Title: Who Wants to Be the Bloody Boy Who Wouldn't Die?
Author: Iskjif
Beta: Masked Deception (Formerly Celena Amunet… Love, you change your name more often than Ariel changes her MySpace picture… diss…)
Pairings: Voldemort/Harry (eventually), mild not-so-one-sided Severus/Lucius
Warnings: Okay, if you have a problem with my pairings and are still reading this after my warning, well as far as I'm concerned you have no rights… As for anything else there might be, there is so MAJOR ANGST in this chapter… only kinda not major angst… I dunno… you decide…
Summary: Eventual HPLV. After the events of OotP Harry is apathetic and disillusioned. The Dursley's escalating abuse only serves to alienate him further. When Voldemort's followers come for him, the idea of torture isn't too unpleasant when it's at the hands of those who don't pretend to care.
A/N: I'm so sorrysorrysorry that this update has taken so long, It has truly been hell to write. I'd whine and moan about all the terrible details of why it's been so long, but I don't want to bore you guys with the stupidity that is my real life. I really appreciated all your guys' loverly reviews and all the advice that I got about my review responses. I have to say though, that I'm rather happy that has solved the whole review response problem for me with their new review reply system… grins
Again, I just want to thank everyone who reviewed. I really appreciated it you guys! I've had the most horrific writer's block… At some points I was so distraught that I would take one look at my computer and just burst into tears… but yes! Your guys' support has kept me from abandoning this ficcie altogether. And finally, here we have it, though most of it came paragraph by agonizing paragraph over the last couple of months…
IMPORTANT: okay, so I know that's it's been ages since my last chapter, so I thought that I should give you a summary of chapter 7… So, last chapter: Voldie reluctantly punished Snapey for smarting off, went and snatched up the Dursleys for future torture, gave his Deatheaters permission to play with the Dursleys, went and took a bath to ponder his feelings, 'forced' dear Harry to share a bed with him, cuddled a bit with the Bloody Boy Who Wouldn't Die, got in an angsty screaming fight with poor confuzled Harry, and stalked off to 'go make something hurt'… So yeah… this chappie begins that same morning…
This chappie is dedicated to Xenia Marvolo and my beautiful beta Masked Deception! I love you guys!
But yes! On with the chappie!
OoToO
Harry awoke to a haze of warmth and safety.
It was strange. He couldn't remember the last time he had felt safe when waking. At the Dursleys' he had always awakened with fear and at Hogwarts he had merely felt the absence of that fear…
But never safety…
He wondered idly where he was, but his sleep-fogged mind quickly dismissed it as unimportant. Harry was feeling too comfortable to ruin it with wondering. He decided that even with the strangeness of it, he really liked this feeling of being safe.
It was then that he realized he was nestled up against someone else. A very male someone else.
Harry knew beyond his haze that he should have been horrified. He didn't even know who this person was. But again he couldn't bring himself to care. It felt so right to be pressed so closely up against this person. This was why he felt so safe, so protected.
He felt the man sigh and Harry snuggled closer, trying to pull the feeling of being safe into himself. The man stiffened in reaction.
Harry opened his eyes and glanced at the man's face wondering what was wrong, and his confusion quickly turned to horror.
Tom Riddle.
Voldemort.
He was clinging to Voldemort.
Suddenly his memory caught up with him in a rush and he pushed away from the Dark Lord violently. He ended up on the floor but didn't let it faze him. Harry jumped up and snatched his glasses up from a small table.
"What are you playing at Voldemort?" He was proud that his voice stayed firm and didn't quaver. He felt sick with horror.
"What do you mean what am I playing at, do you think that I made you cuddle up to me?" The Dark Lord sounded mildly disgruntled and frowned pensively.
Without really wanting to, Harry observed that Voldemort sounded cutely grumpy and he mentally smacked himself. He gathered as much indignance as he could and shouted.
"I did not cuddle up to you!"
"Oh really? And what was that just a few minutes ago? Were you secretly trying to squeeze me lightly to death?" Harry was ashamed to find himself blushing.
"I wasn't- That was- I was barely awake…" He trailed off, feeling deeply mortified.
Voldemort glared. "Oh, I see! Of course it's my fault then!" He spoke harshly, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
Harry winced. Why did it bother him so much that he had the Dark Lord's disdain?
He frantically searched for something to say. He couldn't let Voldemort have the last word, but as he stood there under the Dark Lord disdainful glare he felt his confidence leeching away. Never before in any of their confrontations had Harry felt like such a foolish child.
He felt the blood rushing from his face and he bolted for the bathroom. He flung the door closed behind him and quickly locked it. He knew it was a futile gesture but hoped that the Dark Lord would be slightly less inclined to destroy his own bathroom door.
Harry heard Voldemort stomp towards the door and he stumbled back away from it.
He jumped and had to restrain a slightly hysterical sound as the Dark Lord started pounding on the door. "Get out now Potter! I have things to do and if you're in here angsting it'll bother me!"
Harry backed away from the door, hugging himself and biting his lip. He wondered in distress where his apathy had gone.
He sorely missed it now.
As the silence grew more and more stifling and uncomfortable, he realized that Voldemort seemed to be waiting for some sort of response.
Well the bastard could blast the door down for all that Harry cared; he was not getting an answer. Harry knew that if he responded, that the Dark Lord would get him out somehow, whether through persuasion or by making him angry enough to come charging back out again.
The teen tensed, expecting Voldemort to blast the door in frustration. Several more minutes passed with him waiting for the door to blow in, but nothing of the sort happened
He jumped as Voldemort suddenly shouted through the door.
"Go ahead and have a good cry in there then, child!" The man's disdain cut through him and he tried to keep himself from shaking. Why was he reacting like this?
To his relief, he soon heard the sound of Voldemort's angry stomps leaving the room.
Harry slouched against the wall and slid down to the floor to hug his knees.
He sighed, feeling extremely depressed and confused.
Why did he suddenly care so much what Voldemort thought of him?
They were enemies; they'd always hated each other. Why did it matter now?
Harry's brow wrinkled in thought.
Maybe it was because he seemed to be sensing how the man was feeling towards him.
Harry nodded to himself. That made sense. He had certainly come across people who disliked him in the past, but he had never felt their disgust so strongly or as clearly as he was feeling the Dark Lord's.
But if all that was true, then what had changed? Why did they suddenly seem to have such a strong connection, such a bond? He could tell that Voldemort felt it too, why else would the man have cared about Harry's emotional state?
Harry found himself wondering before he could stop himself, could this all maybe have something to do with what happened at the- he broke off the thought. But doing so made him feel like an emotional coward, so he decided to finish up the thought.
Could it have to do with the- The Department of Mysteries?
He let out a sigh that felt suspiciously like a sob.
So many questions that didn't have answers… So many questions that made him think of things he wished were forgotten…
He almost wished that Voldemort would just torture and kill him. He liked it better when the Dark Lord acted predictably. None of this treating Harry like a guest, not at all like a prisoner, then forcing Harry to share his bed.
To Harry's shame, he felt rather like he would cry and he closed his eyes tightly against the burning tears.
Why was Voldemort doing this? Was it some sort of new torture the man had thought up just for Harry?
But even if that were true, the Dark Lord's reaction had made it clear; he hadn't made Harry react the way he did. So why had he reacted so?
He felt a tear slip through his tightly closed eyelids and furiously scrubbed it away.
It was then that Harry knew that he had to get out of the bathroom. He had to stop thinking like this.
He pushed himself up off the ground and scrubbed at his eyes with the back of his hand.
Glancing at his reflection in the mirror, he made a face.
The teen may not have done much crying but he looked like he had. His eyes were puffy and his nose was red. He glared at his reflection and turned to the door.
He eased open the lock trying to make as little sound as possible, hoping that Voldemort had truly left.
Harry pushed the door open just a bit, peeking out cautiously. He didn't see anyone or anything that made him suspicious, so he slipped out into the bedroom.
The nervous teen then began crossing the room to check the hallway. He picked his feet up and put them down with extreme care. After the way his morning had begun, all Harry wanted to do was to be able to wander and be alone.
As Harry got closer and closer to the doorway, his nerves began to calm and he began to slip into the comfortable way of sneaking that he had perfected at Hogwarts.
He was almost close enough to grasp the doorknob when suddenly a floorboard, which he had stepped on a little too quickly, let out a horrifyingly loud groan.
Muscles tensed, Harry listened closely for the sound of someone approaching, ready at any instant to dash back to the bathroom.
But to his immense relief he didn't hear anything.
He cautiously looked into the hallway and was thankful not to see anyone, not even a House elf.
Harry carefully shuffled out into the hallway, past the library and into the main room without any trouble. He stopped in the middle of the main room. Surely he couldn't be lucky enough to be the only one in the rooms? He waited a few minutes and when no one came, he knew he must have been.
He sighed gustily. Knowing he was alone made him feel slightly better. The teen had been so tensed that, as he started to relax, he realized that his back was full of kinks. Harry rolled his shoulders trying to relieve some of the discomfort to no avail.
He tried to think of what he wanted to do next, of what would do him the most good.
He breathed in deeply and felt a moment calm.
It was in that calm that he noticed that he could still feel frustration radiating from somewhere. It was no wonder that he had felt such distress, some of it had been feeding in from some outside source. As he began to look closer at the emotion which was now clearly not his, suddenly he knew who it was coming from.
Voldemort.
It must have been that intrusion of emotion that had initially set Harry on edge and broken through his apathy.
As for everything else, especially feeling so cut down and vulnerable, that must have been from the shock of being in such a bizarre situation.
So really, none of it meant anything.
Harry suddenly felt the urge to stop analyzing things. He decided to try and look around the base if he could. And of course the idea never occurred to him that he might just be trying to avoid any uncomfortable truths…
He walked over to the door leading out into the corridor and poked his head out. The hallway seemed to be empty, so Harry stepped out and started down it. Harry was pleased to note that he didn't care if he ran into any Deatheaters. It didn't seem to matter that something awful would most likely happen to him if someone were to find him and he was grateful for that indifference.
He continued on, making sure to keep track of where he was going. Loath though he was to return to Voldemort's rooms, he had a feeling that it was the safest place that he knew of at this point in time.
Apathetic as he was, he didn't really feel at this time that dying would be all that good of a thing.
Harry was very careful to keep his mind blank as he walked and because of the contradictory nature of his goals of trying to keep his mind blank and of trying to keep track of where he was going, both conspired to make him extremely distracted.
So as the teen came to an intersection of corridors, he had no inkling that he was no longer alone until someone crashed into him and papers went flying.
The person began cursing colorfully in an alarmingly familiar voice.
Harry looked up in shock from where he had fallen. What was-
"Malfoy! What are you doing here?"
His schoolmate immediately stopped cursing and trying to pick up his papers. He straightened stiffly and looked at Harry with narrowed eyes.
"No Potter. A better question would be, what are you doing here?" The blonde's expression changed to a malicious grin. "Could it be that you've turned Dark?"
Harry started to protest, but Malfoy cut him off before he could even utter a word. "Don't even try to tell me that you're a prisoner… I could see it in your face that you wanted to try. There is no way the Dark Lord would be letting you wander around like this if you were a prisoner."
Harry all but growled. "What makes you think that Voldemort even knows where I am? How do you know I didn't just escape?"
Infuriatingly, the blonde teen completely ignored what Harry had said, as if it wasn't even worth remarking on.
Instead he mused, as if talking to himself. "I wonder what the Dark Lord could be keeping you for?" and much to Harry's mortification, he actually leered. "You really have turned Dark."
Harry could feel his anger rise up and he started shouting. "I am not Dark! I hate Voldemort! I hate him! He made my life hell…" he trailed of as his vehemence evaporated away and looked down. He knew that that last part wasn't true… It hadn't really been Voldemort who had made his life hell… It had been the Dursleys. True, Voldemort had been the cause of Harry's living with them, but the Dark Lord hadn't made them behave the way they had…
"It's just… The circumstances being what they were… I couldn't stay there…" Harry looked back up saw a serious look on the face of his school rival. "I would have died there!" He quickly looked away again feeling a little embarrassed over his intensity.
But instead of the snide comment, trashing Harry for his angst, that he had expected, Malfoy said a bit ruefully, "Well you certainly have conviction, Potter."
The dark-haired teen looked up at the blond in shock. The Malfoy had a slightly wry twist to his mouth, but didn't look the least bit unkind.
Well at least until he laughed.
After a few moments, the blonde let out an extremely cruel laugh and amended his last statement, "But sometimes conviction is just nothing but stubborn resistance to the truth…"
A wave of despair crashed through Harry. Malfoy had just been giving him hope for an ally in this miserable place, only to crush it viciously.
Some of his despair must have shown on his face, because this time, his schoolmate couldn't resist a comment.
"Aw… It can't really be all that bad for everything you ever believed in to crumble…" Malfoy bent and picked up the last of his papers. "And besides, I'm sure you'll make a wonderful plaything for the Dark Lord." At this, the blonde walked away down the hallway chuckling at his own wit.
Harry stood there for a few moments feeling even worse off than he had before his little walk.
He realized that the kinks in his back were also worse and he vainly rolled his shoulders again.
The teen sighed heavily and started back to Voldemort's rooms. He didn't really feel like a walk had been such a good idea anymore.
OoToO
A/N: Yay! It's finally written and posted! dances Again, I'd like thank my loverly reviewers! Without you guys, this story would never have gotten past chapter 1! So the new review response system is awesome-ness, but it neglects my loverly anonymous reviewers! So I would like to thank: heather, Speed Reader, Dark-WereFox, Goth Child of Zyon, Rini, tidus2529, Riyo, Bebedora(I don't think you were being too harsh, I agree with you, too many good stories fizzle out like that...), Tess, Zal, Ashley, CrazyWolfy-BirdyThingymajigr(You're cute!), ashes2ashes, Elfprincess, Jennifer Hedge
I think that I'm going to take down my review responses for all the previous chappies, so I don't get deleted or anything heinous like that… but if anyone wants theirs, I'm not deleting them off my compy, just private message me and I'll send them to you!
I know that I told some of you that this would be a double update, but at the rate things were going, that was making it unlikely that I'd be able to update at all… So I decided to post this chappie now. That gets the pressure off me for a couple seconds so that I can focus a bit better on my writing. I've already made some good headway on chapter 9, so hopefully I'll be able to get it out within the next week or so… Sorry about that my dears!
Please review! I love to hear what you guys think, even if all you want to do is to yell at me for something…
But yes! I love you guys! blows a kiss