CHAPTER 41
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He had been wrong about Horcruxes.
These books had enlightened him as to what they were, and the snakes had told him that Voldemort had created many.
And one of them, one precious part of his soul, Harry Potter had murdered.
Voldemort seethed thinking about it.
The snakes had said that Harry had entered his Chamber by speaking Parseltongue and had found a young Tom Riddle there. A sliver of Voldemort's soul.
And then Harry had stabbed it with a fang from the beautiful Basilisk that he had just killed.
He had known that they were enemies, but this betrayal, this slaughter of a part of him that could not be repaired, was unforgivable.
Harry had not only worked against him, but had actively tried to kill him.
Voldemort was pacing the Chamber, his teeth bared, needing to confront the man, needing answers, though there were no words that Harry could say that would explain this injustice.
Harry had spent almost two hours with this Potions master. Voldemort was hungry and tired and furious.
What was the delay? Had Harry fallen asleep? Had there been an unforeseen complication? Had his work demanded that he return immediately for an emergency?
Were they fucking?
Voldemort growled, fingering his wand absently, wanting to wrap the digits around someone's throat.
Was Harry right now, laying on his back, begging this stranger, this master of potions, to take him? Did they have a history, like Draco and Harry did?
Was Harry capable of befriending someone without bending over for them?
Could it be that Voldemort was just another in a long line of—
The sound of Harry coming back interrupted his spiralling thoughts, though possessive fury was still burning inside of him.
He heard the man walking closer, almost near enough to be seen.
"You have much to answer for, Harry," Voldemort began darkly when he saw the man round the corner.
The rest of his speech, however, was lost as he took in Harry's condition.
His face was wet with tears. His clothes untidy and as he came closer, Voldemort caught a hint of...
That smelled like—
"It's here," Harry rasped, placing a corked bottle of light blue liquid onto a table by the chairs. "Just— give me a minute, and then I'll set up the ritual. You'll have your memories back in an hour."
My memories.
That was critical.
Yet so was why Harry looked like this. Why he smelled like—
Harry walked off, to the edge of the flooded floor where the deeper basin began. He reached down, cupping water in his hands, and splashed it on his face. His neck. Turning slightly away from Voldemort, he also undid the top buttons of his shirt and washed his chest.
Voldemort regarded him, aware that everything that had been vital and burning in his mind moments ago, were now obliterated as he watched Harry swish water around in his mouth, then spit it out, his expression disgusted.
The man stood, drying his face on his shirt sleeve and then coming back towards Voldemort.
"Alright," Harry said, reaching him at last, his gaze still lowered. "Let's get started."
He watched Harry collect some items from his pockets, tapping them with his wand and enlarging them with magic. The sight should be thrilling, yet he could not tear his attention away from Harry.
The man was bent over, arranging the strange objects into a circle, his face still dripping with water.
The sight perplexed him momentarily.
Tilting his head, Voldemort focused more intently on that wan face. Harry's eyes were bloodshot and the liquid on his skin was actually tears that were quietly falling.
Harry was silent in his suffering.
"What happened," Voldemort demanded.
The man closed his eyes, shaking his head.
"Nothing."
"Harry."
Those green eyes opened and there was anger there.
"I said nothing, Voldemort. Never mind me. Let's get you sorted, then you can leave."
Voldemort tilted his head.
"Leave."
Harry looked up at him, his eyes puffy and red.
"You'll be leaving once this is done, I'm sure."
Harry's tone was too shaky to be casual.
"I had intended to take you with me," Voldemort informed him.
He murdered a part of you.
"Yeah," Harry said darkly. "I doubt you'll still want to when you get your memories back."
He kept you severed. Condemned you to be apart from what is rightfully yours.
"Why do I not have magic?" Voldemort asked, needing to finally understand, though he knew that it had to be Harry's fault, Harry's actions—
"I brought you back," Harry whispered. "Gave you a body when you were like a ghost."
There was more. He would wait for it.
Harry looked down at his own hands, his swollen lips catching and holding Voldemort's attention.
"I took your magic," the man whispered, and Voldemort felt that in his chest, jagged and cruel. "I can give it back, but I'm so scared of what you'll do with it."
Like the tether. Like the isolation on the island, the memory erasure... Harry was manipulating him, trying to keep him under control.
Voldemort took a step away from him.
"You ask for my trust, Harry, and then betray me at every turn."
The man nodded, and Voldemort saw more tears fall from his swollen eyes.
"Prepare the ritual," Voldemort commanded, his voice even, despite the violent churning within him. "Notify me when my presence is required."
And he strode off, returning to the sanctuary of his books and his snakes, to cogitate.
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The ritual required focus and Harry was grateful for that.
He had brought Voldemort over when it was time, had performed each step in turn, and now the process was almost complete. The man had drank the potion. Harry had incanted the spells, watching as Voldemort's eyes grew black, his vertical pupils swelling until there was no visible red.
The book said that was normal.
They were almost at the part where Harry would unlock the memories that had been kept safe inside the man's mind.
One more spell, one more step and his Voldemort would return once more.
Not your Voldemort.
Not anymore.
Harry looked at the man, seated in the middle of the ritual circle, his eyes closed as if in meditation. He knew that Voldemort would be unaware of what was happening around him at the moment. He was almost unconscious, though it was just his brain and not his body.
The amount of trust that Voldemort had offered him to have allowed himself to become so vulnerable to Harry, was staggering. He had to have known that Harry would see him like this.
With his brain turned off.
Waiting.
Waiting for Harry to wake him up.
Harry let his gaze linger one last time on that smooth, pale face. The high cheekbones, the proud forehead. The long arc of his neck. The broad shoulders and graceful, long fingers. His lips. His soft eyelids.
Harry wanted to smell him one last time, kiss that mouth, be cradled in that strong embrace.
You're just torturing yourself. Just delaying the inevitable.
He closed his eyes briefly, feeling his heart stutter from the painful yearning.
But this was not his anymore.
Harry had done too much damage to be allowed the understanding Voldemort brought.
Get it done. Send him on his way and then you can fall apart.
Harry opened his eyes.
"Revertere ad me," he incanted, watching those black eyes widen, those long fingers clench.
Voldemort drew in a deep breath, closing his eyes and seemed to relax.
Harry stared, waiting, desperate to know if it had worked.
Minutes passed, and Voldemort remained still, but Harry could see his chest rising and falling slowly.
Did I do something wrong?
The book had said that after the last incantation, the person would wake up and be restored.
Why was Voldemort still unresponsive?
Harry cautiously stepped into the ritual circle. When nothing happened, he knelt down in front of that motionless form and touched the man's knee.
"Voldemort?"
Those red eyes immediately flashed open, latching onto his viciously.
Harry stumbled back, falling onto his arse. He watched as Lord Voldemort stood slowly, those snake-like eyes taking in everything from their location, to his wand just outside the circle, and to Harry, sprawled at his feet.
"What did Horace do to you?" Voldemort demanded in a deadly whisper.
Harry opened his mouth to answer, but no words came out.
Voldemort's expression was murderous.
Guess the ritual worked, then.
"The truth, Harry. You have lied to Lord Voldemort often enough."
Harry winced, taking that accusation deeply.
You have. You lied.
And now he had no idea how to reply.
If he told the truth, Voldemort would do something terrible, would storm through the corridors, killing anyone he saw, and make it impossible for Harry to protect him.
But he didn't want to lie to him anymore. Voldemort was right— he deserved honesty after all Harry had put him through.
Harry inched forward and watched those red eyes blaze with fury.
"You can't kill him," Harry said imploringly.
The way that tall body seemed to swell with rage told Harry that the man had found an answer to his question in Harry's response.
"Do not attempt to tell me what I can do, Harry Potter. Not after the almost fatal results of my trust in you."
That fucking hurt.
There was the hatred that he knew he would find. But he had to protect Slughorn first before he defended himself.
"Please. He gave me the potion. The rest doesn't—"
Voldemort picked up the goblet that Harry had used in the ritual and hurtled it at the stone wall.
The chair went next. Then the table.
Once the pieces settled and silence reined again, Voldemort turned to him, his expression feral, his teeth bared.
"I am not unfamiliar with Horace's negotiation style."
"No, he..."
But then Harry processed what Voldemort had said.
Did that mean... Had Voldemort—
"Wait for me here," Voldemort instructed, and then picked up his wand, turned, and strode towards the exit.
Harry ran after him, but Voldemort was somehow faster. He squeezed through an embellished rock beside the main door, made it move somehow, but before he left, Harry heard him say something in Parseltongue to the snakes entwining around the rock that he had shifted. The snakes on the main door also began to move and Harry lifted his wand to reopen the exit, but it would not budge.
"No!" he shouted, furious that Voldemort would lock him up like this.
He repeated the Parseltongue word for open that he had memorised again, but it had no effect.
Harry was furious.
He was an Auror— he had magic! These fucking snake decorations should not be able to impede him like this.
As he banged hard on the door, frustrated and terrified of what Voldemort would do, he realised why his magic wasn't working.
This was Salazar Slytherin's secret Chamber.
Although Voldemort had no magic, the school was built with his ancestor's might and would likely obey him, to some extent.
And then these fucking snakes. They'd probably be only too eager to listen to Voldemort, so glad see an heir back in this place.
Harry stopped hammering the doors.
This wasn't going to work.
Lord Voldemort, the heir of Slytherin, had commanded that Harry be kept locked up, so that was what would happen.
Except that Harry never fucking listened to Lord Voldemort.
He was born to thwart the man.
If he couldn't get out through the main door or the apparent alternate exit, he would just have to find another way.
He looked around, searching for a path.
The Chamber had flooded years ago. All that water had needed to come from somewhere. Maybe it was fed by the lake.
Taking off his glasses and pocketing them, he ran to the deepest point and dove into the freezing water, beginning to feel around.
He wouldn't stay put while Voldemort killed someone. No matter the cause.
Harry would save Slughorn, because that was his job. And Voldemort wasn't going to take that away from him.
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Walking through the halls of Hogwarts was a balm on the thrashing need for violence that was raging inside of him.
Rape.
Horace had raped Harry.
He quickened his pace, uncaring if this infernal cloak hid him completely or not as it billowed around him. Fortunately, Harry had left it in his Chamber days ago, and Voldemort had pocketed it again, knowing that it would be useful. Though, to have to rely on this rag when it was responsible for effectively hiding Harry from him during the final battle, was almost unendurable.
But not more so than the images he could not shake, born from Harry's telling omission.
The boy had come back from obtaining the potion, broken and diminished, his normally stubborn eyes red and swollen from tears, his body trembling. Lord Voldemort had noticed, but without his memories, he had not known the cause.
He clenched his hand around the magically-augmented emerald encrusted dagger. The Obliviated version of himself had blindly located it earlier that day. Voldemort had stashed it years prior, recognising the impressive magical item and wanting to keep it safe, yet he would happily lose it this evening to appease the violence burning inside of him that demanded blood payment.
He would not be killing the corpulent fiend slowly.
Though he was still without his rightful magic, Lord Voldemort possessed immense skill in the mind arts and knew how to penetrate one's thoughts without it. He just needed to guide his victim to reminisce on the event he desired, then he would be able to see it.
This would allow him to determine how much agony he would bleed from the cretin.
Arriving at the man's quarters, he did not bother knocking. All Slytherin residences were adorned with snakes and Voldemort quietly hissed to the guardian, then heard the lock click open.
"Who's there?" the coward anxiously demanded, and Voldemort entered.
Before this evening, Voldemort had harboured no ill will towards Horace, even after the man's treatment of him in their past and Horace's decision to fight against him during the Battle of Hogwarts. He knew that Horace was spineless and had sought sanctuary from Lord Voldemort.
Voldemort had long ago accepted that sexual favours were one of the currencies the man traded in, and Tom Riddle had not possessed much in his youth of value to negotiate with, save for a pretty face and a lack of parental protection.
Voldemort had understood that it was only natural to barter goods for services, and what he had received from Horace in recompense as an adolescent had been worth the distasteful acts he had endured.
But— Harry.
The man had dared to touch Harry and that was unforgivable.
It was clear that the boy did not see what had happened to him as transactional, but rather as a form of sexual violence.
He had been coerced into it.
Maybe even forced.
When Horace blundered into the room, he looked frightened, though not surprised.
He obviously knew that he would die tonight.
The man spoke not a word, his frightened gaze searching the semi-darkness, likely wondering from which direction the attack would come.
Lord Voldemort had no intention of hiding.
Slowly, he pulled off the cloak and dropped it onto the floor.
"Wait," Horace rasped, patting his bathrobe, probably searching for his wand.
Unable to locate it, the man ran as fast as his trunk-sized legs could move him back into his bedroom.
That would not do.
Voldemort followed.
When he crossed the threshold, he knew that a curse was incoming even before he heard it discharge from the wand. It was laughably simple to evade and Voldemort did so, moving further into the man's sanctuary.
Horace was cowering behind an armchair by the empty fireplace, only his trembling wand visible. Voldemort could hear his laboured breathing and it disgusted him.
Had Harry been required to listen to it while Horace had undressed him? While he fucked him?
That visual almost cracked the hilt of the blade he was holding.
Stalking closer, he shoved the man's shield aside, spilling him onto the carpet. Horace twisted to point his wand at him, but Voldemort effortlessly knocked his hand aside. Before the man could reposition, Voldemort brought his blade down and slashed through all four of those doughy fingers.
The wand clattered to the floor, along with the stubs of flesh and bone.
The coward screamed, trying to scramble away. Voldemort let him, enjoying the agonised sounds he made.
"Please!" the fool begged, as if it would save him. "What have I done? I haven't— I didn't—"
"You had a guest this evening, Horace," he interrupted calmly, bending down to collect the man's wand. "Lord Voldemort is here to find out how displeased he is to be with you."
"I gave him the potion!" Horace insisted, still scrambling away, his feet sliding on the blood-soaked floor as he struggled for purchase. "I helped! I did what I knew you would need!"
Voldemort hummed.
"Let us talk about what exactly you did, then. It is not your custom to assist the needy out of philanthropic kindness. Therefore, you demanded something in return for your help, as you phrased it. What was your price?"
He could see Horace consider his response and that was the moment he had been waiting for.
Concentrating, he stared into those distracted eyes and saw what the man was seeing.
Lily Potter.
Standing by a worktable, bare-chested and obviously uncomfortable.
Lily Potter, enduring Horace's groping fingers on her breasts as he stirred a potion.
Harry's mother, kneeling at Horace's feet.
Kneeling.
Assuming the position that Lord Voldemort demanded from the boy.
Lily Potter's fumbling fingers delving under that overflowing girth as she reached for Horace's trouser latch.
Thick, grey liquid being drained by feminine lips.
Harry's mother— Harry— closing his eyes and taking a filthy cock deep into his throat.
Voldemort pulled free of those repulsive thoughts with a shriek of fury.
This man would suffer. Lord Voldemort would take his time.
Horace was cowering from him, begging for his worthless life. He could not know that Voldemort had seen his memories. This reaction must have been in response to his palpable fury.
Those images would not dissipate.
Harry, forced to drink Polyjuice Potion and become the mother he had never really known.
Harry, dragged forward with undeserving fingers fisting his red hair, towards that repulsive cock.
Harry, stumbling into Voldemort's Chamber, broken and lost, and presenting him with a bottle of potion that he had worked so very hard to obtain.
Voldemort crouched down, refusing to kneel for this man, even as he ended him.
"You should be aware," Voldemort whispered, reaching down and tracing the man's wand gently across that sweating face, "that Lord Voldemort does not require Harry's confession to know what you did to the boy."
"I didn't!" the beast denied. "Please, have pity on an old man. I didn't touch him!"
Voldemort held the man's wand with both of his hands and then paused, letting the cretin see what was to come.
"Liar."
He snapped it, revelling in the horrified gasp that earned him.
As he stared down at the trembling man, he was aware that time was scarce.
Harry was tenacious. Powerful. He would not be held in that Chamber for long. And he would not approve of what Voldemort intended to do.
But Voldemort could not burn those images from his mind.
Harry belonged to him.
No matter that the boy still needed to atone for his lack of action, Voldemort would not allow this pestilent worm of a man to live after what he had done to Harry.
He looked down at the fingers on the floor, then to the bleeding stubs remaining on that putrid limb.
He suddenly knew what he wanted.
"You should have known better than to touch what was not yours," he whispered, picking up the vicious blade that he had left on the carpet.
He swiped it down, effortlessly taking off the remaining fingers on the man's other hand. Horace screamed and began to try to stand, dragging his elbows across the floor to give him purchase.
Leisurely, Voldemort slashed through one of the man's legs, right at the knee, where Harry had been forced to hang on as Horace had fucked his mouth. When the man fell heavily back to the ground, Voldemort took his other leg.
He would remove every unworthy part of Horace that had dared to touch Harry.
The sounds the man was making— choking, gurgling, keening cries that were beyond words now, beyond negotiations or denials.
It was agony at its purest form.
The man would not stay conscious for much longer. Voldemort would have to hurry. He wanted Horace to fully grasp the error of his ways.
He reached down for the man's trouser latch and smiled at the way that gasping body flinched back, away from him. Uncaring, he located the man's flaccid penis and pulled it out.
"No—"
Ah, coherent language. It would seem Lord Voldemort is being too kind.
"This repulsive appendage," Voldemort said, wrapping his hands indelicately around the man's cock— holding it casually to remind the man how very vulnerable he was, "is responsible for the misery of many boys at Hogwarts, is it not?"
He stroked the wrinkled, limp stump and Horace was frozen, staring at Voldemort with wide, distressed eyes.
Without warning, Voldemort swung his blade down and removed the man's soft flesh in one fell swoop. Horace shrieked.
Voldemort held out the detached cock in his hand, showing it to the man.
Those blue eyes grew dangerously glassy and began to blink heavily.
"Not yet," Voldemort whispered, quickly standing and going into the man's storeroom, where he found the potion he was after.
Uncorking the bottle, he poured the contents into Horace's lax mouth and immediately, the man was shocked awake, his pupils small and hyper-focused.
"Much better," Voldemort observed. "I want you to go into death completely aware and begging Lord Voldemort for the mercy that you refused to offer Harry."
"I'm sorry!" the man cried, his fingerless hands putting pressure on the wound at his groin. That mountain of skin was bathed in tacky, red blood that poured from his various amputations. "Save me, Tom, and I will—"
Voldemort stabbed the blade down into the gaping, raw wound on the man's leg, twisting the blade against the exposed bone until Horace began to shake.
"You dare to utter that name to Lord Voldemort?" he seethed, pulling out the weapon and watching that whole body quake from hypovolemic shock.
Putting his knife down at last, Voldemort leaned over the body that was poised so deftly on the precipice of death. It was minutes away, maybe less.
But Voldemort was not yet finished.
"I have one last reparation to receive," he said, pulling up his sleeves so as not to soil them. "Your eyes. They observed things that did not belong to them."
"No—" the expiring man denied in a huff of air.
Voldemort waited until that horrified gaze met his and then dug his fingers into the sockets, reaching behind the eyeball for the optic nerve. He scooped out those hot, palm-sized balls, ripping them free and holding them in his fist. He squeezed them tightly until they burst.
The enjoyable part about this potion was that there was no smooth transition from alert, to unconscious, to dead. Instead, the brain was forced to stay present and aware right up until the very last moment. There was no mercy.
But death could not be forestalled for long— not in Horace's case, at least. The man's massive girth gave one final shudder and then stilled.
Pleased, Voldemort glanced away to reflect with satisfaction on his victory. He was only granted perhaps a minute to muse, however, before the door burst open and Harry Potter charged into the room.