A/N: lots of heavy concepts and conversations in this chapter, please take care.

Harry was hesitant to leave Voldemort alone. Harry didn't believe his lessons of morality had taken fully, and he was well aware that Voldemort was mostly humouring him. Voldemort would follow Harry's model of right from wrong when it suited him, but that was the extent of it.

It was the opposite of feeling suffocated, because Harry had chosen to be here, to help. Any time he left, he felt like he was betraying that promise.

But Harry had other promises to fulfill. Other obligations that he had sworn to keep.

Thus Harry would occasionally find himself at Malfoy Manor.

Astoria was not yet very ill, but she was prone to severe bouts of weakness and shortness of breath that confined her to the house.

So Harry had taken to researching stop-gap measures that would ease her suffering while others (Voldemort, professional Healers) worked on a proper cure. There were many remedies that had fallen to the wayside in their modern society, and Harry was confident that at least one of them would prove to be helpful.

This was a necessary task, he told himself, and it was not wrong to leave the manor when Astoria also needed his help. Voldemort might need him, but Harry needed to feel like himself, too, and that meant he had to stretch his legs every so often.

"Did you want something to eat, Harry?"

There was already a tea tray with some biscuits on it on his right side. "No, thank you," Harry said. "I'm fine."

Astoria didn't embroider. She played the piano, or she baked, or she read gigantic books on ancient runes that Harry couldn't even begin to decipher. Those were hobbies she engaged in with her free time—the rest of it was consumed by mothering Scorpius and managing the Malfoy estate.

Next year, Scorpius would be Hogwarts age. It was strange to think about—Harry often wondered if all his other classmates had children. Some of them did, and he frequently thought about reaching out to them, just to reconnect.

But it had been so long now, and Harry was no longer sure of the person he had once been. The regret and the tattered remains of his shame hung heavy. His closest friends were gone, and it was easier to avoid the rest, to let them think what they wanted.

"So I took your suggestion on the ward stones," Astoria said, summoning a large tome with the wave of her hand. "I based the design off of what you told me the Dark Lord used for the wards on the borders." She flipped to a page and handed it over.

"And?" Harry asked, pulling the book onto his lap. It was, admittedly, as heavy as it looked.

"I managed to dismantle most of the dangerous ones and replace them with safer wards. There are two more that I might want to ask you about, once you have the time."

"We could go look at them right now," Harry suggested, already half-rising from his chair.

"Sit down," Astoria said, exasperated. "You're here as a guest today. Not so I can use you as my personal workhorse."

Harry handed her book back to her. "But I will be a workhorse eventually, I take it."

"Absolutely." Astoria shut the tome and set it aside. "I surround myself with only the best, you know. It's a Malfoy's prerogative."

Harry laughed a little, watched how her eyes sparkled in response.

"I made berry tarts," Astoria said, clasping her hands together in her lap, a beatific smile draped on her lips. "You should have some. Gluten-free," she added, when Harry opened his mouth to protest.

Harry blinked. He'd forgotten about that. All of the food that he ate—either at home or at the office—was prepared by House-Elves who were aware of his dietary requirements, and so he'd grown used to just eating anything that was given to him.

The tart was warm when he picked it up. Harry bit into it with care, savouring the flavour. Buttery and sweet, crumbling to softness in his mouth. The berries had to have been fresh, he decided.

"Eat up," Astoria said. "There's plenty more. Draco says he's on a diet, dramatic man."

"He's just worried about you," Harry said, before he could think better of it.

Astoria smiled, eyes and mouth wrinkling around the corners. It was such a normal, human thing that Harry found himself fixated by it. With all the time he spent at the Ministry, or in meetings with Death Eaters, there was a veil of perfection that never faded. The life of a politician revolved around appearances, and Voldemort never aged.

But Astoria was genuine, real, and she did not hide behind the masks and glamours of her Pureblooded counterparts.

"I've had years to think about my illness," Astoria said. Her fingers clasped the handle of her tea cup, raising it to her lips. She took a small sip, then set it back down. "My greatest wish is that I might live to see my son reach adulthood, but I'm not deluded into seeing it as a certainty."

"You deserve to see it," Harry said quietly. "We're not going to give up."

"We won't," Astoria agreed. "But I can't live my life in two extremes. Knowing I'll die, being certain I'll live. I have this day, here, today. And if I have tomorrow, then all the better for it. But I do have today, and I can spend that day right now with you, and with my husband, and with my son."

She paused, hand returning to her lap, then finished, "When I go someday, as all people do, I want to know I never succumbed to the pointless despair of loneliness if I could help it."

"Do you have any regrets?"

Voldemort paused, page of the book he was holding suspended mid flip, and Harry almost regretted letting the question slip forth.

Then Voldemort's red eyes fell upon him, a weight so heavy that Harry shrunk down into the blanket cocooned around his shoulders, suddenly concerned about the answer he might be receiving.

"A difficult question," said Voldemort. "Regrets do not remain so once you have accepted them and moved past them. As the decades have worn on, I have found I have less reason to let my past colour my future. My impulsive youth; my rash, violent rise to power. Events that shaped the man I am today, cliche as that may seem."

"So you don't have any?"

Voldemort sighed, setting the book down on the side table. "Harry," he said. "In the course of my life, there has been little that has truly mattered to me. Power, yes. Acknowledgement, another. Most things—servants, wealth, titles—are a means to an end. Were I to revisit this life, I would undoubtedly make different decisions. But that does not imply regret.

"Who I am, who I was; when I distance myself enough from it all, none of it makes much difference. I could remake myself again and again, for there is no one to question me and no one to stay my hand. The sense of self is a fickle, mercurial thing, and after living as many years as I, you will come to understand this."

Harry chose to ignore the implication that he would be living anywhere near as long. "So you could be Lord Voldemort," said Harry. "Or you could be Tom Riddle."

The name that had once wrought anger now incited the faintest hints of amusement. Voldemort inclined his head; one side of his mouth lifted upwards in what might have been the beginnings of a smile. "I suppose I could."

Harry took to standing in his bathroom and looking in the mirror.

He kept his sleep shirt on, to cover the pink-silver marks on his chest that would never fade. But the rest of him was visible, reflected. Dark hair, light eyes. Smooth, warm skin. He was alive. He could run his hand down his neck, past the collarbone, over the heart.

Thud, thud, thud. The beats buried deep in his chest, beneath the bone and muscle. Keeping his lungs going, and keeping the Horcrux alive inside of him.

He would always look this way—eternal, fixed. Hair that would never gradate, skin that would never crease. His own body would become a coffin in that he could not escape it.

This body would be his final resting place.

Harry was well aware these thoughts were morbid, that he ought to be horrified with what had been done to him, that of all the things that had been taken from him—his family, his future, his allegiance—to lose control over his own person should have been the breaking point.

It wasn't.

There was that heavy undercurrent of well, this might as well happen. Of all the things he'd had to endure, his appearance really didn't need to matter so much, did it? People paid exorbitant amounts of money to look this young.

Harry ran a hand through his hair. It was thick, soft like silk. His hair would never be fully manageable, but he'd grown used to it. It was a part of him.

Harry exhaled, and his breath, warm and fresh from the shower he'd just taken, fogged the glass, distorting the image there.

Who was he? It was a question that Voldemort had discussed, a question that Harry now asked when he stood before his bathroom mirror.

People thought of him as Voldemort's conscience. A stop-gap between the benevolence and the violence. But this was less true now than it had been—the passage of time had mellowed the Dark Lord's temper.

Harry had experienced pain at Voldemort's hand, but he had also experienced kindness. More kindness, Harry suspected, than anyone had ever seen before. Except Nagini, whose loss continued to fray around the edges of Harry's heart, a feeling of emptiness, a phantom fraction of the soul that was not his own. Did Voldemort feel it, too?

The condensation on the mirror had dissipated. Harry's eyes once again shone with clarity, with the brilliance of endless youth. Harry had seen people die before, from battle, from old age. They said vision was the first to go, when it came to death. Maybe that was what the light dying in someone's eyes meant.

Harry had never numbed himself to the concept of death. Losses hurt. Losing people hurt. And though he had been in a hurry to die, he had never looked forward to the pain.

Death was not a friend. It was an enemy, but it was an enemy that Harry could co-exist with, if he tried hard enough. If he held himself strong, if he kept his heart open—he could manage.

Because in spite of all the death he had witnessed, all the weight he carried inside of him, Harry would never choose to stop loving people. So he had chosen to grow alongside death, carving out an uncomfortable space next to the idea of it.

Harry understood why people shied away from death, why Voldemort was afraid of it.

It was brutal. It was cruel. It was the release of the soul into the unknown. To accept death was to accept that there were parts of the universe outside of their control, and this was not a concession Voldemort could abide by. The Dark Lord's ambition was to never feel helpless, to never be undone. Fate was made malleable by his will; a self-made immortal, more deity than man.

Death was made to be conquered, like all else, and placed under Voldemort's righteous hand.

When the work day was over, Harry liked to perch on the end of Voldemort's desk. Feet off the floor, hands pressed on the edge of the wood, shadow cast over half of whatever the Dark Lord was finishing up.

Voldemort didn't seem to mind. He would, on occasion, look up to check and see if Harry was paying attention, to see if Harry was still there, watching. When Voldemort was done, he would settle a large palm over Harry's knee, holding down, and then they would depart for the manor.

Once dinner had concluded, they would ensconce themselves in the familiarity of the study room. They rarely took dinner in the actual dining hall—only when there were guests. Otherwise, they took meals in the office, or in the study, or even in the laboratory.

Today, they were in the study again. Work at the Ministry was tranquil, and they were in no hurry to head to bed.

"Your name," Harry said. "Can you tell me about it?"

Voldemort frowned, brows lowered, and opened his mouth—

"Not that one," Harry said. "The name you chose for yourself."

As Harry had expected, Voldemort obliged him with an explanation.

Several fiery, floating letters later, Harry leant forward, arms braced on his elbows. "Flight from death," Harry said. "That's the translation."

Voldemort smiled, a careful motion that fixed his features in place. "I do not believe in death, Harry. Magic creates us, sustains us. It is a matter of will that holds us to this earth, not any higher power."

"So people die because they're too weak to seek out the solution to stay?"

"People die because they limit themselves. They fail to improve, to strive for the goals they deem impossibilities. Many branches of magic exist, and I would not be foolish enough to assume I have attempted them all. Solutions to death exist; we need only seek them out."

"Death was built into the universe," Harry said. "All things die. Even the universe will die, someday. When the stars implode and the planets burn to ashes. When humans are long gone."

"I will not be one of them," Voldemort said. Harry could just make out the strain dancing along the lines of Voldemort's jaw, the discipline and control that held back the fear. "And neither will you."

"Ten years," Harry continued. "I've been by your side. And we'll have ten more years, and ten more after that, and ten more after that. Where do you see us going? What do you see us doing? The world is wide, and time is infinite. Will you be content to stay here in Britain forever, even if we achieve the utopia you've imagined?"

Patience was not Voldemort's best trait. At times, Harry felt Voldemort did not like ruling over Britain much at all.

Shaping a nation was no small task, and even with all the progress they'd made, all they were doing was herding sheep. People would follow where they were led, where they were told to go, where they were penned in. But to keep the people moving properly, the way Voldemort wanted them to, the pen had to contract and contract, limiting their actions, forcing them to comply.

There was no such thing as utopia for everyone. People were too messy, too human. People were prone to mistakes, to surrendering to their vices and forgoing their virtues. There was good and bad in the world, but people, real people, only existed in the space between.

"If I grow tired of this place, then we may move somewhere else," Voldemort conceded. "I make no assumptions of what the future holds."

"And you'll call yourself Lord Voldemort forever?"

"Have you grown attached to the name?" Voldemort asked idly, affecting disinterest.

Harry didn't use it. Not really. Voldemort was not his Lord, and 'sir' no longer encompassed the nature of their relationship properly.

"No," Harry said. "I'm not."

Voldemort sighed and steepled his fingers, gazing pensively over the tips of them at Harry. His eyes, always burning, ever piercing, ran Harry through like daggers. Even decades of practice at Occlumency would never keep the Dark Lord out. Harry's mind, his soul, was open to the man seated across from him.

"You wish for me to accept death. To discard the name."

"I want you to accept being human," Harry said, voice steady, chin lifted. "You don't have to deny death in order to master it. If you really want to conquer it, then you can't—you can't be afraid of it." His breath caught in his lungs, held in place, waiting for the response.

"Then what would you call me?" Voldemort murmured. His expression had not changed.

"Any other name you like," Harry said. "But if you're asking what I think? Then I'd like to call you Tom."

Voldemort's hands fell to settle upon the armrests, his shoulders shifting from their previous repose. An ingrained recoil to the perceived shame of his heritage, his past.

It had been one thing to think of the name as a concept; it was another to think of applying it. Harry was unsurprised that his suggestion had been met with such a reaction.

"I don't know who you see yourself as," Harry said. "But some days I look in the mirror and a stranger stares back at me. As people, as humans, we're mutable. People are capable of great things and terrible things in equal measures—deciding which of those things to do is just as much of a choice as deciding who you want to be."

"You want me to choose the path of the light," Voldemort said, disdain shading the words. "The path of righteousness, the path of good. You see me as someone you can change."

Harry shook his head slowly. "Change is part of growth. I won't make you into someone you're not. I know who I see you as: a real person, a human one, and that person matters to me just as much as the one you have the potential to become."

A/N:

i think this is the chapter i'm most proud of writing. we have come a long way... can you feel the end approaching?

if you've been following along with this story since the beginning, or even in the first half, then you'll know that i am both a liar and a buffoon when it comes to estimating the final chapter count of this story.

THAT BEING SAID, with the point we are currently at, i'm really hoping for that sexy 30 chapters end count, maybe in the 95k range. anyone have any guesses? or am i just being optimistic again lmao.

also, i try to avoid begging for comments, but if ur reading this, i am once again asking u to leave me a nice comment ✌️✌️ thank u