LAST CHAPTER! I'm throwing a few more twists at you hopefully they will explain a majority of the questions you might have, if they don't please feel free to Pm me if not then just review and tell me how fabulous I am lol. at any rate it's been great guys I hope to have another story soon but everything I am writing right now is loooooong and I've been jumping back and forth between stories like crazy. Ah, and as promised I will add a chapter after this that will be a preview of one of my Dom/sub stories The House so if you'd like to taste please let me know what you think, I have a good feeling about this story though I won't make it long and drawn out because it's fairly recent and I have others that need my focus. Anyway, love you all, thank you for being such wonderful readers and for the last time- let me know what you think!:)
Allons-y!
Let me know what you think!
Mistress Slytherin
WARNINGS:
VIOLENCE
LANGUAGE
HOMOSEXUAL RELATIONSHIP
QUESTIONABLE MORALS
Not for the eyes of the young!
Let me know if I missed anything.
Chapter 26
Voldemort held Hadrian in his arms. His consort had wept himself to sleep but for what loss neither of them knew. Hadrian had never spoken of anything good from his previous time, only of war and death and decay. So why was he so upset? The dark lord had no idea, but he'd be damned if he left his consort to suffer alone. He shivered slightly and held Hadrian closer.
Hadrian…
When Hadrian had disappeared he'd thought that the man would be back in moments perhaps hours. He'd sent his condolences to missing Lucius' engagement party and waited in the dungeons for his lover intending to give him the paddling of a lifetime for the inconvenience. But Hadrian hadn't returned. For three days he sat in that room staring at the spot Hadrian had disappeared from and not moving. He didn't eat, he didn't sleep and as the days continued a horrible thought crossed his mind.
Hadrian wasn't coming back.
He could feel him, faintly through their link. When he traced his fingers over the tattoo of roses he could swear that he could feel Hadrian. But then one day the tattoo faded, blurred right before his eyes. He'd stared at it in dawning horror. No! No! Fate couldn't be so cruel! No!
That was the last clear thought he had.
He remembered finding Albus; he remembered demanding that Hadrian be returned to him. But the old man had little to offer him. He'd left the man's office feeling strangely hallow and broken, as though he'd never feel the same again- as though everything good in him had been torn away.
A sea of blood followed after; during the times that he was lucid he would wake to find himself staring at his empty wrist weeping openly the way he had not since he was a child. It took two months of this madness to convince him of a very real fact:
He was in love with Hadrian.
And he couldn't live without him.
Hadrian was the balance in his life,
Hadrian made things make sense, curbed the violence in his nature and made him aware of himself.
Without Hadrian he was nothing.
A dark lord, he took over wizarding Britain- but when he turned around there was no Hadrian to show for it. There was no honor, no glory, and no point.
He lost himself to the madness.
"Say it again?" His breath caught in his throat at Hadrian's sleepy murmur. Green eyes cracked open and he stared down at them wondering if he'd ever seen anything more beautiful. "What you said earlier…say it again?" Hadrian asked his eyes dropping hesitantly. Voldemort frowned not quite understanding what was being asked of him. "I love you." Hadrian offered a slight blush on his cheeks. He was still as he'd been when he'd left, hesitant, afraid to admit that he loved him. But it was enough, and Voldemort understood.
"I love you Hadrian." He said softly. And he did, he could do nothing but love Hadrian. The man had broken him; he would quite literally do anything for him.
Voldemort wondered if the man even knew the power he now had.
He might be the one in charge in their relationship, but Hadrian, Hadrian could get him to do anything he wanted.
The dark lord shivered as a chill raced down his spine.
But he wasn't the same man Hadrian had once loved.
He wondered if Hadrian even knew what he'd become.
He closed his eyes as the madness crept in on him.
No!
He had Hadrian!
He pulled the man closer and pressed their foreheads together.
Immediately he felt better.
Until Hadrian let out a pained hiss and something warm trickled down his brow.
Red eyes snapped open and stared in stunned silence at the blood slipping down his Hadrian's forehead. Hadrian stared at him blankly for a moment.
"What have you done?" He breathed. "What have you done?" He wept.
Voldemort could only wonder the same thing.
#$% #$% #$% #$% #$%
Hadrian stared down at Wizarding Britain arms crossed behind him. Time was wearing on him, he couldn't remember anything and none of what he did remember made sense any more.
It had been three years since he'd returned.
Three long years.
He turned slightly to stare at the dark lord, to watch the stranger in his beloved's body work silently and feverishly. Every so often the man would let out a vicious twitch or his eyes would glaze over. He wouldn't tell Harry what he'd done and as mad as he was Harry knew that the man might not even know what he'd done to himself. What he'd had with the dark lord…it was gone for the most part. The man was fragile, his fire gone as though it had been taken from him the day Hadrian had disappeared. In a way he supposed that this was a good thing, it had allowed him to make some changes of his own in the world to protect it from the fiery violence in the man's madness. Somehow only Harry had the power to stay the man's hand. But he didn't have to like it, not when he could still taste what they'd had on the tip of his tongue.
"Excuse me!"
Harry turned curiously to the little girl who was staring up at him with a determined expression on her face. Bushy hair, too large teeth- and a child to boot. A very small child with very big attitude. He felt himself smile despite himself.
"May I help you?" He asked sending the death eaters an enquiring gaze. The man shook their heads and shrugged not entirely willing to touch the child at all knowing how protective that he and the dark lord were over children in general.
"I was sent this letter before I was born." The girl said with an important lift of her chin as she held out a letter and a small pouch. "My mother thought it was a hoax you know, but I knew that it couldn't be, so I brought it here just like you said I should." She said with a nod. Harry frowned and stepped closer to her eying the letter and the small pouch cautiously before frowning at the sight of his own writing. He accepted the letter and read through it carefully before freezing.
His memories.
He gasped.
The dark lord who had been watching with apparent interest set down his quill and stood from where he'd been working. "My love?" The man said curiously. Harry didn't look up though, without a thought he was pulling the vials from the pouch and opening them. The wisps of memories rushed through his nose in blue smoke and suddenly he could remember-!
His eyes widened and his face paled.
Swallowing he pulled the cork off the second vial and inhaled.
Then the third.
The fourth.
And so on.
Harry felt tears drip down his cheeks and blood from his nose. Of course…how could he have forgotten?
Hermione.
Ron.
He shivered when arms settled around him.
Battle…war…blood…
So much blood painting his hands his skin…
"Hadrian my love?" The dark lord whispered. Harry stared down at the little girl and felt a small smile appear on his lips as he reached up and wiped the blood away. He had been terrified of losing what he'd had. The first time it had been mentioned that losing them could be a side effect of the temporal shifts he made copies of his memories and sent them to the one person he knew that he could trust to keep them safe for him no matter what time or place.
"The only person who would have remained constant no matter what- Hermione Granger." He said softly. "Thank you child, I don't think you know the true extent of what you've done for me." He whispered tears dripping down his cheeks. The little girl scuffed her shoes shyly her cheeks pink.
"I just did what needed to be done sir." She piped up.
"Hadrian?" The dark lord said petting his hair lightly his hands were trembling. It pained him the know that they had once been so steady. This was not his beloved.
"I remember everything my love." Harry said turning to his dark lord. Red eyes widened and softened.
"I take it that this is a good thing then?" he said waving the death eaters off. His head jerked and twitched his hands flexing. "Make certain this child is rewarded greatly." He told them as they guided the small child out of the room.
"Yes, but…" He swallowed as he looked at the man. This man was a broken shard of his lover. He needed his lord back. "I don't know what you've done my love but please whatever it is that you've done to your self-" He bit his lip his eyes wide and sad. "I remember what you were like, in my time, and it isn't so different from this. I want the Riddle I knew back. I want Lord Gaunt back." He pleaded with tears in his eyes. The dark lord's eyes widened and Harry pressed his lips together into a thin line. He had an idea, a vague incomplete idea of what had happened. A suspicion more than anything.
"I lost the philosopher's stone." The dark lord breathed. Harry felt his breath catch.
"Then I will make you a new one." He swore.
"Make it and I will do as you ask." The man said his eyes torn. Harry nodded. He could understand. The dark lord's greatest fear was that they would be parted again which should have been impossible to begin with. Harry turned his gaze towards the wizarding world. Hermione had been right, there was no second war, there wasn't going to be one.
He wouldn't allow it.
#$% #$% #$%
"Hadrian you cannot ask this of me!" The headmaster said furiously. But Harry would not be deterred. Every moment with this wraith like Voldemort grated on him, it was wrong, incomplete, and he had to fix it- thus the sudden warrant to search the aged headmaster's home.
"There's something wrong with him." Harry said softly as the death eaters carelessly tossed fragile instruments around. "You let him do it to himself I know you did, you might even have been the one to guide him to it." Dumbledore's suddenly thin pale lips were all the answer he needed. "Why?" Harry demanded. There was only person on this earth that he knew of who would be able to do this to his lord.
"I thought he would destroy himself through it." The headmaster admitted his tone clipped a hard grim smile on his lips, "I even created the first one for him." He said lifting up his hand. Harry's breath caught in his throat he had been drawn here first of all. He could feel it, a tug in his head. The Gaunt ring…Voldemort had never been without it-
Until Harry had gone missing.
"Give it to me or I will cut off your hand." Harry demanded his heart pounding in his chest. Close, so close as though the bond was crying out to him.
"Would you really?" The headmaster challenged. Harry let out a hiss and before the man could speak again Harry's blade was cutting through skin and bone and sinew slicing the man's hand clean from his wrist. Anything- anything for the man he loved.
"You fucked with my beloved! You risked the very fate of this world!" He growled yanking the ring free of the twitching hand before casting a spell on the hand and watching with satisfaction as it burned. "I trusted you once headmaster, but never again." He swore slipping the ring onto his own finger feeling a rush of power and familiarity. "What have you done to him?" He demanded. Blue eyes burned fiercely and Harry knew without a doubt that the man wouldn't tell him.
"I'll never say." The man said predictably. Harry narrowed his eyes.
"Funny thing headmaster. You see, when potions are created they have a bit of the potions master's magic inside of them, over time, if enough potions from the same potions master is ingested…" He watched the man's eyes widen. "My magic is a part of you, you cannot escape me." He said softly. "Legilimens!" He hissed.
#$% #%^ %^ $%^
Harry sighed as he watched the change occur. Voldemort's eyes darkened, became sharper and richer, his body went from being unstable to stable, confident and sure. Hands that had shaken for the last few years steadied and relaxed. The man's beauty was untouched of course, but that had never been the point. Red eyes pierced him.
"Hadrian." The dark lord said calmly velvet heat in his words. Harry felt himself drop to his knees in relief and grasped the man's hand.
"My lord." He breathed. A hand wound into his hair and he was bodily forced to his feet the way he hadn't been in so very long.
"Pet?" The man said smirking slightly.
"Quite." Harry agreed before his mouth was claimed.
"You kneel willingly?" The dark lord purred against his lips. Harry shivered and wound his arms around the man's neck.
"Yes." He breathed.
"Mine." The dark lord said before dragging him into the kiss.
Yours.
Harry thought as his mouth was devoured.
And he was.
The dark lord's consort.
Blue eyes watched them blankly and an old tired face relaxed. It had taken a great deal from him, winning this war. Of course Harry would never know, he couldn't know. The boy he had once seen like a son was no more and he'd caused that change, the ultimate outcome- people still died, but not nearly as many people as could have died. He was satisfied with the way things turned out; Hadrian Black was more suited for the dark lord than he would ever know.
Albus watched with a small smile as his fingers blurred and shifted.
It is time Albus Dumbledore
The voice carried softly.
He watched in fascination as the tips of his fingers began to fall away like dust.
It was fine though, he'd done what he'd come to do.
His hand was gone now and slowly his wrist was dissolving.
A small smile flitted across his lips.
This was a much better outcome.
Even if no one ever understood that he'd done it.
He turned slowly and felt the wind rustle through him a slight chill surrounding him as he shifted and silence surrounded him and he slowly became one with the sands of time.
A million shifts of time and light and color later and before Hermione sat at the old headmaster's desk staring at the tomb she'd just been handed in complete shock.
"I didn't want to give this to you Miss Granger." The headmistress said her eyes aged and weary. Hermione ran her hands through her short hair in distress. "But you've seen it too I'd wager." She said with a nod. "The boy we once knew as Harry Potter is gone. I'm afraid we have no choice." The woman said firmly. Hermione smiled bitterly as she stared down at the diagram.
"Da Vinci" She said softly. "He used Da Vinci…" She breathed.
"Albus took the Vitruvian Man and made him something completely different." Minerva said lightly.
If only she knew…planting that portrait in time knowing that the brilliance of the man called Da Vinci would call to his younger self. Oh how he'd idolized the genius- ironic looking back on it, after all hewas De Vinci.
"A paradox." Hermione said with a slightly hysterical laugh. "That should be impossible." She said shaking her head. "A time paradox…" The headmistress smiled wryly.
"Since when has anything impossible ever stopped mister Potter?" She asked her lips twitching. Hermione stared down at the drawings and diagrams and shook her head.
"Never." She said softly.
"We could save the world with this." The headmistress said softly.
"And destroy my only remaining friend!" Hermione said a choked sob leaving her before she could stop it. She slapped her hand over her mouth and wept silently.
"Albus has always had something up his sleeve Miss Granger, trust him in this." She said softly. Hermione nodded slowly.
"Trust the man that abandoned us in our hour of need." She said wryly. The headmistress frowned and turned away.
"Trust the man who gave his life for this war. Perhaps, there is more to Albus' disappearance then meets the eye." She said challenging her. Hermione stared down at the images, the formulas, impossible, impossible codes. Yet she knew with the same surety that there was only one person that could make this work.
Harry Potter, the boy-who-lived.
She nodded softly.
"Fine." She said slowly her fingers tracing the indents of the ink in the parchment. "But I'll give him his best shot, I won't just leave him stranded some where without any one to rely on I have to do some research." She said her mind already working a million equations and probabilities through.
Minerva felt a chill waft over the back of her neck and shivered slightly as desperate war hardened brown eyes turned to her. Gone was the bright eyed child that had so proudly flounced into Hogwarts boasting about having read Hogwarts A History- Minerva resisted the urge to sigh. So many of her students had lost that spark.
"I'll do it." Hermione said with a sharp nod.
Albus smiled from where his body shifted and blurred and began to fall away as the circle was completed and his life was extinguished.
"I'll save him yet." Hermione said turning her gaze to the reddened sunset.
And so it began.
The tale of the Vitruvian man.
-fin-