Chapter 13

Tonks was the first in the apartment to awaken, and stretched gratefully. Thanks to what she was, her monthly "gift" usually passed within a single day, yet another aspect of her life that was a source of annoyance for most of the females around her in her life.

Making a mental note to apologize to the others for her earlier attitude when they woke up, Tonks studied the other occupants in the cabin. Lily was in the top bunks, so still that she almost looked like she was dead again, while Fleur and Hedwig were sharing the lower bunk and cutely snuggled up to each other. She smirked when she saw that Harry was not only asleep, but also appeared to be muttering softly and shifting frequently in the chair he had claimed. Getting out of her seat carefully (it wouldn't do at all for her to trip and fall now, would it?) and made her way over to Harry.

What was he dreaming about?

Perhaps he was having a naughty dream. Maybe it was even a naughty dream about one of them. If so, then she had some delicious ideas on how to tease him if she could find out who.

Harry muttered again, and Tonks almost cursed, as she was still unable to hear him properly. She creeped in closer, to the point her ear was almost touching his lips, and his breath on it was sending shivers up her spine in a not unpleasant way.

Ultimately, she was disappointed. It seemed he was just having a mild nightmare. But what was the nightmare about? Should she wake him from it? She kept listening.

He muttered again… and her blood ran cold.

"Harry, wake up." She said urgently, shaking him slightly.

He kept muttering.

"Harry!" she called out more urgently, not even her metamorphic abilities was able to keep her face from becoming a deathly pale.

Harry did not awaken, and his next mutter sent Tonks into a full blown panic.

"HARRY!"

~Birds of a Feather~

Harry was in a world of darkness and mist. No matter where he turned, his vision dropped off after no more then a meter or two. Regardless of how hard he strained his eyes, it was as if nothing existed beyond what he saw.

Still… he knew he wasn't alone, the strange tingle you get in the back of your neck of when something dangerous is watching you was hitting him hard. He had to admit to himself that a bit of fear had lodged itself in the pit of his stomach.

"Hello?" he finally called out, wondering if it was safe to move from this spot or if he was in greater danger by staying in one place like this.

Silence was his answer.

He took a careful step forward, a headache starting to form from the eye strain.

"Whose there?" he called out again… and this time there was a faint hissing that answered him.

"Whose there?!" he called out again, louder this time. More hissing, and this time, Harry realized he could understand it.

Parseltongue.

Voldemort.

"Come Harry…" the bodiless voice hissed out. "I know you can understand me. Be a considerate boy and speak to me in the true language."

Harry scowled, and did his best to pretend there was a snake in front of him.

"What do you want?" he finally managed to hiss in response.

"Come now Harry…" the voice said. "After all the trouble I went through so that we could have this nice chat? The least you can do is stay and talk awhile. Nagini is talented, but at times the conversation does get limited."

Harry scoffed at that.

"So what, I'm supposed to believe that you just wanted to talk? Pull the other one."

Harry took an involuntary step back when Voldemort dressed in the blackest suit he had ever seen stepped out of the darkened mists less then a foot away from him.

"No." he hissed. "I want to share my vision with you!" Harry swallowed hard, and wondered where his wand was, trying to discretely feel his pockets for it.

"And why would I want to hear that?" he asked, barely able to speak in Parseltongue, his throat and mouth so dry. Voldemort laughed softly, and started slowly walking around him. Harry has to resist the urge to turn his head to follow his progress.

"Let's call it… professional courtesy?" Voldemort hissed out. "I seem to remember when we met in a certain hidden room that I offered you a chance to join me. I see now that what little effort I put into that offer, in combination with what you had been through to just get there, made the odds of you even keeping an open mind very low indeed."

"And what makes you think I'll have any more of an open mind this time around?"

Voldemort stopped in front of Harry, and spread his arms wide.

"For the simple reason that I don't think I'll let you leave until you do!" he hissed out in undisguised pleasure. Harry let his thin mask slip and a look of rage flashed across his face.

"They will be looking for me. You won't be able to keep me forever." The look of rage on his face quickly vanished when Voldemort laughed coldly.

"Look for you?" he repeated. "No, no. No one will look for you, cause physically you haven't gone anywhere." He took a step forward and with a long finger tapped Harry's forehead. "We are both just… right… here."

Harry recoiled automatically, taking a step back.

"What?" he asked stupidly. "How? What do you mean?"

"We are in your head Harry." Voldemort replied with another cold laugh. "Nice and safe from almost all outside interference, and to anyone who looks at you, you're just sleeping away the day. As to how…"

Voldemort's arm snapped out, and he grabbed a fistful of Harry's clothes, dragging him close.

"We both know I can come into your head whenever I want." Gone was the measured tone that had been in Voldemort's Parseltongue. In its place was pure, unfiltered, fury. "Did Dumbledore really think I was so stupid that I did not know when he learned of my Horcrux? Did you honestly believe that after the Department of Mysteries, I would just forget our unique link?" Voldemort grinned coldly, and Harry realized that his feet weren't touching the ground anymore.

"It's not your fault, so don't feel too bad." The fury was gone, and the measured tone was back. "Your elders have failed you at almost every possible turn. Your government spent almost a year trying to discredit and silence you by any means possible, and I do mean any means. Your teachers, in an effort to prevent another… well… me… have stopped teaching the newer generations a great many things. And Dumbledore?" Voldemort finally let go of Harry who fell to the ground and let out a laugh that sent chills up Harry's arms.

"Dumbledore has failed you most of all. From hiding the truth from you for all those years, your placement at the abusive pigs you called family, nice hand by the way, to believing that Severus could be trusted to teach you to keep me out instead of using it as an opportunity to exercise his hatred of you in a sanctioned environment. Yes… much of your life's problems can be laid at the feet of one Albus Dumbledore."

Harry was silent for a few moments as he climbed back to his feet. He had realized this himself awhile ago, but it was still grating to hear your greatest enemy throw them in your face like that.

"Still haven't heard why you would want to try and sway me now, or how." He finally hissed, an edge of exhaustion in the Parseltongue. Damn Snape indeed for failing to teach him how to fight back against this.

Voldemort sighed, clearly exasperated by, in his opinion, Harry's many dull questions.

"Thanks to Dumbledore's manipulations, we both know that a final conflict between us is almost all but unavoidable, one that would see me ultimately victorious, but quite possibly more injured then I care to suffer through. But! There is still a path for us to avoid that fate, or at least delay it for years, even decades."

"How?" Harry asked with a frown of confusion, "I have never once heard of you offering mercy or quarter to anyone."

"Please refrain from insulting my intelligence again for the remainder of this conversation." Voldemort hissed coldly. "I make this offer out of self interest only, both for myself, and for my cause."

"Which is?" Harry asked after a moments silence, realizing Voldemort had expected him to respond.

"A complete make-over of the power structure of this planet." Voldemort replied with a sinister smile. "I could have sworn you were listening when I told my Death Eaters this, on the night of my rebirth."

"Sorry." Harry drawled. "I was more concerned about escaping, you know how it is." Voldemort snarled a little at his cheek.

"Such a pity. No matter. I should thank you though. Your disappearance and the resulting panic allowed me to speed up my plans by at least a full year!"

"Your welcome." Harry said dryly. Voldemort chuckled coldly.

"Between you and Dumbledore's band of merry follower's laughably predictable reaction of falling back to Hogwarts… yes… things have gone quite well to plan indeed. Soon all of Magical Europe will be under my control."

"Then let me guess, you'll crush the muggles after that?" Harry asked in the same dry voice.

"No, no, no…" Voldemort said as he started prowling slowly around Harry again. "Again you insult my intelligence. If you continue to do so, I may have to punish you. No. I must have the entire magical world under my control before we can make a move on the muggles. Only a simultaneous global strike against them will defeat them... as well as using their own weapons against them. I will reduce their world to rubble upon which I will rebuild ours."

"And then what?" Harry asked, a little shaken by the viciousness of Voldemort's vision of the future. "You'll then purge everyone left so that only magicals of your choosing are left to rebuild with?"

"Of course not!" Voldemort replied, almost with a hint of glee in his voice. "Those that have survived will have the honor of serving those who are worthy of ruling this world. Who knows, they may prove themselves as to be counted among the worthy in the future. Now, do you wish to hear my offer?"

"Do I have a choice?"

"No, not really." Voldemort laughed coldly. "In recognition of your invaluable help, and to see that we do not come to blows in the future, I again offer you a place by my side. We are here in your mind. I know that you would come to enjoy it. To sweeten the deal, your friends would largely be safe, as they would be your personal slaves… Ah."

Voldemort stopped in front of Harry again, studying something in his face.

"I can see in your eyes that this is a non-starter. Such a pity."

"Are you really that surprised?" Harry asked, anger creeping into his Parseltongue.

"No. Still, I thought I would try some of Dumbledore's long vaunted hope. Like everything else he believed or stood for, he was wrong. So, your other option is just try and stay out of my way. Either try and stay ahead of my forces as we sweep across the planet, or find some little corner of the world to try and hide in. However, for refusing my first offer… only the friends with you will be safe, but only for as long as they stay with you, and you are alive. Your friends at Hogwarts will be either enslaved or killed if they wont surrender, same as the rest of the magical world."

Harry couldn't help himself.

He laughed in Voldemort's face.

"You'll never be able to capture Hogwarts." He hissed out between gasps of breath as he tried to recover. He sobered up at the nasty glint in Voldemort's eyes.

"The Goblins in at least four different Gringotts branches thought the same. Now, all their occupants are dead, with my banner flying over their doors."

Harry swallowed hard.

"Four?" he repeated.

"Well, I know you were there at London and Paris when they fell. Since then, I have also taken Spain's and Germany's branches. They were not as large as London or even Paris's, but they still thought their defenses impenetrable. Hogwarts will fall. Its just a matter of when."

"You're wrong, Voldemort." Harry said, letting his rage finally take over and slipping back into English. "You are assuming I am gonna take your offer. To run. To hide. No. A million times no! We won't stop fighting you until you, and everyone who follows you, is dead!"

"Come now Harry…" Voldemort said smoothly. "Be reasonable…"

"No! Fuck you Voldemort! Fu…" Harry trailed off when he saw the look of victory flash into Voldemort's eyes.

"As I said Harry Potter, all is going to plan. Good bye. I do not expect that we will meet again."

And he started laughing again, a cold hard laugh of triumph.

Before Harry could do anything, the whole scene seemed to suddenly vanish into a pinpoint, and he was back in the train cabin with a throbbing cheek and quite possibly a few loose teeth.

"What the…" he started to say, then looked up to see Tonks standing over him with her wand pointed at him, the tip glowing.

"Uh…" he said intelligently, as the pair locked eyes.

Tonks said only one thing.

"Obliviate."

Harry's world swam as a strange sensation came over him, and then blacked out.

A/N: To those thinking that this story and my account as whole have been abandoned, the news of its active status will come as a surprise.

Surprise!

No, this story and account have not been abandoned, life has just been a real gut punch after another as of late. Since the last time I published here, I had to devote a massive amount of time to caring for my mother as she fought an ultimately loosing battle to a particularly vicious form of Leukemia, followed by financial hardships, and continued work on my original works (expect announcements on that soon).

However, life has cleared up a bit, so I am here again.

No set publishing schedule, but the next one will be another chapter of Birds of a Feather, followed by Fire and Ice.

As always, leave a review and tell me what you think.