Chapter 14
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Harry chewed on the tip of his quill, the feather tickling his lips. Number seven, down, Dies and reborn from ashes.
Easy. Voldemort. Huh. And me, I suppose.
Harry grimaced and wrote, Phoenix.
The next one was harder, Monkshood and Wolfsbane are the same plant, also known as what? Damnit. He really ought to have paid attention in Potions class.
If he hadn't scared away Hermione and pissed off Ginny, he could have asked one of them. As it was…
He put down the crossword just as the door to his room burst open and Kingsley entered, looking harassed. He threw up a privacy ward and strode to Harry's bed.
"Voldemort killed one of his guards," he said harshly, without preamble.
"What?" Harry gasped, completely thrown. "How? What about his collar?"
Kingsley nodded, looking grim.
"I don't know how he did it, but he accessed his magic while wearing the collar, which was something I did not think possible."
"Wait— where is he now? Has he escaped?"
Harry sat up and threw his legs over the side of the bed, but Kingsley put a restraining hand on his shoulder.
"He's asleep. I've had someone in to repair his collar and hopefully even bulk it up more, but now that he's done it once, it's certain he will do so again."
"But— how did you get him to sleep? If he had his magic back, he… You said he would be gone."
Kingsley shook his head and swiped the chair with his leg, sitting down heavily with a sigh.
"The collar has a stopgap, remember? I told you before. I can knock him unconscious in an emergency if he is still wearing it but manages to access some magic. It was down in the literature, but apparently it has never happened before. No one breaks through it."
Harry nodded. Of course Voldemort would. And now that he had done it once, it would only be a matter of time until he was free.
For twelve years Voldemort had been controlled at the Ministry, and for twelve years Harry had cobbled together the illusion of a life. Yet in less than a month, Voldemort had managed to kill a guard and was close to escape and Harry's life was in shambles. It was as if they were each a flame set against the other's waiting fuse.
"Harry," Kingsley said, his tone imploring and low, "I need you to kill him."
Harry recoiled.
"What? I can't."
"You must. The prophecy said you alone could defeat him."
Harry stared at his friend, his breath staggered, his heart hammering. No. He could not do it.
Kingsley looked away, gritting his teeth and then faced Harry once more, determined.
"I know your relationship with the man is complicated." These words seemed to cost the Minister something. "I know he affects you. You have… an attachment to him, for whatever reason. But Harry, he is poised to escape. Right now. Whatever you feel for him, surely your ethical drive will compel you to save your friends once more. He will escape. He is about to. And you are the only one who can stop him."
Harry had no idea what to say. Of course he wanted his friends safe, but… how could he kill a man he had come to… care about? A man that was beaten and abused, alone, terrified…
"What was the guard doing when he was killed?"
Kingsley stared at him, eyebrows raised and mouth slightly curled in distaste.
"Why should that matter? He was protecting the wizarding world, something I am begging you right now to do as well."
Harry narrowed his eyes.
"But, specifically. What was he doing? Does that monitoring spell record?"
Kingsley shook his head.
"And there is no audio. Though perhaps after this, we may have to change that. The guards just didn't want to hear him groaning and complaining all the time."
Harry couldn't even imagine Voldemort complaining. He never had. What they must mean was that the man would involuntarily cry out in pain or make noises to deal with the agony he was in. And it likely interrupted the guard's reading.
Fucking sick.
"I want to know what was being done to him when he killed the guard."
"Why? Do you plan on justifying it? Going to jump to his rescue?"
"If he was defending himself from a brutal attack, I think that's important to know before we kill the man, don't you? Isn't that kind of our job?"
"This is Voldemort, Harry!" Kingsley shouted, standing up to pace in incredulous fury. "Why can't you understand that? Even if he was defending himself, he is in this situation because of the hundreds of people he has killed! Do those lives not matter to you? Those families—"
"I know," Harry interrupted, shaking his head, trying to clear it lest the panic take hold of him through the extensive Calming Draughts he was on. "I know what he did and I know he deserves some punishment, but—"
"Not this again, Harry. I won't hear it. I listened to you and let you have more say in his treatment than your station allows—"
"My station—?"
"—but I am through talking. He killed one of my men. This isn't war-time. You take a life, you pay for it."
"How many times have they taken his?"
Kingsley swiped a vase with flowers off of a table and it crashed against the wall, glass shattering, petals going everywhere. Harry watched, stunned by the man's sudden fury. Kingsley put a hand over his eyes, facing away from Harry. Panting.
"I can't listen to you defend him," Kingsley rasped, still with his back turned. "You're a traitor."
Harry's eyes flew wide. He stared at his once-friend, wanting to laugh in derision but also genuinely hurt.
"Try again, Kingsley," Harry said softly.
Kingsley growled and paced to the window, looking out. Harry could see his face in profile. He looked pained, eyebrows drawn down, body tense.
"I apologize," the man said quietly. "That's not what I had meant to say."
"I brought him to you," Harry stated, defending himself against that slander. "I stopped him. When I was a child. I did your job for you."
Kingsley nodded, turning back to him.
"I know, Harry. You did more than should have been asked of you. And now, we need your help again. Help us. Please."
Harry exhaled a deep breath, rubbing his eyes.
"I don't even know if I can kill him, Kingsley. Why should it be any different if I try?"
Harry said the words, but a nagging voice whispered that there was a reason he'd survived the Killing Curse. He had a power the Dark Lord knows not and it sure as hell wasn't love.
"I'm out of ideas, Harry. He has always been dangerous, but now that he can access his magic, we cannot allow him to survive. He broke all the bones in my arms and legs, crushed them into a dust. I only saw him for maybe ten seconds before I was able to get the collar to force him unconscious. He was creating a tornado of Dark magic— an actual tornado. It was unbelievable."
Harry felt his skin tingle at that visual. It wasn't wholly fear.
"What about if you keep him asleep, like we talked about. Until we can figure something else out."
"It cannot be relied upon. He may still be able to access his magic, even asleep."
"I know. At least until I can get out of here and see what I can do. Don't do anything until I can see him. Keep him asleep, monitor him, and I'll try and hurry up my stay here."
Kingsley was rubbing his chin, eyebrows pushed together.
"The Healers say you may be here for weeks still. Something about your magic becoming suddenly erratic?"
Harry grimaced and blew out a breath.
"Okay. Can you break me out sooner? Say you need me for a case?"
Kingsley looked contemplative.
"You could die."
"I thought the whole wizarding world was in jeopardy. Surely the risk is worth it?"
"And you'll try to kill him?"
Harry paused. He wouldn't kill a man who had just been defending himself from a vicious attack and Harry did not doubt that that's exactly what had occurred. How bad did it have to be to force Voldemort's magic to break free? After the horrific tortures he'd endured, what drove him finally to retaliate?
"I'm not bringing you to him so you can coddle him, Harry. I've already moved him to another cell, a more secure one. You will never find him on your own."
Harry firmed his spine, disbelieving of that audacity.
"You would risk your career?"
"It's way beyond that now. But I didn't move him to hide him from you, anyway. This cell is more equipped to handle him. I intended to tell you where he is, but not if you will not help me. He isn't a sick patient in the hospital. He's not your friend. He's the man responsible for fifteen years of violence, misery, and fear. You will not see him again if your intent is to put his needs above the public's."
Their gazes remained locked. Harry was reeling, still slightly out of it due to the potions in his system, but he was trying to figure out where to go from here.
Did he defy the Ministry in this? Tell the Prophet what the Minister was up to? Kingsley would be fired, but would that situation be any better for Voldemort? For the wizarding world?
Whose side was he on?
Hermione always insisted that she was on the side of reason, but in this situation, where did that reside? Was it better to protect the public or an abused ex-Dark Lord?
He needed to speak to the man. It was shameful, but Harry secretly believed that Voldemort had paid his due for his reign of terror with over a decade of unrelenting torture, starvation, rapes, and being murdered countless times. Harry wanted more than anything to just protect him, but he could not do that if the man still intended to slaughter everyone around him. His own sympathy aside, Harry could not just release a wrathful, bloodthirsty Dark Lord onto the world.
It was time to determine what Voldemort's plans were for the future.
Killing him was not off the table, but Harry would do almost anything to avoid that. He could not allow Voldemort loose again to restart the war.
"I'll come with you," Harry found himself saying. "I will consent to consider killing him, but before I do that, I want time alone to speak with him. No monitoring devices."
"What could you possibly say to him? What are you hoping to hear? He is going to manipulate you, don't be a fool and think anything he says to save his arse is sincere. He will lie to save himself."
"Worst case for you here, if you do not allow me to speak with him, is that I will not kill the man. Best case, if you let me? You get my honest attempt. If I speak to him and change my mind about killing him, you're no worse off than you would have been if you didn't let me see him. Best case lets you have the possibility that I will kill him."
While Harry waited for a reply he stood and gathered his wand from the bedside table. His fingers trembled around the wood and his legs felt weak after so long without much use, but he was ready. Come what may.
"Alright, fine," Kingsley said. "Let me go speak to your Healer and we'll be off."
"Kingsley?" The older man turned at the door and Harry regarded him levelly. "I refuse to agree to kill him without first speaking to him alone. That's cowardly and I won't do it. I'll help you, but I'm doing this properly. These are my terms."
The Minister held his gaze for minutes, Harry's legs threatening to seat him again, but then his friend nodded once and swept out.
.
.
Harry had been daft to expect an easy exit.
The argument lasted two days. The Healers threatened the Minister with a lawsuit for demanding that a critical patient should leave their care; the Minister threatened the Healers with interfering in a serious criminal matter. Hermione and Ginny chimed in and both agreed that Harry should stay at St Mungo's, at least until he was more stable. It was only after Harry threw around his name and his ability to have all of their jobs should they disobey his wishes, that they backed off.
Harry told an upset Ginny that he would be fine. He intended to spend a few hours at the Ministry and then return to St Mungo's for further treatment. At her behest, he agreed to take a Healer with them who had consented to being Obliviated after their trip, regardless of what they saw.
So it was settled. Harry finally found himself walking carefully along a small corridor in the Department of Mysteries that he had never seen before.
He felt weak and shaky, his body almost vibrating with adrenaline and anticipation. The man was finally so close.
The walls and ground were all stonework and there were four cells down the hall that they were in, three with entrances wide open and the last shut tight with an old, heavy, wooden door.
"Why here?" Harry asked.
Kingsley was staring at the last cell, seemingly entranced by it.
"These rooms are hundreds of years old. They are Dark. They subvert reality, trapping a person in painful memories and heightening their negative emotional responses. But they also stop them from being able to access their magic, which is why we brought him here."
"Why not keep him here all along?" Harry asked, hating these rooms already, but recognizing that they sounded ideal for what the Ministry had been doing to Voldemort these twelve years.
"They are not meant for long-term use. They drive a person mad, much faster and more permanently than Dementors do. I feared that the Dark Lord would become Darker if forced to abide here for any length of time. Believing, as I do, that he will one day escape, I didn't want a Dark Lord who had been mutilated by the forces in these rooms to grow even less human."
"How can this be worse than what we've been doing to him?"
"These rooms are Dark, Harry. They were made as a torture device and many people died within them."
"How long has he been here?"
He received no response. Growling, he strode forward, past a motionless Kingsley, and pushed the door, but it would not open. He turned to the Minister, who still seemed reluctant. Embarrassed.
"How long until the damage is permanent? If you were worried about the effects on him, why bring him here at all?
"We had no choice. He needed to be controlled."
"How long?"
"He's been here three days."
Merlin.
"I want him removed before I speak with him. Bring him back to the cells he was in before."
"Harry—"
"How am I supposed to get an honest word out of him if he's been driven mad with nightmares for three days? This counters everything I had wanted to achieve!"
Harry's vision was suddenly tunnelling, his knees trembling so hard he gasped and hit the ground.
"Harry—"
"Open the door, Minister," Harry rasped, his eyes slammed shut, but his head held high.
His pulse was thundering and its cadence stuttered unnaturally. The Healer was running diagnostics on him and hitting him with several restorative charms, but Harry felt no better.
He knew what he needed.
"The door, Kingsley. Open it. Now."
"He needs to rest," the Healer implored. "Surely we can come back—"
"Open the door!" Harry shouted, his eyes flashing wide, his fingers clenching, even as he tumbled further onto the ground. "Open it."
No one moved and then Kingsley flicked his wand and the door swung outward.
Harry choked out a sound of relief and crawled inside. He was panting, the Healer was trying to support him, but Harry ignored him.
He was instead focused completely on the body laying on the stone floor, naked, pale-white, and beautiful. Harry made a noise in his throat and struggled towards him.
The man had not moved and Harry knew that he had been kept unconscious by force. He was laying on his side, facing Harry, those near-transparent eyelids closed, and that thin mouth slightly parted in sleep. A deep frown was furrowing his hairless brow. He looked troubled, perhaps even scared.
Harry fell onto him, his arms wrapping around the man's meagre chest, as he buried his face into the crook of that long neck. He felt the collar against the skin of his cheek, but the metal was no longer warm. It was cold, and Harry could feel nothing of the man's restrained power.
He closed his eyes at the loss, hating that the body under him did not react. Neither stiffening in distaste nor opening in grateful welcome.
"You said you just wanted to talk to him," Kingsley muttered in disgust, from somewhere behind Harry.
Regretfully lifting his head, Harry turned to face the two men.
"I also said I wanted him removed from here while I spoke with him."
"I really must insist we make this fast," the Healer said, but Harry was already feeling better.
He stood, legs no longer trembling, vision clear and determined. The Healer's spells continued to monitor him and Harry saw the man's expression change to wonder.
"But, that's impossible," he muttered, looking down at numbers and symbols that meant nothing to Harry.
"What?" Kingsley asked impatiently.
"Mr Potter's condition is rapidly strengthening. His cardiac fitness has vastly improved, even since two minutes ago." The man looked up, eyes bewildered. "I've never seen something like this before. What could have caused…?"
His eyes drifted to the unconscious Voldemort and his expression grew alarmed, horrified.
"Is that—?"
Kingsley cleared his throat.
"Never mind him— Harry, what is happening?"
Suspicion laced his tone and his eyes.
"I'm feeling better," Harry answered flippantly, with a winning smile. "Now, let's get him out of here so we can get on with it."
.
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Voldemort woke with a gasp, his nightmares chasing him right up until his eyes snapped open.
He was in an unfamiliar room, but—
Harry.
The boy was sitting on a chair, alone, looking tired but healthy. Strong.
Alive.
"You are alive," Voldemort uttered redundantly, his voice rough.
The boy smiled, bizarrely, and came to his knees beside where Voldemort was laying supine on a cot of some sort. Still naked, but strangely unhurt. He remembered facing endless horrors that had clawed at him, striking misery and hopelessness in his heavy chest, but then—
Harry.
The boy was here and alive and—
My magic.
Sitting up, Voldemort placed a hand upon his collar, which was dismayingly unresponsive, but he closed his eyes and focused on seizing his magic once more. He had done it. He remembered revenging himself upon the devil Grayson, destroying his body and revelling in his own dominance once more.
And then, nothing.
Voldemort opened his eyes. He could not feel anything again. How could he have lost when his magic had surrounded him like a hurricane? What entity could ever best him when he had access to that?
He looked at the boy, who was watching him avidly, those green eyes caressing his face. That delicate, pink scar momentarily distracted him, reminding him that there was a possible power that could rival his own.
"Was it you?"
Harry tilted his head in confusion.
"Was what me?"
Voldemort searched his eyes for deception.
"How did I come to be here?"
"I don't have the whole story because I've been... slightly unwell." The boy smirked. "I'll tell you what I can, though. What do you remember?"
For free. The boy was willing to answer his questions without demanding a humiliating or impossible payment.
"I had my magic." Saying it in the past tense hurt more than he was ready for. He took a deep breath and continued. "I killed a guard. I should have won my freedom. Yet I am in another cage."
Harry's expression was starved as he stared at him.
"Your collar," Harry explained in a soft voice. "Kingsley showed up and activated a stopgap that renders you unconscious if you break through to your magic, but your collar is still on."
He had not known about that detail of his collar's construction. It changed his accounting, made it imperative that he remove the collar fully when he broke free.
Not that he had anticipated winning his magic at that moment when he had been facing Grayson. It must have rose to meet him after such intense emotions wracked him; rage, betrayal, humiliation, and despair at being denied information on Harry that he had foolishly expected to receive.
He looked back at the boy, kneeling before him. Hesitant. Eager. Alive, despite it all.
Impulsively, unthinkingly, Voldemort reached out a hand and ran it through that silky, black hair. The boy's eyes instantly closed and he made a pained sound in the back of his throat. Voldemort felt a spike of arousal at that, seizing him with an overpowering desire to claim those lips again, grab the boy and throw him under him, where he belonged, taste him, take him…
It was madness, this compulsion. Unfamiliar and dangerous.
Voldemort's eyes travelled over the boy's form, unobserved. He looked healthy. Perhaps thinner, but no worse for his experience with the ludicrously named BDE. For weeks, Voldemort had believed him dead. Or injured. Or, perhaps worst of all, a liar.
A hand came up and held Voldemort's where it rested against the boy's cheek. Those green eyes opened and Voldemort clenched his jaw to stifle a groan. He still had questions.
"Where am I?"
Harry rubbed his face against Voldemort's wrist before he spoke, making the answer difficult to pay attention to.
"The Ministry. They had you in this… awful cell. An old one, that completely removed your access to your powers with strong Dark magic."
The Purgatory Chambers, then. He had tortured enough Unspeakables over the years to have amassed vast knowledge of what was contained in this Department. The treasures hidden away had always interested him, though it was unusual for the Ministry to keep something so Dark. They usually focused on inane components of magic: space, the brain, time— love of all the asinine things, yet always they were afraid of the more potent aspects.
Harry's timid voice drew him back.
"What happened?"
Voldemort focused his eyes once again on the boy, tilting his head to the side.
"With the guard," Harry clarified.
Ah. The boy had come to chastise him. Voldemort looked away. He did not want to listen to Harry try to make him regret taking revenge on one worthless coward who had been torturing him for twelve years. He felt no remorse for the act nor would he ever.
Voldemort shook his hand lightly to free himself, but the boy squeezed harder.
"What did he do to you?"
Voldemort's eyes snapped up to Harry's again, taking in his earnest, concerned expression.
The boy was worried about him.
When Voldemort hesitated, Harry looked distressed and brought their laced hands up to his mouth— kissing them tenderly. Voldemort could only stare.
"You don't have to answer that," the boy said, a surprising flush infusing his skin. "Sorry, never mind. Ignore me. Why don't you tell me what it was like to feel your magic again?"
Voldemort shook his head.
"He told me I could earn information about your condition."
Harry gaped at him. It took him a few moments for the boy to gather himself again.
"Earn? Merlin, what does that even mean?"
Voldemort tore his gaze away, reluctant to exhibit how his experiences haunted him.
"Consent. Participation was his word."
"How could you possibly give that?" Harry asked, sounding appalled. "You're a prisoner!"
Voldemort nodded, closing his eyes, despising that word.
"He lied to me. He coerced me into participating and then, when payment was due, he laughed in my face and told me I would receive nothing."
When Voldemort turned back, Harry's expression was crumpled and agonized.
"Wait. You… You allowed yourself to… For me? Were you… worried?— What am I saying, you couldn't have been, what a question, sorry."
Voldemort brought his finger up and lifted the boy's chin, which had lowered, hiding his face beneath his hair.
"I told you, Harry. You belong to me." His fingers moved from the boy's chin to his scar, lightly tracing his mark, enjoying the feel of it under his thumb. "It is not unrealistic to expect me to feel some concern for that which is mine."
Harry let out a breath and then shifted forward until he was between Voldemort's open legs. The realization of their suggestive positions ran him through with adrenaline suddenly. His breath caught in fear, but then Harry simply leaned forwards and pressed his forehead against Voldemort's sternum, just under his collar.
Voldemort was motionless, waiting. The boy did not make any further movements. Slowly, Voldemort brought his arms up and wrapped them around the smaller body. Amidst this chaos, somehow, his eyes slid closed.
He had never had peace. Never in his life. He had known famine and victory, terror and war, but never stillness. A sense of homecoming.
Serenity.
He felt it now.
"I am told you survived the Killing Curse again," Voldemort said, voice low, resting his head on top of that mess of hair. It irritated his nostrils, but he ignored it.
The mystery of the boy's power had been occupying much of his thoughts. It would be just like Harry to be immortal naturally simply to allow fate to spite Voldemort's tremendous efforts to achieve it.
Harry snorted against his chest and Voldemort pulled away to look at him.
The boy was smirking self-deprecatingly.
"Bloody Boy Who Lived nonsense again, am I right?"
Voldemort raised his eyebrows.
"You did not make a Horcrux."
He knew it was impossible but, given the limited options, he had to ask.
"What? Of course not! How could you think—" Harry stopped, his mouth slowly opening in guilty embarrassment. "Sorry. That was super insulting. But, really, you can't possibly—"
"I do not. I am merely at a loss as to how else you survived."
"Ah. Well. You won't like this."
Releasing Harry completely and sitting back, Voldemort searched his face.
"I do not like the sound of that."
Harry laughed, but it was worryingly sharp.
"Yeah. You won't."
Harry sat down further so that he was crossing his legs, his fingers idly digging into the stone of the floor. Not looking at Voldemort. How he longed to have access to his Legilimency again. The frustrating patience that was required now was intolerable.
"I… This isn't confirmed, but I have a theory." The boy looked up at him in eager delight, momentarily sidetracked. "You're an obnoxious intellectual, like Hermione, I forgot! Maybe you can tell me if this makes any sense?"
He objected to being compared to that Mudblood, but grudgingly allowed it. Harry paused and Voldemort realized he wanted a response. Voldemort inclined his head. Harry nodded back at him, seeming to have gained confidence from that, somehow.
"Okay. So. Some of this you know. When we faced each other at Hogwarts, before you killed your Horcrux, you… Surely you must know now that you were not the master of the Elder Wand."
It did not sound like a question, so Voldemort waited with impatience for the boy to continue. That fact still rankled. Not the master. It was not a phrase he enjoyed.
"Right. Well, then I'm also sure you inferred that I was. I am."
The boy?
It had not even crossed his mind that Potter could have been the master of the Deathstick. Had he bested Severus at some point? Surely not the old man?
"I had been led to believe that Severus had held its allegiance. He killed Dumbledore."
Harry nodded, looking worried.
"Yes. But the wand doesn't need murder to change allegiance and Draco disarmed Dumbledore before Snape killed him. The wand recognized Draco as its master. And I disarmed Draco."
Voldemort closed his eyes, horrified comprehension dawning. He had gone about everything wrong. All his effort to study wandlore and this somehow was missed.
He need never have killed Severus.
He would devote careful consideration to this revelation later because, maddening though it was, it did not answer for the boy's continued existence.
"The Elder Wand has never been said to grant the master immortality. In fact, the exact opposite is usually the result."
"That's true. I also have an Invisibility Cloak, did you know?"
Voldemort sneered.
"Planning on hiding from Death, are you?"
And then it hit him. Hard.
Harry had two of the Deathly Hallows, that is surely what he was trying to confess. Yet it would take all three to even conceive of being able to survive the Killing Curse.
"And the Stone?"
Harry was watching his reaction cautiously.
"It was in a ring." The boy paused and Voldemort grew impatient. He opened his mouth to speak, but Harry cut him off. "An old ring, passed down through generations. In the Gaunt family."
Voldemort surged to his feet, a swell of fury, of denial, of despair, crashing through him— he had been so close! He had possessed two of the Hallows, had turned one relic into a Horcrux, unknowingly. It was not the loss of utility that tore at him— there was no one he would wish to speak to, abhorring death as he did. No, it was his ignorance, his blindness, that truly needled.
Two of the three Hallows in his grasp and he had been utterly oblivious to how close he had come.
But then that would mean…
"You are the Master of Death."
Harry watched him, then slowly nodded.
Harry was immortal. Without tearing apart his soul. Without engaging in a Dark ritual.
Voldemort looked down in astonishment at Harry, where he sat on the floor, watching Voldemort's reaction.
This boy was in possession of the three powerful objects that legend and literature claimed granted the Master power to overturn Death's rulings—
Voldemort inhaled sharply.
Harry could kill him.
He stopped, lightheaded, and scrutinized the boy. Voldemort had no idea what his own face was revealing, it was all he could do not to scream or succumb to misery.
He could die.
For the first time since he had offered up a piece of his soul to Death… he could die. Harry had the power to end him once and for all.
To die like this, a battered, beaten prisoner in the enemy's camp… it was unbearable. His name, his legacy, would be one that ended in defeat, unable to touch his rightful magic, powerless and alone.
"So, yeah," the boy added, lamely, "that's how I survived, I think. Do you know anything about this? Does being the Master of Death mean I'm immortal, like you?"
Immortal, yes. Like me? No. Much more completely.
If Voldemort had been the Master of Death, he would have immediately commanded his own existence to be invulnerable. He would have reunited his soul pieces and taken claim of a tailored immortality with no drawbacks.
Yet the actual Master of Death was before him, sitting on the dirty floor, scared, selfless, and without the power that was owed to him.
Harry rose up onto his knees again and Voldemort found himself being gently pulled back down onto the cot.
"I'll take that as a yes, for now," Harry said, a small smile playing at his lips. "You're freaking out a bit, huh?"
The boy tucked his face once again underneath Voldemort's neck, his arms encircling him. Voldemort allowed it, his own hands even coming up to rest on the boy's back. He was hardly aware of what his body was doing.
He was still trying to organize his rapid thoughts.
"Guess that means we're both immortal now. That's pretty cool. I've meant to ask you how you managed to get your immortality back. Not more Horcruxes, right?"
Voldemort shook his head reflexively, his mind a tempest.
"It was a Dark Magic ritual," he muttered tonelessly, his brain consumed with how this information could have won him the war, could have saved him from his current nightmare, could have solved everything. "Done hastily when I discovered you were destroying my Horcruxes. A piece of my soul, irrevocable and unable to ever be reabsorbed, was given to Death. I cannot pass onto whatever plain awaits those who perish. But in exchange, I cannot die."
His avarice led him to briefly ponder the chances of him being able to steal the Hallows from Harry. The boy was fatally trusting, so endlessly malleable, it would not take—
"Oh my god," Harry abruptly breathed, his hands tightening on Voldemort's skin. "I could kill you. They want me to kill you, and I actually can."
A shock like the ice water thrown over him in his prior cell jolted Voldemort back, out of his thoughts and out of that deceitful embrace. He felt thunderstruck, betrayed, enraged—
Heartbroken.
But then, he should not. Any expectations he had held were naïve in the extreme and he deserved to have been manipulated for having handed his enemy such an obvious weapon.
"You dare—"
"No! Voldemort, please! I don't know why I blurted that— I'm not going to do it! I just, that's why I'm here. They want me to, but I am not going to."
Voldemort refused to speak, loathing his own stupidity. He had given the boy the keys to his destruction. He had admitted, to the Master of Death, that the boy alone could erase him. Just as the prophecy had always foretold.
Potter shuffled towards him again, on his knees, his hands raised to eye-level, palms flat out. A universal signal of surrender. Of innocence.
Voldemort watched him, scouring his face for evidence of treachery.
"I'm sorry," the boy rasped, eyes pleading. "I am so sorry that I made you think, even for a second, that I wanted to kill you."
"And yet that is why you are here," Voldemort forced out through the tightness in his dry throat.
The boy grimaced.
"That's what I told them. That's what they think. It's not what I want."
Potter slowly reached for his hand, but Voldemort moved it back and stood, putting as much distance as he could between them. The boy looked stricken. Taking the hint, he settled back onto his heels and waited.
"Why are you here, Potter."
The boy winced, closing his eyes briefly, eyebrows drawn together and that shattered expression tightened Voldemort's stomach for some unknown reason.
"Kingsley says he won't keep things going as they were anymore. He wants you dead. He'd asked me before, to do it. To kill you. I had said no, that I'd never wanted you dead, even when I hated you. But he's frantic after the guard. After you were able to get your magic. What was that like?"
Voldemort would not be distracted. The boy had betrayed him. Had come here with nefarious intent, allowed close only due to Voldemort's own treacherous, human weaknesses.
"You have told me what they want. Why they brought you to me. That is irrelevant. You have not yet answered why you are here, Potter. What is it that you want?"
"I don't want you dead," the boy said in a small voice.
Voldemort growled and took a step towards him on the floor.
"No. Not what you do not want. Something brought you here, you wanted something."
"You," the boy breathed, closing his eyes, a tear falling silently. "Just you. I needed you."
Voldemort watched him, fragile, breaking, and the predator in him wanted to move closer to take what was his.
"You cannot have me if I am dead. If you do as they ask, I will be gone."
Potter was nodding, eyes still closed.
"I know. I know. Oh gods, but what am I supposed to do?" Potter opened his eyes, staring up at him beseechingly. "If I free you, you'll disappear and start the war again! You'll kill everyone, my friends— everyone. You'll become Lord Voldemort again— you haven't changed, not really, not enough, and then what?"
The boy laughed, but it was frenzied.
"Will I have to face you again? We'll be right back to where we are now— except that you will have killed hundreds more people! So…so… What? Why put myself through that? Why postpone the inevitable?"
Potter looked up at him, his face wet with tears.
"Right?" he whispered.
Voldemort saw what the boy was asking of him. He wanted a promise of safety. He would help, Voldemort merely had to convince him that he meant no ill will. He had to deceive the boy into trusting him. Pledge to him that he had changed. Renounce the Dark Arts, murder, the Death Eaters, anything Potter disapproved of.
In short, he must lie. A familiar requirement that he was exceptionally skilled at.
With the advantage of knowing the boy had feelings for him, that he was drawn to his power and required his soul, Voldemort's ability to charm and manipulate would be immense. He could have him believing just about anything, effortlessly.
Voldemort looked down at the boy. Those green eyes upturned, wide and suffering. Pleading. Hopeful.
A crack seared his chest, almost bringing him to his knees. As he stared at Harry, he abruptly knew weakness more terrible than anything he had yet encountered during his imprisonment.
"Do not ask me to lie to you," Voldemort rasped, horrified and staggered. "I have not changed, you are correct. I intend to take my vengeance, I deserve it. "
Each word gouged out vital organs, hollowing him, injuring him, and yet he could not replace them with something else.
"Against who?" Harry asked in a small voice. "You deserve some vengeance, I completely agree. I… I can even help. I'll help you. I want vengeance on the guards as well."
The boy shifted closer, anguished.
"But… wanting to hurt those that hurt you is vastly different than wanting to subjugate the wizarding world again."
Voldemort's gaze was fixed on the boy while he forced his mind to focus, his body to calm. It was vital that he properly navigate this conversation.
And he agreed with the boy's point. However, he knew that his own violent tendencies had not been beaten out of him during the past twelve years. If anything, his desire to punish had only grown fiercer. They had tried to humiliate him, to lessen his worth, and blood had to be paid for that offence.
Anything else would be to allow his enemies to win.
"I need to know," Harry whispered. "Will you go back to being him?"
"I am him," Voldemort answered, irritated by the boy's childishness. He padded his emptied chest cavity with spite. "I have never been anyone else, nor will I ever be. If you believe I can change or even that I desire to change, then you are deluding yourself."
"But you have changed," Harry insisted, shuffling closer still. "Merlin, Voldemort, we kissed! We fell asleep together, cuddling!" He laughed again, high and hysterical. "You touched my…"
Ah yes. That he had.
"That does not change who I am."
"No?" A chuckle. "It's changed me. And you're full of shit because Lord Voldemort would never have kissed me. He wouldn't have cared if the BDE had killed me, and he sure as fuck would not have participated in any sexual encounter with a guard just to—"
"Enough!"
Voldemort turned his back on the boy, clenching his fists and his teeth. How dare he?— To even suggest that he was no longer himself, that any of that had changed who he was.
"I know you're still him," Harry said quietly, and Voldemort leaned his hand against the wall, closing his eyes.
Listening.
"I know you're vicious and scary and powerful… I know you'll always have a fiery temper and try and kill people who piss you off. But… that doesn't mean you have to be a psychopathic, elitist, murdering Dark Lord anymore. I'm not saying you should… open a bakery or start advocating for house-elf rights, but… there are other avenues. You can still be ambitious and powerful without being evil."
"You assume much, Potter," Voldemort whispered, to the wall. "What incentive have I to temper myself?"
Silence, and Voldemort took a few steadying breaths. It was madness. As if he would agree to anything, as if anything the boy could offer—
A hand was suddenly on his shoulder and Voldemort spun around.
"You'd have me," Harry said, and that hand, which had shifted as Voldemort had turned, was now splayed out over his chest. Over his rapidly beating heart.
Voldemort imagined himself grasping Harry by the shirtfront and devouring his lips, pulling his hair, sinking his teeth into the tender trapezius muscle—
"Come home with me," Harry whispered solemnly. "Live with me. I can keep you safe—"
"I do not require you to protect me, Potter."
Harry smiled.
"No. I suppose you don't. And I guess it won't take much time, if you're no longer being hurt, for you to get that collar off and then you'd have your magic back."
Harry's ravenous gaze fell to his neck.
The picture in Voldemort's mind that the boy was conjuring was tempting, especially when juxtaposed against the reality of his death should he decline it. Yet he would tolerate no misunderstandings.
"You are asking me to lie to you, Potter. You know who I am. If you require a promise from me to forgive or ignore what has been done to me, I cannot give you what you seek."
"I am just asking you to try," Harry replied with frustration, removing his touch and taking a step back. "I need to get you the fuck out of here, but I can't if you're going to set fire to the world. Come on, you've got to give me something. You cannot want me to kill you rather than attempt to control yourself."
Voldemort tried to extinguish a surge of primal panic that burst through him at how close he was to submitting to that.
"I do not," he rasped, in a despicably small voice. "Yet I find myself unwilling to lie to you."
"See? Lord Voldemort wouldn't say that! He'd swear on his mother's— Well, sorry, that's rude. What I mean is, he wouldn't—"
"There is no he and I, Potter!" Voldemort roared, furious at the boy's continued ignorant persistence, his naïve stupidity. "I am Lord Voldemort! You must accept this or it will be your ruin!"
Voldemort tore away, but there was nowhere to go. He was in a cage. He was a prisoner. And he would be one forever unless he cooperated with the lie that the boy was begging him to proffer.
"I do," Harry said earnestly. "I know who you are. Please."
The boy had sunk to his knees, bright green eyes looking up at him, burning with intensity. With misery and longing.
"Don't make me kill you," Harry begged. "I don't want to. Please."
Voldemort swallowed.
"Then do not."
Harry bowed his head and Voldemort's hand sunk, unbidden, into that mess of hair. The boy leaned into the touch, and Voldemort soared with the feeling of rightness at seeing him kneeling, head down, at his feet.
"Tell me you'll try," Harry implored. "Please. That's all I ask. Try."
The boy paused, rubbing his wet cheek against Voldemort's naked thigh. Then he looked up.
"I'll have to kill you, if you force me to. You know that. If you revert back to who you were, you know I'll have to stop you."
Voldemort met those eyes, unflinchingly. Yes, he knew. He was aware that he was being offered an opportunity better than he could have hoped for. The boy would free him. Take him home. Voldemort could recover physically and regain his magic. But Harry would not allow him his complete freedom.
"Come home with me," the boy repeated, seizing Voldemort's clenched hands and holding them tight. "We can devise a plan to fool the Minister into thinking I've killed you. All that I ask is that you try. Keep trying."
"I told you I will not accept conditions. I offer no promises."
"Will you go back to how you were before?"
Lie, his common sense urged. Such a small request, simple to provide.
Instead, he decided on an incomplete honesty.
"I have no immediate plans to dominate the wizarding world," Voldemort offered reluctantly. "Other than exacting my revenge on those who have attempted to harm me, I do not yet know what path I shall pursue."
Bella abruptly came to mind, with her fierce loyalty and devastating lust for violence, and he briefly pondered what she could do for him. What following she retained and whether he wanted to lead them.
Harry stared at him, searching his face. Voldemort remained still, allowing the boy to scrutinize him. With a determined glare, Harry rose from the ground, still clutching Voldemort's hands.
"Okay," the boy said with a shaky grin, and Voldemort's knees abruptly unlocked, almost bringing him to the floor. "That's good enough for me. I have no idea how to fool the Minister into thinking you're dead, but I'm sure you have dozens."
Voldemort felt a smirk slowly unfurl across his lips despite the surreal situation.
Harry nodded.
"Let's get to it, then."