It was some time later when Voldemort pulled his arm away and his neck chilled without his heat. He murmured,

"Come back."

The haze that usually accompanied the pain relief potions filled his head and he knew he wasn't thinking straight but he didn't care. He lifted Voldemort's arm, slung it over his shoulder, then leaned his face back on his pec,

"How are you feeling, Harry?"

He slurred out,

"I'm fine… It's just the potions…"

Voldemort touched his hair,

"I should not be so careless with you…"

"I'm fine…"

Harry said again, closing his eyes because his eyelids felt like they'd turned to lead. Voldemort stroked his hair gently and he felt himself drifting off to his wonderful touches, but something kept holding him back and away from sleep. It was probably the fear of what nightmare he'd have to face tonight if he drifted off.

Voldemort seemed to have picked up on his predicament because he spoke softly,

"You should rest… I shall be here."

Harry shook his head,

"I can't…"

Voldemort touched his cheek,

"Why not?"

It was difficult to explain. There were some nightmares he understood and then there were some he didn't… The magpie… The magpie was there in all of them and he couldn't understand why,

"The magpie…"

Voldemort traced his cheekbone ever so slightly as he inquired,

"Does it bother you?"

He nodded silently because talking felt like too much effort. Voldemort sighed,

"I told you the story about the magpie when you were in absolute agony."

Harry shuddered when he remembered those initial days…The pain…The helplessness… At that time, it had seemed like it would never end. He spoke,

"Tell it to me again."

Voldemort took his hand into his,

"You asked me to kill you because you could not stand the pain and I refused so you asked me when was the first time I killed."

Harry murmured,

"When was the first time you killed?"

Voldemort traced the veins on the back of his hand as he spoke,

"I was six years old…The first thing I killed hadn't even opened its eyes. It hadn't even breathed its first breath, made a noise."

Harry inquired,

"How could you have killed it then?"

Voldemort spoke,

"The orphanage had a garden at the back and in that garden…There was an oak tree and in the oak tree, lived a magpie. Each year it rebuilt its tumbling nest, and Mr. Magpie and Mrs. Magpie made sweet love, and aw, rejoice, eggs appeared."

Harry whispered,

"What did you do?"

Voldemort chuckled softly,

"What do you think I did?"

The answer slipped past his lips,

"You destroyed the eggs."

"I climbed up that tree, sat on a branch, and squeezed every one of them."

"It's cruel."

"No… that is not cruel. Doing it year after year is the real cruelty. Sometimes the magpie watched from the roof, saw what I did, but it still rebuilt its nest in exactly the same place. It still laid those eggs knowing the risk."

"It was just a bird."

"Magpies are clever. It knew."

"What are you saying, it laid its eggs there, so you'd kill them?"

"No, it was challenging me, carrying on, each year thinking I would bend, that I would change my behaviour. It hated me, and I hated it, but neither of us could change our nature. Stubborn bird, monstrous boy."

"You're deluded. The magpie wasn't playing a game with you. They're not that intelligent. Its brain's the size of a walnut."

Voldemort chuckled again,

"Your brain is twenty times bigger and here you are, snuggled up to my chest even though you know who I really am…What I have done…"

He didn't want to think about that, so he asked,

"What happened next?"

"When I was ten, I found the magpie in the garden. I don't know what had happened to it, but it couldn't fly. It had broken its wing. I told Miss Cole, and she said it wouldn't survive. It was better if it was put out of its misery. It was the humane thing to do. She said she would end its suffering, but I stopped her. I said I'd do it myself."

"So, you killed it?"

"No. I didn't want to end its suffering. We had a game going on, so it couldn't die. I needed it alive, so I kept it in a box in the shed."

"Miss Cole didn't find it?"

"I kept it very well hidden…I kept the magpie alive. I killed snails to feed it, as well as giving it scraps of bread, ham. It even ate cheese. At first the magpie pecked me every time I tried to feed it. It squawked, flapping its damaged wing, making it worse…"

Harry thought back to the hazy days after Voldemort had saved him. He'd thrashed, cried out, moved to avoid Voldemort's hand every time he reached for him. He'd refused water, food…He could remember now…He could almost hear his own voice begging Voldemort to kill him…to take away the pain…

"Then … something happened, and it stopped fighting me. It let me feed it, let me close. Let me ease its suffering."

Harry snorted,

"Did you brew some pain relief potions for it too?"

"No. I persisted. Fighting me was getting it nowhere, but giving in, accepting its situation, that helped it. It realized it had no control over its fate. I did."

Harry cracked an eye open and peeked up at Voldemort,

"Maybe it was biding its time, getting stronger, better. Did… did it get better?"

Voldemort looked at the ceiling, lost somewhere, and then he turned his attention back to him,

"Its body got stronger, better."

"Body? What about its mind?"

"It lost that somewhere along the way."

"How could you tell what was going on its mind?"

"I just could. I enjoyed toying with it. I found it interesting. Despite what it knew about me, the things I'd done, I still won it over. It still became… attached."

"Is that what you're doing to me?"

Voldemort grinned,

"Consider yourself warned."

His smile faded quickly though, and he reached for his hair and started stroking them again. Despite knowing he should lean away, distance himself, he didn't,

"The magpie… Did you enjoy taking care of it?"

Voldemort looked away, contemplating, and then he met his gaze,

"I enjoyed seeing it change from hating me, to relying on me."

"No, I mean… feeding it, washing it, stroking it. Did you like looking after it?"

"Yes. It was rewarding."

"Why?"

"It knew the real me… It had seen the monster when I'd hidden it from everyone else, and still, it let me look after it. It knew, and it became attached to me."

"It's wing got better?"

Voldemort nodded,

"You let it go?"

He stopped nodding, and fixed him with a cold stare,

"No."

Harry frowned,

"Then what did you do?"

"I snapped its neck."

Harry's breath caught in his chest, and a shot of adrenaline rushed to his heart and he said, breathless.

"Why?"

"Because I'm a monster."

"It doesn't make any sense."

"You are right, I don't. but I am what I am."

Harry stiffened,

"I don't understand… Why would you do that? There has to be a reason…"

"Perhaps I shall tell you about that another time… For now, you should rest."

Harry couldn't help but yawn into Voldemort's chest. He didn't want to think anymore. Knowing why the magpie made appearances in his nightmares had entangled him more than not knowing and now he wished Voldemort hadn't told him this story,

"I knew it would bother you. That is why I refrained from telling it to you again when you mentioned that you saw it in your nightmares."

Voldemort helped him lie down. That night Harry lay a little bit closer to Voldemort, not touching, but close enough to feel his heat, and smell his scent.