23. Magical Legacy
The table in front of Harry was covered in books, notebooks, loose parchment and writing implements. He put down a heavy tome and gave an even heavier sigh. After spending almost the whole day before and three hours today with all the post that had accumulated for him, he had retreated to the library. The rain was pouring down, as it had much of the last week, and while there was no trouble for him to take a walk in the rain, being outside was not as tempting when everything was this wet, grey, and miserable. He liked reading better than he had ever thought possible when he was at school, and he did appreciate how much one could learn from books, but he still didn't like it as much as Hermione, especially not when he had no other occupation to keep him busy. Or when he didn't find even one bloody answer!
"Alright, Dobby, please remove this batch of books and …" Harry flipped through the catalogue book, trying to find anything that caught his eye, anything that might get him closer to an answer. "What about raising magical children, surely there is something about magical cores and how they expand in them …"
He said it more to himself than Dobby, but then decided to give it a try and gave Dobby the titles of the books he wanted. Hoping almost against hope that somewhere in those books there would be something that would give him a new lead to follow. He needed that, he needed something to work on, before he drowned in misery and desperation because of the whole soul fragment situation that continuously fucked with his mind. He desperately needed to think of something else, at least for some hours every day.
Dobby placed book after book on the rearing of magical children in front of Harry, and Harry began to skim through them. He used a charm to highlight the word 'core' whenever it came up on a page, and then another part of the spell made the book move its pages to the next place where the word was, every time he tapped a highlighted word with his wand. It was Hermione that had made that ingenious searching charm, naturally.
Halfway through the fourth book, an old tome heavy with time and use, Harry came upon something he had never heard about before. Magical Legacy. Something that happened when the child became an adult, often leading to an expansion of the magical core or even new powers.
It was the first he had ever heard of it. It couldn't be widely known, at least not anymore. Or maybe it was some kind of taboo? How come he never had heard of it, how come Hermione had never heard of it? It sounded awfully much like what had happened to them. Not a perfect fit, by any means, but closer than anything else he had ever heard or read about.
Hurriedly he used a variation of the earlier searching charm, to search for the words 'Magical Legacy' in all the books on the table. Only three of them held anything about the phenomenon, and none gave him much more than that first book. That made it even more mysterious, because in the first book it almost sounded like every child got their Magical Legacy when they became an adult. But that book was old, Harry honestly couldn't guess how old.
Suddenly Dobby reminded him of teatime. By now Harry almost always had tea and dinner, instead of lunch and dinner with Voldemort, Astoria, and Draco. Except that one time a week ago when he and Voldemort had had tea alone. That had been strangely agreeable, and Harry didn't think he would mind much if that happened again. Being alone with Voldemort made it easier to observe him and it made it harder for Voldemort to obscure himself, his opinions, and his emotions by talking to someone else. Also, there were some things that it was easier to ask about and talk about when it was only the two of them. The other times there was only the two of them, the times were the soul shard forced them into contact and punished Harry harshly if he balked … At those times it was often hard to think, hard to talk and hard to stay completely in the moment. Because he very much wished he wasn't.
So very much wished he wasn't.
Harry rose and found his way to the parlour that was used as a tearoom. Voldemort, Astoria and Draco were there already. Nagini lay in front of a roaring fireplace.
"Harry, how are you today?" Astoria asked and handed him a cup, already prepared as he liked it.
"Thank you. I'm … more befuddled than usual, actually." He sipped the tea, and it was perfect. The scones smelled heavenly and when he opened one that was pre-cut, the scent of oranges got more intense. He buttered the two halves and waited for the butter to melt.
"Oh, really? Do tell?" She smiled at him and handed Draco his cup, Voldemort already had one. "Maybe we can help."
"Well …" Harry looked at Voldemort. He hadn't tried to get Harry to talk about his expanded magical core in weeks now. He hadn't given any sign that he would force Harry to speak of it or force Harry to give him an answer he didn't have. It seemed he had accepted that Harry didn't want to talk about it.
What would happen if Harry did talk about it? The books in the library didn't have any more answers, and he wanted answers, damn it! He wanted to understand something pertaining to him. He wanted to solve just one situation, just one mystery. There were more than enough mysteries in his life, thank you very much.
"Well," he said again and sipped his tea. "I came across this term in a book, something I have never heard of before, ever, and it wasn't mentioned in many books at all and the one that held the most information was old, truly old … So, now I wonder where to find more about this term."
He should just tell them. Draco and Astoria knew the other libraries at the Manor and Voldemort had his own huge collection. If Harry didn't talk about it, there was no way for them to give him any help at all, or even know if they wanted to help him. He should just tell them; he should just ask …
"Are any of you familiar with the term Magical Legacy?" Harry asked hesitantly. He didn't want them to know how much he wanted, needed, an answer, but he feared he was rather transparent.
Astoria frowned, but then slowly shook her head.
"I know we have a few books with the term, in the main library, but I have never come across the term anywhere else," Draco admitted.
Harry steeled himself and looked at Voldemort. Red eyes met green.
"I am somewhat familiar with the term, yes, and the experience too," Voldemort said.
"What exactly is it, and how does it work? Could you tell me, please?" Harry swallowed hard. Maybe he would finally have an answer.
If Voldemort wanted to answer him.
If he told the truth.
"You believe this could be relevant to your own situation?" Voldemort asked.
"I have no idea, there was so little information in those books, but it is the closest I have ever come," Harry admitted.
"Eat, and I will tell you." Voldemort looked down at the scone on Harry's plate and Harry gladly bit into the warm scone, zesty orange and salty butter melting in his mouth. The house elves truly knew how to cook.
"The term Magical Legacy is very seldom used anymore, as the practice has more or less died out here in Britain," Voldemort began.
"Practice? As in something someone does? Not something that simply happens?" Harry asked before taking another bite of the scone.
"No, not something that simply happens, no. Though, I do understand why you would think so. Most books that mention the Magical Legacy makes it sound like a natural occurrence, like something every witch and wizard experiences when they reach maturity. It is not a natural occurrence, and that is partly the reason it has died out, or been banned, the last two centuries, at least here in Britain. Other countries are not anywhere near as limiting in their views."
"Banned," Harry repeated heavily.
"Banned, with heavy consequences should an adult force a child through it. As if a sixteen-year-old is not mature enough to decide for themselves, their magic and their life. The prohibition of the Magical Legacy is one of the reasons Britain's magical society seems to lose magical power. While the power level for witches and wizards in countries where the Magical Legacy is observed, is as great as it ever was."
"What exactly is the Magical Legacy, and how come none of the books actually come right out and say it?" Harry finished the first half of the scone and leaned back in the sofa with his teacup. He might sit a bit too close to Voldemort, but not as close as he could sit, and there was no painful attraction, so he could actually relax.
"Because at the time when the majority of those books was penned, it was so widely known what the Magical Legacy was and how it worked, it would seem superfluous to write it down. It would be like mentioning you have to use your wand to cast a spell. Other books have been heavily censored.
"The Magical Legacy is a ritual an adult helps a child through, in the hours before the child will be an adult. If the ritual is done right, then at the exact moment the child will reach their adulthood, the very minute they were born seventeen years earlier, they will undergo an expansion of their magical core and it will give them all the magical power at their disposal. Most children that do not do this ritual will have less power at their disposal then they could have had with the ritual. A few do not experience an expansion in their magical core after the ritual, as their core has already grown to their full potential. An even smaller number gets some kind of new and close to unique power."
"What's the disadvantage to this? Why would it be banned?" Astoria asked, before Harry got the chance to. "I feel that I'm powerful enough, but to know that there is a chance that I could have had more power, that I in fact could have been meant to have more power … Why in Hades would something like that be banned?" She scowled now.
"The ritual requires blood from both parties, freely given …" Voldemort began.
Astoria actually cut him off with a groan. "Please don't tell me that the idiots in power banned a ritual as Dark just because it needs blood!? There are Healing spells and potions that need human blood, freely given! Spells and potions that are the only technique to heal specific, and nasty, illnesses and curses!"
"As you wish, then I will not tell you that that is precisely what occurred. I will simply tell Harry that." Voldemort met his eyes. Genuine mirth dancing in the red depths.
"Is this an old argument?" Harry asked and looked from Voldemort to Astoria and back. "It sounds like an old argument."
"More like an old whining feast," Draco muttered behind his cup and flinched when Astoria hissed at him. "I'm so sorry, my Lord, please forgive me. I didn't mean anything by it!" Draco had gone pale when he realised what he had said and about whom.
Voldemort turned towards Draco, but Harry snickered. "Hermi raged for days every time she came across some piece of magic that had been deemed as Dark Arts and banned just because it required blood. She could somewhat agree to the sanctions when the blood didn't need to be freely given, but when that was a requirement … She could almost breathe fire in her rage."
"I feel like I could," Astoria grumbled. "It's getting ridiculous. How long will we find magic that has been deemed Dark and banned because of things like that?"
"For a long while yet," Voldemort said, and finally took his eyes off Draco that seemed to take his first breath in minutes. "But I have been working on it, and we should be able to give back some of the magic to the people within a year. The Magical Legacy will be one of the first rituals released to the public."
"Then you know the actual ritual?" Harry asked.
"Yes, I did it when I reached my majority, with the help of a parent of one of my school mates. It was illegal, of course, but the family still did it for their children, even though, as far as I am aware, that generation was the last."
"Could you tell me approximately what was done and how that affected you, please?" Harry licked his lips. It was still the closest he had come, but he hadn't done a ritual at that point in time and as far as he could remember he hadn't given his blood for any ritual either. And still … it was the closest he had ever come.
Voldemort looked at him and Harry half expected him to decline, but then he did tell Harry and the others about the ritual, a simple but powerful thing, and about what happened to Voldemort afterward and how that had felt.
Harry slumped back on the sofa.
"This was not what happened to you?" Voldemort stated after a moment of silence.
Harry shook his head. "At first, I wanted to believe it was, that I had somehow done the ritual in some way that I couldn't remember, but … How you describe the expansion of your magical core doesn't fit with what happened to us, so it can't be that."
Us, I said us. Damn! They might already have guessed that it wasn't only me, but I just confirmed it! Damn it all!
"If I may ask, how does it not fit with what happened to you?" Voldemort asked.
Harry only hesitated a moment. He had initiated this because he wanted answers and Voldemort still was his most likely source. It would be stupid to stop now.
"First of, both of us had reached our majority already. It happened in June the year I became eighteen and Hermi became nineteen. Then, you described the expansion of your core as something that happened in a moment and then became completely stable, also something that wasn't painful or … well … scary, to be quite frank.
"We thought … we thought we were cursed, somehow, and that because we couldn't find out how or when or what or anything, we were going to die. There was so much blood, so much pain, both of us passed out several times each day it happened to us. Fortunately, when I was under the weather, Hermi could function, and the other way around, or we would surely have died. It took time, and I still can't remember it as a whole. It took months. Months of pain, and fear, and desperation and of not understanding what the fuck was happening to us and why."
Harry took a deep, shaky breath and looked up from his hands, right at Voldemort. "And our cores never truly stabilised, they have stopped expanding, a long time ago, but our magic is not as stable as other peoples. Hermi … Hermi believes that happened because we became more powerful than we were supposed to ever become. That … our cores are … overbalanced, somehow." He swallowed. "That's what happened, that's all I know."
Voldemort was watching him with calm, red eyes, and he didn't look like he wanted to force more answers out of Harry. He didn't look like he didn't believe Harry, when Harry said that was all he knew about it.
"In all magic there are ways to pervert the original goal, to rearrange the original parameters and get something similar, but not the same, and certainly something much less healthy. What you describe is more Dark Arts than a lot of the spells the Ministry of Magic has banned. I do not know why anyone would have wished to pervert the Magical Legacy when it is so simple to do, and anyone who is capable of perverting it must know how to do the original ritual."
Out of the corner of his eye Harry saw Draco jerk and he turned his head. Draco's eyes were huge and his pale face was almost grey, perspiration covered his forehead.
"Harry, you said it happened in June the year we became eighteen. Do you remember the date?" Draco's voice was hoarse and Astoria took his hand gingerly.
"Wait a minute. Dobby?"
Dobby popped in.
"Dobby answers Master Harry! What can Dobby do for Master Harry?" He grinned, big green eyes crinkling in the corners.
"Could you get my bag please?" Harry asked and Dobby popped away and was back a moment later, bowing and holding Harry's beaded bag towards Harry. "Thank you, Dobby. That was all."
Dobby grinned again and popped away.
Harry summoned a book from the bag, a notebook that Hermione had begun to write in to remember what was happening with them and around them during the Horcrux hunt, and later the war. She had the original, but Harry had wanted a copy and she had made it for him. He flipped through it until he found the right day.
"31st of June, 1998," he said aloud and looked at Draco.
Draco swallowed hard. "That is a year and a day after Dumbledore died, making it a rather usual time frame for rituals and oaths."
Harry blinked. Never, in a hundred years, would he have put those two pieces together. Never. And yet, it didn't really surprise him that Draco remembered that day better than Harry did. Draco had almost been forced to kill Dumbledore to save his parents, and he had failed. That day, that date, would be burned into his memory.
Harry remembered it happening. Remembered the curse flying green from Snape's wand. Remembered Dumbledore sailing through the air and over the balustrade on the tower and through the night beneath them. He knew it happened in summer, right before the school ended, but the date … He hadn't held on to the date.
"I'm not saying that's what happened!" Draco hurried on. "How should I know! Simply … that a year and a day is a usual time frame for some rituals and oaths, even though most of them stop, not start, working, after that time."
Voldemort nodded. "It is as you say, and yet, this magic took hold a year and a day after Dumbledore's fall. For him to have done this, for him to have twisted something so benign into something that almost destroyed the recipients and … I suspect … a lot later then he really wanted it to happen, too …" Voldemort frowned into the air.
"Let me just see if I get where you are going," Harry said slowly. "You seem to think that Dumbledore twisted the Magical Legacy ritual into something similar, but a lot Darker. Something that didn't need blood freely given, that didn't need our consent at all, or even our knowledge of what was happening. And you are saying that he messed up somewhere, so instead of us getting an innocent power increase to help us fight the war, say a day after he died, we got something that was anything but innocent, a year and a day after he died."
"Yes, even if I cannot say it with absolute conviction, that seems to be about it," Voldemort said. "That theory fits all the pieces we have at this point, would you not agree? And of course, there is the fact that you do not always get what you bargain for, when meddling with the Dark Arts. And twisting life altering rituals like that, is well within the Dark Arts."
Harry nodded slowly. Because it really seemed that Voldemort had it right. It did fit. It also fit with what he now knew about the interfering old coot.
"Why didn't he simply ask us, if he was so determined that we get that power increase, or whatever? Why not just ask? He must have known the original ritual, why not just take us through that?" Harry looked at Voldemort. "If it was that important to him, I'm sure he could have convinced three teenagers, who thought he hung the moon, to go through with it."
Silence filled the room.
Harry took a second scone and buttered it. Astoria refilled his and Voldemort's cups.
"It might …" Astoria began, then stopped. "Maybe he didn't think the original ritual would give you what he wanted? If he wanted to give you a power increase, I mean."
Harry closed his eyes. That could be it. Of course it could. Dumbledore wanted his perfect little soldiers to be as powerful as possible. Never mind the fact that they never were supposed to be that powerful. Never mind that the task he had set them didn't require power so much as information and wit, and they had had precious little of the first and only Hermione for the second. No, never mind anything of that, because Dumbledore also always had plans within plans and always for the bloody Greater Good.
"Harry, would you mind terribly to stop shielding your power for a minute or two?" Voldemort asked. "I have been curious about how much power you hold for some time, and now I am even more intrigued."
Harry smiled wryly. "Good to know I'm not the only inquisitive person in this marriage." He looked at Draco and Astoria. "Would that be alright with the two of you? You are used to Voldemort's power out and about, but it will be different with both of us unshielded."
"That's alright, Harry," Astoria said with a smile and Draco nodded. "You should never fear to show who you are, or your power, here. And I too, am curious."
Harry nodded and breathed in and then slowly out again. It was a long while since he had lowered his shields. He didn't need to lower them to use all the power in his core, even though, strictly speaking, using that power was a lot easier when he didn't shield. Slowly, with each breath in and out, he stripped his shields from his core. One by one. He did it gradually just as much for himself, as for those around him. It was months since the last time he had let his power flow free, and it absolutely felt different than when he shielded it.
This was not the same as when he lost control over his magic, and it poured out of him in waves of gold and black. That was his power made manifest, his power out of his control, raging, hungry, crushing. This was invisible and it didn't hurt anyone, even if it could feel overwhelming. This was his power under his control, as a part of himself.
On his third breath out, all his power flowed out of him for the first time in so long. As natural and as easy as breathing. Reaching out of him and flowing through the walls of the room, through the Manor and out over the land. Radiating like a sun with him as the blazing nucleus. It actually felt quite good, like stretching his wings after sitting huddled for far too long.
Harry opened eyes he hadn't realised he had closed and looked up. Draco sat blinking, breathing shallowly, almost as if he was afraid to move. Astoria was grinning, ice blue eyes glittering, but one hand was curled hard around the seat of the sofa, the knuckles were white. Voldemort was watching Harry with gleaming red eyes and pupils so big Harry couldn't even guess that they were vertical. There was a distinct curl to his lips, not derisive or dismissive, more like genuine pleasure or mirth, or maybe even awe.
Harry swallowed hard. "Should I stop?"
"No, not for my sake," Voldemort said, was his voice hoarse or lower than usual? Harry wasn't sure and he didn't know what it meant. He looked at the two other occupants of the room.
"As I already stated, Harry, you are very welcome to be yourself here," Astoria said. "It might take some getting used to for us, but if you wish to stop shielding on a regular basis, then we will get used to it."
"Then … maybe … if you really mean that … I could not shield for a while longer?"
"Of course. Do you want any more tea?"
Harry didn't put up his shields again until later that night, before getting ready for dinner. It was kind of freeing to be able to show his power in full, without fear of inviting an attack because he was easier to find with his power free, than with it shielded.
When dinner time arrived, Harry was standing just inside the door of the dining room, glaring at the table with the white cloth napkins, hand painted dishes in silver and gold, and silver candelabra, like it had affronted him. Dinner started an hour earlier now. Seven instead of eight. Because after the second time Harry and Voldemort had to leave in the middle of the pudding course, Astoria changed the dinner times and informed them about it, as if it was a decision she had made on her own, and not because half the table had to leave the table early.
The last few days Harry could finish dinner and even sit and talk at the table, join the others for a while in a parlour or have some time for himself in his rooms. But just a little time, because after dinner Voldemort was never far away. Harry always needed him around that time. The bloody soul fragment always made Harry need Voldemort. Every fucking night for a week! It wasn't letting up; it wasn't getting better. He hated it. He hated the soul shard and he hated Voldemort. Why did this have to happen and why did it have to happen like this! Couldn't the soul shard have been content with being in the same room as Voldemort; as its main piece. Harry could have lived with that, so much easier than this.
"Harry?" Voldemort stopped in the doorway, beside him.
"I'm fine, I'm just fucking fine," Harry snarled.
"Obviously," Voldemort said dryly.
Harry looked up at him. Voldemort had always seemed so tall, so imposing, and he was tall, he was imposing, but it wasn't like he towered over Harry, not by a long shot.
"It's been a week, a week, and the … episodes … still happens every bloody night. Shouldn't they let up by now, if only a little?"
He knew he was pleading, and he knew Voldemort didn't have any more answers than Harry himself did. One thing was absolutely certain in Harry's mind, when it came to the soul shard and everything relating to it and that situation, Voldemort didn't lie, and he didn't hold back information. Not anymore. He had learned how stupid it was to do that. To play with Harry's life and wellbeing. To think that he knew best, better than the one who lived with it.
"Harry, it has only been a week since you all but died," Voldemort said. "Only one week. Matters might very well change still, or not, I do not know, but a week to recuperate from what you went through is nothing."
"I feel fine, just fine."
"You are not fine, at all. You may possibly feel fine, but your body is still healing, to say nothing of your psyche and your emotions. Your magic is, arguably, the only part of you that is fine."
Harry frowned at him and opened his mouth.
"An experiment, then," Voldemort interrupted before Harry could say anything. "Astoria, would you join us in the parlour for a moment before dinner?" Voldemort began walking towards Astoria as she and Draco came from the next-door parlour. Harry followed, still frowning.
He really felt fine, and he didn't know what Voldemort was on about now.
Draco remained in the dining room and Voldemort closed the door behind Harry. Astoria turned towards Voldemort and bowed.
"My Lord, how can I be of assistance?"
"I would like you to cast a diagnostic charm on Harry and tell us what that reveals about how healed Harry's body is after the near fatal collapse he suffered a week ago."
Harry's frown deepened. Voldemort was aiming for something, because Harry knew that Voldemort very well could cast a charm like that himself. So why didn't he?
Astoria blinked but twisted her hand and had her wand spring into it.
"With your permission?" She looked at Harry, but he thought he saw frustration, or even irritation, in her eyes.
"Go ahead."
Astoria cast the charm and reached for the parchment that got conjured with the charm. She read the words on the parchment, and then read them again, before looking at Harry. There was a frown between her eyes, her mouth was a thin line in displeasure, and the frustration in her eyes were very clear, along with the new fear in them. With a stab of her wand, she made a green glowing dot in the air at the height of her head, before she stabbed the air again about a metre below the green dot, and made a red dot.
"Very simply put," Astoria began and pointed her wand at the green dot. "This is you at peak health, as good as you get. This is you dead." She pointed at the red dot. "This is you now." She made a third dot, a blue one, just a little above the red 'Harry is dead' dot.
Harry gaped at the blue dot, hovering barely above the red dot.
"But I feel fine," he said.
He could have sworn he heard her give a small growl, similar to the sound Hermione made when she thought Harry was being particularly obstinate.
"You are functioning, Harry, and that's the best that can be said about your condition right now." Astoria's voice had become stern, and Harry assumed this was her Healer-with-a-exasperating-patient voice, every Healer had it. They probably had to take a test to prove they could use it properly.
"What you survived can be helped with potions, but most of it has to heal from inside, with time and care. If you hadn't been taking it easy this last week, I swear you would have felt much, much worse. I will not recommend total bedrest, you need to use your body a bit, but no running, no long walks, no duels or duelling cards, no fights, no skipping meals, no alcohol, no flying, nothing at all that can aggravate your condition and how come you don't already know all this! Healer Brentwood isn't an idiot, he should have told you! He should have told you it would take time, too."
"He told me to take it easy and not let it happen again," Harry defended. "And I'm not going to let it happen again."
"He does know you, right? He does understand that you have almost died so many times that you seemingly no longer understand how serious it is when you almost die?"
"I understand …"
"No, Harry," Astoria cut him off. "If you had understood how serious this is …" she pointed at her three dots, "then you wouldn't have needed this talk a week after you almost died. Then you would have understood that healing your body from something like that takes time, more time than a week. Granted, now that you are no longer in immediate danger, you should be able to heal faster, if you take care!" She didn't shout loudly, she shouted in a whisper.
"You nearly died! By Merlin, Harry, I actually thought you got help too late! I thought there would be no way of getting you back from the edge! It's only been a week, and I get that recuperation is boring and that you find frustrating, I get that. But give it another week, and if you are as careful as you have been so far, you will get to see some real healing. And now that I know how very unsatisfying the guidelines Healer Brentwood gave you are, I will keep a better eye on you myself!" She glared at him, looked at Voldemort and bowed. "Anything else, my Lord?"
"No, thank you, Astoria."
She smiled at Voldemort and left the room.
Harry looked at the three dots she had left in the air until they winked out. He now understood why Voldemort had asked Astoria to have this talk with Harry. It wasn't only so she could tell Harry something he didn't much want to hear, but also to make sure that Astoria knew both that Harry didn't know how weak he still was, and that he didn't like the time it took to heal. She was on to him now and would make sure he was careful of his health, in a way that Harry would have balked at if Voldemort tried something similar.
Voldemort wasn't a Slytherin for nothing.
The sneaky bastard.
"You are very devious, husband mine," Harry said with a sigh.
He could practically hear Voldemort's bewilderment, both at the words and at the slightly annoyed but not hateful tone. Voldemort may be an exemplary Slytherin, but Harry had almost been sorted into the same House and he had had quite some time during the war to learn a thing or two about retaliation. Sometimes the suitable retaliation was pettiness and confusion, as was the case this time.
"But of course," Voldemort said, as if it hadn't taken him several seconds to figure out how to answer.
Harry smiled to himself in quiet victory. Then the merriment fled him.
"So, I'm still allowed to hope for the episodes to become rarer, when my body heals more?" Harry said in a low voice without looking at Voldemort.
"You are allowed to hope for that, yes, so long that you keep in mind that there is no promise for it to occur. I do not want your anguish to grow even more, if your hope comes to naught."
"To have hope is always dangerous, but I think I have learned that having none is even worse. Also, it's damn near impossible to not hope." Harry gave a slow sigh and opened the door to the dining room.
When they had almost finished the first course, Harry looked at Voldemort.
"From the top of your head, what would you recommend reading? I have a bit of time to kill and too little to do, at least too little that I haven't been doing or trying to do for some time already."
"Top of my head, Ancient Rites and Rituals," Voldemort said without hesitation. "I read a bit in it after tea this afternoon. It has some remarkable rituals and near forgotten rites, but its last translation from Latin was close to two hundred years ago, so the English is stilted and outdated. I would rather recommend Magical Politics. It is only a decade old, written by a French witch that also translated it to English. It is a political account from several countries in Europe from the past century. The discrepancies among the political approaches and parties are greater than even I expected."
"Could I take a look at both, if you are finished with them?"
"Of course, I will send Dobby with them later."
"Thanks." Harry looked at Astoria. "Recommendations please?"
"I don't have any good from the top of my head, but I promise to find some and send them with Dobby later, if that can suit you?"
"Yes, thank you." Harry looked at Draco.
"I read almost only potions texts recently," Draco admitted, "but I can recommend a mystery series I have read a couple of times. Easy, entertaining and funny with good language and plot. I used to read them before bed to unwind."
"I have never tried anything like that, I think, not from a magical author. Could you send Dobby with them later?"
"Of course." Draco smiled at him, and the second course was served.
They had finished the pudding course and sat at the table talking about the Ministry, the rebuilding of Diagon Alley and Astoria's tentative plans for Hogwarts, when Voldemort suddenly said in a low voice:
"Harry, should we withdraw?"
Harry looked questioningly at him and followed his gaze down towards where Harry's hand held Voldemort's on the table. He couldn't suppress a heavy sigh.
"I didn't even notice, you realise? At least it doesn't hurt."
Astoria gave him a sympathetic look and Draco gave him a tight smile while trying to quell the curiosity in his silver eyes. Harry knew that Draco knew less than Astoria, because neither Astoria nor Voldemort would say anything to Draco without Harry's permission, he was certain of that much. And Harry didn't want to spread his problem, his condition, to more people. Not yet. Draco would most likely get to know something, more than anyone else, but not yet.
"I would much prefer it not to hurt you," Voldemort said in a low voice.
"Yeah, me too." Harry rose, not surprised when he realised that he couldn't let go of Voldemort's hand, even for a moment. But it really didn't hurt right now, and he didn't feel that incessant, desperate need either. Which was good. He knew the need would come, it had always done so, so far. But if he felt less need for contact, it was easier, somehow, to accept the contact. Not of his own free will, precisely, but … more like of his own free will than when the need burned and broke him.
The need began to burn before Harry got out of his shirt and Voldemort got off his dark green robes. It made Harry angry, stiff, and resentful.
"Harry?"
Harry could feel Voldemort's hand behind him and moved out of the way and up in the bed. He didn't want to lay down, he didn't want Voldemort to touch him, he didn't want any of this to be necessary!
But neither did he wish to die.
So, he lay down, and he forced himself to be still when Voldemort lay down behind him and carefully made sure there was skin against skin contact. And the need burned, like crawling ants under his skin, like he couldn't breathe, and Harry gripped Voldemort's arms, against his own will. And he wasn't able to suppress the low sobs or the words that burst out of his mouth.
"I hate you! I hate you! I hate you! I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!"
A/N:
Thank you for the comments, the favs and the follows! They are much appreciated! I love to hear what you think about the story and the characters! It makes writing this story even more fun!
Especially thanks to those who commented about liking my Voldemort's POV in earlier chapters, as I was very much in doubt whether I managed to write him well or not.
Hope you liked it! Please review!