, homunculid body with her milk – that the Dark Lord should have been reborn in her image rather than that of his filthy Muggle father. He had surpassed mere humanity. "Nagini!" He stood, not seeming to notice the old book lying at his feet where he had let it fall.
Yet the ache was more than toxins pooling in his mouth. It was a deep, terrible thing he had thought himself beyond long ago. How weak you are, Tom Riddle… came a voice far more poisonous than any venom.
I am Lord Voldemort! It was a fierce curse wielded against the terrible voice. But the words did not cut it to ribbons as they should, nor did the smooth noise of scales against stone serve to quiet Voldemort's discomfort. He lowered an arm to allow the great snake to slide up around his shoulders. Why should he feel thus? The foolish boy might fight his destiny, but it would not matter in the end.
For Lord Voldemort shall triumph and Potter – along with every other magical being in Britain – would either fall into line or watch his friends die. Why, he would not even have to break his word to the boy. They would all be of an age to slaughter soon enough. Scant lips stretched into a taut smile as the Dark Lord's pitiless crimson eyes glittered with malice.
Harry's thoughts were still a mess of confusion and guilt when he finally arrived back at Gryffindor tower two hours later. Guilt, confusion, self-loathing... and hope (hopehopehope) as bright as the sun in his eyes whenever he stopped to consider it, so bright it gave him a headache that had nothing to do with his throbbing scar. The boy climbed through the portrait hole, gave a distracted wave hello to Neville and Ginny, who were wearily watching Ron and Hermione bicker over homework, and headed, largely unnoticed, for the boys' dormitories.
A tentative plan had begun to form in Harry's mind. It was mad, a part of him knew - about as mad as the madness he had been begging himself to abandon not just two hours ago. But he had to try. He had to succeed. The consequences of failure on this level (screaming and blood and so many bodies and Harry, trapped forever beneath Voldemort's thumb) were too much for the young Gryffindor to consider at the moment.
And so he planned and fretted and quashed his fears with Gryffindor courage as he closed the door behind him, leaving him alone in the sixth year dormitory. He felt a little better as he bundled himself in his warmest sweater, wrapped himself in his heaviest cloak, and then felt a lot worse when he went to do a warming charm (you were... shivering) and his wand simply replied that there were much better ways to get warm and Harry seemed to know all about them, if the other day were any indication.
The last step - and he almost forgot this one - was his curtains, pulled tight across his bed. His dorm mates would think he had simply fallen asleep early, and Harry would be back in his four-poster by dawn. If all went according to plan, that was. Harry's mouth went a little dry at this prospect - especially considering what had happened last time that -
He bit down on the thought before he could finish it. Everything would be fine. None of this would work if he didn't begin to trust Voldemort, after all, and Voldemort would keep his word to him. He had yesterday, even though Harry hadn't trusted him, had been so quick to think badly of the person who had kissed him and touched him and
(guilt and confusion and hopehope blinding hope)
Harry found his invisibility cloak at the bottom of his trunk. Mad, this was absolutely mad, but perhaps it was mad enough to work. Voldemort was pretty mad himself. Once Harry had remembered for the second time that night that his broomstick was still at Malfoy Manor - and perhaps he could get that back, tonight, along with his wand - he had generated and discarded half a dozen ideas on how to get there, each as unlikely and dangerous as the last. He had finally settled on hunting down a Thestral in the forest, remembering how well they had gotten Harry to Voldemort the previous spring - even though that seemed like a different lifetime now, a different world entirely that didn't know the shape and pressure of the Dark Lord's mouth against Harry's lips and the warmth that spread down every notch of Harry's spine whenever he managed to make Voldemort laugh.
You're lost, Harry thought, running his fingers along the shimmery material of his invisibility cloak and watching them vanish in the folds. You're hopeless.
He threw the cloak over his shoulders and disappeared.
Lord Voldemort seldom had trouble sleeping. At first, it was simply a relief to be able to sleep again. Certainly he suffered nightmares, but waking from a nightmare was always empowering. One could laugh away a bad dream, shed its foolish terrors, and rise without fear. It was the pleasant dreams that made him suffer upon waking: to see a world ruled by Lord Voldemort and watch his enemies crumble before him and beg to kiss the hem of his robe... only to awaken and find that the everything was as it had been when he had gone to sleep... those were the dreams that haunted and tormented him throughout his days.
And now he had Harry Potter in his dreams and they were less dreams and more visions set within and between their two minds. But the Dark Lord did not wish for Potter's presence at this moment. His Horcrux was weak and foolish. He did not deserve the gift of Voldemort's company. And there was that needle of fear that it would be another dream where he, Lord Voldemort, would be vulnerable. Potter knew far too many of his weaknesses already.
He glanced at the damask shroud which covered the mirror and looked away. Voldemort did not want to see what that mirror might show him. He slipped a dark silk robe from his shoulders and sat on the edge of the bed. Nagini was off somewhere hunting rodents. He could smell their scent in his nostrils and sense her eager greed. Voldemort thought of calling her to him in order to rest against her coiling scales, but it seemed a childish thing to do.
The winter chill seeped into his cold flesh and Voldemort shivered, padding over to the fireplace, and crouching naked before the flames. The Dark Lord gave a humourless laugh and thrust his right hand into the fire. For a moment, there was no pain. Then it came, but it was not suffering beyond imagining. His lipless mouth grit in a mad rictus, Voldemort endured the agony as his frail flesh began to melt red-black and drip away from the bone. It was only the flames licking up his arm - eager for more fuel - that finally caused Voldemort to pull away with a pained hiss. Livid, crimson eyes fixed on the scorched remnants of his once elegant fingers.
And then the skin began to knit itself back together, sinew itching, wrapping itself around charred bone. The Dark Lord's breath came fast as he gazed with manic pleasure at the sight of his long nails slowly arching out of his milky skin like baby's teeth.
Voldemort laughed again and flexed his hand, brushing the smooth, new skin across his flat face. It was still warm from the fire.
He would sleep well.
Malfoy Manor was as gloomy and horrible as Harry remembered it. A shudder came over him as he saw it rise on the horizon, a black, awful shape against the glittering night sky, before they touched down within the tall gates, the Thestral smooth and graceful in its descent.
The very first thing Harry did - after checking wildly around himself and his Thestral to make sure that there were no Death Eaters hiding along the perimeter - was run to the hedge to his left and look desperately underneath. He breathed a sigh of relief when he found his Firebolt beneath a dusting of snow, decidedly not rotted and just as wonderful as he remembered. He let his left hand trail over the handle for a moment - his right was still throbbing from where he had sliced it, rather sloppily, to attract the Thestral with the scent of his blood - before straightening up with determination. He would need his Firebolt for the Quidditch season, which resumed in a few short weeks, but that was not the real reason he'd come here.
Harry was able to unlock the front door after a few minutes of coaxing his wand ("Yes, I know it's ugly, but I just need an Alohamora from you and we'll never see it again"), and then he was inside, the bitter winter wind and his last chance to turn back behind him. It was eerily quiet in here, and Harry's stomach turned rather violently when he saw the doorway leading to the huge room with the cellar, the room where Voldemort had first kissed him and then tortured him ruthlessly until he was bleeding with glass and tears. He turned away very quickly and headed down the corridor, careful to steal as quietly as possible, a ghost in a house of (Mr. Granger and so many others) ghosts.
Harry didn't know where he was headed, but he felt the Horcrux within him stir, reaching forward, forward. He followed its pull, Dark magic whispering across his soul. Past a staircase, a row of doors, and then down another corridor, the Dark pulse within him growing stronger and stronger yet as he went. Voldemort was here. This thought brought a surge of pride and panic and something else, but Harry swallowed it all and remained fixated on his task. Voldemort would surely be awake – after their interaction today, the Dark Lord would hardly be eager to meet Harry in their dreams - and Harry had much to discuss with him.
He arrived at a door - and even if Harry didn't know with dizzying certainty that this was Voldemort's door, even if his heart weren't pounding and his soul weren't leaping with he's here right here, he would have been able to gather this information from the door itself, which was big and solid and clearly hiding something very important behind it. He tried to turn the doorknob, but found it locked, and after a few minutes of cursing and shaking his stupid wand vigorously to no great effect, he realized that Lord Voldemort would probably protect his bedroom door with much more secure than a locking charm. Something that only he could get through. Something like -
"Open," Harry whispered before the thought had even formed fully in his mind, and the door moved like Harry's Parseltongue was a golden key. He braced himself as the door swung open - would Voldemort curse him? he hadn't prepared for this - but nothing came. The sitting room was empty.
Harry walked tentatively inside, shutting the door behind him with a soft click. A fire was crackling merrily in the hearth, and a blush rose unbidden to Harry's cheeks when he instantly recognized this (can I kiss you?) for the room in their dream. Suddenly very warm, the Gryffindor shrugged off his cloak, which was still damp with snow and cloud from his journey, and laid it across the back of a chair.
His eyes were immediately drawn to the open door near the hearth, where, if his memory served, a certain Dark Lord's bed would lie inside. And, sure enough, the bed was in the same place he remembered, and there was a dark lump underneath the covers. Sleeping? Harry resisted the urge to rub his eyes. He found this thought so absurd that he needed to get a closer look. He certainly hadn't planned for this, after all - cursing and yelling and raging, but not asleep, peaceful and docile. Harry approached closer, closer, until he was directly at the Dark Lord's bedside. The red eyes were hidden, pale face relaxed and smooth in the flickering firelight from a second hearth inside the bedroom. Surreal. Harry found himself enraptured, fascinated, by the gentle rhythm of serpentine nostrils, dilating and contracting, dilating and contracting with the flow of his breathing.
Is he dreaming? Harry wondered, quelling the sudden urge to reach out and stroke his cheek. What did he dream of when Harry wasn't there?
At that moment, Voldemort drew in a particularly deep breath and rolled to his side, a movement that made Harry bite down on his tongue to keep from making a noise of surprise. And then he saw it - poking out from underneath the feathery pillow, dark yew wood against darker sheets. Harry's eyes widened behind his glasses, and his breathing nearly stopped in his throat.
Voldemort's wand. Lord Voldemort's wand was sitting - right there - right within his reach! Before Harry could stop himself, he was pulling it from underneath the pillow, ever so gently, so careful not to awaken the dangerous, terrible man whose head half-rested atop it. Adrenaline coursed through Harry's veins as the final inches slid out slowly, slowly from underneath, his face so close to Voldemort's. What would Harry do if those scarlet eyes flew open at this very moment? If they settled on Harry's hand, caught in the act of stealing Voldemort's most precious weapon?
His pleasure-edged panic was relieved when the wand slipped from underneath, and the Dark Lord's wand was a cool weight in his hand, familiar but darker, stronger. This was it - the wand that had done everything, that had split Voldemort's soul and killed Harry's parents and given Harry this bloody scar. For a moment, anger rose up in his vision, sharp and hot and overwhelming. It was too much power to rest in one thin stick of wood, and what a horrible thing it was, what terrors and atrocities it had committed.
The Gryffindor tested its pliability between his fingers, and a surge of disgust shot through him. He thought he could hate magic, in those few seconds. Everything it could do, everything it had done - as he looked at that wand, that silly, insignificant twig, he hated that such a trivial thing could give a person so much terrible power. His grip tightened, green eyes flashing. One little twig, and so many dead, so many dozens and hundreds and innocent men and women and children, infants, and parents –
And he could stop it. He could stop it all, right here, right now. A man could break a twig - a boy could break a twig, no magic required. He bent it a little further, and it was absolutely taut now, a curve of yew. A little further, and it was straining - it was so easy, such an easy thing to break - he wouldn't have to kill Voldemort after all -
A little further, and it snapped, clean down the middle with a smattering of green sparks.
Someone was there. Familiar. A white hand stretched out. "Nagini...?" Voldemort called softly through the comfortable haze of sleep. But there was no answering hiss. He stretched, sitting up, his left hand tingling as the spidery fingers searched for cool, musky scales. Lazily, he opened his eyes.
It was not Nagini.
Potter stood there - his cheeks high with colour, some inexplicable emotion glistening in his green eyes. The Dark Lord was still dreaming.
"Harry..." he whispered, regally inclining his head. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"
Harry's heart nearly stopped in his chest - what have I done? - as he stared, unseeing, at the broken, dead pieces of wand in his hand. The brief flare of triumph was smothered by panic. He really had gone mad - there was no other explanation, no other reason that he would walk into Voldemort's quarters in the dead of the night and snap his wand in two.
Hastily, the boy stuffed the broken pieces into his back pocket. His own wand made an indignant noise at sharing the space, but thankfully gave no other protests. And then Harry watched, spellbound, as Voldemort sat up slowly, thin, black silk clinging to his body, a flash of white collarbone as the Dark Lord stretched his arms. Harry realized with a jolt that Voldemort couldn't hurt him. Without his wand, he was powerless, just as vulnerable as Harry. They might as well have been dreaming.
"Hi," said Harry softly. His mouth was very dry. "I wanted to see you. I lost my temper - before. It wasn't right." He felt very stupid. Surely there had been more he wanted to say (a plan, the plan, Harry), but all the reasons had fled from his mind, and there was only Voldemort's broken power in his back pocket and the Dark Lord lounging so sleepy and placated and powerless on the bed. Can I kiss you? Harry remembered again, and he flushed, very grateful for the near-darkness that would hopefully conceal his burning cheeks.
"No, Harry, it is I who should apologise to you." Voldemort's waxen mask of a face was all smooth, sleepy contrition. "I hurt you earlier. I was angry at that fool Dumbledore for daring to suggest taking you from me, my treasure..." Long, elegant fingers reached for him, and Harry accepted them without a second thought, his breath suddenly shallow in his throat. Voldemort was asking him into bed - his bed - and the Dark Lord was hardly wearing anything at all. The pale, delicate web between thumb and forefinger caught Harry's eye, and Harry remembered how it had tasted in their dream, how the wrinkle of the Dark Lord's life line had felt beneath Harry's lips. He swallowed.
"Dumbledore can't make me do anything I don't want to," he said, and sat on the edge of the bed. The broken pieces of Voldemort's wand pressed into his backside, a reminder, and Harry swallowed again, still distracted by how near they were sitting, how cool Voldemort's fingers felt. "Oh - sorry - " The boy winced and pulled his hand away, realizing that his bleeding hand had smeared against Voldemort's palm where they had touched. It must have opened up again when he'd been straining to snap the Dark Lord's wand.
Lord Voldemort did not forgive. He did not forget. A show of regret was necessary to keep Potter under his power until the old man's death – that was all. Potter would suffer for his defiance in time. Patience. The Dark Lord stared at the drops of blood, so bright against his pale fingers. Harry Potter's blood. It ran through his veins now too. The cut on Potter's hand was deep and inexpertly done. Gently gripping Potter's wrist, Voldemort could feel the boy's pulse racing. The famous glasses had misted up slightly with heavy, anxious breaths. Potter was truly afraid, far more so than he had been in any dream.
This is no dream. Potter was really here, in his rooms. Voldemort inhaled deeply, trying to stifle the shock which flitted across his features at the realisation. Guilt. Again, there was the stench of guilt in the air. What had he done - was this still about the Auror? Panic flumed within the Dark Lord at the idea of having been so vulnerable - the thought that he, Lord Voldemort, had slept while Harry Potter had snuck into his chambers!
There was a sudden shift in Voldemort's demeanour, tension taut in the air. Harry watched as Voldemort studied his wound, crusted over and jagged, watched the change come over his face - lazy, sleepy fascination transforming into wide-eyed alertness, nervous with shock and -
Fear.
The Dark Lord looked as though he'd never seen blood in his life. For a Dark Lord who killed and tortured people on a regular basis and therefore must have seen blood by the bucket loads, there was something decidedly not right about this impression. Harry clenched his fist uncomfortably, hiding the slice in his palm, but the damage had already been done; Voldemort was looking him in the eye very strangely, and Harry resisted the urge to flee the room. The pieces of Voldemort's wand seemed to press more insistently into his bum.
Voldemort stared at Harry, the crimson eyes aglow and the flat, serpentine face suddenly empty of all emotion. "Is there something you wish to tell me, Harry?"
The shock only seeped into Harry's expression for a moment - but of course Voldemort would know those words, because hadn't Dumbledore said the very same to Tom Riddle so many years ago, when the Chamber of Secrets had been opened the first time? Could Voldemort possibly know that Dumbledore had spoken the same way to Harry just today? Was he trying to tell him something?
"I wanted to see you," Harry repeated carefully, somehow keeping his voice even despite the way his heart was pounding wildly in his chest. "I needed to talk to you. About - about all the killings."
"You came to talk..." Voldemort mulled over Harry's words, as though testing them against the air. "But we are linked, are we not? You may speak to Lord Voldemort whenever you wish, no matter whether you are awake or lost in slumber." The high, cold voice drew out the sibilants as the Dark Lord stood and pulled a black robe around his shoulders.
A milky nail found the underside of Potter's chin, tilting it upwards so that Harry - still sitting on the bed – was staring straight up into those terrifying, livid eyes. "Do not lie to me, my treasure... I should not like to punish my precious one for such insolence…" But, for all its menace, Voldemort's threat was empty. The broken wand in Harry's pocket was no longer something frightening, but powerful, a reassurance. His spine straightened, suddenly confident - Voldemort could not hurt him - and the Dark Lord must have noticed, there must have been something that keyed him in to the change in Harry's thoughts, because Voldemort's face was contorting with something that looked strangely close to fear. Harry couldn't be sure; he didn't think he'd ever seen it there before. "You - you - what have you done?-!" Voldemort hissed, and the pale fingers began to tremble against Harry's skin.
"Funny, I tried to talk to you that way before," said Harry, and rose brazenly to his feet, heart still pounding, pounding. "I don't think you were listening." But it was the same sort of fierce adrenaline that had taken hold of his veins before, when he had been stealing Voldemort's wand - tinted with excitement, with the thrill of a challenge in which he was well-matched. They stood on even ground now. Voldemort could not hurt him.
"You can't kill innocent people," Harry said, not bothering to hide the anger from his voice. "My parents were innocent - I was innocent. And - I don't want you to kill any more innocent people. I tried to tell you that, but you weren't listening to me - and, I suppose I had to - take drastic measures."
He was rambling, he knew, but his heart seemed to be pounding, pounding the words right up to his mouth and he couldn't stop them, they just kept coming out. And, god, he was scared, scared as much as he was excited and angry and burning up with this tension. "I can't just sit and watch while you kill everyone!" he heard himself saying. "I can't. And now - it will finally stop, you -" His fingers reached into his pocket, found the splintered pieces of twig, so dead and Muggle in his hands. Harry held the remains of Lord Voldemort's wand out before him, his eyes full of challenge. He braced himself for the inevitable outburst - can't hurt you, he can't hurt you. "Now you won't hurt anyone anymore."
"You dare-?" Voldemort's voice was coldly level, but fear and fury burned inside him. His first thought was for his Horcruxes, but he did not dare glance at the shrouded glass. The one thing he had dreaded - but it could not be true, he could not see how -
Yet it was not the cup, the diadem, or the locket which lay broken and worthless in Harry Potter's hands.
It was his wand.
His mouth fell open and, at first, no sound came out. His beloved yew and phoenix feather weapon. His companion for so many years. The Dark Lord stared, aghast, unable to take in what he was seeing. It had once been the only thing of value Tom Riddle had possessed. How could it lie in another's palms - so lifeless, so broken?
There was a scream. A howl of disbelief. He could not move his fingers - could not stop them shaking. "You - you -!" But there were no words for this - this sacrilege. Trembling, he reached for the two pieces of polished wood. It seemed impossible that the wood did not hum with power at his touch and Voldemort pulled back as though scalded. "No, no, no…" he whispered, shaking his head, stumbling back, tripping over the silk of his long robes.
A red mist settled over his eyes and he cried out like a wounded animal. "You stupid child!" The Dark Lord screamed, clawing at his own flesh because he couldn't harm Potter and every instinct he possessed was screaming for the boy's death. "YOU STUPID, FOOLISH, IGNORANT CHILD!" His wand. His wand! How glorious it had felt when he had first held it and watched green and gold sparks fly. Yew and Phoenix feather. 13 and a half inches. A powerful wand... Voldemort recalled Ollivander's words and the keen pleasure in the wandmaker's face. Yes, I think we can expect great things from you, Mr Riddle, yes indeed...!
Proof that he was not mad, but gifted as no other wizard had ever been gifted. He remembered when it had clattered to the floor with a rush of green light and he had longed only for a hand to wield it once more. The euphoria of being reunited with it after almost giving up hope. How could it be broken after so much had failed to break them?
Gone because he had allowed himself to trust Harry Potter. Had allowed himself to trust as the Potters had trusted. His chest rose and fell rapidly and his own blood dripped through his fingers. Mad, miserable laughter bubbled up within him as his surroundings seemed to burn and blur in his boiling brain. Another Potter, proving once more to Lord Voldemort how unwise it was ever to trust!
The Dark Lord staggered to his feet, bitter mirth still pouring out of him. He wanted to kill Potter. Strangle him, rip out his eyes, and subject him to the Cruciatus Curse until the boy could no longer remember his own name. The livid eyes burned bright with rage. How dare he? HOW DARE HE?-!
Voldemort pushed past Potter and half-stalked, half-flew to his study on wings of vengeance. His feet barely touched the ground. He could hear Potter behind him, but the boy's shouts were swallowed by the ringing in Voldemort's ears. He crashed into the large desk - hardly able to see for rage. Eventually, he found the right draw. And there it was under his fingers and, although the holly wood was solid, it seemed to squirm - trying to escape his grip - wriggling like a worm.
His cold voice was hoarse with fury, yet still soft, still under control, though only he knew just how much it cost him to leash his wrath. It was not the elegant grip of a master duellist. His right fist was wrapped around its middle, ready to snap it in two. The Dark Lord held Potter's wand aloft like a Jovian lightning bolt. His waxen, serpentine face was contorted with ugly rage. The scarlet eyes shone like cheap glass. Any depth they may have had was replaced with a terrible blankness. Voldemort's left hand clawed through the air and Potter crashed to his knees, his nose pressed against the carpet.
"They did not want me... none of them did... It took hours. Ollivander had started to talk about rare cores, foreign woods. Perhaps they knew what I was, sensed that I did not need them... Shied away from me like the prospective parents who came to visit the orphanage. But it chose me. It adored me. It understood. It thrilled with every piece of magic we learned together. It exulted when we killed. Do you care for your wand, Harry? You do not appear to have taken very good care of it. Why, it looks older than mine with all of these dirty fingerprints. Shall I break it, Harry? Or perhaps I shall return it to you as I promised I would." The Dark Lord released the wandless spell which had bound Potter to the floor. "You see, I am a merciful lord. Hardly the monster all of you seem to think me." He laughed.
"How naive you are, Harry, to imagine that my wand is what makes me the most feared sorcerer in generations. That only children can perform wandless spells. That Lord Voldemort requires such a thing to hurt you. Lucius told me that you once blew up your filthy aunt. I wonder how much rage you must have felt... how much you wanted to hurt that ignorant Muggle."
Voldemort took a deep, ragged breath through his slitted nostrils and his voice was now utterly without colour. As blank and monstrous as the Dark Lord's eyes. "You have to mean it. I learned that long before my eleventh birthday. I could always make bad things happen to those who deserved it, make creatures obey my will without the need to train them, and move objects without touching them. I think I shocked poor Professor Dumbledore when he delivered my Hogwarts letter. Doubtless he was envious of the power I had even then. Or perhaps he was like poor Amy, who told the priest she thought I was the devil. But she never said another word against me after I showed her what I really was.
"With enough power, enough intention, a child can kill without a wand - without ever knowing the words Avada Kedavra. Of course, it takes effort. Far more effort than simply waving a wand. You have to be beyond furious or beyond terrified. I split my soul long before I made my first Horcrux..." The red eyes glazed over completely, the pupils contracted to the thinnest of slits. The Dark Lord smiled. A smile without joy, without a single ounce of happiness. "Have your wand, then, dear Harry."
The long, pale fingers of Voldemort's left hand let go of the holly and phoenix feather wand. It floated free of the skeletal hands and sailed slowly towards Potter, where it hung, suspended, waiting for its master to snatch it from the air. "Take it, and we shall see just how much my wand of yew meant to me."
Voldemort was going to kill him now. Harry could see this in the burn of those red eyes, so red and hot that there was hardly any black left, a volcano about to bubble over. Voldemort would kill him now. He would kill him - perhaps it would be quick, painless - and then the Horcrux would be destroyed, then Dumbledore and the rest of the Order would be free to eliminate the rest of the Horcruxes and, finally, the Dark Lord himself. All Harry had to do was reach forward and take his wand, reach forward and meet his fate.
The holly wand was sent clattering to the floor, bouncing away and out of reach. Harry did not even spare it a glance as he knocked it aside.
"No," Harry said, and his voice shook and his fingers trembled but he did not look away. "I won't fight you. There won't be any more fighting."
He won't hurt you, and Harry knew this - clung to this with desperation - despite the disaster lying dormant in those redeyes and the way Voldemort's hands had clawed at his own face as though he'd wanted to rip Harry to pieces. Harry knew this. Because Voldemort had been devastated by the sight of his wand snapped in two, and although Harry hadn't expected this, it did not fill him with terror, but with hope.
Because here was proof that Lord Voldemort could feel. That Lord Voldemort could care for something, and not because it was a weapon or a tool, nor because it was the source of his magic - but because it was his – it was a companion – and it had cherished him just as fervently in return.
"I needed you to listen," Harry pleaded, his voice soft. He approached the Dark Lord like he might a wild animal, cautiously, heart racing the rhythm of furious raindrops and drums. "I didn't know that it meant so much to you. Really. It was - I thought it might make you," he won't hurt you, "listen." Deep breath, and Harry stood right in front of Voldemort now, drawn to his full height, feeling as brave and scared as he'd ever felt. "I won't fight you anymore if it stops."
Voldemort stared at Potter as the boy slowly came into focus through the miasma of anger. No one had ever spoken to him in such a way before. The request was nonsensical. The Dark Lord made a point of listening very carefully to everything around him. He had always been attentive to Harry's words, had he not? His whole body was taut with fury and this pathetic display did nothing to ameliorate the rage thundering inside him.
Then he felt her. Felt her long body racing silently closer. Master, I shall rip him, kill him, eat him! Her mouth opened, slavering for prey - forked tongue extended - and he could taste Potter's trail of scent and vibration, and see the pulse of the boy's blood splashed across his vision in lurid colour.
"Your parents did not have their wands with them that night," the Dark Lord hissed quietly. "I remember it distinctly... They trusted in the loyalty of their friends to protect them... I thank you for reminding me how foolish it is to trust." Green scales were sliding across the carpet and yellow eyes met livid crimson. Lord Voldemort felt no desire to halt her as Nagini rose up behind Potter.
Her savage vengeance beat in his own heart, and he felt less than nothing in that moment for the boy who had so callously destroyed his wand of yew and was now daring to offer the Dark Lord excuses. His breath caught, his feline eyes wide with vicious glee. "A pity for you that you miscalculated, Harry. The element of surprise is quite the advantage, is it not?"
The snake struck.
Harry felt the familiar fury rise up in his chest, impatience that he was struggling to rein in. But Voldemort had no right - no right - to talk about Harry's parents! He had killed them in cold blood, turned his wand on Harry, landed him in a cupboard for ten years with the worst aunt and uncle imaginable - he had absolutely no right to talk about Harry's parents, to criticize them -
Count to ten, a small voice implored him, cutting through his fury like a knife. It sounded oddly like Hermione. Count to ten, Harry, and calm down. He doesn't mean it. He won't hurt you.
But as the anger began to recede - one, two - and he became aware of the horrifying thing that was about to happen - four, five - he found that it was too late.
It was like the terrible dream he'd dreamt last year, where Mr Weasley had almost ended up dead in a Ministry hallway with the taste of his blood still fresh and sweet in Harry's mouth. Except Harry was the one in danger now, and he knew he should feel terrified - should feel something other than the sickening scent of man-boy in the air above his own damn neck, the soft, warm flesh as his fangs sunk pleasantly into the throat - but he could only watch himself, paralyzed, trapped within the hungry scales of a serpent.
And then Harry was thrown back into his own body in an explosion of pain. He was vaguely aware that blood was running warm and sticky down his jumper - but mostly he could only feel the agony ripping through his throat, two points of fire that were slowly spreading outward from his neck and through his entire body.
The boy pitched forward from the force of Nagini's assault, stumbling straight into Voldemort, and then crashed into the bed, arms pin wheeling. He crumpled to his knees, crying out hoarsely. His shaking fingers flew to the wound, gently pressing against it - but it was of no use – his neck was burning, burning, and slowly engulfing his entire body in terrible pain.
"Help," he tried to say, but it came out gurgled and raggedy as he attempted to breathe - breathe, god dammit - through the weight settling over his body, paralyzing him. He was shaking himself apart, hands twitching, lungs convulsing, blood spilling hot and red down his front - pain that pulsed in the centre of every blood cell. He won't hurt you, Harry thought, and tried desperately to reach out for the Dark Lord's consciousness, just at the edge of his mind.
And pulled back just as suddenly, repulsion and horror briefly almost overwhelming the pain. Voldemort was enjoying this. Voldemort didn't care that Harry was dying, dying, agony beyond belief wracking his body - he was so happy that it might have made Harry sick if he weren't currently preoccupied with dying on Voldemort's floor.
"Gnyuhhhh," said Harry, and fell to his hands, head lolling uselessly. His ears were ringing, and there was blood dripping on the carpet. A numbness was settling over his body now, the ringing so loud that he could no longer hear his harsh breathing, his pounding heart - was Voldemort speaking? He couldn't tell. His eyes rolled back, and his stomach clenched up, but no bile came.
So this was what it was to die.
Wow, so many words - sorry about the extra-long chapter! We both got very emotional over this one. Thank you once again to all our reviewers. We know it's a horrible cliff-hanger - but nil desperandum! - we'll try our best to finish editing Part VII as soon as we can. Thank you again. :)