CHAPTER 34

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He awoke abruptly, his eyes snapping open, his body frozen on the bed.

Bed?

Where was he?

There was a man in the room.

He jumped up, a violent, rapacious need for blood surging inside of him—

"Relax," the stranger said, his hands out in supplication. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be gone so long."

That halted him. He glanced to the window and noticed that the sun was up.

He never slept til sunrise. He never slept so deeply.

Drugged.

He drugged you.

Memories began to coalesce as his chest tightened painfully.

He was... Voldemort.

Eighty-one.

Changed.

He was trapped on an island— a prison— and had suffered memory loss that may be reversible.

But this stranger held the key.

He looked over at the man who had woken him.

Who had drugged him.

This man, his jailor and apparent paramour, was Harry. He had been bound for London last night and Voldemort had intended to follow him, yet had been thwarted.

"Are you okay?" Harry asked, his face concerned.

Voldemort forced his posture to loosen. It would not do to appear disconcerted.

"You drugged me," he accused, and watched the man's guilty shock betray him.

"No," the man lied. "I just got home. I'm sorry, I—"

"You will not do so again," he warned— yet what could he do?

He could not recall falling asleep, but time had obviously passed somehow.

He loathed this vulnerability. Feared it.

Stepping forward, he crowded the man against the wall. Harry pressed into the concrete bricks, looking up at Voldemort with trepidation.

"Do you understand me?" he asked dangerously. "If I wake after the sun again, I will hurtle you into the ocean."

A small smile tugged incomprehensibly at those pink lips.

"You will, huh?"

Voldemort paused, studying him.

What was it about that contention? He wanted the man to bend, and yet each time he refused to, it was... refreshing.

Arousing.

How could disobedience affect him thus?

"Look," Harry sighed, his face wan. "I'm too tired to fight. I haven't slept."

The man froze suddenly, as if he had not intended to divulge that information. What was the secret? That he was not up for an altercation?

"Will you be resting, then?" he asked the man.

Harry snorted.

"Hoping to try to kill me in my sleep again, Voldemort?" the man asked wryly.

Again.

But he had not done that. These allusions to his lost memories were galling.

Yet, it was fascinating how unconcerned the man appeared to be about that eventuality. Death did not scare him.

"I am not so predictable," he muttered.

Harry looked up and smiled at him. It was warm and... inviting. They were still close, a pace away, and Voldemort suddenly wanted to be closer.

"Perhaps you would like to return to bed," he offered, intentionally leaving that invitation ambiguous.

Seeing what he would catch.

Harry's eyes widened a fraction.

"Yeah," he breathed. "I just might."

Voldemort felt a smirk tugging on his lips. He reached out and pushed the hair back from the man's forehead to expose those compelling, green eyes.

"Care to join me?" Harry whispered, and his tone was hopeful.

Voldemort's fingers lightly traced that jaw, sliding down to stroke over the man's unprotected neck.

"No," he replied, his fingers curling around Harry's throat, squeezing threateningly. "Unlike you, I do not share a bed with those who break my trust."

The man's eyes flew wide with hurt.

"What? How did I—"

Voldemort tightened his grip, feeling those tendons shift. He leaned down, glaring into the man's perplexed eyes.

"You drugged me," he seethed.

"No! It wasn't—"

"Lie to me again and I will rip out your tongue," he warned in a deadly whisper.

Harry stared at him, seeming scared and lost.

It was an enticing sight.

"I'm sorry," Harry confessed contritely, lowering his gaze.

Voldemort feasted on that, stepping closer until he was pressed up against the man, and then took his lips, sucking them into his mouth. Harry made a pathetic sound and Voldemort ate it up, holding him against the cold brick, feeling the man harden against his stomach.

"Please," Harry moaned, pulling away to throw his head back, knocking it against the wall. "Oh fuck— take me again."

Voldemort's hand moved down to grope the man through his trousers. He liked the feel of Harry's erection helpless in his palm. He liked how Harry gave everything up.

The man would give him anything.

"What do you do in London?" he asked.

"What?" Harry replied, clearly incapable of keeping up.

Voldemort reached into the man's trousers and gripped his cock directly, warming his cool fingers against the heated skin.

"Where were you last night," he rephrased.

"In London," Harry rasped, his eyes closing. "Oh Mer— Jesus. Fuck. That feels amazing."

Voldemort almost stopped.

Mer?

Was that an affectionate nickname for another lover? What was that word doing on Harry's lips?

Yet, it could not matter. He must achieve his freedom, and for that, he simply needed answers.

"What did you do in London?"

Harry shook his head, but Voldemort pulled down the material with his other hand and then massaged those bollocks tenderly as he fisted the man's cock.

"Was it to see Hermione?" he asked, and Harry's eyes snapped open.

"What?"

Fear had returned to the man's gaze. He had stopped gyrating his hips.

"No. I had two go into work, that's all."

"Work. Your job as a guard?"

Harry grimaced.

"Something like that."

"Am I your only prisoner?"

Voldemort expelled saliva onto his hand and then returned it, continuing to stroke the man. Harry's eyes widened at his crude action and he realised that the man liked it.

"Well, Harry? Am I your only responsibility?"

The man huffed out a breath.

"Yeah. You're my one and only."

Voldemort felt a swell of pride at that.

As I should be.

"I'm sorry about the sleep thing," Harry muttered, his body relaxing again, his hips helplessly moving with Voldemort's strokes. "But you really can't come with me. You can't. And— I— oh, fuck yes. I need to go into work sometimes."

Voldemort hummed.

"Why sneak out at night? If this is a prison and I am trapped, then you can leave anytime."

Harry was attempting a skeptical frown, his cheeks flushed, his mouth panting.

"You would try to follow. You would... pitch a bloody fit."

Harry brought his hands up to tug down Voldemort's trousers.

"Desist," he commanded, and revelled when those fingers immediately fell away with a pitiful whine.

Voldemort continued to fist the man's erection, enjoying that he had that right.

"Go to sleep, Harry," he breathed into the man's ear. "I require you rested for what I intend to do to you later for daring to drug me."

He stepped back, watching the man slide down the wall a bit before he caught himself. Harry's expression was appalled. Pleading.

Voldemort smiled cruelly and walked out of the building.

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While Harry slept, he dug.

It was imperative that the man not know that his work was progressing. He should believe that Voldemort had abandoned the endeavour. He would steer Harry away from the area and ensure that he returned the shovel he had found to the house before the man awoke.

He would be leaving this prison with or without Harry's aid.

Two hours of meticulous work with a proper tool had yielded excellent results. Perhaps he should hide this shovel and count on Harry not discovering that he had stolen it. Already, it was becoming difficult to clear the soil from the hole. Soon, it would be impossible. At that point, he would begin tunnelling to the side, at a downward slope.

Maybe he could locate the sleeping drug that Harry had used and feed it to him for the last portion of his escape.

Because he would escape.

Everything felt wrong.

His name, his clothes, his face. The story of his life had to be vast and yet he was ignorant of it.

A criminal.

What had he done to merit being marooned on an island? Was Harry his accomplice? Yet, if that was the case, why had he been allowed to act as his guard?

Or was the entirety of what little he knew a lie?

And if it was, how could he discover the truth?

Harry had intimated that his memories could be salvaged— by finding something and making something, yet what did that even mean? Was it a particular medicine? The services of a specialist? And the way he spoke of memory was like it was a physical entity that could be taken away or returned.

Had someone stolen his?

Had Harry?

He stopped digging and leaned heavily against the shovel. His breath was coming in sharp pants, his heart beating out of control as his fingers became numb—

He stayed still, unmoving, panic exploding inside of him.

His vision greyed out and then began to burst with lights. He brought a quick hand to his chest, clutching at the painful pressure that suddenly squeezed there.

I am going to die.

No.

He attempted to run, to climb rapidly out of the pit, the grave that he had dug for himself, that he would perish inside of, but his body was not responding to his commands.

Instead, he collapsed, falling to his knees and gasping in shallow breaths of precious oxygen until he tumbled forward and hit the moist soil with his face.

His last, useless thought before his vision went black, was a hope that Harry would find him in time.

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He held a cool cloth to Voldemort's forehead, trying to manage his guilt.

Your fault. You were supposed to be watching him and instead, you were sleeping when he needed you.

The man was still as death— except for that persistent chest minutely rising and falling— but he had to wake soon.

It had been twelve hours of unresponsiveness.

He knew enough healing magic to be able to check his vitals and help support his heart, which seemed to have been where the problem had occurred.

Lord Voldemort had suffered a heart attack.

The Dark Lord.

It was incomprehensible.

Of all the ailments for the man to get, that it would be something so... common.

So Muggle.

He knew that Voldemort would be horrified.

Harry was certain that the man's lack of magic was responsible. A wizard's body came magically augmented to allow for what their powers routinely put it through. A Muggle's constitution would never survive regular Apparition. Or flying. Or having currents of power flow through a body that was sensitive to electrical charges.

And right now, Lord Voldemort was a Muggle.

Or, as close to as a magical person could be.

His body did not have the added, standard protections that a wizard's magic naturally supplied.

So he was susceptible to pedestrian, Muggle illnesses. Like heart disease. And the man was eighty-one years old, after all.

And his body had been through a lot physically and certainly mentally. It would be enough to send anyone into cardiac arrest.

Which it had.

Sighing, Harry refreshed his cooling charm on the washcloth and refolded it, placing it gently on that furrowed brow.

He closed his eyes.

It was completely his fault that Voldemort had suffered this. He had still not returned the man his magic, nor his memories, so at the very least Voldemort could have made informed decisions about his actions.

Like, maybe he would not have dug a twenty-foot hole in a few days so soon after the physical and magical assault he had endured daily while in Azkaban. The barrage of memory spells. The humiliation.

And his body was already depleted from a critical lack of sleep and proper nutrition. From fear and anxiety and desperation.

So yeah, it was hardly surprising that the man was falling apart.

And it was all Harry's fault.

Feeling hopeless, he opened his eyes and used the hand not holding the cloth to stroke tenderly down that sharp cheekbone.

"I'm so sorry," he whispered.

He wasn't a Healer. And yes, he knew a fair bit of medical spells because he so often needed to use them on himself, but at this point, he was beginning to get concerned.

Voldemort could have brain damage from a lack of oxygen. Harry had found him face-first in the mud. It was possible that he hadn't been able to breathe. And the Horcrux would keep him alive, but it did not protect his brain. It did not promise the condition of the vessel it guarded.

Harry'd had no luck so far in breaking through the man's mental barriers to check if the Obliviation protection spell had worked, but now was a good opportunity to try again. See if he could detect any injuries to the man's brain as well.

Focusing on that treasured face, he cast the spell and pushed, but he couldn't find a crack in those impenetrable defences. Releasing the washcloth, he used both hands to widen the man's eyelids with his fingers until he could see those weird snake eyes. They wouldn't focus on him, though. They stared to the side vacantly.

Harry took a breath, not wanting to give up.

"Legilimens!"

He hadn't really expected it to work, so when Voldemort gasped in a breath of air and pulled back, Harry did too. The spell had woken the man, but he hadn't been able to see anything.

... Could that mean that the Memorias Occultatum spell hadn't worked? Is that why he—

"Harry," that voice rasped, and all else was obliterated from his mind.

Voldemort.

Harry leaned in closer again, touching his hand to Voldemort's where it clutched his chest.

Those eyes were wide with fear, but they rapidly began lowering as the man obviously tried to hide his agitation.

"Hey," Harry said, rubbing those cold fingers. "You're safe, okay?" Voldemort's wild eyes focused on him intently. "You... I think you had a mild heart attack."

He watched the man process that information. His face smoothed out, his expression becoming stony.

"You're okay now, though," Harry assured him, hoping it was true. "You've been out for a few hours, but I think you'll be fine. Can you tell me your name?"

The man remained silent. Harry sighed.

"I'm just trying to see if you... if you have further memory loss. Or confusion."

Voldemort's eyes pinched at the corners and then the man shifted the blankets to stand. Harry grabbed his arm and stopped him.

"Wait," he insisted anxiously. "You just had a heart attack. You have to rest, or—"

"Unhand me," Voldemort growled roughly, his body tensing with obvious rage.

"No," Harry denied, and watched those shoulders haunch. "Just— stop being a stubborn idiot for a moment and accept your fucking reality! You could have died. Your body is weak and needs—"

"You think I am not aware of my reality, Harry?" the man interrupted dangerously.

Harry scoffed, incredulous.

"No! I don't think you bloody well are! You're so fucking keen to be invincible that you pretend that you are— but you're not! You can die and you will if you don't start taking care of yourself."

Voldemort's trembling hands reached out to break Harry's grip on his shirt, but the man just wasn't strong enough right now.

Harry held on, prioritising Voldemort's safety over his ego.

"Lay down," Harry instructed him, gently putting pressure on the man's chest.

"I will slaughter you," Voldemort hissed viciously.

Harry nodded.

"I know. But first, lay down and let your body rest. You can slaughter me later."

Voldemort held his gaze and Harry saw his fury warring with wild panic.

"Want me to tell you a story?" he asked suddenly, feeling like the man needed a distraction.

He wanted so badly to take his pain away.

Voldemort's eyes hardened.

"Humour me, okay?" Harry asked with a small smile. "I'm going to tell you a story about a man I once knew."

He had to be careful not to give away any pertinent information. But if there was one thing to captivate Lord Voldemort with, it was himself.

"He was the strongest man I'd ever met. Everyone said so. He had a group of... colleagues who would do anything for him. Powerful people. Politicians and influential figures. It was hard to resist his charisma."

Those red eyes were narrowed with suspicion. Harry couldn't resist rubbing his thumb along that boney chest, feeling the man's comforting pulse.

"They said he was going to become the youngest Minist— Prime Minister."

Fuck. Careful, there.

"He was hardworking and independent. Resourceful. Cunning. Ambitious. Proud."

Harry tried not to smirk as he listed the classic Slytherin traits, which of course, Voldemort had always possessed. And they didn't have to be negative. It's how you used those skills that mattered.

"But he... he was obsessed with finding the control he had never had as a kid. The power. He grew up nameless and insignificant, so he spent his life ensuring that he became the opposite."

And immortal. That above everything.

"And he succeeded. Everyone knew his name. But no amount of recognition was enough. There was no real finish line. He sought victory and battle because he didn't know how to stop. He didn't know how to be satisfied with what he had already achieved."

Merlin, when laid out like this, their similarities were startling. Uncomfortable.

"After a while," he went on, bringing his other hand up to boldly stroke the skin over the man's skull, "those who had admired him began to despise him. His friends defected, but the momentum couldn't be stopped. I don't think he was even sure what he was chasing anymore, having already claimed what he had originally sought."

He watched Voldemort's reactions to this story avidly, seeing how it affected him. The man understood the reckless gift that Harry was bestowing.

"He continued to fight because he had never learned what enough looked like. He'd gone his whole life with nothing, so when bounty presented itself, he glutted himself, taking everything."

Voldemort's pulse was thundering again. Maybe this hadn't been a wise choice. Time to wrap it up.

"And it made him sick," he said, his tone sad. Regretful. "It made him dangerous and he had to be stopped."

"You stopped me," Voldemort rasped, his eyes rapt onto his face.

Harry thought to deny it, but instead simply nodded once, holding that burning gaze.

"I did," he confessed. "You had needed to be stopped. But you have a chance now to finally learn what enough looks like. You can't have everything here. But you can have enough. We can be happy."

Voldemort's face blanked, his eyes losing their spark from moments ago.

Misery sank into the pit of Harry's stomach.

The man's eyes said it all. While he had been describing Voldemort's rise to power, even his pitfalls, the man had looked alive and eager. Yet when he'd suggested accepting this life, all that fire had vanished.

It wasn't in Voldemort's nature to be satisfied with enough.

That was the whole point. What Harry was proposing was impossible. Yet if he could just get the man's agreement with this, then maybe—

"Without my memories," that voice said lowly, achingly, "I will never rest, Harry. You may tell me pretty stories to assuage your guilt, but if there is a way to come back to myself, to whoever I once was, that is what I want."

Harry stared at him, feeling this last final hope shattering.

"I do not care about being happy," Voldemort said, his lip curling with distaste. "I must be free."

Harry inclined his head, understanding yet unwilling to accept defeat.

He knew he couldn't keep Voldemort and feel good about it, but his options were either to betray the man he loved or the entirety of the wizarding world.

"What if remembering were to put you in danger?" he whispered.

Voldemort held his gaze intensely.

"It is not danger that I fear."

Harry closed his eyes.

I know.

I know that.

Harry kept his hand there, over the man's beating heart, and scoured his paltry options. It was possible that Voldemort could be convinced to give up violence... yet he couldn't ask that, beg it of him, unless he returned the man's memories.

But even then, Voldemort would likely just lie to gain freedom.

Of course he would. He had lied countless times already.

Just like you. You'd promised not to leave him like this for long, and now you're trying to trick him into agreeing to something he was terrified of when he could make informed choices.

Harry stayed silent, agonising for ages until he felt the man's breathing even out.

He opened his eyes and saw that Voldemort had fallen asleep again. Harry released him and sighed.

He should rest, too, but a sudden feeling of claustrophobia overcame him and instead he went outside in the light rain for a walk.

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Voldemort opened his eyes.

Harry had finally left.

That asinine story had revealed numerous vital details.

Harry had been an enemy.

He had been responsible for Voldemort's fall, whatever that had looked like. Was he the reason that Voldemort was marooned without his memories?

Proximity to an adversary did not concern him. He could handle the man and if Harry ever took the offensive, then Voldemort would end him easily.

He stared out the window, his mind far away.

The image of himself before Harry had intervened, had been compelling. He had always coveted power and to hear that he had achieved so much of it was gratifying.

The allusion that he had claimed what he had sought was thrilling, though obviously false.

Because above all else, he desired to never fall victim to death.

Dying meant the termination of his goals. The abandonment of knowledge that he had yet to plumb. The victory of his enemies, whoever they were.

Death could not be fought nor defeated.

It meant his own, shameful defeat.

There was no possible way to achieve immortality, therefore he could not have claimed that prize.

He shifted on the bed, his chest feeling heavy and tight again.

A heart attack.

His body had betrayed him. A bullet to the chest he could understand, a stab, but to have his own organs failing him at such a critical juncture was unacceptable.

He would return to his tunnel as soon as he could stand. Until he could conceive of a better plan, he would persevere with this one. Harry would undoubtably attempt to prevent him, thus he would commit to continuing his endeavour while the man travelled to London each night.

When he was ready, he could disappear while alone on the island. He was not going to linger, waiting for Harry to help him.

He would do it himself. He needed no one to succeed.

And he would succeed.

No matter what Harry wanted to believe, this life was not enough for him. It never would be.