Harry had no idea how long he'd slept. He felt rested, but the clock read eleven. The daylight promised he'd either slept for four or five hours, or more than twenty-four. He was alone, excepting Nagini, and she was not the best of timekeepers.

He stretched idly. The bed was sinfully large, especially when it was only him in it. He laid out, arms stretched wide, as though he were making snow-angels in the sheets. He could laze about all day if he wanted to. He was under no obligation to do anything or go anywhere. He recalled his first lazy morning in his old chambers, when Voldemort had threatened him with isolation and eternal sleep should he linger too long in bed. He smirked at what he now knew was really a rather weak manipulation. Voldemort must have been ecstatic at having Harry so close, even before they'd come to such an accord.

He ate, he bathed, he read. A note from Narcissa popped into existence around noon, telling him that Draco was still sleeping but she would be happy to escort him should he desire to leave the confines of his rooms. Harry remembered her drawn out look from the night before and decided she needed as much rest as her son, if not more.

Nagini was less restless than usual. Harry wondered if it was the cold creeping in as autumn wore on. The days were colder, her body sluggish. Still, when she complained of boredom that afternoon, Harry called for Flippy to send over a rabbit for her to eat. The brief hunt exhausted her, and she spent the rest of the afternoon hissing contentedly by the hearth.

Harry laid his head on her coils. "Has Master ever taken you flying?" he asked her. Tom wasn't there to correct the title, and it still felt right to Harry, especially when talking to his sister.

"Nagini is not a bird," she told him, but by her annoyed grumble Harry gathered that, yes, she had flown on occasion and not enjoyed it one whit.

"He took me flying last night." The memory forced more of the previous day's newness onto him. "I'm his mate now."

Nagini hissed that of course he was, that snakeling was very foolish to think otherwise.

Harry hadn't heard her call him that in a while. He hissed his laughter, then relaxed more against her large, cool body. He was tired and found his exhaustion and loneliness loosened his tongue. He tried to explain his new title to her and his surprise at finding himself in his new position. His discomfort, if he was being honest, with the power it gave him. He'd been fine with the status quo. He wasn't quite sure what Voldemort was about in changing things up. Sure, Harry was pleased that he no longer had to watch so closely what he said around the man, as Tom was more lenient with what Harry said now. Not only that, but it hadn't been long since Harry was so subservient that he wouldn't have dared to even touch the Dark Lord without permission.

And now he—Harry—was giving demands. It was a heady thought. "He's giving me a choice about bringing Ron back," he told Nagini, who then demanded that he explain what that meant. It was hard to push all his memories of Ron into something she'd understand.

Her opinion was that Harry only needed her and Voldemort.

"I rather agree with you, and I don't see what good can come of bringing him back. I think it's a pretty big risk." He didn't add that it was his heart he was risking rather than his safety. His unfairness, that he'd put his own emotional wellbeing over Ron's right to simply exist, was a bitterness he wished he could hide as easily away as his petrified friend could be stashed away in the Malfoy dungeons.

Nagini was close to sleep now. Harry had decided that he must have woken up after only a few hours rest, after all, for her exhaustion permeated through their bond and he was having trouble keeping his own eyes open.

And that was where Voldemort found them when he returned from the Ministry, or wherever he'd been all morning.

Harry blinked up into Tom's face. He began to say something—it was broken with what he guessed was a terrifically ugly yawn, though when he managed to open his eyes again it was to find fond eyes gazing down at him. Harry scrubbed the sleep from his face, then mumbled, "Time's it?"

"Almost six o'clock."

Harry looked at the darkened window. "In the evening?" He hoped he hadn't slept all night on the hearth rug.

"Of course, darling. And supper is in the dining hall tonight. I'm glad to see you've put on fresh clothes."

"And I've bathed." As if proper hygiene was something to be proud of.

The thought seemed to amuse Voldemort as well. "Good for you. Your hair could still use a brush."

"Not you too," Harry grumbled as he stalked through to the bathroom. He didn't know what the fuss was all about. Now that his hair was longer, it fell far more gracefully than it ever had before. Admittedly it was a little knotted, though not enough to get worked up over. He ripped a comb through it anyway, grimacing when it caught in a snag. For good measure, he gargled a bit of the potion Voldemort used in lieu of toothpaste, then spat it out in the sink.

When Harry returned to the bedroom, Voldemort had the drinks cabinet open and was pouring out a measure of Scotch. On the cabinet shelf, at the very front, sat a familiar green bottle. Tom sipped his drink and carefully watched Harry's reaction.

The longevity potion certainly didn't look like much, but Harry knew just how deceptive appearances could be. To think of how much bother it had caused. How much loss.

"I think much has been gained," Voldemort said quietly in response to Harry's unspoken thoughts. He stepped away as Harry approached the cabinet, seemingly willing to let his young consort make the decision alone.

Harry picked the vial up. It was so small. Not more than a mouthful. "I saw you making it in my dreams. There was a lot more than this." He looked up, grinning crookedly. "You haven't been supplying some Knockturn Alley apothecary with this stuff, have you?" A potion made of Harry Potter's own virginal semen, all but guaranteeing long-life, would be a rather big hit on the black market.

"This was all it made. The potion condensed to but a single dose."

"And you want me to drink it?"

"More than anything."

Harry wondered at that as he swirled the draught about in the confines of its bottle. "More than world domination?" he joked. He looked up to Tom's open mouth, and all of a sudden, Harry didn't want to know the answer. He pulled off the crystal cap and asked, "I just swallow it? I don't need to dance nude under the full moon or something first?"

Tom leered at him. "I would not be opposed to such a thing, but no. You can just drink it."

And so, Harry brought the vial to his lips. He had almost tipped it back, when he paused and turned to Tom, who was looking on with dismay at Harry's hesitation. Harry asked, "How long will this make me live for, anyway?" He chuckled humourlessly. "And you never did tell me if I'd still age after I drink this. What's the good of me being around for centuries just to be a withered old man? I mean, I guess I'd still be your Horcrux, right?"

"You'd be more than that."

Harry shrugged. Of course Tom would think that now. But when Harry was three-hundred years old and looked it?

"Just to be clear, this potion won't make me immortal or anything, right? Like, I could still die from a Killing Curse or if I was stabbed or something?"

"You won't be dying," Voldemort vowed. Harry could feel the man's distress at the very thought. It made him queasy.

Still, he had to know. Because while he didn't want to die now, he also didn't want to be so old that his joints ground against bare bone or his white hair was falling out in clumps, his skin too thin to hold on to the roots. "But if someone were to try, I'd still die, right?"

Voldemort finished the rest of the Scotch before answering. "Yes. You would still die. My protections on you, however, will prevent most fatalities."

At Harry's confusion, Voldemort said, "The runes I carved into your skin."

That had Harry unconsciously tracing his torso. "They're still active? They'd faded. I'd thought their power had as well."

Voldemort shook his head. "The protections will last as long as I live. And I am immortal."

Harry glanced down at the bottle. "I don't want to grow old," he admitted. "I don't want to die, either. But most of all, I don't want you to turn away from me one hundred years from now."

"I would take an Unbreakable Vow to promise I won't if it would ease your concern."

Harry tapped his nose. "Immortal," he reminded him. But the sentiment remained the same. Harry lifted the potion back up to his lips. With a look at Voldemort—who looked beyond relieved—he tipped it back and swallowed it down. The promise of long years slid down his throat.

It tasted exactly like leftover cereal milk. Harry made a face at the strange grittiness that seemed to stick to the top of his tongue. He peered into the bottle, checking to make sure he'd gotten it all. Not even a film clung to the inside, the vial impossibly emptied.

When he raised his head, Tom stepped in and kissed him, softly, upon his closed lips. When Harry went to deepen the kiss, Voldemort pulled away. "I don't want to steal one day from you. Drink some water first."

A glass appeared on the sideboard, proof of Flippy's diligence. Harry gulped it down, his eyes on Voldemort's mouth. As soon as the last drop was gone, he stepped forward and claimed Tom's mouth with his own. His hands came up to encircle the other man's neck. He felt fingers tangle in his hair, tugging his head back. Harry pulled Tom towards the bed. He tumbled backwards onto it, pulling the Dark Lord along with him. "Do we have time before we're due to eat?"

Voldemort knelt over Harry. "We have just over an hour. That's enough time to make your hard work getting ready for naught. Of course, we could always arrive dishevelled. My Death Eaters have seen far worse, and I can always curse them if they complain."

Harry pulled Tom close, mouthing at his sharp jaw. He loved the angle it made. Voldemort had kept all of Tom Riddle's beautiful facial structure, overlying it with the incredible snake-like otherness that had come to define him as he'd matured. The combination made Harry weak in the knees.

It was a good thing he was already on his back.

He wrapped his legs around Tom's waist, then fruitlessly began struggling with buttons. "A little out of order," Tom observed with a smirk. "But magic is useful for more than cursing critical followers." And it was true, for one wordless spell ensured both his and Harry's clothes were gone.

"Much better," Harry told him, his voice quickly becoming more moan than speech. He began to work on forging a love-bite on Tom's lower jaw. "Forget a snitch on your arm. I'll just keep you marked here, where the whole world can see."

Tom pulled him away, but only to plunder his mouth yet again. Harry melted into the sheets as Tom's tongue wrestled against his own. When the motions became an erotic thrusting, Harry raked his nails over Voldemort's pale shoulders, leaving a series of wicked red lines. He tightened the hold of his legs, drawing Tom closer. He pulled his mouth away just long enough to groan, "I need you now." Lately, Voldemort always took care in making certain Harry was prepped enough that he'd not suffer the slightest discomfort in their coupling. Harry wasn't in the mood, really, for Tom's slow fingering, his gentle stretching. "I'm good already. Just hurry up and fuck me."

"I don't want to hurt you."

"I can take it," Harry said, breathlessly. "I need it."

But Tom wouldn't rush. He worked Harry open, using far more lubricating potion than Harry thought necessary. He writhed against the invading fingers, not sure if he wanted them to brush against his prostrate or not, for he was well aware how much better the Dark Lord's member would feel pounding into him. Tom always got the angle just right, knew just how to send Harry over the edge.

And then the blunt head was pushing inside, and Harry moaned, his entire core lit up with the bliss of being complete. Now that Tom was inside him, it didn't seem to matter how hard they fucked. It was glorious, just being filled like this. Slow, fast. It was all perfect. Harry rolled his hips up in time with Voldemort's thrusts. Whether it was their connection or their newfound knowledge of each other's bodies, they always came together just right. Their paces quickened until Harry was grateful for whatever charm had been placed on the bed; they'd have ruined the springs, otherwise.

Harry was fully hard, his cock brushing beautifully up against Tom's stomach, finding friction. Above him, Tom was hissing praise at him, calling him his beautiful boy, his sweetest Horcrux, his darling. Harry drank it all down. He was too far gone to call back similarly. He arched his back, his eyes screwed tight, and luxuriated in how close he was to climaxing.

But then, Tom was slowing. He stilled, and not with the urgency of orgasm. When Harry opened his eyes, he was struck by reverent crimson eyes gazing down at him. "How did you come to me?" Tom asked, wonderingly. "In what world was I so lucky as this?"

Harry smiled up at him. "Does fate not favour Lord Voldemort?" He licked his lips, tasting the words as they left his mouth.

"She truly does," Voldemort agreed, then added slyly, "Is it so wrong for me to want Harry Potter on his knees before me?"

Harry didn't need to have taken his NEWTs to understand his lover's meaning. "Not wrong at all," he replied. He did feel—ironically—a momentary wrongness in the form of loss as Tom pulled out of him. Harry turned around, pressing his cheek to the bed, his arse lifted up in offering.

Voldemort seemed at a loss for words, but that was okay, for his heavy breathing told Harry all he needed to know.

"Fuck me, my Lord."

Strong hands gripped his hips, and Voldemort pressed once more inside, groaning as he fully seated himself in Harry's heat.

Harry wished he had a mirror. How unfair that Voldemort had such an incredible view when all he saw was his feather pillow? But then all thoughts were driven from him as Tom pulled almost out then slammed back in, driving hard against his prostate. Harry cried out, words lost to him once more as he was pushed deeper and deeper into the mattress. He brought a hand to his own cock and tried to stroke in time with how Voldemort was driving into him but lost the rhythm almost at once and clawed at the sheets instead.

One particular brutal thrust, and Harry was coming in thick lines onto the bed below him. Still, Tom wasn't done, not even close. Harry whined as his scar buzzed with the Dark Lord's desire, and his prostate was still being battered. He tried to shift, to get relief from the constant stimulation, but Tom had other ideas, moving one hand off Harry's hip to press down on his lower back, pinning him in place.

If Harry had been able, he would have called Tom for what he was: a sadistic fucker, the words exactly true. But before long he rose past the worst of the overstimulation and found himself growing hard again. And, of course, that was when Tom's punishing pace slowed to a painful crawl.

Harry was drenched in sweat and trembling with need. When he finally found his voice, it came out as a needy moan. He managed, "A man could go mad with what you're doing to me."

Tom hummed noncommittedly. "I know curses, my sweet, that would keep you hard for days, your balls constantly filling, your mind blank but for desire."

Harry's laugh changed to a whimper as Tom slowly pushed all the way in again. When he could get another word out, he chided, "You're supposed to be whispering sweet nothings into my ear, not threats."

Tom inched back. "Mmmm, but I thought I was a sadistic fu—"

"Yes, so get on with it." One problem with this position, Harry decided, was how he helpless he felt. He couldn't thrust back as he needed, and Voldemort seemed content to tease him by resting for seemingly minutes at a time at his entrance.

Voldemort made the mistake of taking his hand off his back, and Harry took advantage and slipped away. He spun round, briefly enjoying the look of surprise on Tom's face, before pulling his bedmate down under him. Before Tom could react, he was flat on his back and Harry had straddled him. It was with a sigh of contentment that Harry sank deep onto Tom's hard cock. He pressed all the way down, sighing, then had to pause for a moment to get his bearings.

Voldemort stared up up at him, his slitted pupils blown so black they were nearly rounded. He swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down.

Only then did Harry begin to move. Never breaking eye-contact, he began to lift up and down in waves, slow and sinuous. Pleasure was a wild thing he was chasing, and he watched in satisfaction as Voldemort's mouth fell open to hiss something incomprehensible, the only intelligible word a drawn out "Yesssssssss."

Harry moved faster, shifting his hips in deeper and wider undulations. He, too, fell into the familiarity of Parseltongue, hissing out how good Tom felt beneath him, how he was so big, filling him so much, that he was close—so close.

And he was. He writhed just so, pushing himself against Tom perfectly. So close. So close.

With a sputtering hiss, he cried out, "T-Tom!" as he finally came once more, harder, further than ever to paint his lover's chest a beautiful, pearly white. He clenched down in unadulterated satisfaction, breathing through the pleasure rushing through him. Voldemort finally broke eye contact, his head falling back, eyes closing. He, too, cried out as his own fierce orgasm hit.

Harry collapsed onto Tom, completely drained. That was twice he'd come in so short a time. He hadn't thought he'd have so much left after the first go, but the evidence against that lay sticky on the heaving chest below.

When he could finally speak coherently again, Harry propped himself up—wincing as Tom's softening cock slipped out, followed by an uncomfortable stream of spent—and gave them both a once-over. Then he glanced at the clock. "We have fifteen minutes to get cleaned up and down to the dining room," he announced. He glanced wistfully towards the bathroom, knowing they hadn't time for more than a cleansing charm.

Before Harry could protest, Voldemort lazily waved a hand and cast the requisite spell. Harry shuddered. "That feels like you're stripping off at least one layer of skin," he complained. "Must you overpower every spell?"

With a chuckle, Voldemort asked, "You would prefer to be consort to a weak leader?"

Harry glared as he got up to pull a clean robe from his wardrobe. He knew the effect was muted, since through their link Voldemort would realize his expression was for show. "Of course not," he finally admitted as he fastened the last of his shirt buttons. "The whole of Wizarding Britain must be fucking envious of me. Eighteen years old and married to the most powerful man in the world."

Voldemort grinned. He still hadn't made any move to get dressed and was still lounging naked as the day he'd emerged from the cauldron. "You think they're envious of you?" he asked, his voice lilting curiously.

"Well, why not?" Harry bent down to tie his shoes. There was a charm for this, he knew, but something about Tom's sudden, amused, scrutiny made him uncomfortable. Strange, that. He was the one fully dressed. But then, it had been the same when Voldemort had been reborn, hadn't it? The Dark Lord had languidly examined his newly formed body while Harry could only shiver—terrified—bound to the gravestone.

"I know I am not as I once was," Tom began thoughtfully. All humour seemed to have bled out of him. "Not all look on me as you do, as though I were something worth wanting." He said nothing of one particular witch who'd also gazed near starvingly at the Dark Lord's serpentine features, yet for a moment her memory was heavy in the room.

Harry wanted to deny the Dark Lord's claims. It was no good saying something like, 'The fools don't know how goddamned gorgeous you used to be,' or even to remind the man of how perfect he looked to Harry now.

"Don't waste your time trying to praise my current appearance. When I was first reborn, any useful body was a marvel. I've long grown accustomed to my…malformation."

Harry strode over to Voldemort. He sat on the edge of the bed and rested a hand on Tom's thigh. "No. You aren't. You're incredible! That teenaged memory of yourself that you sealed in the diary might have been handsome as fuck, but you're magnificent. I knew, of course, that he was good looking. But I never wanted to kiss him as I do you."

"I think you not being twelve now might be contributing to that." Voldemort finally moved off the bed, pulling Harry with him. A few words and he'd conjured robes to cover himself.

Harry didn't bother trying to figure out if the magical display was some sort of newly misplaced modesty or a harmless rejoinder to his own Mugglish manner of dressing. Instead, he urged, "You. I want you. As you are now. You were handsome. You are beautiful." He reached his arms up to circle Tom's neck.

Voldemort brushed Harry's hands away, though not angrily. "I rather think you are more than a little influenced by being my Horcrux."

Harry shook his head. "That's not it. If it were to vanish, I swear I'd feel the same."

Tom glared at him. "Don't even joke of such a thing." He raised his baleful eyes to Harry's scar, as if daring it to even try abandoning them. It was the most dangerous look Harry had seen directed at him in quite a while. Whether it was Harry's quick step back, the way he nervously bit his lip and looked to Tom's wand hand, or simply the flow of information between them, something made Tom look abashed.

There was something aching left unsaid between them. Regret, maybe. Or shame. Even with perfect Legilimency, Harry knew he'd never convince Voldemort of how much he loved drinking in the sight of him. There would always be an excuse waiting to explain it away.

"Let's go down to dinner. They'll be waiting on us," Harry urged. It was the Slytherin way out, and Tom seemed eager to take the suggestion.

He did, though, coax Harry back in front of a mirror. Harry groaned and mumbled, "This is all your fault." This time, nothing would make his hair behave.