Disclaimer: I do not own this, or any of the characters. And even though I do, in fact, own these books, I do not own the rights to any of them.
A/N: I'm sorry for the long absence (: After I did finally decide to continue the story, I came across a difficult writers block. I managed to power through it, but I feel as though this is one of the chapters I will go back and re write, perhaps breaking it up into two slightly smaller chapters after adding more detail? I don't know, I can't bring anything else to the surface to add in right now.
Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoy (: Reviews and critiques are greatly appreciated, though the most important part is that you enjoy reading it.
By the way, there is going to be a bit of gore in this chapter, though it didn't turn out as gore-y (is that a word?) as I initially thought it would.
Hope you enjoy!
"I assume you know these Muggles, Prince," just the sound of her voice set his teeth on edge. The woman walked up behind him and put a hand on his shoulder, peering over his head at the Muggles. He fought hard not to pull away and scowl at her.
"Of course I know them. It's my Aunt, Uncle, and cousin." He looked up at her, away from the Muggles that were cowering in fear from them. "They're the ones who raised me."
Bellatrix quirked an eyebrow at him. "Raised you? That's what you call it? I treat my house elves better than they treated you." He pressed his lips together and glanced over at Tom who was glaring down at the Muggles.
Dudley cowered his overgrown bully body into his mother, trembling from head to toe, as those he had tortured his entire life had done everytime he raised a fist. Vernon, who made a habit of turning puce whenever he looked at Harry, was an odd green color in the face, shaking in fear and completely silent for once in his dull life. Petunia had her lips pressed together over her horselike teeth, her eyes wide and bulging, trying her best to protect her Duddums in the position she was in.
Harry scowled at them, memories flooding back from childhood as he looked at the three. Memories of the verbal and physical abuse he suffered at their hands rushed around in his head, bouncing between his temples and he bit his lip to keep from wincing at the feeling of the broken bones and bruises he had received from them. The psuedo feeling of hunger gnawed at his gut, the remnant of going days upon days with nothing but a few morsels of food. He looked away, and Bella questioned him once more. "Now, what did you call what they did to you?"
"Abuse. They abused me, treated me worse than the most worthless house elf in the world." His shoulders rolled back and his chin raised, his fingers curling around his wand, and his words became directed at the Muggles that had deprived him of any sort of childhood. "You treated me like scum!" He pointed at them, his voice raising as anger boiled in his chest. "I did everything for you! I cooked and cleaned for you, from the time I could walk! I never got any thanks, any pat on the back!
"No! The only sort of contact I ever got from your worthless sacks of flab and skin was a strike across the face, or wherever you could land a blow!" he scowled at them, at the memory of bruise after bruise, of doctors visits, one after another with thinly concealed accusations and outright lies, where no one ever helped him! "I HATE YOU!" His magic exploded around him, and "Crucio!" burst from his lips before he knew what he was saying. A jet of red light erupted from the tip of his wand and hit Dudley, bringing the blubbering mass of a boy into the fetal position, screams echoing around the room from him.
"I hate you, Dudley, for the love that your parents gave you, that my parents never had the chance to give me, and that yours refused me. It was more than enough, all of the doting love they gave you, you worthless blob of a meaningless Muggle." He spoke over the screams of his cousin's parents, practically yelling at him. "You beat me up and called me names! I only wanted to be your bloody friend! No, instead, I was your bloody punching bag!"
At a particularly loud scream of "Stop it now, boy!" from Vernon he turned the Crucio on him instead.
"And you. Shut your bloody mouth, you stupid bafoon." He scowled at him, his hatred burning in his eyes. "I hate you. For the blows you landed on me my entire life, for the things you deprived me of. I detest you for your shoving me into that little cupboard for most of my life, then locking me into Dudley's second bedroom for the rest of it. I loathe you for your sister, and how you let her treat me, and how you made me treat her!" He screamed over the man's screams, "I hate you for the way you always called me a freak! I'm not a freak! I'm a wizard! I'm better than any bloody Muggle that ever existed!"
He dropped his wand, and the Crucio broke, leaving Vernon to weep to himself on the floor. Slowly, Harry turned to Petunia, his upper lip curling in disgust. "And you. You, my mother's sister. I hate you more than the other two combined." She flinched, drawing in on herself.
"H-Harry-" she tried, but he cut her off, his emerald eyes glowing with anger.
"Don't you dare cut me off, woman!" He raised his wand threateningly, and she flinched, but he muttered no incantation. "How could you let them do that to me? How could you encourage it? Join in, even?" He shook his head, disgusted. "My mother loved you. Loved you more than I'm sure you could ever grasp with your tiny little mind and it's puny mental capabilities. And yet... you let such atrocious thing happen to her son? Under your own roof? Even you, Petunia, my mother Lily's sister, called me a freak of nature. I wonder how she feels about you now, wherever she is.
"Actually, my mother probably forgives you. Because my mother, from what I gather, was that amazing and loving of a woman. She could probably forgive you for the atrocities that you have committed unto me." He saw the woman lick her lips and he shook his own head. "I don't think my father would. And, most unfortunately for you, everyone always says I'm just. Like. Him."
He let the words sit in the air for a minute and continued, "And I have always believed in the 'Golden Rule': Do unto others as you would have them do onto you. So, in light of that, and in light of all of those years I took the beating you allowed, you are going to receive those same beatings." He pointed his wand at the two males, and the bonding fell free from around them. They glanced at each other frightened, and he said in a strong voice, "Imperio."
The two leapt to their feet, their eyes dull and lifeless, their entire beings controlled by the wand in Harry's hand. "You are going to suffer as I have suffered for my entire 16 years of my life, by the same hands I suffered by." Her eyes widened in fear and she began to shake her head, opening her mouth to plead. "Beat her." The command was to the male Dursleys, and they descended upon Petunia and began to beat her as though their lives depended on it.
"Why couldn't you just love me, Aunt Petunia? That is all I wanted. All I wanted was your love, your approval of anything in my life. I tried everything. Yet I got nothing. All I wanted was the love that my mother didn't get my lifetime to give to me. But in the one year I lived with her, I received more love than I think you contain in your entire being." His voice was softer now, but he didn't take his eyes off of the scene before him, reveling in the pain that was being inflicted upon the woman before him.
Voldemort made his way over to Bellatrix, who was watching the scene with insane pleasure sparkling in her eyes. Sensing him beside her she said in a low voice, "Why, my Lord, our Prince is a natural!"
"That he is indeed." He had not been able to take his eyes off of the boy; he didn't know what was more pleasing to the eyes: his serpent, or the screaming Muggles. "We just needed to know the angle to go at to get him to realize this part of himself."
"Yes, well, my Lord knows our Prince better than anyone else. I never would have thought of it, of bringing them here for him." She glanced up at him discreetly.
"It was necessary. Anything for the Prince." He had not looked down at her, his eyes trained on the slim form in front of him.
"Mhm." She did not dare say anymore, for fear she would join the number of screaming humans in that room, merely thought to herself.
Harry stood there until the men had beat his aunt to death, then lifted the curse, allowing the Muggles to have control of their own bodies again. At once Dudley fell to his knees, exhausted and panting, sobbing uncontrollably. Vernon stared at his dead wife for a full minute, unable to comprehend what he had just done. Then he turned on Harry, beginning towards him, "You bloody freak! How dare you-"
He was cut off again when Harry raised his hand, scowling deeply. "And here I thought you had learned your lesson. I guess killing your wife wasn't enough for you to understand that you will not ever hurt me again. I suppose you are just going to have to kill your son as well." Dudley and Vernon's eyes widened, but before the man could say anything else, Harry raised his wand and cast the Imperius Curse once more on him. This time, he made him turn around and start after his son, who began blubbering and pleading for his dad to stop, his fat rolls jiggling around him. The sight was laughable, and Harry tilted his head back and let loose a loud snicker.
When his father didn't stop, he turned his pleading to Harry. "Harry! Harry, please! Please stop this!"
The teen scowled. "Langlock," he said, and the blubbering boy's voice was cut off by his tongue being glued to the roof of his mouth. He was still able to scream, as his father slowly beat him to death, so the show was still enjoyable, but Harry didn't have to deal with the whale trying to talk to him.
When Dudley finally fell dead, the sun had set and Harry was far past tired. The curse lifted, Vernon collapsed to the floor, bawling his eyes out and clutching his wife and son's dead bodies. Harry reached up and rubbed at his eyes, yawning and stretching his aching body. That lesson had distracted him from the pain in his backside, but stretching to relieve the stiffness in his back reminded him again in the form of a knife, shooting up his back. He winced, relaxing again and rubbing his lower back, yawning again. "God, that was exhausting." He turned to leave, only to be stopped by Vernon's voice,
"Well, I suppose you're just going to kill me now too, right?"
Harry paused and looked over his shoulder with a sickly sweet smile. "Now, where would be the fun that? No, you're going to spend the night in here, with your dead family while I go to bed with Tom. Tomorrow, I might just kill you, if I'm feeling merciful." He made to leave again, only to once more be stopped by the man's voice,
"You'll always be a freak! No matter what you do! This just proves it!"
"Crucio."
Screaming filled the almost empty room for five minutes, and when Harry released the spell, he walked out of the door, leaving his uncle with the words, "Don't call me a freak."
Tom looked at the sobbing mass of a man and his dead beloveds for a second more, then followed his own beloved out of the room, and down the hall he was walking. Chuckling loud enough to get the teen's attention, he walked up beside him and timed his steps perfectly with him. Emerald eyes glanced up at him then looked away, still sparkling in mischief from what he had done. "So... tell me how it felt."
Harry sucked in a deep breath through his nose and let it all out in his response to the man's question, "It felt... amazing!" He shifted over to their language without realizing it, "Tom, the power that I held over them, the power that I possessed! I... I didn't know I possessed such a power! This is unlike anything I've ever done before Tom! Oh Tom..." He tilted his head back and closed his eyes, remembering the feeling and basking in it. "It was... incredible." The two males looked at each other, the younger speaking with such intensity that they stopped walking, so he could properly convey the feeling.
"I... I had complete control. Over them!" The teen clenched his hands into fists in front of him, a blissful smile on his face, "The fools that controlled my entire life, were instead pigs at my feet! Oh Tom, the feel of their lives seeping from their body... It was unlike anything I've ever felt before. Better than sex even!" Tom quirked an eyebrow and Harry reevaluated, chuckling, "Alright, almost better than sex." He smiled up at him, and Tom found that his serpent looked even better when he held that sparkle of a killer in his eyes.
The man felt the burn of arousal race up his spine from his groin, and torch the back of his throat, leaving him aching for his serpent, the same way a man dying of thirst ached for water. He reached forward and caught Harry's chin, jerking his chin up and crashing their lips together. Giving a light moan, he wrapped his arms around the taller man, relaxing into the possessive, caring grasp. "Ah..." He pulled him closer, wishing for there not to be even a centimeter between the two of them. "Tom?" he questioned, in that soft, almost innocent tone of his.
"Yes?" the man chuckled, wondering how the small teen could be so innocent after all he had done, after killing his cousin and aunt, leaving his uncle to spend the night in the room with their dead bodies as they rotted, the skin expanding, stretching, and eventually bursting from the decomposing liquids and flesh. The smell would have to be stomach wrenching, and the sight... Knowing that he had killed them... that was going to be terrible for that Muggle.
Served him right, after what that pig had done to his little serpent.
A soft voice in his ear brought him back to the teen in the hallway of his manor, and he was again reminded of the feel of the boy's thin arms around his neck, his small body pressed to his own. He took a deep inhale of the boy's sweet scent that reminded him of the innocence he never believed he ever possessed. His innocence must have died in him when he was born from that whore, or when he was conceived from the seed of that disgusting muggle. Or, perhaps, he had never been blessed with any innocence at all.
That same innocence he believed that he was overlooked when it was being dealt out shone in the teen's voice when he hesitantly, teeth digging into his bottom lip, said, "Make me yours?"
Though he strained in his pants at the thought, a chuckled left his lips with the words, "I did that a long time ago, my Serpent, if you remember correctly."
After a weak, light chuckle, the reply came, "Yes. Yes, I remember..." The teen was quiet a moment as he licked his lips, his voice almost quivering when he continued, "Do it again?"
'I may not believe in God, but if such a deity exists, then he must love me.' He gave himself a small smirk, chuckling under his breath at his next thought, 'Or perhaps it is the deity's counterpart, the Devil that is in such favor of me, for the souls that are delivered to him by my doing.' The man thought to himself with slight glee.
"With pleasure, little one." He crashed their lips together, and Harry swore that he had wings, so light he felt on his feet. A relieved sigh left his lips and he pulled the man closer, allowing his soul to swell in response to the magic swirling around them. Feelings rushed around his insides, making him light headed and dizzy, the man's natural musk mixing with the odor of death that clung to him, making a deadly, toxic perfume that assaulted his senses and left him breathless. He wasn't sure of anything at that moment, only aware of that man whose arms were around him and the blood that was splattered across his cheeks, steadily burning hotter on his alabaster face.
Only one thought was racing in his head, consuming his entire body, fueling the fire that started on his cheek then raged his entire system, until he was sure that his fire had grown and that he had engulfed his Tom as well, and he was burning alongside him. His skin was aflame, his body reduced to ashes with Tom's, delivered straight to the gates of hell, and condemned to walk the earth together for all eternity. That one thought lifted his spirit and sent him soaring, blinded with happiness and overcome with a sense of euphoria, while the flames still burned his skin.
'I love you.'
Thoroughly exhausted, the boy relaxed fully and completely upon the bed, wrapped in the arms of the man who saved him from his previous life, and blessed him with another. He was no longer The-Boy-Who-Lived or the 'Savior' or the Goldenboy. He didn't have to try and force himself to be the face of the Light, to agree to be their scapegoat, and the one who saved them from the 'wrongdoings' of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. No, instead, he got to lounge in the arms of Tom, and do whatever he wished. He wasn't being forced to be anything or anyone. He was now no more than Harry, and when he wanted to be, he was the Prince.
Turning his head, he nuzzled into Tom's strong chest and bit his tongue, tempted to question what he had been wondering for the months he had been conversing with Tom, and even more so now that he had been taken away by the man. Instead of voicing his worries aloud, however, he turned his head away, biting at his lip and closing his eyes. No, it would just bring trouble. Best leave things how they were, and not question anything.
A shudder ran down his spine at the sudden introduction of Tom's fingers through his hair, and he blinked his still hazy emerald orbs up at him, to find a crimson gaze upon him, a quirked eyebrow rested above. Cheeks darkening, he looked away, wondering just how much Tom knew of what he was thinking. A sigh brought his gaze back up to the man, and found that his eyes had softened, as though he knew. "Speak your mind, my little one. Do not hold your tongue to me, not now, not ever. Your free wit and silver tongue are one of the many things that entrance me about you."
Gathering a bit of courage from his remarks, Harry rested his head on his chest, closing his eyes. Though he was (now) brave enough to ask, he couldn't find it in himself to look at him while doing so. "Tom... why me? Why now?" He was silent a moment, but not waiting for Tom to speak, simply trying to get his thoughts together on what to ask, and how to word it. "I was your worst enemy. I was –am the only thing that could destroy you. Are you simply using me, twisting my mind so that I'll not fight against you, so that you'll win in this war that shouldn't even be fought?"
The man was silent so long that Harry believed it true, and began to push away from him, tears of anger budding in his eyes. Not anger at the man for tricking him, but tears of anger at himself for falling for it, for believing any word that came out of the Dark Lord's mouth. How could he have been so blind, as to not realize that the man was simply using him, trying to separate him from his friends and what was left of his family. Not only to separate, but (his stomach rolled at the thought) make him kill them as well. He had forced him to kill his Aunt and cousin, then corrupted him enough to believe that to be fine, and then to leave his Uncle to suffer with the dead bodies!
Putting his hands against the man's chest, he made to shove away, only to be secured there by a strong arm around him. "Stop it! Let me go!" He fought against him, shoving with all his might. "Let me go! Monster!" He began to scream obscenities at him, trying with everything in his being to get away from the man that had gone from being his best friend and greatest ally to nothing more than a backstabbing, cheating foe. "Get your hands off of me!"
"Harry!" He ignored his name, clenching his eyes tight as he fought harder. "Harry!" Anger filled him, clouding his thoughts so that he could barely hear anything the man was saying.
Suddenly he was flipped onto his back, his hands pinned to the mattress by Voldemort's grip on his wrists, his legs pinned down by the man's knees upon them. "Would you just listen to me?" He hissed at him, in a slightly annoyed tone. Blinking at the tone, Harry regarded him out the corner of his eye, scowling deeply and trying his damnest not to cry. "Well? Are you going to listen to me?"
The teen looked away from him stubbornly, convinced that he had allowed himself to be tricked for all that time, and already wondering how on earth he could explain it to Dumbledore and to his friends, if he could even be forgiven for the sins he had committed. He doubted it. After all, who would ever forgive him for killing the only family he had left?
"Have I ever lied to you, Harry?" The question brought him up short, and he blinked a few times while thinking about it. "Really, truly, Harry, think about it. Have I ever lied to you?" He waited for a response, and Harry scowled up at him.
"Well, just because I don't know of you lying to me doesn't mean you haven't lied to me. That just means you're too good of a liar to get caught." His scowl deepened, because he was sure the man was lying right then.
Heaving a deep sigh, Voldemort pressed his lips together, his teeth gritting a little. "You are so very dense at times, you know that, surely?" The teen made to reply but was cut off, "No, Harry. I have never lied to you, nor will I ever lie to you. That is something you need to grasp and understand about me. I don't like lying. Especially not to you, you who have been lied to your entire life. I refuse to do to you what that old coot did."
Tears budding in his eyes again, but Harry remained strong. "Then why the bloody hell did you take me, then? Why all of the sudden, after hunting after me to kill me for years upon end, did you decide that you didn't want to kill me anymore?" His eyebrows upturned, and the Dark Lord sighed.
"Because. You are mine." The boy couldn't deny the shudder that ran down his spine. "It is as simple as that."
His eyebrows knitted further, and he shook his head, "No, Tom, it isn't 'as simple as that'. Explain it to me! Why the sudden bloody change of heart? How am I yours?" He looked up at him exasperatedly. "Explain this to me!"
The man gave a small sigh, closing his eyes. "Why don't you just trust me when I say it? Just take my word for it."
Emerald eyes darkened, and he scowled deeper. "No. Explain it to me, or let me go so I can leave." The Dark Lord opened his mouth to argue, and Harry's eyes narrowed at a thought crossing his mind, "Or are you going to kill me instead?"
The Dark Lord's eyes widened at the conclusion he reached, and shook his head at the boy. "You are so bloody stubborn. I would never kill you, Harry. Never." The boy quirked an eyebrow, clearly questioning the declaration. "Sometimes your ignorance worries me, little one."
"Don't call me that. And answer my damned question."
"Fine." He scowled down at the boy scowling up at him. "You're mine because I decree it so. You're mine because they don't deserve you, and they will do nothing more than use and abuse you. You're mine because you are the only one that has ever survived me. You are my only equal in this world. You have power that no one else can ever even dream of having, if only you'll tap into it." Harry's eyebrows were knitting; none of these seemed a good enough reason for the sudden 180 in attitude.
"You were made for me, Harry. You-"
"No." The man blinked, surprised at the interruption. "Why did you really change your mind. What did you learn that made you suddenly decide to take me from them? What makes me so different than the rest of the fucking world?" His eyebrows knitted, looking up at him for answers to questions that he wasn't sure he wanted answered, but came from his mouth anyway.
Closing his eyes, the man looked away. He knew that his serpent was going to take this the wrong way, that he was going to overreact. "What makes you different from everyone else?" The boy nodded, staring deep into his crimson eyes. "When I attempted to kill you, all those years ago, and I failed to do so," he looked away, eyes closing at the words he was being forced to speak, "a bond was created between us, that gave you some of my powers, and irreversibly connected you to me. That is how you are able to speak Parseltongue." The teen opened his mouth to question him, and he quickly said, "I don't know everything else it has done to you, what else there is."
Harry was silent a full minute, absorbing everything that he had said. Taking a few deeps breaths, he suddenly began to fight violently against the man's grip on his wrists. "Let me go! Let go of me, now!" When the man's grip on him did not lessen, he started screaming, his eyes clenching shut as he rocked back and forth, trying to get away from him. When he wasn't released, he threw his head back, screaming loudly, and his magic burst out of his body in a flash of green, shoving the man off of him and flinging him across the room. Frantic and distraught, he made to flee the room, overcome by the sudden news and the realization that Voldemort had just been using him, like the rest of the people in his life.
The breath was knocked out of him when he was snagged by around is throat and slammed up against the wall, pinned there by a forearm against his collarbones. His hands clutched at the arm, trying to force it away. "Listen to me, Harry Potter." The teen ignored the man, wiggling and whining. "I said LISTEN!" The power in his voice made Harry pause, his watery green eyes looking up at the man, the scowl etching deeply into his features to hide the pain he felt. Tom's voice held its deadly tone as he continued to speak, though he spoke softly. "Listen to the words I speak, for I speak but of the truth. Understand this, Harry, or be lost to me forever: I will never lie to you.." Emerald eyes narrowed in defiance, in disbelief at the words, and crimson orbs narrowed as well.
"I'll not speak another word attempting to convince you to listen to me, and believe what I say. I am going to explain this to you now, Harry. Do you recall a prophecy, foretold by Sybill Trelawney?" Here he paused for an answer.
"Of course I remember," he spat the words at him, his eyes still narrowed, sure that he was being hoodwinked. "Professor Dumbledore told me all about it! 'Neither can live while the other survives'. This only proves that you're trying to kill me!" Once again, he returned his energy to escaping, and Voldemort's red magic burst around them, pushing down on the young boy and subduing him. Gasping, Harry's eyes flew wide in awe up at the man, and he had no choice but to listen to every word falling from his lips.
"No, Harry, that is where you are wrong. Yes, I have tried to kill you. I have nearly succeeded more than once. I would have continued to kill you, if not for a realization that came to me in a dream, a dream that was shared with me via a link, a link between you and I, that I, myself, created all those many years ago.
"Had I not reacted as I had to the Prophecy, it never would have come true. I could have brushed it aside, and forgotten it, as many others are forgotten in the Hall of Prophecy. A wiser man than I could have seen what I did not, and ignored what should have been ignored. However, I did not, and I reacted as was Prophecized, and marked you as he who would share the power I held. As my equal, Harry, I marked you, but being too blind to understand, I did not realize what this was, what it meant." Harry's eyebrows were knitted, though he no longer fought; he was far too interested in what Tom was saying, praying that what he said was true, while all the while hoping that the man spoke of nothing but lies.
"Once I realized that it was I, myself, who had marked the Prophecy as true, then I knew that I could mark it as false as well. Yes, I had given you power that no other wizard beside myself had ever experienced, and yet you had more. You had that mother's love in you, that Gryffindor pride. In you rested that which had never existed before, the strength and power of a Gryffindor, yet the perseverance and the sly abilities of a Slytherin. You had so many qualities that I admire, and I seek out in my expedition, my mission in life. I realized that you, who I had been trying to destroy, was essentially, what I wanted.
"This was a year ago, that I came to this realization. Instantly, I decided that I was not to kill you, that I wasn't going to step forward to make the Prophecy true, I had done my part. I knew that you had not the drive to seek me out and destroy me, not alone. The Prophecy would fall to the masses in the Hall of Prophecy, among the others that were not filled. At this, I rejoiced. You, a great creature of your own right, would not have to die, and would grow and reproduce, living on to fill this world with more wizard children, born of good breed." At this, he shook his head, his lips pressed together.
"Alas, no sooner had I rejoiced than I find myself confronted with another realization, one bittersweet and unsoothing to the soul. You would not grow to live out your life, and reproduce as would a normal wizard. You would be pushed, and poked, and prodded by those around you, by your peers, into becoming and standing for what they wanted you to. They would push you to destroy me, even once I had resolved not to kill you. They would not rest until you had overcome me, or had fallen in the process. This was something I simply would not tolerate," he shook his head, his eyes gathering steel.
"I began to peer through your eyes, and listen through your ears at what they said and did, at what they thought. Those who I had in Hogwarts who were capable of it, I had peer into others thoughts, and those who were not I had listen for all ill intent. None of my followers knew what I was planning, though. Not one of them knew that I was going to take you, away from those that merely wished to use and abuse you, to send you back summer after summer to a house that sent you back more broken every year. You couldn't handle another year; that I could see in your eyes. You would fall into such disrepair you could never be fixed, and I simply could not sit back and allow that to happen, not when I saw so much of myself in you."
The declaration shocked the teen, and he blinked rapidly. "You see yourself in me?"
The man dipped his head deeply in assurance. "More so than you could ever imagine, little one. You came from a broken and unloving home as I, a halfbreed as well. Hogwarts was the only true home you had ever come to love, though you turned out far more Gryffindor than I." At this he gave a light chuckle. "I see the determination, and the youthful strength that I held at you age. You needed someone that wasn't going to steer you wrong, who wasn't going to use you as all of the others had done, as Dumbledore had done. I knew this, and I knew I had to act quickly, or you would forever be lost to the so called 'Light'."
Harry was torn and confused, unsure of what to believe and what to hold as lies. Nothing seemed untrue, nothing seemed to ring out as a lie.
"Light does not always equal good, just as Dark does not always equal evil. That you have learned for yourself, Harry." He looked up at him with knitted eyebrows, and obviously confused eyes. "You hold in you ever single quality I could ever want in one that would rule beside me, one who would share the responsibilities of the world. I needed someone who was not impeded by a double life, nor too busy stumbling over his feet to impress his Lord. I needed someone fresh, who would not hold his tongue to me, and would see what I did not. I needed him physically and mentally strong, with magical capabilities that would match mine in battle." The magic receded minutely, allowing harry control of his body again, though the boy did not realize.
"You, Harry Potter, are what I need. Not for what you could be, not for what I could make you. I don't need you to be my Savior, for I am more than capable of handling myself. I need you, for nothing more and nothing less than you, for anything and everything that is included in such." Harry's breath caught in his throat, and he worried his bottom lip. The man's intense gaze, the words he spoke, his magic swirling around him... it was all too much.
"Let me go," his voice was soft, but not resigned, though exasperated. Voldemort's grip loosened on his wrists, then slacked completely as he sat back on his haunches. "I... I don't know, T-Voldemort. I just don't. Give me time to sort this out, alright?" The man's lips thinned into a bare line, and the teen gave a light scowl. "I need time to think, and space to do so." Sliding off of the bed, he snagged the Dark Lord's robe and slipped on a pair of his own boxers, his feet pressing into a pair of slippers that had initials that did not belong to him upon them. Without giving a backwards glance, he quickly left the word, every words that the man had spoken bouncing around in his head.
A/N: I hope you enjoyed! (: Review, please!