Chapter 41

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His mother slowly ran her hands over his scalp. Soothingly, tenderly, in a way she never had in life. He kept his eyes closed, relaxing into the touch because he knew that if he opened them, he would see that her fingers were rotted, bone peeking through grey flesh, eyes vacant and white, maggots eating at the corners of her affectionate smile.

So he kept his eyes closed.

She had initially promised to feed him. He had been surviving on urine alone for what felt like months, but she had said she would sneak him some food. She had promised.

And then he had let her down, she had said. Been a naughty boy, like he had been for Ms Cole, and would receive nothing.

He felt no shame, as she clearly wanted him to. He felt almost nothing. Hunger. Despair.

Fear.

Dread.

Harry.

He snapped his eyes open and swung his body, searching for him. His hands fell on the boy, tucked in tightly behind him, and he blew out a breath.

His heart was racing. He looked around for his mother, but she had abandoned him again. As she had done in life.

Disappointing, but not unexpected.

It was cold. His mind was permanently cloudy, undependable. He felt weak. Dizzy. Confused. He could not force the foggy curtain back as he had been used to doing during his prior imprisonment.

Although then, he had been getting sustenance, however scarcely it had come. Now, when the men arrived and dropped their trousers, he felt a flutter of relief. Of gratitude, because at least it was liquid.

There was no shame. He was no longer human enough for shame.

His only visitors in this cell were the two men who regularly came for Harry and those from his past. His mother visited often. Once, his father, but he had managed to convince him to leave. Severus had sat by the door, his neck pouring blood that had filled up the whole cell, and chastised him. Called him a coward, a counterfeit deity, a fool.

Harry's mother had come at one point while the boy had been away. She had not spoken, but her gaze had frozen him with primal terror. He had tried to explain himself, somehow desperate to bring her onto his side, to justify himself and his motives, but her fierce scowl did not dissipate.

He leaned back against the wall, still touching Harry for comfort. He looked down at the boy's broken body. His hideous glasses were long-gone, allowing him to see every part of his swollen and bruised face unobstructed. He ran a gentle finger down the side of Harry's cheek, wishing he could wake the boy, why does he not wake?

He looked away.

Someone was humming and he could not catch the tune. Music had never enthralled him as it had others, but he could still appreciate certain songs. He had heard this one before. Harry was partial to inanely humming while he cooked or trotted about the house. It had been both irritating and amusing at the time, but now he missed the boy's off-tune murmuring. He listened closely. It was slow, rather morose.

Merope.

The death march. They had played that often at the orphanage when the priest would bring in the body of an unwanted child who had died alone, and held a somber ceremony. Giving the child to god when no one on Earth had wanted them.

Voldemort scoffed, his dry throat choking him at the sound. He coughed wheezily—

Weasley.

The red-headed boy materialized and stood over him. Voldemort looked up, scared, flinching back. The boy was grimacing, coming closer and Voldemort pressed himself against the warm body behind him, Harry, make him go—

The cell door crashed into the wall.

Voldemort opened his eyes and pulled himself off of the body he was curled around.

It was a woman. She stood staring at him, not speaking.

Bella?

Or, had he killed her? He could not remember. He recalled wanting her dead, desiring it ardently, but he could not be sure—

"Tom?"

He flinched.

That name never preceded pleasant encounters.

The woman crouched down, her face showing revulsion and fear.

Fear. He enjoyed eliciting fear, perhaps this was good.

"You look terrible. Have they not been feeding you?"

The voice was not familiar. Food. But he was not naïve enough to succumb to that farce.

"Here," the woman said, and dropped a loaf of bread into his lap.

He cringed away, shoving the ruse off of him. Would it electrocute him? Burn him?

"You need to eat. You're emaciated. Actually, those idiots probably haven't given you water either, have they?"

Water.

It had been years.

She conjured some clear liquid and held it out to him, but he obviously did not take the bait. He leaned back further against Harry.

She made an irritated sound.

"Of course you won't cooperate," she muttered. "Well, you're not going to like this, but I need to speak with you and you're clearly in no state to hear me. Luckily, I figured you would need some potions and so I brought these."

She reached into her pocket and pulled out three small phials. He recognized them all.

"They're safe," she lied. "Just a healing draught, a nutritional elixir, and a Draught of Peace, which as you know, will calm you and help you to concentrate. Okay?"

She held them up as if asking for permission. He shook his head and pressed his lips together.

Rolling her eyes, she walked to him anyways.

"Tom, I command you to open your mouth and lay still."

He obeyed, shock rippling through him. The previous collar's directives were imbued in this one as well? Why had no one activated them yet?

He was forced to lay sedate, his mouth parted as she poured the poisons into him. He trembled with rage and fear, but was powerless to whatever was demanded of him. Again.

"I'm also going to give you a bit of water," she added, and he felt the cool fluid trickle down his throat.

After a moment, she backed away and his collar released him. He swallowed the remaining liquid in his mouth, fighting the pleasure to at least have his thirst quenched minutely with a liquid that was not urine.

The woman watched him, her eyes calculating, arms crossed. She had bushy brown hair, a plain face, and seemed to be around the same age as Harry.

His nerves seized, adrenaline pumping through him as he finally understood.

"You have betrayed him," he rasped, shaking with boiling rage.

She smiled wryly, unfolding her arms and putting them casually into the pocket of her robes.

"Hello, Tom. I'm Hermione Granger."

"I know who you are," he spat. "You do not deserve the affection he has for you."

Already, the potions were doing their jobs. He felt energized. Coherent. He glanced behind himself and studied the boy clearly and rationally for the first time in weeks. He looked frail and beaten. Filthy. He was weak in a way he had never been before.

"I could say the same about you," the shrew hurled back at him.

He turned to face her.

"You are killing him," he accused, putting all of his hatred into his tone. "Your Saviour. Do you know what they do to him or are you hiding from the truth? He is nothing but a shield, a tool to you, useful but not treasured. He confessed this fact to me and yet I still find myself astounded by your callousness."

"Are you honestly trying to get me to feel guilty for my treatment of him? Mine? What about what you've done? You're responsible for—"

"Enough of this," Voldemort interrupted savagely. "If you are his friend, if I can trust you, you must take him from here."

"He's here because we need him to kill you."

"That is impossible!" Voldemort shrieked, his nails digging into the skin of his scalp. "Does no one understand him? He will never kill me. That cannot be all you want. What else."

"I want you dead. You killed my husband, Ron. Harry's best friend."

"So this is vigilante justice?"

She remained silent and he longed to sink into her mind and rip the truth out of her.

"Does anyone else know I am here?"

Her eyes were frigid, her body tense.

"You deserve to suffer for what you've done," she murmured.

"Is it an apology then, that you are seeking?"

"I want you dead."

Voldemort longed to crush her with his magic. Imbeciles, each and every one.

"Harry will never kill me," he said slowly, enunciating each word. "You must know this. It disgusts me that you dare to call yourself his friend. He is dying here and you are letting him. You betrayed him."

"You are responsible here, Tom! You! Harry is honourable and loyal and you corrupted him! I don't even recognize him anymore. He's like your puppet, your dog. Like some horrific parody of a Stockholm syndrome wife."

Voldemort growled and turned away, the words hitting him viciously.

"You're wrong for him," she continued, relentless. "He is good and you can only poison his spirit, destroy who he is. He will not be able to accept your monstrous acts. He will always suffer, always feel responsible. Did you know that when you killed all those innocent people in Italy, he took on the blame for it himself? He will take on the crippling guilt of every murder you commit and it will eventually kill him."

He knew this, of course. He understood he could not have both. And thus he had already made his choice.

"If you love him," the cretin dared to utter, shocking him with that word, that forbidden phrase, as if she had possibly overheard his foolish declaration, though she could not have, surely— "if you truly love him, then you have to let him go. Harry doesn't have to be here. He's protecting you."

Voldemort felt that like a fist cracking through his ribs and stuttering his lungs. Nothing would stop Harry's torture except Voldemort's compliance. His… death.

The prospect of his demise had always terrified him beyond anything else. He must not die. After everything he had fought for, everything he had achieved, he could not simply surrender to the pedestrian vulnerability of death.

Will you send Harry there in your place? If it is a choice, if you could live, would you watch him die for you?

He remembered dying.

His three jailers that continued to perpetually haunt him had dragged him there daily. Laughing. He remembered gasping panic and debilitating, powerless fear.

He screamed as the flames sizzled under him, cooking his flesh, the smoke choking him, his throat raw from futile pleas for mercy—

"Tom."

His head was submerged into the water, his shoulders held firm as he thrashed, desperate to suck in air, feeling the pressure in his eyes and ears, and being helpless against such a Muggle danger—

"Tom."

He was stabbed and suffocated and hit with that inescapable green light—

"Voldemort!"

He flinched, drawing away fast from the name because he was dead, they had cracked and ripped open his rib cage, scooping out his organs—

"Hey!"

Footsteps approached and he keened, pressing his face to the floor, becoming as small as he could because Ms Cole was back with her cane again, screaming at Tom for stealing an extra cracker, but he was so hungry and it was so easy for him, it would be madness to starve when he could call food to him with his fingers— do not notice me, let me be, please do not hurt me again—

The slap to his face was gentle compared with what he was used to. He opened his eyes. A woman stood over him—

Ms Cole.

She looked concerned instead of furious and that was jarring. They never had concern for him.

He paused, frozen, waiting for the blows to continue.

"Voldemort," Ms Cole said, not coming any closer. "You're having a panic attack."

A panic attack.

A flashback.

Harry!

He twisted, frantic, and then his trembling fingers fell upon the boy's unconscious body. Harry. He burrowed against the warmth, pressing his face into that precious neck, closing his eyes until his heartbeat slowed.

Not Ms Cole. Someone else. Harry was here and that meant that that bitch was dead already, dead by his hands. I won. No one can hurt the Dark Lord.

He reached out for the comforting embrace of his magic and met empty air. His eyes flashed open, looking at the tangled mass of black hair, but seeing only the horrors of the past.

The Purgatory Chambers.

It was this cell. He was even more susceptible to his memories here.

The boy smelled like sweat and vomit. Salazar, Harry could not take much more of this.

Focus.

He shakily peeled himself off the floor while keeping one hand on the boy's lax arm and studied the woman.

Harry's friend. Off-limits.

Hermione Granger.

Shame beat through his veins. He looked away, mortified that she had seen him lose control. His heart beat frantically, still trying to escape Ms Cole.

"Are you alright?"

He ignored her, hoping to seamlessly return to what they had been discussing. Which had been, what?

Harry.

Harry sacrificing himself for Voldemort. And how deplorable it was to allow him to continue to do so. What a villain Voldemort was.

"Even if I agreed," he breathed, still unable to make eye contact, "there will be no convincing him. He will never kill me."

"So you need to work harder. Lie to him. Make him hate you. That is how you love someone. You put their needs above your own. If you love him, honour him by doing what he would do for you in a heartbeat."

"He will never believe that I wish for him to kill me. Even you must realize that."

"Say you broke the Vow you made to him."

Voldemort looked up at her with narrowed eyes. She should not know about that. He sat up straighter, cursing his fractured ankles that prevented him from standing and looming over her as he longed to do.

"Tell him…" she began slowly, "tell him you killed my children, Rose and Hugo. Show no remorse for it. He will see that you are beyond hope."

"Does it interest you at all that I have no desire to harm them?"

Granger laughed scornfully.

"You've killed children before, Tom. What's two more to someone like you?"

Voldemort grimaced, catching a glimpse of his mother sitting behind the girl, her hair hanging off of her scalp in clumps, shaking her head in disappointment.

He closed his eyes. She is not here, she is dead but you are alive and you must keep fighting.

"I would not kill your children," he said with teeth his clenched, "because Harry mistakenly holds some regard for you."

"You killed my husband, you worthless insect. He was Harry's best friend."

Trying to rein in his fury, Voldemort opened his eyes and inclined his head.

"I regret that."

She raised a disbelieving eyebrow.

"I am capable of it," he argued levelly. "It hurt Harry tremendously."

The girl scoffed.

"Yes. That's what I'd thought. You haven't changed at all, just your priorities have."

Voldemort stared at her, not denying the accusation. He never professed otherwise. Did Harry too believe that he had suddenly become so weak?

"You would happily set the world on fire so long as Harry is safe. You would kill me and my children without contrition if Harry wouldn't hate you for it."

When Voldemort remained silent, the fool laughed darkly and turned away.

"Does Harry know this?"

"I do not lie to him."

"Sure you don't." She paused and considered him. "He seems to believe you're going to give up being a Dark Lord for him."

Voldemort firmed his spine and looked up at her as imperiously as he could whilst sitting on the floor. He loathed discussing intimate details of his life with this child, this flea who did not deserve to have such knowledge.

"Is that true?" she persisted.

Voldemort sneered.

"You seem remarkably well-informed for a traitor."

"He's my best friend. Friends talk about their lives. And I'm not the traitor here. You've manipulated Harry somehow and I am trying to rescue him from you."

"Ah yes. Harry did mention your penchant for blundering in and liberating those who do not want your dubious help. Did you not learn from your house-elf fiasco that you should just mind your own business in matters where you are fatally ignorant?"

"Harry is not a house-elf. I know what he wants."

"Is that so. Has he never told you, then, that he wants me? That I am what he desires and will fight for? Or are you still not listening to those you are ruthlessly determined to rescue?"

She looked uncomfortable.

"He's confused."

"Of course. And surely you know his heart better than he does."

"You're wrong for him!" she shouted, and he flinched before he could master himself. "You will kill him, if not directly than with the guilt you force him to carry for you!"

"Again, you assume there will be guilt to carry."

She paused to shoot him an insolently incredulous look.

"So you want me to believe that you're done killing."

Her tone left no question as to her opinion on the matter.

"Presently, I am unable due to my Vow, but once Harry frees me… Have you never adjusted your behaviours to achieve your goal?"

"Your goal," she repeated with disdain. "So, Harry is a step in your plan towards your goal."

Voldemort bristled.

"Harry is everything. He is my goal."

The child gaped at him for a moment and then covered her shock with a juvenile glare. Voldemort watched her compose herself and cross her arms, turning away and walking to lean against the wall with her back.

"So prove it," she challenged, tauntingly. "Put him first. Convince him to kill you."

"I am not a martyr."

"Then you don't deserve him. He would— and has!— thrown himself into danger for you."

"What do you believe my current situation arose from."

She nodded her head.

"So follow through. You came here to rescue him. He's not leaving until you are dead."

Voldemort closed his eyes. For over eighty years he had been immune to such tactics. He had had no weaknesses. There had been nothing and no one that could be used against him.

Harry made him vulnerable.

His every nerve screamed for his freedom, for vengeance. To live. Yet his mind was already latently organizing his surrender.

He looked down at the boy, beaten and unconscious. That lax mouth could not even convey what horrors he had already endured.

And Voldemort had the power to end it.

Harry could go home. Go back to his life. The Horcrux would likely be destroyed when the Master of Death triumphed, but the boy was resilient. This pertinacious chit would ensure Harry's survival. She would keep him alive.

"He'll want to speak with you before he agrees," the boor interrupted. He looked over at her, eyebrows raised. "You'll have to be convincing. I think Rose and Hugo will work. I'll be there too, to help."

"Help," he murmured, his head throbbing. "You will help trick the boy into murdering the man he has chosen, for a false crime."

She narrowed her eyes defiantly.

"It's not like you don't deserve it."

He seethed, loathing this self-righteous girl and her impertinence.

"Are there no assurances I could offer that would allow this farce to end peacefully?"

"Peacefully," she cried, laughing derisively. "Since when do you care about peace? You started two wars! You would begin another if Harry would let you! And with your manipulations, one day he just might."

She looked down at him with contempt.

"We don't trust you. Harry has been compromised, but the rest of us know who you really are."

Voldemort stared up at her, his head lowered but his eyes upturned.

"And who am I, really."

The girl paused, but seemed to marshal herself. Harry had told him that she was brave.

"You are a shameless, unapologetic murderer. You want ultimate power and will try and take over again, killing Muggles, Muggle-borns, and anyone who opposes you."

"Do you believe Harry would allow me to pursue that?"

"The way he is now—"

"And yet, he bound me with a Vow to prevent it, even under my unholy thrall as he apparently is. Do you believe he would stand by me if I resumed my former life?"

"You killed three-hundred—"

"That was prior. Since that Vow I have not killed a single person. And, let me be frank. I negotiated conditions into that Vow that could be manipulated. I could easily have slaughtered anyone I pleased without him knowing and while holding onto my magic. Yet I did not. I kept my word to him, to the only person I will be held accountable."

The girl studied him, a frown on her face, her back still resting against the wall. His mind began to slip while he waited, taking him to when Harris had poured molten oil onto his torso, when Grayson had forced him to hold a bowl of water for hours and each time a drop would inevitably spill, the sharp bite of the whip would strike him, spilling more—

"I don't know what to think of you," she said, giving him a searching look.

He blinked his eyes, shaking his head once to clear it. Focus.

"I know you have always been clever. You're skilled at charming and deceiving people you need things from. How do I know you're not just playing me?"

"You are still alive."

She drew in a sharp breath and he smirked, enjoying her well-reasoned fear. Unconsciously, his hand shifted to the boy's chest, over his heart, and Voldemort comforted himself with the feeling of the boy's pulse under his fingertips. He continued.

"I killed the redhead with my bare hands and that was with a battalion of Aurors surrounding me."

The girl's hand entered her pocket, obviously seeking the reassuring touch of her useless wand. He scoffed.

"You are alive only because Harry cares about you. And if your continued existence is not sufficient to convince you of my sincerity…"

He closed his eyes, sinking his cold hand between the boy's arm and chest.

You make me stronger even as I am weakened.

"I will not deny your charges of murder if he asks. But I will not lie, so take care how you couch the topic."

Her eyes were suddenly shimmering with tears. He met her gaze steadily, allowing her to grasp the danger he posed, even still.

"I do wonder, though," he mused, "how you plan on managing his profound betrayal once he is freed and realizes your brats are still alive."

A grimace replaced the look of shock on the girl's face.

"He may hate me, but at least he'll be safe."

Except from himself.

Did she know of his suicidal tendencies? With Voldemort gone and after being so thoroughly deceived he would likely cease wanting to live.

He opened his mouth to elucidate her, but then aborted the attempt. That was Harry's secret. Perhaps she could keep him alive.

He looked down at the boy, taking in his thin frame and his fluttering breaths. He would not survive much more of this, mortal as he was, and the only way to halt the violence was for Voldemort to sacrifice himself.

An action he had never considered before, would never consider if not for Harry.

"I apologize for your treatment here," the girl murmured quietly.

He kept his eyes on the body pressed against him, determined to spend his last few hours focused on him before—

The boy is going to face me, furious. Betrayed. Despising me. Harry will raise his wand and perhaps torture me gruesomely, happily, before he finally fulfils the prophecy and claims Lord Voldemort's life, never knowing that I tried, never knowing that I cared, that I even feared that I l—

"Granger," he ejected, eyes squeezed shut. "I have a request."

Panic arrested him, but he gathered his courage and forced the words out.

"Though I understand that you will not honour this, nevertheless, I must speak."

He lifted his eyes and met her shrewd gaze unflinchingly.

"Will you… after I am…"

Dead, dead, irrevocably, ignobly dead—

"Gone."

He took a breath.

"I ask that you tell him the truth. Tell him that I maintained my word. That he was right about me."

She studied him, her head tilted, biting her lip.

He looked back down at Harry and allowed his fingers to stroke that dirty cheek, wishing that they had had more time. Mourning the unfulfilled promises he had made, the paths, newly formed, that now could never to be taken.

"I would have gone with you," he whispered, all of his attention on the boy, his body turned fully to face him. "Forgive me, my soul."

He leaned down and pressed his lips against Harry's forehead, touching his mark upon the boy's skin. He rested his forehead against him, soaking in his warmth, and closed his eyes.

Some time later, the jarring sound of the cell door closing startled him and only then did he remember that they had not been alone.