I apologize in advance for this chapter. There's so much crack, I think I should call the cops or something. This is what happens when you let the plot bunnies out at 2am.

I'm so sorry

so very sorry lol

Last time...

"Tony?" Hera asked, wide eyed, in shock.

She'd never thought Tony would throw the phone like that, not when talking to Stane; he loved his godfather. The two had been yelling quite loudly, and while Hera could guess the subject matter, she'd tried not to pry. Granted, Jarvis had it recorded, but that was for Jarvis investigation purposes. He'd not told her, and she hadn't asked. Now that Tony was off the phone, however, she felt it safe.

"It's…It's nothing, but…" Tony stammered, so she figured this was something he didn't want to tell her.

"You don't have to tell me, you know." She reminded him.

"I know, but this? I thought he'd get over it, ya know?" Tony sighed. "You're my sister, and I've adopted you, and I'm trying to do the whole responsible adult thing. That's actually not as hard as I thought it would be if I approach it like secretly being just a big kid, which isn't really a secret, but still. He's actually on my ass about you coming out as a mutant, because he said it puts Howard in a bad light. Said I needed to watch the family image, that I needed to realize what was important."

"Tony…"

"I don't think my godfather's a good person, Hera," Tony admitted quietly, looking like the admission itself gutted him. "and I hate that he can't see how amazing you are. You saved John's life today, and instead of focusing on that, all Obadiah can talk about is the bad press Stark Industries is gonna get because of this."

Chapter 83

Though she had told him he could call upon her, he had not yet done so. He'd taken up residence in the old Riddle Manor, as there was no one really besides the old grounds keeper that bothered him. Strange. Before, he would have killed him, but now? What was the point? He wanted to take the time to think over her choice, the challenge she presented, and the powers she held.

She'd told him that they would be able to sense where the other was, and so far that had been true. He could only feel her presence faintly, as if she were a great distance away. The backlog of news from The Daily Prophet spoke of a famous Muggle (possible squib?) brother who lived in the United States; they called him the Merchant of Death. He was uncertain of the authenticity of the claim, given how far downhill the paper had gone, but her faintness made him think it possible. It was yet another thing to consider.

Hera Potter had shown up when he'd put himself back together, had given him the answers he sought, and then thrown his world out of balance. She had powers he knew not, but she'd also told him to let her know when the weird things started happening; hinting that she would share her knowledge, if he so wished. She could walk the realms. No wixen had been able to do that in recorded history, though it was spoken of in myths and legends, and she casually talked about it as if it were something anyone could do. She could affect the world through her long distance illusions, something only very few had been able to do when he'd been alive the first time.

The choice? He didn't even know what to think about that. To live a good life? What did that even mean? Two of his horcruxes were already destroyed. What did she think he was supposed to salvage? He supposed he could get to the ring and the cup. The diadem would be harder, should he agree. He'd not been able to bring himself to create a horcrux for Nagini to carry, not when she'd been with him through so much.

He wondered if this sentimentality was Potter's doing. There were certainly weird things he wished to speak of. As the nights grew colder, Voldemort noticed that his skin would turn a touch blue. There would be raised lines on his skin in those moments. When he passed a mirror he saw that his eyes were red, but they'd been that way before.

When it wasn't cold, his eyes were green instead of the brown they'd been before. He had hair again; black, not the dark brown wavy hair he'd had before he'd begun splitting his soul. It occurs to him that should he wish it, he could take these new looks and disappear. No one knew what he looked like, save for Potter. She had offered him the chance of a good life, after all.

Could he live a good life with only most of his soul? Was there a way to reclaim the destroyed pieces? Where they destroyed, or merely scattered due to the items that contained them being destroyed? He didn't know, and didn't have the resources to search for the answers. Perhaps if he had access to the Malfoy Family Library, he might find them. He could ask Potter what she knew. Somehow, he had a feeling she knew a lot more about what was going on than he did.

…

Hera looked around, a little jarred. She'd been talking to Tony when… "Tony's gonna kill me."

"You said I could call on you." A voice behind her, and she turned to face him. Voldemort was looking way more Loki than she thought he would. His bone structure was different, so it made him look more like he could be a cousin, but still. "Was it a lie?"

"I'm on the other side of the globe, you arse!" Hera huffed in annoyance. "You couldn't have waited till I was back on this side? I was mid conversation with Tony, and just collapsed in the floor. The last time that happened in front of him, my lips were magically sewn shut before his eyes. He's gonna be so worried now, and then when I finally tell him everything's okay, he's not gonna believe me until my sixth cup of hot chocolate!"

"How very troublesome for you." Voldemort snorted in derision.

"I know. It's the worst." She grinned, thinking fondly of her brother. "So? Why'd you call? Weird things, or choice discussion? I'm not stupid enough to think you've decided already. I know it's Yule and all, but I'm young, not stupid."

Voldemort looked uncertain…Could he do that? "…A game of wizarding chess."

The look of annoyance she gave must have been effectively communicated, because he relented.

"A discussion can be had through the game as well as words." The man continued, not looking at her. He couldn't do nervous…Could he? Just what had her blood done to him?

"You know, you could just talk about your feelings like a regular person. I hear people do that." Hera offered. He glared at her, and wow that was a little discombobulating to see almost Loki's face in that. "Or we could play chess. That's cool too. I'm terrible at it, but whatever. It's not I'm worrying my brother or anything. Where are we anyway?"

"The old Riddle Manor." Voldemort replied, before pausing even as the chess board set itself. "Why did I tell you that?"

"We can't lie to each other." She answered. "Figured that out last time. Sarcasm and doesn't actually count as lying though, and neither does stalling like you're doing now, just so you're aware."

"So the offer…the prophecy…"

"All legit."

…

"This can't really be what you wanted to do." She sighed, after having lost the game.

They'd not really talked much, it being such a short game. She really was terrible at this. She couldn't take all the strategies she knew from Loki, and turn it into chess the way Ron seemed to be able to do with anything. She had court intrigue and rumours, lies and misdirection, a veritable smorgasbord of manipulation tactics…If she could think of chess like those things instead of the other way around, she might just be able to do this, because that's all this was…Reading a person, misdirection, intrigue. She could do that.

…

"How did you do that?" Voldemort demanded when she won the game. "Did you cheat?"

"I did not. I simply read you. You don't hide your tells as well as you think you do." She snorted. "Still want to play games, or do you want to actually talk now?"

He glared at her again.

"Alright. Poker then." She shrugged, summoning a bowl of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans. He looked at them in inquiry. "Loser eats a bean."

…

"BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" Hera busted out laughing, actually falling into the floor as she laughs and gasps for breath, before managing to wheeze. "What flavour was it this time?"

"I will not dignify that with a response." Voldemort scoffed, still a little green around the gills.

"It was shite, wasn't it?" She snickered from her spot in the floor. "Go on…You can say it…shhhhiiiiihehehehe-"

"Wait…Are all of these…Did you only summon the excrement flavoured ones?" He demanded, affronted disbelief colouring his voice.

Hera starts laughing again. The man hadn't won a hand yet. One would think he'd have figured it out before now. She'd only made them look different, but they were indeed, all shite flavoured. It was only fair.

…

"Never have I ever?" Potter snorted. "What are we? Twelve?"

"You are aware this is a drinking game?" He countered snidely, sounding far too petulant to his own ears. "For adults?"

"Haven't figured out alcohol doesn't affect you yet, I see?" She retorted, before taking a swig directly from the bottle he'd summoned. "Oh, this is nice. What is it? Scotch? Wine is awful, by the way. Tried it once when I walked through fire, and saw Quirrell surrounded by all those grubby stones, and you on the back of his head. I hope you know this counts as Under Aged Drinking, which is bad. Rots your brain, or so they tell me. What even is the legal drinking age anymore? Do you know? You've been out of it for a while."

"Nice way of saying I've been a disembodied wraith for the past ten years." He scoffed, taking the bottle from her. "What do you mean alcohol doesn't affect me?"

He took a swig, and waited. Nothing.

"…Fuck."

"I know, right?!"

…

"I don't understand you." Hera declared, looking across the table at him. "What's your deal?"

"I'm trying to understand you." Voldemort admitted. "If I can do that, I might be able to trust the choice you offer."

"Mate, I hate to break it to you, but you are not the first nor the last to fail at trying to understand a teenage girl." Hera pointed out. "Twenty-one Questions, or actually talking problems?"

"…Questions."

…

"What do you want to be called?" Potter asked.

"That's your question?" Voldemort reposed, flummoxed. "Really?"

"It's a legitimate question!" She insisted, smacking the table lightly. "I've been calling you Ol' What's-his-name, Quirrellsnit, Snort-a-wort, Voldeshorts; you get the gist. I refuse to call you Voldemort. Running from death is hardly viable long term. True immortality is so rare, even the Flamels haven't managed it yet. I absolutely refuse to call you the Dark Lord. That's just silly."

"…I hate my name." He admitted, morose, looking into the glass of whatever it was she'd given him; it was certainly better than the scotch he'd had. "Tom Marvolo Riddle. How sad is it that I created the anagram I am Lord Voldemort out of a name I hate? No wonder I wasn't a successful Dark Lord."

"You did make an anagram out of your name like a total dweeb." Potter concurred. "Just…If you hate your name so much, why not make up another one? Riddle sounds nice, like a good Villain name, but I think the Muggles already beat you to it. Marvolo sounds cool, but I suppose people would shorten it to Marv, and that's just…Ugh. Tom is…so everyday. No wonder you hate it. The only Tom I know that's likeable is the barman at the Leaky."

"Is he still there?" Voldemort inquired, now morbidly curious. That needed to be addressed. "Why do I…I feel things. Why do I do that now? I never…I did not have feelings before, Potter."

"Thank Merlin, I never thought we'd get to the feelings." Potter swore at the ceiling, before levelling him with a look. "Your mother drugged your father with a love potion, and she did this for literal years…I looked it up. A child born of someone in a love potion induced state…They don't connect with their emotions as easily as everyone else. You? Things were worse for you, because of how long your sperm donor was affected."

"Sper…" Voldemort coughed, nearly choking on the drink she'd given him. "Why would you call my father-"

"He was not your father." She snorted. "The man didn't raise you, wasn't there for you, nothing. He was a sperm donor, and an unwilling one on top of that. So you can add rape victim to that too."

"…Why is it more people don't see it that way? With the love potions, I mean." He would not be touching the topic of his father just yet.

"Rape is most always treated as the victim's fault. They should have known better than to walk at night alone. They shouldn't have dressed so provocatively. They shouldn't have flirted. That sort of thing." Potter shrugged. "Same thing with love potions. They should have known to check their food and drink for the substance, should have got a toadstone ring or something, shouldn't have put themselves in the situation to be drugged with it in the first place."

"During the revels…"

"I know."

…

"Why do you not hate me?" He asked, contemplative as he looked over at her. She'd been expecting this one. "I'm responsible for killing your parents. You, among so many others, have the right to hate me, and yet you…don't. Why is that?"

"Because you were in a war. People die in those, kill, commit atrocities, have their ideals tested, that kind of thing. They knew what they were getting into, and so did you. I hate that I'll never get to know them, that they'll never get to embarrass me in front of my first date, or any of the other milestones parents like to have. I'll never get to hear the fond nickname they came up for me from their lips, but I'm hardly unique in that regard." Hera replied, thoughtful. "To fight or defend an ideal, a people, something that matters…I can understand that, from either side, though I may not agree with one or the other. But to kill for fun? The worst of your followers killed for fun, tortured, raped, murdered…for fun; not because they believed your bullshite, but because they revelled in violence for violence's sake. And for the record, I do hate them."

"…I allowed it, encouraged it even."

"You did."

…

"You look younger than you did in the graveyard." Potter noted, after a while. They'd fallen into silence. "Sometimes, I look at you and see who I used to be. Sometimes, I almost miss being him, but I like this life better."

"I feel younger than I was. Is that because of what happened?" He wondered. She shrugged; so either she didn't know, or he hadn't been specific enough with the question. "You talk like that sometimes, like you've lived another life."

"Who says I haven't?" She countered, before her eyes pierced him with a look. "Who I was was destroyed by a choice made, long before you thought to try and kill me. He killed and destroyed for the sake of an image not even his own, a lie he was told by others. You think your revels and allowed depravity are horrific in the eyes of your current company, and you're not wrong, but who I had been…He thought to destroy the monsters under the bed, the stories mothers tell their children at night to get them to behave. He thought to wipe out an entire people, because they were the enemy, because he'd been raised to hate them as such, and when he failed at this…When he failed, he tried to take his own life, because at least then that would be one less monster, one less of that people to whom he had had no idea he'd belonged. It didn't work. He was found, not by those that raised him, but by others more vile than the stories of the monsters he'd thought to destroy. Beaten, broken, bound, he was tortured for over a year. Willing to agree to anything, he did, and when he was finally free, what did he choose but to go back and undermine everything those that had tortured him had built."

…

"What's it like?" Voldemort asked. He still hadn't given her a name to call him. "Living, I mean."

"I'll let you know if I ever manage it." She replied with a wry grin. "I've been surviving for so long, I'm not always sure what normal is supposed to be."

He poured himself another drink from the decanter she'd offered.

"Then how can you offer-"

"Because I had help." She pointed out, cutting him off before he could truly ask the question. "I think…My friends help, remind me life is more than surviving, tell me where to shove off when I need it, keep me from drowning in my own thoughts. It's how I can offer. If I have to be reminded, chances are you do too."

"You offering to be my friend then?" He smarted off, and she couldn't help but snort.

"You could do with being told off whenever you're doing something stupid. Maybe if you'd had someone like that back then, you might not have thought it was a good idea to go believing half a prophecy and attempt to kill a baby." She sassed back. More seriously, she added. "I don't know if friend is the right word, but I suppose it's the only one close enough. Don't expect me to be on board with it if you start being all power grabby, and trying to take over the world again."

…

"Nagini told me you stopped her from entering the Hall of Prophecy." He stated, feeling the end of the conversation was nearly upon them. How he knew that, he couldn't yet say.

"I tried to stop her from attacking my friend's dad." Potter corrected. "Snape told Dumbledore that I knew, that you knew, and the Headmaster still felt the need to guard the hall. He didn't tell the others, set them to guard it anyway. Arthur is in St. Mungo's. Snape is trying to come up with an antivenom. I don't know how successful he's been."

"She did mention biting someone." He commented. She looked…worried, he realized; noting with muted annoyance that that bothered him. "I could send some of her venom to Severus. It should help him craft the antivenom he needs."

Her surprise is enough to throw him, eyes wide as she looked at him now. "Why would you do that?"

"Do not consider this my choice made. I have not decided." He made a point of sounding scathing as he said it, causing her to smooth out her facial expression into a more neutral one. "I simply thought this would level the playing field. I did not wish an offence against a potential ally, should that be the route I choose."

"A more even playing field would be good for negotiations." She agreed, but he could hear the relief in her voice; most likely for the life of her friends' father.

"Do try not to drown in hot chocolate, Potter." He replied, not deigning to comment on it further. "I will have more questions later."

"We can go to the Hall of Prophecy together at some point in the future, if you like." She offered with a wicked grin as she began fading away. "We'll see what the Fates have to say then."