16. On the Verge of Collapse

It had gone two weeks since the visit to the Ministry of Magic, and three weeks from the day Harry had gotten married to Voldemort. Harry hadn't been in a worse condition in a long time, mentally or physically. He didn't sleep at all without the Dreamless Sleep potion and while he had been more than just skinny before, he now kept about a third of the food he got down every day, and that amount became less and less for every day that passed. His stomach was rebelling because of the dread and the nerves he was living with.

The dread of what was coming. Of losing himself completely, bit by bit, and not even realising it when it happened.

Tears streaked his cheeks while he pulled the T-shirt above his head with shaking hands. They wouldn't stop shaking now. He didn't know if it was the fear or the fact that his body was working on fumes and nothing else. The man in the mirror meeting his gaze with haunted green eyes didn't look scrawny or starved; he looked dying. It had been frightfully easy to lose the weight he had put on in the last few weeks.

He swallowed and went to dinner on trembling legs. Dobby trailing him while he twisted his small hands and watched Harry's every move, in case he should lose his balance. Again. Harry knew he didn't help himself by not eating, but it hadn't been a choice he made. He tried, at every meal, and alone in his rooms or on the beach, every day. Small meals more often or very light meals or just fruit, everything he and Dobby could think of. His body refused pretty much everything.

Harry groaned inwardly when he saw that Snape sat at the table, but sat down on Voldemort's right side, looking miserably down at his plate while it filled with the first course. A soup. That was hopeless to even try to eat in company, as he wasn't going to lift the bowl and drink from it and his shaking hands would spill all the soup on his spoon before it reached his mouth. He stared at the soup until it disappeared and got replaced with the main course.

No one had talked to him so far, not even to say hello. That was fine. Harry's voice was hoarse from all the screaming every time he tried to sleep without a potion to help. He thought he might have gotten an of hour sleep last night, scattered over four hours and six nightmares. His stomach burned at the thought of those nightmares. It was hard to believe that the nightmares could get worse, and yet … they had.

The food on his fork shook, but he got it into his mouth and chewed, slowly. It stung on its way down his throat, but he tried another mouthful, slowly, prepared to get up and get to the bathroom if his stomach should decide to get rid of the food again. He had eaten almost all he safely thought he could eat, when his stomach was that empty and that tender, when he noticed that no one had spoken for a while.

He looked up. Draco and Astoria were quietly eating, but Voldemort and Snape were watching him. His mouth filled with saliva and his stomach churned. He swallowed hard and grabbed his water glass and drank a sip of the cold water, but the nausea wouldn't leave. Voldemort remained silent, but when Harry's gaze went to Snape the man said:

"Mr. Potter, if you are ill, or if your body doesn't take up nutrients as it should …"

"No, it's nothing like that."

He could see Astoria wince delicately at the sound of his rasping, broken voice.

"Then you do know what it is?" Voldemort asked.

"Don't you?" Harry met his gaze, for the moment too exhausted, too tired of feeling scared, too desperate to care about his words.

"I am not in the habit of asking about something I already know, Harry."

"Then I suggest you think a little harder, my Lord," he didn't even know where he got the courage or the snark to say something like that, "because if anyone knows, it's you. You will have to excuse me." He got up, hurried towards the door, gripped the door frame for a moment to breathe and find his balance in a world that was slightly spinning, and got away from the room as quickly as he could, which wasn't very quick at all.

He hadn't been in his rooms for more than five minutes before someone knocked on the door and he opened to find Astoria outside.

"What do you want?" he asked, and Astoria blinked at him, probably at his brusque tone.

"May I come in?"

He stepped aside and she came in the door and closed it behind her. It was easier than discussing with her in the doorway, and now he could sit down, his legs shook, and he was sweating. His bones hurt. If he didn't want to listen to her, it would be easy enough to tune her out until she decided to leave.

"Harry, do you actually know why this is happening to you?" she asked and sat down across from him on the other sofa. Worry and concern written on her face.

"Yes."

Fear, fear was the reason for the symptoms bothering Astoria and the others.

"Are you able to do something about it?"

"No."

"Am I able to do something about it?"

"I doubt it."

"Mr. Snape?"

"I doubt it."

"The Dark Lord?"

"Why should he want to, when he is the reason behind it?"

She stared at him. "But he doesn't …" Her mouth twisted. "The reason behind, but not the direct cause of the symptoms?"

"No."

She frowned. "But if you know what it is, if it's something he is doing, why not tell … No, you think he does it on purpose."

"Please leave now."

She remained seated and looked at him.

He felt his anxiety rising, his magic growling.

"Astoria, I had little enough control of my magic before, now it's almost non-existent. Leave!"

"But where is your wand?! That would help …"

"You can't have it!" he shouted. Tears sprang to his eyes as the pain lanced his throat and magic crackled around him. The Manor shook. "Leave me alone!"

Astoria stared at him, shocked, with tears in her eyes, but her steps were calm and measured when she left the room. The Manor shook again, and Harry focused on breathing, on not letting his magic loose.

Maybe that part would be easier when his body was no longer his to control. Maybe his magic would be under Voldemort's control then, like in the Atrium. Harry remembered that calmness and closed his eyes. Tears running silently down his cheeks. If that was what it was like, if the feeling of calm and peace was what would fill him every hour of every day, when Voldemort had full control over him, maybe it wouldn't be too bad.

If he could just feel safe, even if it was a lie, then maybe it wouldn't be too bad. Even if he wouldn't be able to live his own life or make any of his own choices. To feel that calm, that safe, that protected, that taken care of … That wouldn't be so bad. He wouldn't actually be able to live, but it had to be better than living with this all-consuming fear. It had to be better than living with the knowledge that he soon enough would lose what little he had of freedom and choice.

It had to be better than living surrounded by war.

He had to believe that.

He had to.

Harry had been in that chair, silently crying for hours, when someone knocked on his door again and he got up, because he didn't think his voice would be heard through the door. Draco stood outside and he pushed himself into Harry's sitting room without waiting for an invitation. He was paler than normal, and his face was haggard, he had colourful splotches on his dark grey robes and fingers, and he had dragged his fingers through his hair more than once.

"I'm not a Potions Master, yet, Harry," Draco said as soon as Harry turned towards him, "but I'm working at it, and I have always been good at Potions. This is a nutrient potion." He placed a small box on the table. "Three doses a day, morning, midday and evening, should be enough. Maybe not drink them right before you eat, if your food usually doesn't stay down. There are also enough vitamins in it to keep you healthy. You could live on these alone, if food doesn't sit well, but better to try to eat too. Eating is a habit best not broken.

"This is a mild sleeping potion." He put another box on the table. "You will still dream, but if your nightmares are terrible, then they will merely be bad with the help of this, and you will fall asleep quickly again if you should wake. You need both sustenance and sleep until we figure out what more can be done. And yes, I heard you proclaim that the Dark Lord knows and that he is causing it, but that's not very helpful when he himself doesn't understand what is happening to you."

"Or claim he doesn't understand," Harry stated harshly.

"Or claim he doesn't understand," said Draco, because this version of Draco was fairer than the old one. "Do you trust me enough to use these potions and keep yourself alive and stable?"

"I haven't been truly stable in years, but yes, I will keep myself alive."

I will take them because I detest being this weak, if for nothing else.

"Good." Draco nodded and went towards the door.

"Thank you."

Draco stopped with his hand on the doorknob and looked over his shoulder.

"I didn't even get the chance to beat you in a game of Catch-the-Snitch, Potter, before this happened. Not that you should be on a broom anytime soon, but still, can't have the greatest Seeker in a century wane away like this." He smiled a thin smile. "Take your potions and go to bed."

After Draco left, Harry did just that, and while he did wake up with a gasp several times, he never screamed himself awake and he always fell asleep again afterwards.

When he woke up, he felt almost rested compared to what he had felt the last week and a half. The nutrient potion stayed down, and he could feel that it gave him energy and that again stabilised him. His hands stopped shaking. He was still afraid, still miserable, but he was able to think once again. And he decided that if he was going to lose his will anyway, he should do what he wanted while he could, and he wanted his wand.

Damn the consequences.

He found his wand, took it out of the box it had been in and found a special stack of cards, a stack he had used weeks to charm and ward. If he was doing this, then he would do it his way, and channel his magic his way and have some fun doing it. Yes, that was it. His way, while he still could. He strapped the wand sheath to his right wrist and left his rooms, willingly for the first time in days.

Harry found his way to the main wing of the house and then he followed the stream of people going to and from an office. All of them cast glances at him, some longer than others, and some almost hateful, but that was alright, he had his wand again, and getting them to rethink their words or actions would be easy now. He knew he had the right of it when he heard Astoria's voice before the door shut behind a man that scurried away. He knocked on the door but opened it because he suspected that he wouldn't be heard above the din coming from inside.

When he opened the door, he saw a room full of people sitting, standing and milling about, with Astoria on the opposite side of the room, behind a desk, with her back to a big window.

"Let me get this straight …" Astoria began and noticed the silence that followed Harry's few steps into the room and the people there starting to notice him. Her eyes found him and her whole face lit up. "Harry!" She hurried towards him and for a minute it looked like she wanted to hug him, but she stopped herself. "Is anything wrong? Can I help you?"

"I just wondered if the Manor had a proper duelling room, where it is, and if I can use it?" he said in a low voice.

Astoria's wand slipped into her hand, and she cast a privacy charm around them.

"Absolutely, Harry. Dobby knows where the room is, it's seldom used, so just use it as much as you want. Just … be careful, potions do much, but … after the last few weeks … Look after yourself, please."

"The wards on the room are good? I can use any spells I want in there?"

"They are the best, I promise." She smiled. "Do you have a partner?"

"No, I have a game." He held up his stack of cards.

"Oh, interesting. I have heard about cards like that." She looked at the cards with fascination.

Harry hesitated, but even if Astoria was in on the scheme, it wouldn't be her decisions that took his will from him, and she and Draco had been unfailingly kind, he could admit to that much today.

"Join me after lunch, if you wish."

"I would love that, thank you. That would be," she cast a Tempus charm, "in an hour or so."

"See you then." He nodded to her and left. Dobby was more than happy to show Harry the duelling room, a long room with polished oak floors, windows along one side and mirrors along the other side.

Harry activated the charms and the runes on the cards with two taps of his wand and emptied the box. The cards levitated in front of him and with a wave of his wand, they started to spread around him in the room, spinning and weaving. He smiled, remembering all the times Hermione and he had practised duelling with these cards. If they could hit a card twisting in the air, then you might be sure they would hit a person with their feet on the ground.

He started casting Expelliarmus at the cards, getting them to glow a slight green. When he had hit all the cards, he reset them with a wave of his wand, turned up the difficulty to make them harder for him to hit, and went onto harder spells and curses. Now the cards glowed green and yellow. Those he hit stopped moving, becoming sharp edged obstacles in his way. The cards wouldn't stand much use if they were paper, so one of the charms he had put on them was to transfigure them to metal before he used them for practice. Metal was too heavy to carry around, so they were only metal when in use, which made the little cards deadly.

He had just begun round three when a loud knock sounded on the door. Harry opened it with a spell and Astoria almost jumped inside, ice blue eyes shining, a grin lighting up her face. She had changed from her fancy robes into a simple grey one with her blue warded cloak on top of it.

"I didn't know … Do I need this?" She held up a handful of her blue cloak.

"No, we will put up a barrier in the middle of the room, to stop stray spells and curses, but let the cards move freely between the two parts of the room. I will be on one side and you the other. And you got married in trousers, why not use them in a fight, it's easier?"

"I'm used to fighting in robes, and dresses, it's not a problem." She waved it away and took off her cloak. "So, what's the rules?" She was almost jumping on her toes.

"No Unforgivables, because I don't have any shield that will stop those, and no spells that will change the size of the cards, because the runes on the cards react badly to those. Other than that, everything goes. When we have hit all the cards, we tally them up, and see who caught the most cards and who used the most difficult spells."

"So, spell difficulty is a factor?"

"Oh, yeah, right. You haven't done this before. Sorry. The more difficult the spell, the more points you get. For instance, Expelliarmus is one of the easiest ones, you get one point for that, and a slight green glow on the cards, and then the points move upwards, shown with a different colour, or strength of colour, on the cards until you get dark purple for spells like Expecto Patronum and the Unforgivables. When you hit the cards, they freeze in the air and they are hard metal with sharp edges, so beware of them."

"We removed the Unforgivables from the game, and I can't do Expecto Patronum. Are there any other spells that will give me the dark purple colour?"

"Good question, let me think … I can activate the rune that gives the highest point for any non-verbal spell, and then there is Obliviate and Sectumsempra. Does that help?"

"Why did you remove non-verbal from the … It got too easy, didn't it?!" she breathed, eyes going huge. "It didn't matter anymore, because you always use non-verbal spells anyway." She swallowed.

Harry looked around at the spinning cards around them. "Well, yes. Hermi and I could play with these cards for hours, every day. It was practice, a reason to get up and move and a distraction from the rest of our lives, all at once."

"I'm not going to win, am I?"

"No, but you can have fun losing." He gave her a small smile.

She grinned, eyes bright. "Bring it on, Potter."

Harry set the cards to the agreed upon parameters and erected a powerful shield ward across the room to stop any stray curse, and then they began.

Astoria was good, very good, snapping out spells and curses in a whirling fury, but even if Harry only used non-verbal spells for half of his hits, he still won easily because he hit the most cards. She wanted a rematch and demanded that he not hold back, she wanted to see him in action. And then she cursed him out when he used Expecto Patronum and had his Patronus touch pretty much every card in the room. Another rematch followed, where he was not to use Expecto Patronum again, and still won.

After eight games Astoria sat down on the floor, panting with sweat running down her face and staining her robes.

"I need a break. Prim!" When the house elf popped in Astoria smiled at her. "Could we get some water, please?"

Harry sat down cross legged in front of Astoria and thanked Prim for the water when he got his glass. He made the cards swirl lazily around them.

"I think I finally really understand how you are so very good at duelling," Astoria said after downing a whole glass of water. "By Merlin, that was impressive!"

"Always keep in mind that other than making sure we had food and shelter, Hermi and I only had time to kill between strategic meetings and fighting. It was a lot of time to kill."

"But weren't you leaders with all the work that entails?" Astoria tilted her head at him, blond hair falling sweaty and limp around her face, blue eyes blazing with energy and excitement.

Harry snorted. "The-Boy-Who-Lived was never more than a symbol. The-Man-Who-Kept-Alive, likewise; never any more than that. A symbol, a figurehead, someone to push out on the frontlines in battles to give hope, or something like that. I tried to give my opinion a time or two, when the actual leaders became … too much to follow quietly, but all I got was a pat on the head, and "you are too young to understand". I might not be the best strategist, but Hermi is. She almost always knew what would happen, both in meetings and in actual battles. It was eerie; I soon stopped betting against her."

Astoria frowned. "But … that's … foolishness. I know enough of Miss Granger to know that she is worth more than her weight in gold when it comes to planning and implementing those plans. She wasn't heeded, ever?"

"Infrequently. Too young, too naïve, too spirited, too inexperienced, too little aptitude and understanding for leading. I got the same justifications, every time I tried to open my mouth."

Astoria shook her head. "Foolishness, pure foolishness. And ageism. I won't say I never have had problems, but no one tried to pat my head and tell me I was too young. Of course, I was allowed to put the idiots in their place any way I pleased, so long I accepted defeat if I lost, but still … And thus, you both had a lot of time on your hands."

"Yeah, a lot."

"One more game before I have to get a shower and get back to work?"

Harry got up. "Let's try with only three spells, and they have to be verbal. What spells do you want to use?"

They finished their game and Harry had to accept that he was physically drained. He packed up his cards and got Dobby to help him get his books down to the beach, where he lay down on a blanket and looked up at the grey sky. He didn't know how many more days like this he would get or what kind of freedom he would be allowed, if any. The thought of losing his free will like this was still terrifying, but he was now in a kind of accepting shock, instead of just shock.

Lying there he decided against sending a note to Hermione. If what he feared happened and she saw him again, she would soon realise that something was wrong with him and reach the right conclusion. She would never be taken in by a puppet Harry controlled by someone else, not for more than a few minutes.

Later that night while he was brushing his teeth and slowly going through the day, he acknowledged the changes that were happening. Once again, he hadn't thought anything of it, then and there. At tea he had sat in his usual sofa, but instead of sitting about in the middle of said sofa, he had seated himself as close as he could get to Voldemort's chair. He hadn't noticed, hadn't thought about it at all. And at dinner, the same thing had happened. His chair was usually a good metre away from Voldemort, but he himself had moved it a bit closer, without reflecting about it at all.

Maybe he wouldn't lose himself completely. Maybe he would just be compelled to be close to Voldemort, just be drawn to him, as a moth to the flame.

Just that …

Harry didn't understand why Voldemort would want something like that. Harry had already agreed to marry him and live with him, agreed not to fight him and agreed to consummate the marriage. What more could Voldemort want from him, and why?

Why had he wanted to marry Harry to begin with? Harry still didn't know that. Still didn't know what had started it all.

Harry didn't know what would be worse. To lose himself completely and never think about what he was doing and why? Or to be compelled to be close, very close, to Voldemort on a regular basis and then later be aware of what had happened without being able to stop it?

With those thoughts he cried himself to sleep and slept restlessly, despite Draco's sleeping potion.

The following days he discovered something even worse, when he with increasing regularity tried to touch Voldemort's hand, or arm or shoulder, only to freeze himself just when he was about to do it. To catch himself in the act, in front of people, in front of Voldemort … That was its own kind of hell.

No one ever commented. Not Voldemort, nor Astoria or Draco, and no other shared a meal with them the following days. Harry was grateful for that at least, but he was getting close to sitting on his own hands, so he could know what they were doing. They didn't seem to be completely under his control anymore.

If anything was under his control anymore.

A/N:

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