Barty strode through the halls of Malfoy Manor while two inert and bound bodies floated just behind him, the prophecy in his pocket and an irritated Bellatrix at his side. He felt like singing. His Lord would be verypleased.
He turned his head slightly to the rest of his party. "Dolohov, take the other one down to the dungeons, will you? Join us in the parlor once you're done."
"I should be the one to give it to him," Bellatrix spat for the umpteenth time after Antonin had left.
"Seeing as you did nothing but stand there and act like an amatuer, I don't see why you should. I did all the work, after all." Barty retorted, but a smile twitched at his lips. Not even Bellatrix's competitiveness could ruin his mood just then.
"The boy, then. I deserve that, at least."
"What, for rotting in Azkaban for fourteen years? Loyalty means nothing if you don't do something with it, Bella. Even your ostracized cousin escaped before you did. And since then, what have you done for our Lord?"
Bellatrix turned a rather intriguing shade of scarlet, but before she could shriek out an indignant reply, they reached the meeting room. Barty swiped his wand through the air and the doors fell open to reveal a dimly lit parlor, a long, dark oak table set in the middle of it. A fire roared just behind the head of the table, a large viper curled up on the hearth. The rest of the Death Eaters who had not been given the privilege of going on their mission were already sat down around the table.
Lord Voldemort sat at the head of the table with his fingers templed against his lips. Those dark, crimson eyes sparked when they landed on Barty, and then widened ever-so-slightly when they caught sight of the body hovering just behind him.
The serpentine man rose slowly from his seat, and Barty fell to one knee immediately, head bowed. "My Lord. I have done what you asked."
"And more than, it would seem," Voldemort murmured as he made his way down the table to his kneeling servant. He stopped in front of Barty, though his eyes were still trained on the prone form of Harry Potter. "The prophecy?" Voldemort tore his eyes away from the boy to focus on the little glass orb that Barty pulled out of his pocket and deposited in his Lord's waiting hand. After a moment, long, pale fingers carded fondly through Barty's sandy hair. "You've done well, Bartimaeus." He praised softly with an eerie smile.
Barty subtly preened. He stood when his Lord motioned for him to rise and met his gaze without fear.
Voldemort hummed and turned from his soldier to address the rest of the room. "The rest of you are dismissed." His lipless mouth twitched as everyone stood and hastily began to comply with his order. "Except you, Severus. It is only fitting that you stay."
Severus froze where he stood, then nodded a bit stiffly and remained where he was. If anyone thought it odd that Voldemort was being surprisingly nonchalant about having his enemy captured and bound in front of him, they didn't show it. Then again, perhaps that was just because they were all trying to escape the room as quickly as possible. All of them, save Bellatrix, who lingered by the door until Voldemort shot her a sharp look.
"Bring the boy, Bartimaeus. Set him on the table." Voldemort said once everyone had left. Barty nodded and flung Harry down onto the table with a flick of his wand, the ropes around him abruptly lashing him to the tabletop. Voldemort gave a faint smirk, but focused back on the matter at hand as he cracked the prophecy against wood. A faint, wispy figure of Sybil Trelawney drifted out of the orb and left it completely devoid of light.
"The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches...born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies…"
Yes, Severus had told him this part. It was the rest of the prophecy that held his interest, however, and he listened intently as the Seer droned on, though his eyes were now trained on the very boy of whom the prophecy spoke, who was now beginning to stir.
"And the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not…" Voldemort tilted his head curiously. "and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives...the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies…"
Trelawney fell silent and disappeared in a puff of bluish smoke. Voldemort ventured closer to the boy, but paused by the edge of the table as he let out a pained groan and started to shift in discomfort.
Barty was also watching him, an almost pensive look on his face. Severus just looked paler than usual.
"It is very strange," Voldemort murmured after another moment of silence. His scarlet eyes roved over Harry's face; a face which was contorted in misery despite not being awake. "Our…connection. How he suffers when I am near. How I can feel his emotions at times, how I can make him see whatever I like, no matter what the distance…"
"Yes. Strange." Severus allowed with a nod, his lips twisted in displeasure.
"My Lord," Barty whispered after a moment, eyes wide and a bit glazed. He was no longer looking at Harry, but at the snake curled up next to the fireplace. His tongue darted out to the corner of his mouth in a habitual way that showed he was thinking deeply. "I have a theory." He turned his gaze back to Harry with an almost wild look.
"Yes?" Voldemort mused without looking at him.
"Nagini, my Lord. Perhaps your familiar shares a bit more similarity to Potter than just a language. His connection to you is—" Barty flicked his eyes to Snape warily, but shifted and gathered his wits. "Reminiscent of hers, is it not?"
Voldemort went still. "What are insinuating, Bartimaeus? Be clear. I am sure Severus knows that everything spoken of in this room is not to leave it. Don't you, Severus?"
The potions master dipped his head. "Of course, my Lord. I will not breathe a word of this."
Barty sent him a brief but irritated glare. "Then I will be blunt, my Lord. I think Potter may be a horcrux." He kept an eye on Snape, whose face was carefully blank. "He can speak Parseltongue, a language only blessed to Slytherin's descendents. He can tap briefly into your mind and emotions, and you can do the same to him—hence tonight's success. He feels pain when you're in any near vicinity of him, and I doubt that it's just a side effect of a rebounded killing curse. Whatever you had done that night in Godric's Hollow, with killing Potter's parents and Lily Potter's protective magic, it could have been the ritualistic equivalent of what is needed to create a horcrux." Barty stepped a bit closer and twitched again. "My Lord, if I am correct, that means that you've created—"
"A human horcrux." Voldemort breathed, eyes wide as they locked onto the scar peeking out just beneath Harry's fringe.
"My Lord, as incredible of a feat as that is, does this not pose a rather prominent problem?" Severus said after a moment of careful deliberation. To his credit, he'd maintained his composure throughout the entire conversation. "If Potter does in fact carry...a piece of your soul, then that means he cannot be killed. Not unless you're prepared to dispose of that fraction of yourself as well." He pointed out.
Frustration bubbled up over the awe that had arisen at his own prowess, and Voldemort cut his siam gaze down at the boy. Though it annoyed him, Severus was right. They couldn't kill the boy without destroying the soul piece inside, which Voldemort was very unwilling to do.
However, Barty, wonderful Barty, was quick to the jump. "Then we remove it. Once the piece of your soul within Potter is gone, we can put it in something else and execute the boy then."
"How does one remove a horcrux?" Severus mumbled, wary of being too curious.
"Remorse," Voldemort murmured as he reached out a hand to hover over Harry's scar. "One must feel real and true remorse for what they've done. That's the only way I've found that can successfully reverse the ritual of creating a horcrux. However, it has a very low chance of success, as it is more likely to kill the boy or myself in the process."
"Then perhaps, we use a…cruder method, my Lord." Barty suggested with a low look. "A more surgical extraction, if you will." His tongue darted out once more, a quick flash of pale pink.
"What, you mean trying to go in and pry the horcrux from Potter's soul itself? Would that not be just as dangerous?" Severus shot back, just shy of scathing.
"That is exactly what I meant." Barty retorted.
Voldemort silenced them both with a quiet hum. "The idea has merit. Done carefully, I should be able to enter his mind and bypass it to access his core. From there I should be able to coax my soul back from him, and replace it somewhere else."
Barty inclined his head with a smile. Severus pursed his lips.
"But first," Voldemort's mouth twitched upwards. "We must wake him up."
§
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Harry groaned and lolled his head to the side, a steady thud of ache in the back of his skull. He blinked his eyes open blearily, and squinted. It was blurry and dark. Not a good sign.
Unlike most times when he'd been knocked out, he didn't wake up too disoriented. No, Harry remembered his fuck up at the ministry quite clearly, and could only think, in his very dizzy mind, that it was odd that he wasn't dead yet. Hadn't he been taken to Voldemort? Did Voldemort want to duel again, just to prove that hewas superior to the so-called Chosen One, and that the night in the graveyard was a fluke? Or was it something far more sinister? Perhaps the Dark Lord had decided that just killing Harry wasn't enough anymore—that he wanted to make Harry suffer.
"There you are," An amused voice—Barty's—chirped.
Harry jolted and hurriedly scrambled into a sitting position, only to realize he couldn't draw his wand because one, his hands were tied behind his back, and two; they'd taken it off him.
The world abruptly sharpened back into focus as cool metal was pressed to his face, and he recoiled, blinked rapidly, and stared as Barty's grinning visage slowly backed away from him to stand next to his master.
Voldemort was as impossibly tall and intimidating as the last time Harry had seen him, though now he held himself with much more poise. Harry guessed it came with getting used to his new body. Those sanguine eyes stared at him with something idling between calm disdain and reluctant curiosity, and Voldemort tipped his head at Harry before speaking.
"Harry Potter...We meet again. I should thank you for giving me the means to retrieve the prophecy, but I'm afraid we're short on time."
"Where are my friends? What have you done with them?" Harry spat as he struggled to slip his wrists out of the ropes.
Voldemort's answering smile was not at all encouraging, but it was Barty who answered. "They're safe, Potter," He drawled, then glanced down at the boy with a slight smirk. "For now."
Harry grit his teeth and glared at Barty for a moment before turning his attention to his surroundings. "Where am I? Why haven't you…" He trailed off with a harsh swallow, mouth dry. His eyes locked onto Snape, who stood in the shadows just behind Voldemort, and widened. Harry set his jaw and scowled. "Why haven't you killed me?"
"Killing you as you are would be more detrimental than helpful, at this point." Voldemort answered matter-of-factly as he stepped towards Harry.
"W-What do you mean, as I am?" Harry sputtered, shoes shoving against the ground to scoot him away from the Dark Lord's advance.
"There is something that needs to be done before you can be eliminated," Voldemort murmured. He caught Harry by the hair before the teen could slide away. Harry hissed like an angry cat and struggled harder. "I'm sure you're aware of the strangeness of our connection by now."
Harry stilled abruptly, eyes wide and blazing. "You sent me that bloody nightmare just to lure me to the ministry!" He shook his head roughly to try and dislodge Voldemort's grip on his hair. "I've seen you murder people, I've watched you torture your own followers—some leader you are."
Those dim red eyes flashed in something of annoyance and intrigue, and then sharp nails were digging into his scalp. Harry yelped and froze, head tilted awkwardly to ease the pressure as Voldemort raised a brow at him.
"I intend to break it."
Now very thrown, Harry blinked owlishly at the Dark Lord. He raised an eyebrow himself, then slumped, mouth in the shape of a surprised 'O' as he realized. "You can't kill me with our link still intact. That's why I'm still alive."
That lipless mouth twisted in frustration, and Voldemort narrowed his eyes at Harry before finally releasing his hair and straightening once more. "For now." He looked away from Harry towards Snape. "Severus, if you would?"
"Of course, my Lord." Snape murmured as he revealed a bowl hidden within the folds of his cloak. It was filled with a horribly familiar silver substance, the sickly sweet scent of it invading Harry's nose as his eyes widened.
"No—No. Whatever you're planning to do with that, keep it away from me." Harry began to push himself back once more, extremely alarmed.
"Ah, yes," Voldemort mused airily as he took the bowl from Snape's hands. He dipped a single, claw-tipped finger into it, then retracted to touch the pad of it to his thumb. Smearing the mirrory, now slightly gelatinous substance between his fingers, Voldemort smirked. "You would be familiar with this particular tool, wouldn't you, Harry? You happened upon myself in the Forbidden Forest in your first year, using it to its full extent. Such captivating creatures, unicorns." Voldemort sent Harry a wicked smile that twisted his insides into nauseating knots.
"So, what? You curse me with unicorn blood and that'll miraculously sever our connection?" Harry snarled sarcastically. He let out a startled grunt when his back met the wall and stopped his subtle escape in its tracks.
"Oh no, of course not," Voldemort swept forward, that terrible smile still curled at the corners of his mouth.
"So crude, Potter." Barty crooned from behind the Dark Lord.
"No. I intend to rip it out of you. Slowly. Painfully. Until you are begging for death; which, if all goes well, I shall grant you."
Harry's complexion turned pallid and his lips pressed into a tight line, eyes wide in unease. Voldemort used the boy's brief shock to reach forward and swipe his bloodstained thumb across his mouth, smearing the metallic liquid onto the plushness of Harry's lower lip. When he realized what had happened, Harry jerked his head away and let out a panicked, furious shout.
The blood glinting on his lips dripped until it pooled at the corner of his mouth. A cold, prickly, numbing sensation began to spread out from the spot and in the span of a minute, Harry couldn't feel the lower half of his face. His tongue sat heavy in his mouth, and his teeth buzzed with something icy that felt oddly like starlight.
Voldemort regarded the now mute form of his foe with a hum. "Much better. Now, let's see…"
He reached down again and wrapped his hand around Harry's throat. Letting his own magic seep down into the fluttering pulse beneath his palm, the Dark Lord closed his eyes and latched on to the trickle of curse magic that was bleeding through Harry's veins.
It swirled and twisted until it leaked out into his chest cavity, where his heart beat frantically, fearfully, in the cage of his ribs. Voldemort huffed and pushed his magic along the path of the curse as—
There.
A blinding light, much brighter than the unicorn's curse itself, sat innocently at the crest of Harry's collarbones. Within it, Voldemort could feel it. His soul. It was like a void in the ball of light, a speck of absence in something much bigger than itself.
'Come,' He cooed into the Chosen One's chest. 'Come to me. Rejoin your own.'
The speck of soul—that glaring absence of light—did no such thing. Instead of rising up to meet him, eager to be reunited, like it should have, it hissed and burrowed more deeply into the light as if seeking warmth. It recoiled from his presence rather than welcomed it.
Voldemort was so startled by the realization that a piece of his soul had just rejected him, that he lost his hold on the magic of the curse and was flung out of the boy's chest and into reality.
"My Lord?"
The serpentine man snapped out of his shock, crimson eyes wide, and hastily released Harry's throat to step away from him. Loosing a furious hiss into the air that made the other occupants of the room wince, Voldemort turned and stalked out of the room, a snarled, "Heal him." The announcement of his exit.