Shattered glass lay in piles around Harry's feet. The mirror they had come from stood almost barren of its reflected surface. Harry stood in front of it, his hands shaking, his heart hammering and his fists bleeding. The sight he had just seen rendered him speechless, his legs immobile. The only thing he thought to do was destroy the mirror, destroy the image in front of him.

He heard the door to the wash room being opened and instantly rounded on whoever had the nerve to come inside. "Get out!" He barked, throwing a large piece of glass that sat in the sink before him. It shattered on the wall next to Peters' head but the man made no move to flinch away. Instead he stared at Harry, watching him fume in anger. Peters suddenly couldn't bring himself to look away once his eyes had reached Harry's.

No, he was genuinely surprised at what he saw. When normally he found hard green eyes glaring back at him, instead were now a red hue, a red hue just like the Dark Lord's, but with a minor difference. Flakes of gold stood out, dotting Harry's eyes with a bright contrast against the dark red. Peters had never seen eyes like these before and found himself staring intensely at them.

Harry stood there, annoyed, heartbroken, and embarrassed. He yelled for Peters to leave again and when he didn't, Harry grabbed another piece of glass and chucked it towards him.

When the second shard hit Peters in the cheek, he snapped out of his daze. His eyes narrowed on the man before him and he was once again back to his old self. He thrust clean towels at Harry and with a grunt, departed both the washroom and the bedroom in one swift movement.

Harry stood there, mad beyond belief. He didn't think he could get much angrier but it pulsed nonstop through his veins. His eyes, his bloody eyes. It was a cruel joke. A punishment for letting Voldemort use him as he did.

It hadn't been Voldemort's hand that brought down the dagger into Umbridge's chest. No, that had been all Harry. If he was to be honest with himself, the moment the weapon was in his hand, he no longer needed whispered guidance to murder her.

And now fate had become cruel, had taken away the one thing Harry had left to ground him.

When he'd woken the night before and felt Voldemort touch him so tenderly, he hadn't taken in what the Dark Lord had said. He figured it had all been some bad nightmare, that Voldemort could have made Harry do these horrendous things and still be so gentle with him. He hadn't expected to see what stared back at him moments before.

He hadn't expected to break the mirror either, but he was far from caring now. What more could he do to seal his unfortunate fate to this tower? To this monster?

Harry seemed to deflate at this thought. All the anger was still there, twisting and swirling around inside, ready to burst, but something else peeked through.

Harry was sad.

He was unbelievably sad.

Another opening of the bedroom door alerted Harry. He swung out of the wash room ready to yell at Peters to just leave him alone but instead he was greeted with a very somber looking Voldemort.

Voldemort made no sound as he crossed the room towards Harry, who stood watching the other reach out a hand to gingerly touch his face. His fingers felt like they always did, like ice. Harry flinched back and ducked around Voldemort towards the fireplace. His hands continued to bleed, leaving a droplet trail from the wash room to where he now sat.

"I can heal those for you." Voldemort said, following to the other chair. The air between them was stiff and strained, unsurprisingly unfriendly.

Harry looked down at his knuckles. He flexed both hands and winced at the sudden prickly pain. "I'm fine." He lied. He was far from fine.

Voldemort stared at Harry, not saying much more. The tense silence between them was growing and Harry was starting to feel squirmy under the other's gaze.

"What?" Harry asked, annoyed and frustrated. He knew Voldemort was staring at his eyes, at his horrible deformity. He looked away, eyes downcast so that the world wouldn't see them.

In one motion, Voldemort was out of his chair, his hand gently grasping Harry's chin, turning it up to face him. He continued to stare down at the marvel that were these eyes and Harry couldn't seem to look away either.

"Don't be ashamed, Harry. I can see the real you peeking through."

Heat flushed Harry's face as he smacked Voldemort's hand away. He wanted to get out of the chair but he was blocked from doing so, trapped. He tried to look away again but failed when Voldemort grasped him by his shirt and yanked him upwards.

Harry struggled in his grasp. "Let me go." He tried to pry the other's hands off the fabric but Voldemort's fingers wouldn't budge. "Get away from me." Harry demanded.

Voldemort chuckled and tossed Harry to the floor. Blood from Harry's knuckles streaked against the stone as he tried to steady himself. Before he could find some footing, Voldemort knocked him to the floor once again. The second time, he made no point of moving other than to shift so he laid on his back. He watched Voldemort loom over him, watched his red eyes burn brightly.

"You seem to forget who is in charge here. Get up."

Harry hesitated but eventually pushed himself off the floor. Voldemort grabbed Harry's hands, holding them in his own. The prickly pain was unending as the fresh wounds pressed against the other's skin. All the habitual feelings of wanting to get as far away from the Dark Lord as possible lay on the surface of his mind, but he knew there'd be no point. There was nowhere to run.

Voldemort sighed as he turned Harry's hands over in his own. He pulled his wand out from a pocket in his robes and pointed it at Harry's knuckles. Muttering a spell, bandages flew out of the tip of the wand and wrapped themselves around the injured knuckles and fingers. Instant relief followed.

Harry's shoulders, which he hadn't realized he'd been tensing, slacked, as some of his anger ebbed away. The relief from the bandages seemed to curb his bad mood but the feeling of being incomplete still remained.

"What have you done to me?" Harry asked, knowing the other knew he wasn't talking about the bandages.

Quietly, Voldemort put his wand back into his pocket and stared down at Harry's eyes once more. "I have made you more then you could ever possibly be. I'm unlocking your true potential."

Harry turned away. "You're turning me into a monster. I-" He hesitated, unsure if he should finish saying anything. His anger was constantly running deep within him, but he didn't want to be flung to the floor again. Voldemort waited though, waited for what he had to say. Harry cleared his throat. "I feel like I'm going crazy, being trapped in here."

"You're not ready." Voldemort moved across the room again, back to his chair by the fireplace.

Harry followed, unfortunately curious. "What do you mean?"

Voldemort eyed Harry for a moment before speaking. His eyes kept flicking back up towards Harry's which caused Harry to look away again. "You're not ready to be let out of your cage." The words were simply said, no inflection, no malice. He was purely stating a fact that Harry was indeed trapped in a stone cage.

"So, you're saying someday I'll be able to leave?" Harry looked back at him then, hopefulness spread on his face.

Resisting the urge to crush said look, Voldemort rolled his eyes. "Someday, yes, but you are far from that. We still have a lot of work to do."

Harry stiffened from where he stood. "I'm not killing anyone else."

Voldemort chuckled. "Don't you get it? You don't have a choice now, Harry. And honestly," He said, rising once again from the chair. He used to be able to tower over the other with great ease but the gap between their height differences weren't as large anymore. Voldemort didn't have to crane his neck as much anymore to look at Harry. "Didn't it feel good to rid the world of such a vile woman?"

Anger reared its ugly head again, like a burst of energy coursing through Harry's veins. He watched as Voldemort came closer to him and instead of trying to retreat, he stood his ground, the warmth of the fire behind him giving some support. "Nobody deserves to die."

Smirking, Voldemort closed the gap between them. He reached a hand up to gingerly grip Harry's chin. "You should keep that in mind with our next guest. I love proving you wrong."

Harry tried to move his head away but Voldemort only tightened his once gentle grip, drawing Harry's face towards his own. Hands gripped Voldemort's robes, trying to push him away but Harry's body started to once again feel heavy.

He hated this man beyond all reason but Harry couldn't bring himself to struggle any longer.

When Voldemort's lips brushed his own, the pit in his stomach that had been stirring since he'd woken up, grew larger and sank deeper. This dramatic mixture of feelings was provocative and seemingly magnetic. While Harry felt the tiniest urge to pull away, to get away from this toxic man, he just as equally wanted to stay right where he was.

Shame brought Harry back and he pulled away. "I can't, this is-" His voice began to waiver as tears came to his eyes. No. Not his eyes, those were not his eyes. Those were someone else's and Harry was still Harry. He grabbed at the folds in Voldemort's robes and shoved him away, trying to put as much distance between them as he could. "You're obsessed."

"With you? Of course." Voldemort stood where Harry had shoved him. He spoke so matter-of-factly that it pushed Harry over the edge.

"Why? Because I have a piece of your soul inside me? That doesn't make me like you!" Harry was yelling now, raging mad. "I never asked for this!" His voice broke and the tears that had been welling up now began to fall. He felt like he was crying much more than he ever usually did but Harry wasn't ever one to shy away from expressing his emotions.

Voldemort moved then, forward to reach out and grip Harry by the shoulders. Though Harry struggled to brush him aside, Voldemort held on firmly. "You're right!" He matched Harry's volume. "You're so right, you never asked to my downfall, or to be the chosen one, or even the hero everyone wanted you to be. Your choices were made for you since the day you were born and have always been made for you and will continue to be made for you until the day you die!"

Harry tried to push him away again. "Get off me!"

"I can give you your freedom, Harry."

"You're crazy!"

A force pushed Harry away, out of Voldemort's hands, up against the iron door to the room. His back hit hard and his breath caught in his throat. Voldemort quickly rushed him then, hoisting him up by the scruff of his shirt. He was no longer yelling, no, he was quite calm now, solid, and deeply calm as he spoke. "I am liberated. I am free from the ties that bound me when I was younger. I've been where you are, Harry. Everyone made my choices for me and in the end I freed myself from their rules, their restrictions."

For a moment, Harry struggled to breath, to even speak. He watched as Voldemort's eyes scanned his face. He wasn't sure what the Dark Lord was looking for but he felt as if Voldemort could see into his soul. He swallowed hard. "So, you'd make me like you then? You'd take everything away so that I could be just like you, alone and insane?"

Silence passed between them then, a silence that caused Voldemort to remove himself from Harry's space. He took a few steps back. "In the beginning, all I wanted to do was hurt you. I wanted to make you suffer because you were my enemy, but you're not. I've seen that for a while now. You are not my enemy, nor I yours."

Harry leaned up against the door, anything to give his shaky knees support. He wiped his face with the back of his hand, the bandages helping to remove the traces of his tears. It felt as if all the fight in him had gone out. He only felt tired now. "Why do you talk to me like this?"

"Like what?" Voldemort asked, watching as Harry ran a hand through his hair.

"Normal. You tell me these things like we're talking about the weather."

"I'm only being honest with you."

Harry sighed and ran that same hand down the side of his face. "But why?"

Voldemort turned and walked back to the fireplace. He sat down in the chair he normally did and gestured for Harry to do the same.

Hesitantly, Harry did just that. He couldn't relax in the chair, no, now he felt like he must be guard and wondered briefly when he stopped thinking he had to be.

Both sat in silence, watching each other. Some time had passed before Voldemort spoke. "I don't know how else I'm going to get you to understand that we are more alike than you think. I didn't think for a moment that it would be easy, especially for you, because it wasn't easy for me to see what my future held. The uneasiness of what lies ahead of us, the unknown. Everyone else around me had my future planned. At first, that's what I thought I wanted, the security of knowing I belonged with others like me." Voldemort shifted a bit in his chair, becoming more relaxed as he continued to talk openly. "But even under the guise of safety, I was still unlike those around me. I chose to make my own fate, my own future, and look where that's gotten me."

Red eyes locked with gold flecked ones. "I won't ever lie to you, Harry."

Harry's face flushed with color. Hearing those words stirred something inside, confusion being among them. If Harry were to be honest with himself again, he'd know that Voldemort was telling the truth, he had been since Harry arrived at this stone prison. He'd even offered up truths about himself unprovoked and unasked like he was doing now.

He was trying to get Harry to trust him, to truly trust him.

Could he?

Looking away, Harry stared at the only constant thing in his life, the unending flames in the fireplace. He watched as they danced around the logs, expanding and cracking in a chorus. The thoughts in his head danced just as freely. They changed, rearranged, and morphed into unexpected thoughts. Voldemort spoke of freedom, freedom from rules and restrictions, and while it all sounded like an easier way out of all this muddle mess of his life, Harry just couldn't bring himself to give up, to give in to a description of a perfectly self-controlled life.

Not on the deaths of others.

How could anyone trust someone over that?

Harry was so lost in his thoughts he hadn't heard Voldemort stand, but when he placed a hand on Harry's shoulder, he stopped thinking altogether. He looked up at the face of the man he hated, because he still hated him didn't he?

"We had a deal, Harry." The words weren't harsh, or loud. Instead they were spoken softly, a reminder.

A twinge in his chest caught his breath in his throat. He felt as if his heart physically hurt.

It was ironic that Voldemort spoke of freedom when he kept Harry locked up in this tower, but Harry had made the deal that saved Draco's life, willingly. Deep down inside he knew that if he wanted to continue keeping everyone he loved safe, he would have to start playing along.

His life wasn't his any longer and though the Dark Lord spoke about becoming his own person, Harry wasn't sure he'd ever see himself again. It had begun when he looked in the mirror that morning. His eyes were not his own and he would never be free.

It was late at night when Harry awoke from yet another horrifying nightmare. Just like all the others, it never made sense in his dream, only in his waking life did he grasp what was going on.

Harry sighed and swung his feet over the edge of the bed. His skin was clammy, new sweat piling on top of the old and his hair lay far more disheveled than it normally did. The final realization he had to come earlier that day in the presence of Voldemort was like a shock to the system. He had shut down after their conversation and hadn't eaten anything Peters had delivered. All he wanted to do was sleep so he crawled into bed and shut his eyes, wanting to shut the world out as well.

This was his life now but he didn't have to enjoy it. It felt as if Voldemort expected Harry to just suddenly be okay with the fact that he was alone and changing into something he hated. He wanted to keep fighting, keep pushing back as far he could, to avoid the inevitability of what he would become. He wanted to be Harry just a little while longer.

Standing up to pace the room, Harry's thoughts wandered to guessing who would be the next person he'd had to face, to kill. Umbridge had been somebody in Voldemort's new regime inner circle at The Ministry, yet he took her as easily as plucking a flower from the ground. She would be the first because she would be the easiest for Harry to hate.

Whoever this next person was, it wouldn't anyone that Harry considered a friend or family. No, Voldemort had made good on his side of the deal and hadn't harmed them or would harm them by making them his next victim.

So who could it be?

Harry thought of all the people he disliked, all the people who had done him wrong on a colossal scale. He realized the list was small and wondered if it would grow the more he became less like his old self.

Would he eventually begin to like killing? Or was it even about killing for the sole purpose of pleasure? Voldemort murdered people but never without a reason to. He left the chaos of mindless killing for his followers to revel in, like rabid dogs without leashes.

Harry felt sick to his stomach. He stopped pacing and sat down in one of the chairs by the fire. It took him a moment to realize he had sat in the chair Voldemort usually occupied. He made a move to get up, to propel from the seat when a scent caught him. He leaned back in the chair and pressed his nose to a cushioned side. It smelled of Voldemort, a scent Harry often noticed when in close proximity of the Dark Lord.

Voldemort smelled of fire on a summer night, so contrast to that of his person and his touch. Harry closed his eyes and pictured crunchy fallen leaves upon the ground, the moon full and shining brightly from the purple sky above. The fire from the fireplace crackled in his thoughts as a bonfire, large boisterous flames reaching just as high as the trees that stood in the distance. All of this he could see, as if dreaming while awake.

Harry's eyes snapped open and he launched himself from the chair. His heart was hammering in his chest and his mind was a jumble of thoughts and emotions. He could feel himself slipping away.