The smell of Voldemort's culinary endeavours eventually drove Harry out of the conservatory and into the kitchen. As he sat down at the kitchen table he was reminded about what they'd done earlier that day. His arse was still quite sore and made sure Harry knew it.
They both remained quiet while Harry stared at Voldemort's back as the other man stood at the stove and stirred something with plenty of garlic by the smell of it.
The wonderfully distracting cloud that had engulfed Harry numerous times throughout the day was nowhere to be found, now that Harry was aware he had probably ruined Dumbledore's plans for Voldemort's downfall beyond repair.
Because what was there to salvage of Dumbledore's plans? There was no putting the knowledge that Harry knew about the horcruxes back into the box, now that Voldemort was aware of it. Now that Voldemort knew that Dumbledore had meant for Harry to go out and destroy all his horcruxes.
All Voldemort had to do once they were free of their shared prison was to collect his horcruxes and give them better hiding places, possibly protected by something like a fidelius charm. That way Harry would never find them.
As for any other strategies that Dumbledore might have set up for the Order of the Phoenix, they were being ruined as well by Snape going around doing away with everyone who played an important part in the Order. If Snape kept this up there wouldn't be an Order of the Phoenix left before long.
Yeah, the more Harry thought about, the more he came to the realization that they were absolutely fucked and probably stood no chance of winning against Voldemort now or in the future.
Voldemort placed a steaming plate in front of Harry. It held some funny-looking pasta that resembled little spirals, with cherry tomatoes, basil and lots of parmesan cheese.
Harry took a bite, more out of habit than because he was truly hungry. His stomach was too tied up in knots for him to have much of an appetite at that moment. The dish might look simple, but the taste was anything but. "This is really good," Harry said after he swallowed his mouthful. He stared at Voldemort with wide eyes, unable to contain his curiosity. "Where did you even learn to cook like this?"
Spearing a cherry tomato on his fork, Voldemort took his time eating it before he answered. "I grew up in an environment where there was never enough to eat. As an adult, I made it my business to learn how to prepare food for myself so I'd never have to go hungry again."
Swallowing, Harry stared down at his plate. He was unsure what to think about Voldemort's confession, since it resembled his own experiences at the Dursleys rather closely. "Yeah, I get that," he finally whispered and then realized something else. He'd seen Mrs Weasley cook with magic plenty of times in the Burrow, where she would wave her wand around to command every piece of food with magic. Here, there was no magic too cook with. "I mean, cooking like a muggle."
Voldemort's mouth twitched a bit, as though he was quietly amused by Harry's awkward manner of questioning. "After I left Britain, I travelled the whole world extensively. I often stayed in muggle areas where I was always at risk of breaking the Statute of Secrecy whenever I used magic. So I learned to cook without magic. A skill anyone should have, wizards included."
"That makes sense, I suppose," Harry muttered and went back to his dinner. It really was good and as he slowly but surely finished his plate, Harry considered how little he actually knew about Voldemort. Sure, Dumbledore had shown him a few pensieve memories. But those were mere snapshots that hardly gave a clear picture of Voldemort's entire life. "Why did you leave Britain?" Harry heard himself ask before he even realized he wanted to know that answer.
Voldemort snorted and took a sip of his glass of water. He leaned back, carefully placing his glass down. "Because Britain is a narrow minded, insular society where more magic is banned than can be legally practiced. I wanted to learn all facets of magic, so I sought that knowledge elsewhere."
Narrowing his eyes, Harry gave Voldemort a pointed look. "Like Dark Magic, I bet."
"Like Earth Magic and Weather Magic," Voldemort replied in a challenging tone, quirking an eyebrow. "Like Elemental Magic and Advanced Alchemy."
"Alchemy?" Harry blinked in confusion, placing his fork down on the side of his empty plate, done with dinner. "You can't learn that here? What about the Flamels?"
Chuckling, Voldemort shook his head. "The Flamels are akin to royalty in the wizarding world. Anything they've done over the years has been grandfathered in. But all the rest of us aren't allowed to try to make a Philosopher's Stone of our own or we'll be arrested. Meanwhile the Flamels get to enjoy their Elixir of Life as much as they please."
"They're dead," Harry said softly with a bit of a lump in his throat. He was partially to blame that the Philosopher's Stone had been destroyed and the Flamels had finally met their end. That conversation with Dumbledore, at the end of his first schoolyear, still weighed heavily on his mind.
"What on earth are you on about?" Voldemort asked, voice sharp as he stared at Harry as though he'd just claimed the most foolish thing in the world.
"The Philosopher's Stone was destroyed at the end of my first school year," Harry said, staring at Voldemort in mild disbelief that he wasn't aware of that. Surely the Flamels' deaths would have been big news in the wizarding world, big enough that even a Dark Lord laying low would have learned about it. "Dumbledore told me that the Flamels only had a few months left to live and then they'd run out of the Elixir of Life."
"Dumbledore was lying," Voldemort said in a tone of voice that suggested he took great pleasure in informing Harry about that particular truth. "The Flamels published a paper on the use of lithium in alchemy just last year. They're very much alive, I assure you." Voldemort's whole face closed down, becoming an emotionless mask. "Besides, the Philosopher's Stone that was kept at Hogwarts was obviously fake. I had not realized this when I came to steal it, but afterwards it made perfect sense that Dumbledore would set up such a trap for me."
"What?" Harry opened and closed his mouth a few times, his whole body trembling in shock. "They're alive? Dumbledore fucking lied?" That cold disbelief was quickly replaced by searing hot rage. "That fucking bastard! I felt awful about being partially to blame for their deaths. I was only eleven when he threw that in my lap. Why the fuck would he lie about this?"
"You really cannot figure out why Dumbledore would go to great lengths to prepare you to accept your own death when the time was right?" Voldemort looked like he was very close to laughing outright.
Ah, yeah. Harry was a horcrux. Before he could stop himself, Harry raised a hand and rubbed a few fingers across his scar. He hated being reminded of that, but he couldn't deny that Voldemort made a very good point. "It's like I never even knew the real Dumbledore," Harry muttered, more to himself than to Voldemort. Because the more he learned about the truth when it came to Dumbledore's plans for Harry and his very limited future, the more Harry came to the conclusion that Dumbledore had been manipulating him for years. He wondered if the Headmaster had ever even been honest with him at all.
Surprisingly, Voldemort didn't taunt Harry about his obvious loss of faith in his old mentor, though he looked like he might want to do so. Then he inhaled a deep breath, perhaps to push those urges back and he gave Harry a level look. "Ever since that hack uttered a prophecy that matched you, all you've been to the old man is a weapon, Harry. To be used at the right place at the right time. Nothing more and nothing less."
"Yeah, I'm beginning to realize that," Harry said and then inhaled a deep breath which he released in a long, tired sigh. How strange that only a few weeks ago he was ready to follow Dumbledore's every command, risk his own life to go on a mad hunt for every piece of Voldemort's soul. And now he knew that Dumbledore had always meant for him to die, had pretty much raised him as a sacrificial lamb.
And while a part of Harry wanted to be strong and brave and willingly give his own life to help bring Voldemort down once and for all, a larger part now understood that would be a very foolish thing to do. Because Voldemort knew of their plans and would easily thwart them. So what good would it do for Harry to lay down his own life now?
Besides, if Harry was really, truly honest with himself, he knew that he didn't want to die. He'd hardly even lived so far. He'd hardly been anywhere, really. Had seen nothing of the world, and not much of Britain either.
And he had just promised Voldemort that he'd be his horcrux, whatever that even meant. Sure, those words had been said in the heat of the moment, but Harry now honesty considered that a viable option for the future, no matter how distasteful that thought might be. Because what else was there for him?
"I'll leave the dishes to you," Voldemort said quietly as he got up and pushed his chair back against the table.
Harry only nodded in response, used to the division of labour by now. The cut on his left hand looked quite dry now, with the stitches holding everything together nicely. But Harry figured that it was probably best to keep the wound from getting soaked in dirty dishwater, so he took his time washing up with one hand, like he'd done the day before.
This gave Harry ample time to consider what his future might look like once the blood wands were ready and they brought the magical barrier down. Just a week ago Harry's plan would be to immediately apparate away, look for Ron and Hermione so he could show them he was still alive and tell them everything that had happened. But now Harry felt far more reluctant to search out his friends immediately.
What was he going to tell them about what he'd been up to since his disappearance?
Hi guys, got kidnapped and then willingly had sex with Voldemort. Multiple times, in fact. Did you know it feels really good when Voldemort fucks you up the arse?
Harry had to bite his lip for a second so he wouldn't burst out into hysterical laughter while he imagined the looks on Ron and Hermione's faces should they ever find out that particular fact. But Harry's hilarity was soon replaced with a chilly wave of despair.
How the fuck was he going to explain any of this to his friends?
He could simply not tell them. Just fabricate some story about how he and Voldemort had come to some vague understanding and managed a truce for as long as it took them to kill Snape together.
And that was another thing, wasn't it? Harry could never, ever tell Ron and Hermione about his plans to kill Snape together with Voldemort. They wouldn't understand and they certainly wouldn't approve.
How had Harry's entire life changed so drastically in less than two weeks that now he couldn't tell his best friends anything about himself anymore.
It was all too much for Harry's poor, overworked brain to handle and a mild but persistent headache started behind his temples. Harry rubbed a hand through his hair in frustration, but that helped absolutely nothing. In the end he decided to make a pot of tea to take with him to the living room so he could bother Voldemort for a bit and hopefully find some much needed distractions.
Sex had been a wonderful distraction, a small voice in his mind reminded him as he poured boiling water into the teapot. Yeah, sex had been a rather satisfying way to not have to think of all the exhausting issues that kept popping up in Harry's mind every second of the day. Though Harry's arse was still a bit too sore, Harry had learned that afternoon that there were plenty of ways to get off together using just your mouth and hands.
Harry carefully carried the tray into the living room where he found Voldemort seated on the sofa, legs crossed in a casual pose, a pen in his hand and an opened notebook balanced on his knee. As Harry placed the tray on the coffee table and poured them both cups of tea, he managed to sneak a peek at the notebook and what Voldemort was writing in it.
A whole bunch of magical equations consisting of arithmancy and runes which meant absolutely nothing to Harry, much to his frustration.
"What are you working on?" Harry asked, because his curiosity was well and truly piqued and he needed to know what secrets Voldemort was writing down. He sank down on the sofa opposite Voldemort's and gave him an expectant look.
Voldemort didn't even bother looking up as he scribbled down more unreadable secrets. "I'm trying to find a way to fix some of the more undesirable side-effects of my resurrection ritual."
"Oh." Harry frowned, trying to make sense of what Voldemort was truly saying. It took him a few moments, but then he laughed and gave Voldemort a huge grin full of amusement. "You're trying to get your nose back?"
Voldemort's answering glare was so full of hatred that in the past Harry might have ducked out of its way on sheer instinct. But things had changed between them now, Harry was sure of it. You couldn't fuck someone in the arse or suck their cock and not have it change the dynamics between you.
Still, Harry didn't actually want to fight with Voldemort. He was hoping for more sex before the evening was done, after all. So keeping the peace it was. Harry raised both hands in a sign of surrender. "I mean, your current appearance is rather… conspicuous. And you've been declared dead in the wizarding world. If you want to keep your anonymity, it might be a good idea to try to look a bit more human."
Voldemort's glare remained narrow and filled with anger for a few moments more before he released a sigh and shook his head. "You're right that I can't go out looking like this, but I can always use a glamour for that."
"Then what are you trying to fix, if not your looks?" Harry picked up his cup of tea and sipped it, still burning with curiosity.
"An improvement in my appearance is a goal, just not the main one." Voldemort closed the notebook, placed it down on the sofa beside him and picked up his cup of tea. Only now did Harry notice that both their blood wands were lying beside Voldemort on the sofa as well. Yeah, apparently they'd left their only potential means to do magic in the conservatory without any thought. If Snape and some of his collaborators decided to attack them out of the blue, they should at least have their wands within reach.
"So what is the other goal?" Harry sat forward a little, willing Voldemort to stop talking in riddles and to just spit in out.
"Once I learned that my diary horcrux had been destroyed, I summoned the soul piece back to me and reabsorbed it," Voldemort finally explained. "But the process was needlessly difficult because of the ritual I'd used to resurrect myself. Now that I know the ring horcrux has been destroyed as well, I want to make sure that reabsorbing it will be easier."
"Wait…" Harry frowned as he pursed his lips, unsure if Dumbledore had ever even mentioned something like that. "You can just reabsorb the horcruxes?"
"Once they've been destroyed and the soul piece has been released," Voldemort said with a pointed look at Harry. "What did you think happened to the soul piece after its container had been destroyed? It can't move on, since there are other horcruxes still around."
"Er…" That shut Harry up for a bit. He'd never actually considered what had happened to the diary's soul piece. He'd always just assumed that it had been destroyed, somehow. Or at least that it had died. But it made sense that the soul piece was still floating around because other horcruxes would keep it tied to this world.
Voldemort emptied his cup of tea and opened his notebook again to continue scribbling down things Harry had no hope of understanding anytime soon.
"Fuck, I really should have chosen better electives," Harry muttered, suddenly feeling very bitter than no one had explained to him how important certain subjects might become later in his life, when he wasn't a twelve-year-old looking for easy O's.
"Why didn't you?" Voldemort kept his gaze fixed on his notebook but he did sound genuinely interested in hearing Harry's reasons. "You want to become an Auror and Arithmancy and Runes are rather important in that line of work, even if you don't need those NEWTs to start Auror training."
"How the hell do you even know I want to be an Auror?" Harry asked, mouth opened in shock. Very few people actually knew that.
"Barty told me."
Of course. The Moody who had given Harry and Ron the idea of becoming Aurors in the first place hadn't been Moody at all, but Barty Crouch Jr in disguise. Harry rubbed a hand across his face, almost knocking his glasses clean off. He placed them in his lap and then gave his face a good rub with his hand to stave off some of the frustration he felt about the mess his whole life turned out to be. "I only decided to become an Auror in my fourth year," Harry said, blinking his eyes as he stared at Voldemort. "When I was twelve and had to pick my electives no one told me anything about what subjects were really important for your future."
Voldemort glanced up for a moment and met Harry's eyes. He nodded his understanding and went back to his own work.
Harry wasn't even sure anymore if he still wanted to be an Auror, to be honest. If he got out of this whole mess alive with the war over for good, he couldn't imagine going to the Ministry and signing up to fight dark wizards for the rest of his life. Two years ago, when Barty had put that idea in front of Harry, it had seemed like a natural choice to fight dark wizards for a living. That, and the childish dreams of a couple of teenage boys who saw nothing but glory in the idea of duelling dark wizards on a daily basis.
But Harry was older now, and his entire life had changed and kept changing in ways he couldn't possibly predict. Suddenly becoming an Auror did not appeal to him at all anymore.
"Why would you need Runes and stuff to become an Auror?" Harry asked, more to distract himself from those unending torrents of doubt that tried to take over his mind every bloody moment, than because he genuinely wanted to know the answer.
"It's necessary to break most curses, for one," Voldemort said while he kept scribbling in his notebook. "And to break wards."
"Ah." That made a lot of sense. Harry knew nothing about Runes or what they actually did, but he'd heard enough from Hermione to understand that's probably what they were used for. And now that Harry really thought about it, that actually sounded interesting. Why the fuck had he ever thought that reading tea leaves was a better way to spend his time than to learn how to break curses and wards? How fucking stupid had he really been once upon a time?
And there were those horribly negative thoughts again that just wouldn't leave him alone. Harry shoved them to the back of his mind and focused on the conversation he and Voldemort were actually having, about horcruxes and curses and Harry's inability to choose the best future for himself. But thinking about horcruxes and curse inevitably led Harry to think about Dumbledore again. About their failed mission to retrieve the locket, and about Dumbledore's blackened hand because the ring had cursed him.
"What sort of curse did you put on the ring?" Harry asked, even though he didn't really want to learn anything about Dark Magic. But he did want to know how Dumbledore's hand could have ended up looking all blackened and shrivelled even if the memory of it made him swallow against a sudden burst of queasiness. Fuck his blasted curiosity.
"A very volatile little curse I created myself," Voldemort said in an even tone, as though he was explaining basic charms to Harry instead of Dark Magic. "It was designed to rot away the recipients flesh as well as their magic, slowly progressing until the recipient was dead."
"You didn't do a very good job then," Harry said in a snooty tone, to mask the uneasy shiver that ran up and down his back at the thought of what some curses were capable of. "Snape stopped that curse and saved Dumbledore's life, though why he even bothered only to kill him months later is a mystery."
Voldemort looked up, his mouth drawing up in a satisfied smirk. "No, Severus did not stop that curse. There is no stopping that curse. Severus only delayed it."
"What?" Harry gaped at Voldemort in shock as that information sank in. "Dumbledore was dying? That bastard was dying all along?" Harry wasn't even sure why this realization upset him so much, until he remembered thinking that Dumbledore leaving him so little information to go on for his future horcrux hunt was because Dumbledore had died before being able to fully instruct Harry. For fuck's sake, Harry didn't even have a means to destroy any horcrux he might come across.
Yet now Harry understood that this had all been done by design. That Dumbledore knew he was dying, apparently, and had purposefully left Harry mostly in the dark while giving him a momentous task that was full of dangers. What did it matter, though, if Harry perished along the way of the horcrux hunt? As long as Ron and Hermione were still alive to carry on the mission, it wouldn't have mattered if Harry ended up dead. He was always going to end up dead in Dumbledore's plans, wasn't he?
Voldemort's face was full of amusement and delight at seeing Harry once again come to the realization that Dumbledore was a two-faced, double-crossing bastard who'd never cared one bit about Harry as a person.
A sharp sting of grief, of betrayal, shot through Harry's chest and he gave Voldemort an urgent look. "Please let me suck your cock," Harry blurted before he even knew what he was saying. But he desperately needed a distraction and he needed it now.
"Well, since you ask so nicely," Voldemort drawled, snapping his notebook shut and leaning back in the couch. "Come kneel before me."
Harry didn't have to be told twice and he shot up and all but jumped over the coffee table to kneel at Voldemort's feet. Voldemort stared down with hooded eyes, the red seeming even darker than usual, as Harry pulled open Voldemort's robes and reached for his hardening cock.
It was still a bit weird to suck Voldemort's cock, or any cock for that matter, into his mouth, but soon enough the sheer arousal that coursed through Harry drove all those negative thoughts that plagued his mind away until their was nothing left in his head to worry about. That wonderful, distracting cloud was back and dampened Harry's mind until only his physical pleasure remained.
Harry's own cock grew hard in his trousers as he bobbed his head up and down on Voldemort's cock, Voldemort's fingers tightening in his hair. Harry yanked his zipper down, pushed his trousers down a bit over his hips and pulled his own cock out, all the while still sucking Voldemort's shaft down as far as he could.
"Good boy, Harry," Voldemort muttered, guiding Harry's head up and down with a tight grip, which Harry didn't mind one bit, surprisingly. Somehow the sensation of Voldemort controlling him in such a small way only added to Harry's arousal and made his cock dripple tiny drops of fluid while he stroked himself.
Harry had no clue how long he worked his mouth up and down Voldemort's cock. His lips were numb and his jaw ached, but his head was blissfully empty and that's all that mattered. Harry held off his own climax, slowing his strokes down whenever it approached, because he wanted to come the moment Voldemort did.
Voldemort seemed to pick up on this. "You will not find release until I say so, Harry. You can only come after I've done so."
Harry sucked Voldemort's cock down impossibly deeper. Hearing Voldemort giving him commands did unexpectedly hot things to his own body. His skin beaded with sweat and every tug Voldemort gave on his hair sent shivers of pleasure down Harry's spine.
Eventually, Voldemort pushed Harry's head down, choking him with his cock as he shot his release down Harry's throat with a quiet grunt. "Come now, Harry," Voldemort breathed, and Harry didn't even have to stroke himself again before he was coming harder than he'd ever had, his cock spurting his release all over the rug beneath him.
"Fuck," Harry breathed as he slowly released Voldemort's spent cock and he sat back on his arse. "I needed that."
"And you are so very good at following orders," Voldemort said with a clearly amused look as he stared down at Harry. "Who knew all you needed was a cock in your mouth to shut you up and make you obey me?"
Licking his lips, Harry gave Voldemort a defiant glare, but he couldn't very well protest too loudly. Voldemort was right. Harry loved being used for sex the way Voldemort ordered him around. Yeah, Harry was surprised by this, too, but he simply couldn't deny it.
"Did it distract you, though?" Voldemort asked, putting himself back to rights. "That is what you were after, wasn't it?"
"Yeah," Harry sighed, also tucking his prick away and zipping up his trousers. "So much has happened and so much has changed that I'm driving myself insane just thinking about it all."
"And being stuck indoors without a physical outlet probably isn't helping matters either," Voldemort mused and then patted the sofa beside himself. "Come, sit."
Harry blinked up at Voldemort, unsure what he wanted, but he did haul himself up and sat down on the sofa.
Voldemort opened up his notebook to a blank page and placed it on the coffee table so Harry could see it as well. Then he wrote down a few simple runes. "These are the first runes you should learn."
"Wait." Harry looked at Voldemort as thought he'd just spontaneously turned into a frog. "Are you teaching me Ancient Runes?"
"It will be two weeks, probably three, before the blood wands are ready to be used," Voldemort said, sounding ever so reasonable, as though him teaching Harry anything was completely normal. "And as much as I enjoy you sucking my cock, Harry, we can't do that every hour of every day. So we may as well do something productive with our time. Unless you'd rather go back to the company of your own thoughts?"
"No!" Harry all but yelled. The last thing he wanted was to be stuck with unending spirals of negativity again, which was all his mind wanted to conjure up those days. "I'd love to learn Ancient Runes."
"Good." Voldemort reached for the teapot and poured them both fresh cups of tea. "Then pay attention."
And Harry did. For the next two hours Harry got a very thorough introduction into Ancient Runes. Voldemort was a surprisingly good teacher. Quite patient and willing to explain things in several ways if Harry got stuck in the first explanation.
After two hours, though, Harry's head was pounding and he rubbed a tired hand over his face.
"I suppose that's enough for now," Voldemort said, giving Harry a knowing look as he closed the notebook. "We'll continue after breakfast tomorrow."
"Yeah," Harry said in a soft voice, his mind utterly exhausted from absorbing so much new information. It was really interesting, though, and once again Harry cursed himself for having been a little idiot back in second year when he had to choose his electives. Ancient Runes were loads more interesting than anything Divination could ever come up with.
"We might as well go to bed," Voldemort said, picking up the blood wands. "Since we've been here a considerable time now, I doubt Severus is planning any surprise attacks during the night."
Harry gave Voldemort a curious look as he stood up and loaded the empty cups back onto the tray. "What are you saying?"
"That it's probably fine if we sleep together at the same time. I recommend we still use the same room for security purposes." Voldemort seemed completely calm as he made his proposal.
Harry's breathing hitched. Sleep in the same bed as Voldemort? Wouldn't that be weird? Then again, they'd been having sex together the whole day, so sharing a bed didn't really make matters worse, now did it? "Yeah, all right," Harry finally said with a nonchalant shrug, trying to act as though none of this bothered him at all while his heart hammered in his chest.
Once inside their bedroom, Voldemort shoved the leather chair against the closed door to create at least something of a barrier against a possible intrusion. Then he placed both their blood wands on their respective nightstands.
Voldemort still lid under the covers nude, but Harry put on his pyjamas. More out of habit than anything, since Voldemort had already seen him completely naked in ways no one else had ever laid eyes on Harry before.
Once Harry crawled under the covers as well, Voldemort turned off the light on his nightstand, leaving the room in darkness.
Harry tried to calm his breathing down as he stared up at nothing at all. Voldemort was lying naked beside him and the strangest thing about that was that it really didn't bother Harry at all.
What the fuck was happening to him? How had everything changed so much in such little time?
And what on earth would happen to them once they managed to bring the barrier down?
While all those questions haunted Harry's thoughts, Harry tried desperately to fall asleep. Voldemort's breathing deepened after a while but Harry found it impossible to sleep for a very long time.