Disclaimer: This is a work of fan fiction using characters from the Harry Potter world. No, I do not own Harry Potter or any of the other characters, surprising though that may be. JK Rowling owns the characters – I'm simply expanding on what she provides.
Summary: Harry is given a diary by Dumbledore and, when he writes in it, he receives an unexpected response. His correspondent learns of Harry's less-than-suitable living conditions and an unlikely bond is formed. Abused!Harry, DrugAddict!Harry.
Warnings: Swearing, drug abuse, reference to child abuse, reference to sexual abuse/rape in later chapters.
Voldemort's wand was still pointed at the boy on the ground, his red eyes glinting with rage. Harry knew he was going to suffer a lot more pain tonight. His voice was a cold hiss when he finally spoke.
"What have you done, Potter?"
Harry thought he might end up like the Longbottoms. Every nerve ending was firing erratically with agony. His fingers and toes trembled and his limbs twitched and jerked involuntarily. He wasn't sure how many times Voldemort had used that curse on him tonight, it all just blurred into one horrendous world of pain.
The Dark Lord cast legilimens again and again, painfully violating his mind for what felt like hours, though was likely only a few minutes. Harry had given up on holding his mental shields in place. He had given up on trying to hide whatever the sadistic wizard was searching for. He wasn't entirely certain that Voledmort knew what he was searching for at this point. Perhaps he was just wanting to cause Harry pain. His mental barriers were a crumbled ruin and his head felt like it might explode. He scrambled to grab any form of sanity left in the deep reaches of his mind, in order to pull himself back together.
He could feel his heart pounding in his chest, he could feel his breath rasping in his throat. He didn't think he had a voice left after the combined pain in his body and his mind had drawn too many involuntary screams of agony from his throat. His vision was a blur of darkness. And his skin was cold, so cold in the winter night, yet his nerve endings burned with agony and his warm blood continued to drip slowly down his face from his scar.
Voldemort's strength was suffocating in its intensity. Harry could feel the Dark Lord's presence rifling through his memories as if he were an open book, and he shrank away from the dark, violating presence. A strange awareness cut through his thoughts. It was almost as though he was disassociating himself from his pain.
The sheer strength of the Dark Lord suddenly struck Harry's consciousness, and felt a wave of helplessness and hopelessness wash over him. The evil wizard was much stronger than the last time they had met. How could he ever beat this? How could Dumbledore have ever though that he would be able to compete against this? The raw power whipped around them physically, and his mind was being left a wasteland of devastation in the other wizard's wake.
Voldemort watched Harry's memories as if they were his own. He watched as Harry and Snape worked on potions. He watched as they translated the parseltongue book. He watched as they practiced duelling and dodging and shielding. No secrets remained Harry's. And Voldemort's fury grew as he recognised just how deep the treachery of Severus Snape ran.
Voldemort watched as Harry wrote to Snape in his diary. He watched as Snape spoke with him about his self-harm. He watched as Snape held the boy and told him that the deaths of the war were not his fault.
Harry felt Voldemort falter, then. He felt the evil wizard retreat a little bit, and he lunged for the opportunity, his survival instinct finally kicking in. He felt a surge of power that was definitely not his own. But he grabbed for it, anyway, and quickly pushed another memory forward – Snape helping him to study animagus. And another – Snape encouraging him to eat more. And another – Snape giving him a birthday gift. Each memory seemed to force Voldemort backwards, seemed to push his dark presence slightly more from Harry's own mind.
Harry didn't know what it was about these memories that were helping, but he wasn't going to miss an opportunity to force the bastard back out of his head. He could feel the confusion and uncertainty from the Dark Lord through their minds. He could still feel the rage and the hate, but it was clouded now by different emotions that he couldn't quite place.
He searched for more.
Snape helping him after his repressed memories surfaced. Snape talking with him about his nightmares. Snape arguing with Dumbledore about him taking the train to school. Snape telling him he didn't have to go back to the Dursley's that summer.
Voldemort drew back further, and Harry could feel that he was now trying to break the connection himself. No fucking way, asshole. Harry grabbed hold of the mental link, not letting the other wizard withdraw completely. The evil fucker wanted to see everything, didn't he?
Harry had never tried to maintain a legilimency-like connection when the caster was trying to end it. In fact, he had never heard of such a thing, and he didn't think it would be possible if not for the mental connection they shared through his curse scar. But every fibre of his being wanted Voldemort to hurt. He wanted him to hurt as much as Harry was hurting, and this seemed to be doing the job.
So he held on to that connection and threw memory after memory at him. Memories full of feelings and emotions that he knew the evil wizard wasn't capable of comprehending or processing. He searched for more. Any memory that had strong positive emotions, he forced to the forefront of his mind, holding onto the mental connection with all his willpower, and forcing Voldemort to feel and to hurt.
Abruptly, something changed. He felt like his mind was being pulled forwards, instead of defending against an unknown force. He scrambled to gain his footing and could not tell, for one terrifying moment, whether he was mentally scrambling or physically scrambling.
Then, quite suddenly, his scar stopped hurting. He gasped in relief and grabbed at his head. He could still feel the blood weeping from the scar. He tried to focus his vision and he could see himself on the ground. He thought for a moment he might be dead. Or maybe he'd lost his mind to insanity.
It took the boy longer than it should have to realise that he was in Voldemort's head, seeing through Voldemort's eyes. He'd been in this position often enough through his visions, he should have realised immediately. But in his visions, he didn't see himself on the ground. He didn't see his own limp body in front of him. He willed his lifeless form to get up and run, but he couldn't seem to force movement into his own limbs.
He could feel emotions whirling around; anger, hatred, confusion, pain, fear. It was nearly impossible to work out which were Voldemort's and which were his own, now.
"Get up!" he yelled at himself, but it was hissed through Voldemort's lips. What the fuck was going on? Harry hadn't used legilimency before, but he was pretty sure that this was not normal, even if he had. He wasn't sure if his own body on the cold ground was even alive or not.
Harry paused, then, and drew in a long, slow breath. He absently noted that it was Voldemort's body that took the long breath, though his own may have, too, without him noticing. He could feel Voldemort's mind pushing at his presence, trying to push him out. But right now, his head didn't hurt, and the Dark Lord wasn't cursing him, so he stopped trying to break away.
He decided to take a look around, instead, to make the most of this reprieve. He could feel the pressure building as the Dark Lord kept trying to push him out. But he held on with a strength that was not his. He was quite certain that it was only the fact that it was Voldemort's power that created this connection which allowed him to remain in the mind of his enemy, despite his efforts to force him out. Voldemort's power was something else, and he could feel it coursing through him. And he wondered if he could harness the Dark Lord's power as if it was his own.
Their emotions blurred and Harry felt a rush of magical energy run through him. Power was Voldemort's joy, his happiness, it made up all of his positive emotions. And right now, it was Harry's. He relished in the pleasure that this power gave him. He heard laughter and didn't know immediately if it were Voldemort's, or if it were his own.
Voldemort's body turned and his gaze fell on the broken form of Harry again on the cold ground; shaking, twitching, bleeding, perhaps breathing, but otherwise motionless. A strange feeling of ecstasy seemed to rise around Harry's mind. He knew that wasn't coming from him. He watched through Voldemort's reddened gaze as a wand was pointed at his prone form, power and satisfaction surging through him.
No. No! He pushed again at the mental barriers, strength coursing through him. Voldemort's strength. He used that strength and tore down part of the mental wall, and then he kept going, allowing the evil emotions and memories to wash over him.
Voldemort's wand arm faltered for a moment. He stumbled backwards. Harry kept pushing, dragging, tearing down more walls. He didn't know what he was doing inside this mind that was not his, but he knew it was distracting the asshole. And hopefully causing him the same pain that Harry had felt when he was in his own mind being subjected to Voldemort's legilimency.
He willed his own body to get up from the ground and run, but he couldn't seem to coordinate two bodies at once. He watched on through red eyes as Voldemort glanced around the clearing. He saw the confusion on the faces Wormtail and Malfoy as they witnessed this strange, silent conversation between the two wizards. And he watched Wormtail cradle his arm to his stomach and wail about it burning.
Harry felt a sick satisfaction at that. Snape, and whoever else was summoning the Death Eaters, must have been making the cowardly bastard suffer. Good.
He was momentarily lost in the surging power he felt as he looked down upon those around him. He could feel the Dark Lord's madness bubbling up alongside his heaving power. He could feel darkness rising in his mind and all around them as he levelled his wand once again at the form of the small boy on the ground. He could feel victory and another wave of inky black joy washed over their joint mind.
No! He pulled back quickly towards the very edges of Voldemort's mind, then. He didn't want that. He didn't want that joy. He didn't want that happiness. He didn't want that power. He didn't want to rule. That wasn't him. That was Voldemort. He couldn't let him win.
He grabbed for his own mind, trying to find his own emotions amongst a surging sea of darkness. He blindly swam towards the light. Searching, searching, who knew you could get so lost in someone else's mind?
He felt pain and, for a fleeting moment, he turned back towards the enthralling power. But then he remembered that the pain was his. The pain was Harry. He reached out for it, and embraced the pain, letting it wash over him.
Then, he rolled his body away from the wand that was pointed at him. He drew another wave of strength from Voldemort, whom he was still mentally connected to, and scrambled to his feet. He needed to get away. He needed to hide. Pain still ravaged his body, but he threw it from his mind and finally he drew his own wand. He was here to fight, after all. And he was not going to waste this newfound strength.
He threw a hasty rebound shield behind him and his legs found the strength that he didn't know he had. The teen sprinted for a hiding place, dodging the curses being thrown at him and hoping his shaky shield would catch any that he couldn't dodge. He leapt over a pile of rock and ducked behind a huge fallen tree, pausing momentarily to catch his breath.
Voldemort threw curse after curse in the direction the boy had fled, but struggled to hit his mark. Perhaps his aim was impacted by the strange events of the evening so far. Harry didn't have time to consider that right now. He watched as the tree stump beside him burst into flame after being hit by a stray curse, and he took off to find more cover, this time crouching behind massive granite boulder. The few Death Eaters that were in attendance were now throwing curses clumsily, the night lighting up with colourful sparks from their wands.
Harry absently heard new voices behind him on the other side of the clearing. He didn't break his focus to check, but he knew that either his underage magic usage and had alerted the ministry, and thus, the aurors, to his location, or else something had gone wrong with the potion, and more Death Eaters were arriving. He ignored the cracks and shouting of spells, which were growing increasingly louder, and focused once again on Tom's mind.
He heard a boulder nearby split into pieces under a curse, and chunks of granite rained down, narrowly missing his head. He threw together another hasty shield, using the confusion in the air to draw strength from the wind, the elemental magic that Snape had taught him had always worked best when emotions were high. He dodged behind another tree and fled to a larger pile of boulders. Smoke and flames licked behind him as more of the edge of the clearing was burnt by the wild magic.
He could still feel rage and hatred filling a corner of his mind and he wondered for a moment whether he was partially in Voldemort's mind, or if the bastard was partially in his.
His lapse in concentration allowed a cutting hex to hit him and he gasped in pain as a long slash appeared down his left arm, it was deep enough that he could see the bone just above his elbow. He set his jaw and threw a burn curse back, drawing on the anger he felt from Voldemort to fuel his magic. It missed its mark and gave away his hiding spot, so he took off for a new spot, leaping behind a tree stump and then away to another fallen tree, his breath sobbing in his throat.
He grabbed for their mind link again and forced himself forward, tearing at the mental shields that Voldemort had erected, trying to distract him enough to make him cease casting the curses that were raining down on his weakening shields.
A tree burst into flame too close to him and he had to bring his mind back to his own body and take off for more shelter. He held a rebound sheild as he ran, and barely noticed as the Dark Lord's next spell bounced off it and into Wormtail, who was still whimpering on the ground in pain. The filthy coward was hit by his master's bone breaking curse and Harry didn't even take a moment to celebrate.
He stumbled over a tree root and tumbled to the ground, catching himself on his hands. He felt, rather than heard, a sickening crack and knew that his left wrist was broken. He clumsily struggled back to his feet and jumped behind another rock, pausing to catch his breath for a moment. A wall of fire was rising between him and Voldemort as more timber was swallowed by the quickly escalating flames. He could feel the heat making him sweat now, rather than the previously harsh cold of the night air, and the smoke caught in his throat making it hard to breathe.
He could hear spells being fired back and forth and knew, with certainty now, that aurors were somewhere in the clearing. He couldn't see them through the flames and the thick smoke, he couldn't see anyone, he could only focus on Voldemort's spells still heading angrily in his direction, and on Voldemort's mind that was inextricably linked with his own.
He searched deliberately along the edges of Voldemort's mental walls for a weak spot. He had never purposefully explored someone else's mindscape before, so he was completely winging it and, he had to admit, the Slytherin appeared to have damn good shields. He pushed against a section of the mental wall and immediately felt a strong push back against him, he grabbed at the power and pushed again, feeling the Dark Lord's shields flicker and shake.
He could feel the Dark Lord's emotions flowing through the link. The hatred and anger came easily to Harry, now. It was like those emotions were surrounding him, choking him, pressing down on his own thoughts and feelings. He scrambled to find a positive emotion, but there were none to be found. He felt like he was drowning in a sea of loathing and hatred and rage.
He could feel these emotions taking over his own. He knew now, what the bastard had felt when Harry had forced happiness at him. He knew now why the Dark Lord had faltered and pulled back. There was no escape from this all encompassing hatred and darkness that was suffocating in its intensity.
He forced his mind forward further, grabbing for the conscience of his enemy. He felt it easily this time and tore a wall down, moving quickly to the next one. He heard Voldemort shout in pain and he grabbed again, mentally tearing down another wall. The spells ceased while Harry and Tom fought in their minds, each trying to gain control.
He could feel the evil wizard trying to throw him out again. He needed to get deeper. He pushed at another wall, watching it crumble before grabbing for the next one. Each time he crashed through a mental barrier, he felt more of Voldemort's power flow into his own magical core. Harry used it to his advantage and pushed as hard as he could with his mind, feeling the darkness wash over him again and again. He wasn't turning back this time.
He felt the wall of fire getting closer to his physical body and he knew he needed to move to a different spot, somewhere out of reach of the licking flames. But he was so close, he didn't want to break his focus. His breath caught on the smoke-filled air and he coughed violently, but kept going, not pausing in his demolition of the Dark Lord's mind.
When the smoke was so thick he could barely draw breath, the teenager knew it was now or never. He was as deep in Voldemort's mind as he could get without being swallowed whole by the darkness. He didn't know if this would work, or if he would survive it, but he was going to try it anyway. Snape would definitely tell him he was a foolish bloody Gryffindor if he knew what he was doing. He bit back a dark, maniacal laugh and drew his focus once again.
His vision was a blur of pain from the smoke, but Harry blindly grabbed his invisibility cloak and poured a few drops of what he hoped was the enlarging potion onto it. The fabric instantly grew back to regular size in his hands. He threw it over himself and tried to move further from the searing heat. He stumbled in the haze and, as he fell onto his broken wrist, he sucked in a harsh breath, relishing for a moment in the clearer air that he found close to the ground.
In that moment, time seemed to stand still. He could feel the blaze licking around his body. He felt the flames grab harshly at his right foot and he kicked wildly against the cold, damp ground to stop his shoe from burning. His hacking, sobbing breath was loud around him, almost louder than the shouting of spells and the crackling of the blaze. His heart pounded painfully, desperately against his ribs as he tried to breathe, tried to get up and run, tried to pull himself further from the burning trees and bracken that were pressing down on his body and enveloping him in heat and smoke.
He inched forwards on his elbows, unable to bare weight on his injured arm, trying to get away from the heat. And all the while, he dug deeper and deeper into the mind of his enemy. Darkness crowded his vision and he wasn't sure whether it was the blackness of the evil that seemed to fill every corner of the Dark Lord's mind, or if it was his own consciousness slipping from his grasp.
He grabbed, now, with every last piece of strength within him, at Voldemort's power. His mind seized the hatred and the rage that swirled through their mental link. He pulled with him all of the surging dark magic that he could possibly hold, while whispering the unforgivable curse that he could only cast using that power that belonged to the Dark Lord himself.
Their mental link momentarily filled with blinding green light, which emanated outwards from the depths that Harry had reached as he had plundered the Dark Lord's mind. Harry drew his own mind backwards as quickly as he could, trying desperately to retreat and cut the connection before the green light caught him.
His quiet voice was lost to the deafening roar of the fire in the night.
"Avada kedavra".