Voldemort was busy.
He was busy with his continuing efforts on the Continent, which his people remained mostly unaware of.
He was busy overseeing Narcissa's hiring efforts, since the sweeping changes would be taking effect that autumn and they only had a few weeks remaining before the staff would begin arriving for their pre-term preparation.
He was busy writing an entirely new curriculum, no small feat, but one that he felt at least somewhat capable of after he'd spent a few afternoons visiting some of the smaller magical schools across Africa.
And it seemed that whenever he looked away, when he turned back there was a new note there on his desk, taunting him, prodding at him, encouraging him, paying attention to him.
It was both irritating and flattering to have that much attention on him from an individual such as Potter.
But what he most certainly did not have time for was Potter barging into his office after he'd finally decided to take that step that he'd been second-guessing ever since he'd returned from London.
"What's wrong with you!?" Potter demanded, brandishing the rose like it was a rapier.
Voldemort looked up from his stacks of parchment, raised a hairless brow pointedly, then returned to his work as he replied mildly, "According to you, plenty. I'm afraid you will need to be a bit more specific."
"This! Look, I know that I said you'd need to find some way to piss me off, but first of all, I was mostly joking. Second of all, this is just—not necessary!"
"And with a tad less yelling and a bit more specificity?"
Suddenly there was a rose—only left intact due to the preservation charms that he'd cast over it, most likely—in the way, right on top of the stack of parchment while Potter loomed over his desk, breathing hard.
"Fascination? Excitement?" He waved his arms about senselessly some more before blustering out, "Desire!?"
Voldemort smirked and set down his quill as he sat back in his chair. "Ah, I was hoping that you would understand since you kept Narcissa's arrangements in your home—she did always love the language of flowers. I was worried I might need to be a bit less subtle."
"What? Look, I know that I've been sending you plenty of notes, but that doesn't mean you need to—to mock me about them!"
He narrowed his eyes. "You think this is mockery?" he asked quietly as he stood, tired of Potter using his height to his advantage. "I say what I mean. You of all people should know this."
"I—" Potter looked entirely confused, even as his eyes shone and his face was flushed.
So Voldemort slowly walked around his desk, watching the way that Potter's gaze tracked his movements, and the way his fingers twitched at his sides, as though urging him to do something.
When he was standing in front of the other man he raised a hand and summoned the rose, plucking it from the air with a careful grasp.
"There are more subtle messages I could have used, of course," he said evenly, almost lazily, as he ran a finger over its soft petals. "But you have never been one for subtle. Even now, you've chosen to storm into my office in the middle of the day, rather than creeping in to leave me a threatening note."
Potter was flicking his gaze between the rose and Voldemort's eyes, back and forth, as his quick breaths were puffing erratically against his fingertips.
"You seem to need a definition though, even though you have identified the meaning of the message. You fascinate me," he began, and then turned to begin slowly circling the other man where he appeared to be frozen in place.
"You won the war, and defeated an undefeatable wand, killed an immortal man, and then travelled here because you were bored. You had the opportunity to end my existence again, and instead you saved my life. You have mastered the Elder Wand, and yet you use that power not to claim dominion over the world, but to pester me. Simply fascinating."
He paused behind Potter, watching the way his entire body tensed at the change in movement, and likely at the fact that he could no longer see Voldemort.
"You excite me. That should also be simple to comprehend. Even when I think that I understand you, you do something so unexpected that it leaves me bewildered. You fight me on issues that I expect you to act against, but you don't do it in any way I'd anticipate. You stole Azkaban. Your power is incredible. Exciting."
He returned to face Potter and took a moment to let his gaze rove over his face, taking in the darkness of his flushed skin, the brightness of the thin line of green around the blackness of his dilated pupils, the fluttering of his eyelids as he continued to brave the intensity of Voldemort's attention.
He raised the rose and let a soft petal brush along the top of a cheekbone, then across to the flat of his cheek, in front of his ear. Then down, past his jaw, to rest at his jugular.
The delicate petals quivered with the rapid pattering of the pulse there.
"Desire," he said simply.
With that one word Potter's eyes fluttered shut and he released an unsteady breath, even as he swayed almost imperceptibly closer.
"The coral rose is for new beginnings," Voldemort murmured, as he used it to trace along his neck to the hollow behind an ear, letting one of the thorns just graze the skin.
Potter hissed softly, a sound without words, and yet so much meaning, as he swayed again, and this time Voldemort caught his chin between his thumb and forefinger, tilted his head up ever so slightly.
Potter's lips parted, and any lingering doubts Voldemort had felt evaporated as a heat, so similar to the rage that he constantly felt, but this one solely Potter's, burned through him.
"Well?" he whispered, repeating the word, the challenge, that had been in the note of his latest gift.
Potter's eyes flew open and there was a momentary flash of outrage on his face before he reached out and grabbed the front of his robes, and crashed their lips together.
Voldemort growled, he was fairly certain, partly at the force with which Potter presumed to manhandle him, and partly at the desire that he felt coursing through his veins, one that he'd had no use for until now. And then he was pushing against Potter, his right hand crushing the rose against burning skin as he grasped the back of his neck while he wrapped his other arm around the man's torso, pinning them together.
And even in this, Potter was wild, thrashing against his hold even as groaned and deepened the kiss, pushing his body even more firmly against his own until Voldemort needed to step backward to avoid toppling over completely, and then finding himself locked in place between Potter and his desk, which was not how he'd planned for this to go—
—and then the desire was at a fever pitch, because of course this wouldn't have gone as he'd planned, and why had he even had the faintest thought that Potter might not immediately vie for control in this too—
—and as they stood there, limbs locked together, muscles fighting for dominance, the final thought he had was that if he was going to—temporarily—relinquish control it would be for this mad being in front of him now—
—and then he released that control with a groan of his own into Potter's mouth, drinking in the sound of the man's surprise as Voldemort allowed himself to be pushed onto the surface of the desk, paperwork long forgotten.
Epilogue.
It wasn't perfect.
In fact, it was far from perfect.
Voldemort still refused to call him Harry, and therefore Harry stubbornly insisted on calling him Tom, even when it resulted in nasty duels and yelling about past grievances and fighting that would invariably end up with one of them spending a few nights on the Continent or blowing up mountains in the Scottish highlands.
Voldemort was still searching for immortality, though more aggressively, now that he seemed to have gotten it into his head that Harry actually wanted it as well. And Harry helped him, half-heartedly, on one hand wanting to support the man in handling what was actually a source of terror for him, and on the other hand thinking the entire obsession was absurd.
And when Britain was sorted enough for the both of them Voldemort set his sights on France, which had Harry rolling his eyes, until Voldemort took that to mean that he wasn't interested in helping and brought his Death Eaters across the Channel for a Bastille Day attack. Which prompted more fighting, and a return to Harry's earlier methods of doing whatever he felt like doing and sending the man copious taunting notes about that fact.
So, it wasn't perfect.
But it was exactly what Harry wanted.