Chapter 8

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It was well-past midnight when Harry arrived at the Ministry, only to be confronted by the heavy metal door barring him from the cells behind it. Harry almost sobbed in frustration. Why hadn't he thought of this? The guard reading at his desk was the same one Harry had seen raping Voldemort while the man had been dead and bleeding out from knife wounds a few days prior. He had to learn their names.

Harry had no choice. He waited. He cast a non-verbal Silencing Charm on himself and settled back onto the ground, against the wall, to wait for the guard to go to the loo. The stakes were too high, he couldn't mess this up.

Talking to Hermione had been nice, but while no longer entranced by her optimistic fervour, Harry was left facing the stark reality of his situation.

Voldemort was in prison. Harry was forbidden to see him. He had the Cloak and could hopefully manage to sneak in, but how long would that work for? Would it be enough? His mind tortured him with images of what they were doing to Voldemort in his cell every day. How long could Harry live with that, with accepting such brutality as part of his job?

And then, separately, what was going to happen with Ginny? If she outed him to anyone his life would be ruined, no matter Hermione's optimism.

He was faced with two opportunities for destruction, both fatal in their own ways. If not able to see Voldemort anymore, Harry may well go crazy, and if Ginny exposed his homosexuality, he would lose his social circle and his job and any access to Voldemort he was managing to hold onto— bringing him back to his previous demise.

Either way, he knew he needed Voldemort. That thought, once horrifying, now was acceptable under the imminent threat of complete devastation.

It was after three in the morning when the guard finally rose and entered the loo. Harry jumped up, his muscles aching from sitting on the hard floor for so long, but he ignored his discomfort. He rushed to open the door and sneak past.

Success!

His heart fluttered as he ran down the hall, still protected by the Silencing Charm, and almost crashed into the cell bars. Careful! He could not be heard or seen.

His eyes darted and found Voldemort sleeping on his cot, curled up like a cat. A bloody bandage was wrapped around his groin.

That couldn't be good.

Harry allowed the guilt to consume him for a moment as he stared at the battered man before him. One of his eyes was swollen with deep purple and red bruising surrounding the closed lid. He had finger marks all over his body, obviously from rough handling, and his head was scraped and bloody. And— were those fingernail scratches gouged into his scalp?

He had not had an easy weekend and Harry had been off on a romantic holiday with his fiancée.

"Reducio!" Harry carefully incanted on himself, though with the Silencing Charm he couldn't hear it, and he shrank small enough to squeeze through the bars.

"Finite!" his little voice said aloud, and Harry was back to normal, voice and all.

He tiptoed, still under the Cloak, until he was leaning right over the sleeping form. Voldemort's swollen eye had a gash in it too. Blood was scabbed onto the wound and Harry also noticed the man's nostrils were red and bloody. He had obviously recently taken a beating and Harry's fists clenched in possessive fury.

He must have made a sound because the other man jerked awake, eyes snapping open, searching for danger. He looked scared. Harry took a step back and Voldemort must have sensed him.

"Show yourself," commanded that high, cold voice.

Harry's body tingled. Voldemort had sat up, his posture wary but menacing.

"It's me," Harry said, before Voldemort's body could give the game away. "Stop reacting, I'm under the Invisibility Cloak. I'm not allowed to be here."

Harry watched Voldemort take that information in. When he had heard Harry's voice his expression had been amazed and perhaps even relieved, but once the words had sunk in, a deep frown had overtaken it.

"What is going on?" the man asked, his lips hardly moving.

"I fucked up," Harry admitted. "Look, I need you to lay down and pretend to be sleeping while we talk."

Voldemort hesitated, but then slowly lowered himself back onto the cot. Harry did not miss the delicate way he did so.

"Are you okay?" he asked, completely distracted.

The man's left eye was swollen closed and his pinched expression revealed the pain he must be in.

"I am fine. Tell me what has happened."

Voldemort's one good eye was staring intensely into the invisible space where Harry was kneeling. It was disconcerting that the man somehow knew exactly where he was.

"Here, take these first, you look awful."

Voldemort's good eye glared at him, but when the potion bottles materialized out of the air he quickly took them, raising each one surreptitiously to his nose slits before downing them. His expression relaxed a fraction. Harry absorbed every nuance of that face in case he was to be kept from it.

"Now tell me," Voldemort demanded, his left eye already deflating, the red iris emerging rapidly.

"The guards. They saw us."

Harry waited for the man to understand and he did so, almost at once. Voldemort's frown deepened and his lips thinned.

"Yes. I have heard."

"They told you, too?"

The other man hesitated, looking away. Harry waited for him to elaborate, but after a few minutes, Harry just continued.

"They threatened me, said they will tell everyone." Harry felt the weight of that settle onto him. "I'm trapped, Voldemort. And Ginny… she found out. Now she is also threatening to expose me."

Voldemort looked back in Harry's direction.

"Found out."

Harry sighed.

"Found out I'm gay."

There. He'd said it.

Voldemort didn't even blink.

"How?"

Harry felt a hysterical laugh bubble up out of him.

"Oh, maybe because I've never been attracted to her? Though we actually managed to shag twice this weekend, somehow. Or perhaps because she knows I sneak out and have sex with Muggle men? I even got fucked this evening, right before— "

Voldemort sat up abruptly, reached out his hand, and fisted it in Harry's Invisibility Cloak. Before Harry could protest, the man was yanking Harry towards him and onto the cot, lifting the Cloak to cover himself and throwing Harry onto his back.

Voldemort pinned Harry's arms above his head, leaning all his weight down upon him, his eyes wild and furious.

"You did what?"

Harry went limp, staring up at him, accepting the punishment gratefully. He had been reckless, Harry knew it, and it was a relief to be called out.

"I—"

"You let someone touch what is mine," Voldemort hissed fiercely, his fingers tightening uncomfortably around Harry's wrists, but Harry felt his muscles melt further in response.

His cock was instantly straining against the body pressing him down.

"You let a Muggle man fuck you, Harry."

It was not a question but a scathing remark. Harry took it, welcoming his due.

Harry felt those fingers shift on his wrists, bringing them together, so that Voldemort could restrain him with one hand only. Harry let him, watching Voldemort's other hand move down and Harry felt two fingers press assertively into his chin, forcing his head to tilt up, exposing his neck.

He peeked down, only able to see a sliver of Voldemort's face at this angle, and saw the inferno of possessive heat ignite in those red eyes.

"You have been branded," the man whispered roughly. Furiously. "More than once."

Harry tried to bring his chin back down, to hide, but Voldemort growled and used his whole hand to wrap around Harry's throat, pushing it up again.

"This man who has dared to mark you," Voldemort seethed, his eyes piercing Harry's skin. "I will find and kill him, Harry."

And that shouldn't be as hot as it was. Murder, as foreplay.

Voldemort's gaze shifted and his fingers moved up to push aside the hair on Harry's forehead. Harry watched those eyes darken and fix on his scar.

"You forget, you have already been won. You wear my mark for all to see. You belong to me."

Voldemort lowered his head to Harry's neck and breathed him in, his breath warm on Harry's sweaty skin.

"I can smell him on you."

Dread licked up Harry's spine, yet it wasn't the expected, rational fear of death, but rather a fear of disappointing.

"You are mine."

The words were delivered directly into his ear and Harry shivered, the hot breath inciting goosebumps all over his skin. Helplessly, he pushed his clothed erection up into Voldemort's stomach and the man hissed, his hand moving from Harry's throat to grip his hip painfully.

A minuscule part of Harry that was still capable of rational thought was revelling in the fact that Voldemort was jealous.

"You think you can defile yourself and then come to me, parade your indecency before me, and receive release? You think you deserve that, Harry?"

"No," Harry moaned, his hips undulating against the revelation of a corresponding hardness.

He didn't know what he deserved, but he was powerless here. He would take whatever Voldemort sought to provide.

"No," Voldemort agreed, and his eyes, which had followed his hand to Harry's hips, now returned to seize Harry once again, gleaming with lust and domination. "No, Harry, you do not. But I do. I will not have you providing to others what belongs to me. I will remind you to whom you belong."

Voldemort grabbed Harry's shirt and ripped it open, buttons popping and falling away. Harry gasped and then cried out as Voldemort's mouth descended onto his chest and began biting and sucking marks all over his torso. Harry writhed underneath him, hips thrusting up, trying to make contact with the irresistible naked body that was punishing him. Well, naked except for that damn bandage around the man's straining cock.

"No, Harry," Voldemort said darkly, rising up to spear Harry with a dangerous look. "You will take what I give you, nothing more. Be still," he commanded and then seized Harry's nipple in his teeth and pulled.

Harry screamed and Voldemort stopped immediately, eyes focused in terror on the cell door.

The cell!

Harry cursed, terrified, and made to jump up, but Voldemort pinned him to the cot, stopping him. They both froze, listening. Hardly daring to breathe. It was impossible that the guard had not heard Harry's shout.

Voldemort slowly lowered his head, bringing his mouth to Harry's ear.

"It is possible that a Silencing Charm has been employed on the door leading to these cells." The man's humid breath made Harry's eyes flutter closed despite the danger they were in. "They do that sometimes. There are storage rooms just outside," Voldemort continued, the man's eyes still staring towards the cell door. "I suspect they did not want screams to be heard by other Ministry employees."

"Screams?" Harry whispered.

Voldemort looked down at him silently, and they shared a moment that acknowledged the horror they found themselves in.

The Dark Lord shifted off of him, releasing his shoulders, and laying down on his back beside Harry. His expression was guarded, closed. Harry's hand lifted automatically and stroked that newly healed cheek.

"This is crazy," Harry muttered to himself, because what they were doing, what they felt, was impossible.

Ludicrous.

Those red eyes held him. Harry felt exposed and vulnerable, but strangely… not threatened. This close to his enemy he should feel fear, yet he felt only wonder.

"Kingsley thinks you're using me," Harry breathed, needing to fill the silence. "To get free."

"So I hear."

"What?" Harry asked, distracted by that troubling phrase. "Did the guards—"

Voldemort shook his head.

"I had a stately visit from the Minister for Magic himself."

Harry rose up onto his elbows, moving to cover the other man with his body.

"Kingsley came here?" he asked with deep concern. "What did he want?"

Voldemort smirked darkly, his fingers idly tracing Harry's face.

"A literal pound of my flesh and to attempt to intimidate me."

A pound…?

"Did he hurt you?" Harry asked, aghast, placing a hand on the pale shoulder beneath him, gripping it tight.

He had reluctantly accepted that the guards were monsters, but his friend?

Voldemort watched Harry's face, seeming to take in every detail of his reaction. Those long fingers traced his forehead, feeling the raised eyebrows, then smoothed down over his jaw, and finally over his open lips.

Voldemort hummed lowly.

Harry let himself relax into the body below him, thumping his head against that meagre chest, and feeling each rib against his forehead.

"What are we going to do?" Harry whispered, lost and nervous.

He felt arms encircle him slowly, tentatively, as if unsure what to do. Or perhaps unsure of their welcome. Harry burrowed closer, refusing to think about what either of them were doing. It didn't matter. It likely would be taken away from them soon anyway.

"They're going to catch us," Harry whispered, closing his eyes, and he felt those limbs tighten around him. Protectively. "It's only a matter of time. They're… are they punishing you already for… kissing me?"

Merlin, that kiss.

Voldemort did not answer for a few moments, stroking Harry's back. That was answer enough.

"It is no different than what they normally do. If I have seen any increase in violence or frequency lately it is solely because I have been defying them more aggressively."

"Because of me."

Voldemort smirked down at him and Harry felt his own pulse quicken.

"So eager to accept blame."

Harry rolled his eyes and wrapped his arms around himself, pushing his body as close to the other man's as he could get. He felt safe. Whole.

"I'm back tomorrow. Today? In a few hours anyway. And I'll be talking to Kingsley about your guards."

Voldemort's fingers stopped moving on his back. Harry looked up and saw resentment on Voldemort's face.

"You will make no progress there. They enjoy their jobs too much."

His tone was bitter, scathing. Harry realized something.

"Have they never told you why they hurt you?"

Voldemort cocked his head slightly.

"I would imagine it was obvious."

Harry shook his head.

"It's not what you're thinking. They hate you, yes, but it's not wholly selfish. They think that if they keep you distracted… with pain and… starvation. Then that will keep your brilliant mind off of figuring out how to get this collar off."

Harry's eyes zeroed in on that black metal, touching it with the pads of his fingers. He felt the magic churning under his skin and stifled a groan.

"And they are terrified of you with this collar off."

Voldemort lowered his head to the thin cot and Harry could see he was doing some fast thinking. Harry wondered if he had said too much. Maybe everyone was right and Harry had forgotten that Voldemort was the enemy. Forgot what the man was capable of.

"Let's say you do get this collar off," Harry whispered, trying to distract them from those heavy thoughts for a moment.

He rubbed his face along the warm, black metal. Voldemort stiffened.

"There are three guards outside. You're at the Ministry of Magic and have dozens if not hundreds of witches and wizards around. The Auror department. Everyone has wands, you do not. You are weak— well, your body is weak. You're injured and malnourished and—"

"Ask your question," Voldemort said impatiently, obviously not liking the description of himself.

"Okay. So. You stand against all the forces of the Aurors in the building, all the Ministry employees… You're wandless. Who wins?"

"I do," Voldemort answered immediately, his fingers carding through Harry's hair once more.

Harry snorted.

"Don't be so modest. Why do you win?"

"Harry. Perhaps it has not been explained to you. I am powerful. I am intelligent. But more than that, I am livid. I want vengeance and I have had over a decade to devise how to get it. I am quite imaginative." Harry shivered, believing that wholly. "Salazar Slytherin's cunning flows through my veins, do not forget."

Harry frowned, letting his temple rest against that collar, feeling the power thrum through it.

"But they're livid too," he said in a small voice, imagining hundreds of Voldemort's victims learning that he was still alive. "They hate you too."

Voldemort's fingers stroked his skin, unconcerned.

"Yes. But when I break free from here, there will be no stopping me."

"So you'd begin a bloodbath," Harry whispered, as the miserable reality crashed down on him. "A massacre. Would it be just to escape, just what you had to? Or would you not rest until everyone was dead?"

The other man was silent so Harry pulled back to look at his face. It was grim, yet Voldemort's eyes were sparkling as they stared past Harry. It was clear he was imagining it.

"I would kill those that have harmed… that have attempted to harm me," the man's voice rumbled lowly. Harry watched his Adam's apple move up and down. "I would not let them live."

"And the rest?"

Voldemort looked at him, his eyes unreadable but intense.

"I would not hurt you, Harry, if that is what worries you."

"Why?" Harry asked quietly. "I put you here. I'm an Auror. I…"

"I will not harm you. I no longer wish to."

Harry let out a breath, thinking about that. It wasn't a confirmation that the man didn't intend to go all Dark Lord again, but Harry didn't think they were ready for that conversation just yet. It was… encouraging to know his nemesis no longer wanted him dead, in any case.

Harry yawned widely and Voldemort watched him.

Shifting slightly, Harry realized he could still feel the man's erection against his stomach, but neither of them were pushing to cross that line anymore. Harry didn't know how to feel about that, either. Kissing the Dark Lord was one thing, but having sex with him? That meant something more.

Hermione was wrong. It wasn't that kissing was more intimate, it was just that kissing seemed to be an act that was impossible to force. You can tie someone up and rape them, but kissing required two sets of moving, engaged lips. So, if Voldemort had been kissing the guards, that hinted at consent. Which means, they hadn't been kissing, but rather the guards had likely licked and pressed their faces against Voldemort's lips.

Harry felt murderous picturing it, knowing that— and far worse— had been done to the man holding him.

"The Minister said he's tried every way possible to kill you. That must have been hell," Harry whispered, relaxing against the warm skin once more, wanting to keep looking at that face, but far too tired. "What was that like?"

Voldemort was silent and unmoving. Harry wondered if he had fallen asleep.

"It has not been pleasant," the man finally rasped, and Harry felt the rumble of his words against his cheek.

The intimacy of that curled his lips into a satisfied smile.

"But then, perhaps it was understandable," Voldemort mused softly, his breath ruffling Harry's hair. "It is what I would have done. What I will do, if I ever get the opportunity. After twelve years, though… after twelve years of this… I am not unaffected."

With that cryptic but encouraging thought echoing in his mind, Harry closed his eyes.

.

.

He woke to someone shaking him.

Harry jolted up, but was grabbed by the nape and yanked back down.

"Do not flail, your Cloak will reveal us," Voldemort commanded sternly in his ear.

Harry's eyes latched onto his pale, tense face and Harry realized hysterically that he had spent the night cuddling with the Dark Lord.

Sweet Jesus.

"You have to leave," Voldemort said brusquely. "The guards will change at six and they usually come visit me shortly thereafter. Your watch says it is five forty, which means you need to leave now."

Harry's mouth was open, caught between the need to keep this delicate ruse up and the deeper imperative to protect Voldemort.

If I leave, he'll be alone. They'll drown him and rape him and cut him open—"

"I can't—" he began.

"You will," Voldemort countered, wiping away a tear that was falling down Harry's cheek before he realized he was crying.

Voldemort just—

"You will cast the Intangibility Charm," Voldemort continued, "which is the same one used on the barrier at Platform nine and three-quarters. It is Fumus. Cast it before you walk through the bars and cast the Silencing Charm before that. You are familiar with that one, I am sure."

Voldemort was talking fast and Harry realized he'd just been taught a very helpful spell. But time was running out. He nodded.

"Look, if… if I don't come back," Harry began, and his breath stuttered to a halt when Voldemort grabbed his chin and forced him to meet his blazing eyes.

Harry stared into them and, for a moment, he was transported back into the graveyard at Voldemort's resurrection. That same, wild anger. Harry closed his eyes so he could continue, but Voldemort's fingers remained on his chin.

"It's not because I don't want to. I'll visit every day. But I just want you to know that if I don't—"

"I will come looking for you," Voldemort threatened darkly.

Harry knew it was a bluff, knew there was no way the other man could possibly break free, and even if he did, seeking out Harry would not be the first thing on his to-do list. But the sentiment still pleased him.

"But if I don't, it's not because—"

"Understood," Voldemort said, letting go of his face and Harry opened his eyes. "Now, I will slip under the bed to answer for why I have not been visible this evening. I will do that presently. You will take the Cloak once I am under the bed, and you will go, Harry. Leave. Do not linger and get involved. Doing so will only make the guards more creative with how they enforce their rules. I expect you to obey me in this."

Harry trembled, but nodded his head. Why did this feel like a betrayal?

"Go now," and before Harry could say anything further, Voldemort sat up and slithered under the bed.

He must be visible now.

Harry stood, casting a Silencing Charm on himself and then trying the Intangibility Charm, which worked marvellously.

He looked back when on the other side of the bars, and saw a shadow underneath the bed, but could not distinguish it well enough to know if Voldemort was watching at him.

Harry slipped down the hall and used that new spell to go through the metal door as well. On the other side, the two guards were talking. Harry saw the charm they used to monitor Voldemort. It was like the wall to the cells was just a window and they could see through the multiple empty cells between Voldemort's and the guard's desk.

As he walked to the stairs, he thought about what the guards would do to Voldemort that day. And wondered how much more of this he could handle.

.

.

Harry had gone home to change and shower, then had arrived in the Atrium early for work. As he'd been remiss in most of his duties lately, he resolved to buckle down before his meeting with Kingsley just after lunch.

Speak of the devil.

"Harry, good to see you, how was your weekend?" Kingsley asked, breaking away from a scandalized-looking Percy and putting a hand on Harry's shoulder.

Harry was nervous to respond. Did that mean that Ginny had not told anyone yet? Merlin, he still had to make up with her. A vision of being pinned to a dirty cot and grinding with the Dark Lord gave him pause. Was it right to still get back with her? Was it more honourable to stay with the woman who'd saved his life, who he'd already promised himself to, or to be faithful to a man who had been occupying all his thoughts and who needed his protection?

"Harry, are you alright?"

Crap. Focus.

"Yes, of course. And my weekend was great, real… nice, thank you."

Kingsley frowned. Harry tried not to fidget.

"Can I talk to you privately for a minute? Just, over here," and, without waiting for a response, the Minister led him to a quiet area by the wall and cast a quick Muffliato Charm.

"Are you okay?"

Harry nodded.

"Yeah, I'm grand."

"Harry, I have a meeting with a goblin group in thirty minutes, but I hate seeing you this way. You deserve—"

"What is it, Kingsley?" Harry asked tiredly.

Kingsley gave him a long, hard look.

"I'm concerned you are forming a friendship with him."

There was no need to say who.

Harry froze, becoming instantly alert that it was all over.

"What's concerning about that?" he asked warily.

"Harry. He's your parents' murderer. He killed many of your friends… Why am I reminding you of this? Why in Merlin's name do you want to befriend the man? I would have said it was impossible. He's not human enough for friendship."

Harry leaned against the wall, relaxing. If Kingsley had heard what'd happened, this would not be his opening gambit.

Harry considered what the man was saying. He thought about how warm he felt when Voldemort had said he no longer wished to kill him. Or how safe and whole he felt when sleeping in the man's arms.

Bugger. This is bad.

"He's been tortured for twelve years," Harry muttered. "It's amazing what avenues he'd pursue for comfort."

Kingsley looked up at Harry fast.

"What does that mean?"

Harry snorted.

"Oh, calm down, Kingsley. I haven't fucked the man."

Kingsley's mouth dropped open and he froze, and only then did Harry realize what he'd just said.

The picture those words conjured in his mind… A pale calf wrapped around his shoulders, that long, fragile neck exposed when his head was thrown back…

What the fuck was happening to him?

"Harry, I'm saying this as your friend. Forget about him. Focus on your fiancée and your real friends. He is a psychopath. A murderer. Forget about him, he's not your problem anymore."

Harry was beyond pissed. He was so sick of everyone lecturing him. They had no bloody clue at all, and it wasn't like Harry could tell them. Hey guys, sorry, but the giant fucking hole that was ripped out of me since Voldemort killed his Horcrux has finally found peace with the monster we all know and hate. So yeah, guess who will be coming to Christmases now?

"How was your weekend with Ginny?"

Harry frowned, coming back to reality. Hadn't they covered this already?

"Good. Like I said."

"What did you do? What was your favourite part? What did you eat? Tell me something about it."

Harry searched his mind frantically. He and Ginny had fought a bunch, had two forced sexual encounters, and then Harry had abandoned her and fucked a man.

Yet that hadn't even been the worst part. The worst part had been being away.

"Harry."

He looked up at the Minister, who was shaking his head, and realized too much time had elapsed.

"You're going through the motions and your friends and colleagues are noticing. You're not yourself. Now tell me where you went the moment you got home from your trip."

Harry remembered confronting the guards, having a breakdown, and then spending the night with his enemy.

Kingsley nodded without Harry even having answered.

"That's not normal, Harry. You have to realize that. He's not your friend. Can't you understand why I am worried about you?"

Harry sighed, so very done with all of this.

"Look, am I breaking any laws?"

Kingsley raised an eyebrow.

"No."

"Am I doing anything that can get me fired?"

The older man glared at him.

"No."

"Then, with all due respect, Minister, mind you own damn business."

Harry walked out of the Muffliato Charm's perimeter and turned back to his friend.

"I'll see you after lunch."