Chapter 2: The Corpse King

It had been one whole week since Voldemort first spoke to Harry.

And dear Merlin, had children always been so… hyper? He had never spent much time with the other children at the Wool's, they either wanted to bully him, or they were too wary of him. He'd loathed them, really. The only thing he could have called friendships had begun after he'd entered Hogwarts. And those had often been fraught with politics and manipulations.

The boy was utterly clueless. He didn't know about magic, his origins, the wizarding world, or Lord Voldemort. For Merlin's sake, the boy thought his parents had died in a car crash.

And the ridiculous way the boy insisted on addressing him. It had been a stumble at the moment, he didn't want the boy to know he was Lord Voldemort. It would have been a sure dealbreaker.

He couldn't have imagined that the boy knew nothing.

He'd thought the name had been a one time thing, or maybe the boy had been joking. Something like that. But then the name stuck and he kept calling him Mr. Lord.

And his relatives. Some of the worst sort of muggles he'd ever had the misfortune to encounter. Worse than the kids at the orphanage, worse than Mrs. Cole, and worse than his father.

It really reinforced how inferior and worthless this whole species was.

Once he'd started talking to Harry, their link only got stronger. He could see more often now, feel most things the boy did, and reading his thoughts got easier. It wasn't true possession, more like… Being a passenger rather than the driver.

He enjoyed it immensely, despite the boy's rather abysmal life.

Currently, Harry's hands scrambled in his rush to climb the tallest tree that grew in Magnolia Crescent, the one with the thick, out reaching branches that Harry loved.

He had to give credit to the boy, with his fast feet and quick mind. His cousin- Dudley, and his friends, rarely ever caught up with him. In the one week he'd come to know Harry closer, he'd never once been caught by that gang of hooligans; but from what Harry had to say about it, the experience was something he definitely wanted to avoid, even second hand.

Little droplets of blood bloomed on Harry's palms as he straddled an upper branch, panting slightly.

As the boy caught his breath, Voldemort commented lightly, 'Why don't you heal those?'

"Heal what?"

If Voldemort had a body, he'd have rolled his eyes.

'Your palms.'

Harry frowned down at his scraped up hands, wincing as he lightly dusted them to get rid of the worst of the dirt. "I don't think Aunt Petunia would let me get any bandages or cream."

Harry didn't know anything about magic, and Voldemort sought to correct that. Harry would not remain ignorant of his own prowess, not under Voldemort's guidance. Especially not his own horcrux.

And anyway, the prophecy would be more or less null and void, considering the one 'destined' to kill him would need to die in order to kill him. Which he never planned on happening.

And so he spoke, 'You don't need those.'

"Uh, I dunno what you mean," Harry said, wiping his palms slowly on his shirt, little flecks of blood staining the already dirty fabric.

'You can heal it without using any of those things. Hold your palms up and close your eyes.'

Voldemort could feel Harry's confusion, but he did as told. And Voldemort would've sneered at the gullibility of the boy, doing what he was told without second thought, but couldn't really muster up enough derision. He couldn't really gather up any sort of negative emotions for him, not for long. The boy just… looked so tiny, and excitable. With bright green eyes that would always light up with excitement whenever Voldemort spoke.

'Now, focus on the pain, exactly where the stinging starts and where it stops. Where it's the worst and where it's just barely there.'

Harry's brows scrunched up, mouth puckering with concentration.

Harry Potter had become the focal point of his existence, now. Ever since he first talked to him, he could see Harry quite clearly, as long as he didn't expend too much energy doing other things. A point of clarity in a blurry image, like seeing through a telescope, the only thing visible with any definition.

A burst of color after years of darkness.

"Now what?" Harry asked. Voldemort sighed, he hadn't needed any guidance with such simple things, but he knew not everyone could be him.

'Now, remember how it had felt before you'd been injured. The smooth skin, painless. Imagine your palms like that, without the scrapes or dirt.'

'Can you see it?' he asked after a few minutes of silence where Harry went completely still.

"Um, I think so."

'You hands aren't supposed to be scraped up, they're supposed to be clean and uninjured,' he continued firmly, 'Feel that, and convince your hands about that too.'

A frown marred Harry's face, "How do I convince my hands?"

'They're your hands, you can convince them of anything you want. And you want them to stop hurting. Don't you?'

"Yes," Harry said fiercely, a scowl taking place on his face as he tried to concentrate even harder. Voldemort sighed, this was never going to work. Perhaps in a few years, when the boy had grown a little older? Or maybe something easier than healing. A lumos, perhaps? Or levitation.

And then- a rush of magic. Warm and bright, small but exhilarating.

Harry's eyes snapped open and he gasped, "I did it! Mr. Lord, look at my hands! I did it!" he shrieked, holding up his hands near his face, and then rubbing them together, tentatively and slightly at first, and then clapping in earnest.

"It doesn't hurt at all!" Harry laughed, and almost fell down the tree in his glee. Voldemort hissed involuntarily before Harry managed to right himself.

Scrapes were one thing, broken bones entirely another.

'I said you could, didn't I?' Voldemort drawled, pleased.

"Yes you did. Are you sure you're not my guardian angel?"

Voldemort sighed, as much as he could without a corporeal form. With every bit of information he revealed, every little piece of advice he gave the boy, Harry grew more convinced that he was some sort of heaven-sent guardian angel. And it had only been a week.

'I am sure, Harry,' he said tiredly.

Harry couldn't help the skip in his steps as he made his way back to Privet Drive. His hands felt wonderful, like they'd never been scraped up at all. He'd even wondered for a moment that maybe he'd just imagined the whole injury too, but his shirt still had those light blood stains on them.

So they'd definitely been real and then he'd healed them. Like magic.

He definitely won't say that word anywhere near the Dursleys, though. They already thought him a freak, telling them that he'd healed his hands would make them furious. But he couldn't quite suppress his glee as he slipped inside Number 4, making his way towards the kitchen.

His fingers kept tracing his palm in awe. Absolutely no trace of any scrape had been left.

'Calm down, or you'll make your relatives suspicious,' Mr. Lord said, sounding amused.

"It was so brilliant!" he whispered as low as he could while still trying to convey his excitement. "How did you know I could do that?"

Aunt Petunia stood in front of the fridge, pulling out some frozen chicken from it and setting it on the counter. Her face soured when she caught sight of him, and she jerked her head towards the vegetables that were lying beside it.

"Wash them," she said, "Properly. And then put a kettle of water on."

"Yes, Aunt Petunia," Harry said, trying to keep his face and voice neutral. Aunt Petunia narrowed her eyes at him, but then left without a word.

He turned on the faucet, cold water streaming down as he picked up the carrots and started washing them.

'Magic.'

Harry dropped the carrot he'd been washing, "What?"

He knew it had been magic, but he hadn't really said the word out loud. What if there had been some other explanation for this, and Mr. Lord hated everything not normal? Magic definitely counted as not normal.

'What you did was magic, I knew you could do it because I could do it too, when I was your age.'

The thought of Mr. Lord ever having been four years old felt slightly absurd. Even though he'd still not actually seen him, he knew that Mr. Lord was an adult. Especially with a voice like that. And Mr. Lord always seemed to know everything.

"So, all children can do magic after they turn four?" Harry asked, continuing with the vegetables. Only a few left now, and then he could put the water kettle on. While Aunt Petunia seemed to drink tea several times a day, Uncle Vernon preferred coffee and Dudley his fizzy drinks.

Harry loved orange juice. He didn't get to drink it often, and usually only the leftover dredges at the bottom of the bottle about to, or having already gone bad; but he loved the tangy, sweet taste. Mrs. Figg sometimes gave him a glass during the especially hot summer days.

Mr. Lord laughed, and Harry asked, "What?"

'Of course not,' Mr. Lord said, 'You're special. You and I, we're very special. Not everyone has been blessed with the gift of magic. You're one of those.'

"There are other people like you and me?" Harry asked eagerly, before wincing at his volume. If one of the Dursleys heard him talking to no one, or himself in the kitchen. they'd most certainly not be pleased.

'Yes. Your… parents, they had magic too,' Mr. Lord said, in an odd voice. Harry frowned, well, Mr. Lord's voice had never been normal, of course. But this time he sounded strange even compared to the usual way he spoke. But his thoughts were quickly swept away under a wave of excitement.

"You knew my parents?" he asked, quickly drying his hands with the kitchen towel. He stood there, clutching the towel in his hands, waiting for a response. Which took a while to come. Harry put the towel back, and bit his lips, about to speak again before Mr. Lord answered.

'In a way.'

"What does that mean?"

'I only met them a few times.'

"Oh," he said, then shrugged, pulling out the kettle from a cabinet. "What did they look like?"

Harry had never seen a picture of his parents, and he didn't remember anything of them from when they were alive either. He suspected that maybe his mum had looked a bit like Aunt Petunia, because they'd been sisters. Aunt Marge and Uncle Vernon looked very much alike.


This had not been a turn he'd expected this talk to take.

He knew the boy didn't think much of his parents, curious as he was. His relatives had drilled into him the lies about what kind of people the Potters had been.

But the enemy or not, they'd still been wixen. These muggles were nothing compared to them. And Voldemort won't let them sully their memory.

He still felt vaguely uncomfortable though, telling Harry about the parents he'd murdered. And what will he tell him when he asks how they died? He certainly wasn't going to confirm whatever nonsense the Dursleys spouted.

A lie of omission, he supposed.

'Your mother,' he began, 'had red hair and green eyes, exactly like yours.'

Green, almond shaped, unforgettable eyes. Terrified and determined all at once, bright with unshed tears as she begged him to spare her son. He wondered now, sometimes, what if he'd been more level headed. Stunned her instead of killing her. He'd have appeased Severus, and his life wouldn't be in tatters.

Three is a powerful number, and he'd asked Lily Potter to step aside three times.

It hadn't been the love that had killed him, protecting her son. Love was something people had spades in, giving it away so freely. If every time someone loved one of Voldemort's victims, he'd have been dead a dozen times over. He'd had people jumping in front of killing curses to spare loved ones, had them offering themselves up in exchange for their loved ones.

It hadn't been the love, not really. It had been the choice. Not an illusion of choice that existed in war, where even if you save someone from one killing curse, the second one would always strike true.

No, when he'd given Lily Potter a chance to step aside, it had been a real choice.

Lily made hers. And Voldemort made his.

And here they were.

"But Aunt Petunia has yellow hair," Harry said, pulling Voldemort out of his musings.

'I'm not going to explain genetics to you right now.'

Harry paused for a moment, then shrugged again, and then asked, "Was she pretty?"

He supposed so. She'd cut a rather striking figure, he would admit. Hair like flames, and eyes like the killing curse. A tall, freckled woman.

Also, absolutely nothing like the horse that was Harry's aunt. Except for perhaps their similar stature, tall and thin.

'Very,' he said, pleased that he could give an answer Harry would've wanted.

"Really? And my dad?"

The excitement that rose from the boy never once abated. It had begun when he'd managed to heal his palms, and had just been steadily rising from there. Every bit of information he gave, the boy gobbled up like a particularly overexcited puppy with a bone.

'He had hazel eyes, and black hair quite like yours. Your other features also seem to resemble your father.'

Really, the boy looked like a blasted copy of James Potter. A foolish man. He hoped the boy won't take after him in personality and brains too. Confronting him without a wand, as if he could've kept Voldemort away even with a wand.

"What's hazel?" Harry asked, running a hand through his hair slowly, before trying to pat it down a little. It didn't work.

'A sort of light brownish green shifting color.'

"Oh, that sounds really pretty," Harry breathed, finally letting go of his hair.

Harry worked silently for a while, putting up a kettle of water on the stove.

Tea, Voldemort thought. How long had it been since he'd tasted something? He couldn't quite remember. Three years, yes. But even before that, the rituals he'd done had barely left him human. He hadn't needed to eat or sleep as much as regular wizards. He'd taken all these mundane pleasures for granted.

"What else do you know?"

'A lot of things,' Voldemort said, amused when Harry groaned.

"About my parents," he said, excitement not dimmed in the slightest. Harry left the kitchen, telling his aunt that the kettle was on. Who then shooed him away to his cupboard.

Voldemort's mood soured like it always did whenever he caught sight of the little cupboard under the stairs. Barely adequate enough for a house elf, and certainly not for a wizard. Harry didn't seem to mind it though, seeing it as a safe space.

He'd told Voldemort, a few nights ago, how the cupboard was the safest place for him in the house. Dudley and Uncle Vernon were too big to get in, and Petunia too tall. She could bend and get in any way, but with the face she made whenever it was mentioned assured Harry that she'd never bring herself down to such a level.

A sad little tale, for sure. But if Harry didn't complain, then Voldemort won't, either. At least not yet.

'Not much,' he said, watching as Harry's face fell a little.

"Were they nice?"

Were they? Voldemort didn't know. It's not like any of their interactions had been amicable. But they were brave, and fought for what they believed in. And, as far as he knew, didn't go around torturing and murdering people for the thrill of it.

Although, several of his Death Eaters had met their ends by the Potters' wands.

'Yes,' he said, feeling it was inadequate. The boy looked so hopeful. 'They were also very brave,' he added after a moment.

"You said they had magic," Harry began, twisting his fingers together. "What kind of things can you do with magic?"

'Mmm,' Voldemort hummed, secretly gleeful. Curiosity was good, excellent. And the boy hadn't even asked about his parents' deaths. Asking about magic? So much better, and this time he knew the answers. Rarely has anyone ever done such deep research into magic as him.

'Quite a bit,' he started, 'You can make things fly, vanish them, make flowers grow, turn someone into an animal, make light, heal injuries in an instant,' he paused, and peered at Harry, who was listening with rapt attention. Slowly, Voldemort added, 'Make someone do what you want, or punish them for hurting you.'

Harry didn't say anything for a moment, sitting still. Voldemort almost spoke again before Harry said, quietly, "I could make Dudley hurt?"

Oh, this was going a lot better than he could've hoped.

'Yes.'

"And Uncle Vernon?"

'With some practice, yes.' He hadn't felt this much excitement in far too long. Maybe he couldn't use magic in this form, but Harry certainly could. And by Merlin, the things he wanted to do to them… He loathed these muggles. And the only person he'd ever felt such vicious hatred for after he'd destroyed his orphanage had been Dumbledore.

Voldemort waited for Harry to ask about Aunt Petunia, but he didn't. Slowly, he asked himself, 'And your Aunt too, if you so wish.'

Truthfully, the brunt of his ire had found a target in that woman. The one who was supposed to be Lily Potter's sister. Never had he seen two people so dissimilar. This woman shared blood with Harry, this woman was supposed to be a mother. This woman, who had power to do something good, to shape a powerful wizard, a prophesied chosen one, and all she did was alienate the boy.

Harry would be what they created. And if that thing happened to be a monster, then that would be on them.

"She's not too bad," Harry whispered, "She never hits me, and she sometimes gives me food even if I'm being punished by Uncle Vernon. I really don't like Vernon or Dudley though."

'I don't like any of them,' Voldemort declared, letting a bit of disgust and dislike slip into his voice.

Harry smiled, and then settled down further on his mattress. While Harry's small, malnourished body still fit quite comfortably within the confines of the cupboard, not even needing to curl up much to sleep, it would certainly become too cramped in a few years.

No matter, Voldemort planned on having Harry be efficient enough in magic that it won't be a problem by then.

"If my parents had magic," Harry said, a little hesitantly, "Couldn't they have stopped the car crash?"

Perhaps he spoke too soon.

Fine, though. Voldemort held all the cards here. Harry didn't know of anything that had transpired that night. And while Voldemort won't outright lie to him, a lie of omission couldn't hurt.

'They didn't die in a car crash,' he said, 'Wizards don't even use cars, usually.'

Harry's eyes widened and he bolted upright, "What?" he said, too loud, before clapping a hand over his mouth and going still, peering out into the hallway.

Both of them waited with bated breath to see if someone had heard.

When nothing happened, Harry slowly lowered his hand, and said again, this time a lot softer, "What?"

'Your parents didn't die in a car crash, nor were they irresponsible, unemployed drunks.'

Well, Lily had been unemployed, but it had been hard for a mudblood to find work during the war. Not to mention that she'd been barely twenty one at the time.

What a phenomenal waste of potential. He'd have to change his strategies, this time. Despite having grown up surrounded by muggles, he hadn't really comprehended just how vastly the muggles outnumbered wixen. A troubling thought, really. They were already a small community. And several of those were useless too. He couldn't afford to keep killing the competent ones, unless he wanted to rule over corpses and ash.

Harry's eyes had taken a perpetually wide shape. Staring up at the slanted ceiling of his cupboard, his mouth moved soundlessly for a few moments before he said, "So… so my relatives have been lying to me? Why would they do that?"

'Because they're jealous, spiteful, absolutely useless excuses of a muggle,' Voldemort said simply.

Despite the sure-to-be-staggering revelation, Harry smiled, and then frowned, "Spiteful? And what's a muggle?"

'Spiteful means filled with hate.'

"Oh. Is Muggle a bad word?"

To Voldemort, it was. But not in the sense Harry probably thought. 'It means someone who doesn't have magic.'

Harry nodded. "Do you think my parents loved me?" He asked, after a few moments of silence.

For a while, Voldemort just stared at Harry. A boy who'd been so loved that it defied the killing curse. So loved that he did the impossible. So loved that he'd ended a war.

Oh, how the mighty fall. The irony wasn't lost on Voldemort, but he couldn't derive any sort of sadistic pleasure from it. Mostly, he just felt pity.

When Harry started shifting nervously, Voldemort said, 'They loved you a lot.'

Harry closed his eyes, curling a little, "Thank you, Mr. Lord. Talking to you always makes me feel better."