Tides of Time
By Michael Weyer
Deal with the Devil
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Harry swallowed in fear as Voldemort stood before him. The man's wand was held down and a sneer twisted on his face. "Oh, don't soil yourself, Potter. If I wanted to kill you, you'd be lying beside your friend here." He nodded to the body of Jack Harkness lying on the ground.
Harry managed to bury his fear and anger at the man's murder to speak. "Then…what do you want?"
"To talk, Potter," Voldemort said. "I think you and I-------"
Without warning, Jack let out a loud gasp and sat right up. He rubbed at his chest and blinked, seemingly shaken but very much alive. "Well…that was a new one," he said in a nonchalant voice.
Harry and Voldemort both stared at him with matching dumbfounded expressions, unable to blink. Voldemort looked at Harry with an open-mouthed scowl but the teen just shrugged right back as if saying "don't look at me, I don't get it either." Voldemort held up his wand to examine it and even gave it a little shake.
Jack winced as he managed to get back to his feet. "Damn…magic doesn't do it either," he muttered to himself. He cracked his neck to either side as he faced the two. "Sorry, I miss anything?"
"How…how…" Harry whispered. "You….you were dead!"
"That was a Killing Curse," Voldemort hissed. "No one…" He paused to glance at Harry. "Almost no one can survive that."
Jack shrugged. "Yeah well…I'm not most people."
"You…you can't die?" Harry asked.
"No, I can die," Jack answered. "Just doesn't take too long."
"An immortal…" Voldemort smiled as he rubbed his chin. "Very interesting."
Jack scoffed. "Let me tell you, pal, living forever is not what it's cracked up to be. And if my perfectly gorgeous looks can't keep up, your ugly pus isn't going to handle eternity well."
Voldemort's eyes narrowed, the smile vanishing as he leaned toward the other man. "Tell me…would this condition mean you'd still be alive if I had you disemboweled and fed to a pack of bugbears?"
Jack blinked, his brow furrowing. "Truth to tell, I've never thought of that."
"I will test the theory if you press me further." Dismissing him, Voldemort whirled to face Harry. "Now then…before we were interrupted, I was about to talk to you."
"Talk about what?" Harry said, feeling a bit braver now.
Voldemort paced before him. "In case you are unaware, Potter, Tarsan…"
"The Valeyard," Harry corrected. "He calls himself the Valeyard."
"Whatever his name," Voldemort waved, irritated at the interruption. "He has captured most of my forces along with many of the Aurors and Ministry officials. More importantly, he has somehow found a way to capture the power, the spirit, the…soul as it were of wizards upon their death and bind them to some sort of central conduit."
Harry frowned. "Why?"
"Obviously, power," Voldemort said as if lecturing to a student. "What his ultimate goal is, I am uncertain. But I do know that it will not be good, not for my side or for yours."
Harry felt some irritation grow. "Considering that you helped him get into this spot in the first place, it seems a bit late to complain about his plans now."
"I did not know," Voldemort said, glancing away. "I believed I was using him, his power and his influences, to attack the Ministry from within. I believed that once the Ministry was subdued, he would be my agent, giving a good front while I kept attacking."
"All the while, he supplies you with the plans of the light Wizards and even helps you find and wipe them out," Jack concluded.
Voldemort nodded. "That was the understanding. Until the Ministry was taken over and he showed that his plans were far different than my own."
Harry paused before smiling. "So in other words…he was playing you. All this time, the great Dark Lord was being used like a fool and didn't even know it." He couldn't help it, the laughter escaping from his lips and Voldemort's scowl just added to it. Jack was also chuckling as the Dark Lord glared at him. "I need Potter," he hissed. "But I can kill you. And I highly suspect that while it's not permanent, it's quite painful."
Jack's sudden silence answered his thought and Voldemort turned back to Harry. "As I was saying, Potter…this Valeyard betrayed me. Which means he must die."
"And you want me to help you with that?" Harry asked.
"Yes."
Harry blinked as he realized the man was utterly serious. "Wait…what?"
Voldemort began to pace. "Whatever this…Valeyard is…he is not human. I did not want to face it before but his powers, those…things he uses, the way he was able to break through all shields…He is not of this Earth and I suspect you knew that already." At Harry's nod, he continued. "So whatever his plans are, it will not be a pleasant thing for our world."
"Why do you care?" Harry blurted. "You've been wanting to wipe out muggles anyway and establish power!"
Voldemort cocked his head to the side. "True," he admitted. "But that should tell you something, Potter. It should tell you that I want this magical world to be intact for when I rule it. What good is it to become the master of the Wizarding World if there are no wizards left?"
Harry couldn't fault the logic in that as Voldemort went on. "In my time in seclusion…"
"Don't you mean hiding?" Jack asked.
Without looking to him, Voldemort waved his wand, sending out a bolt that knocked Jack to the ground, racked with pain. Without a single change in his expression, Voldemort spoke. "I have discovered that wizards are not the only ones being targeted. Goblins, giants, centaurs and more have been going missing for some time. He wants magic, Potter. He wants it either to wipe it out or all for himself."
Harry let out a long breath at this revelation, wiping at his brow. "What do we do?" he asked.
Voldemort faced him. "We do the only thing that we can, Potter. We fight him."
"Using the royal we, here?" Jack gasped as he got to his feet. He yelled out as another curse hit him. "Okay…that's…getting annoying!"
Harry had much the same reaction as he blinked at Voldemort. "We...as in, you and me?"
"As much as I dislike Muggles, Potter, I do believe one of their sayings is appropriate here," Voldemort told him. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend."
Harry's face turned into a scowl. "We are not friends."
"I am fully aware of that," the Dark Lord said. "We are enemies, Potter, and we ever shall be. The prophecy assures that."
"Prophecy?" Harry frowned. "What prophecy?"
Voldemort stared at him in confusion before his face broke into a grin. "You don't know," he said. "He never told you…Oh, Albus, Albus, still playing games."
"What are you babbling about?" Harry demanded.
Voldemort grinned, knowing he had the upper hand. "Did you not ever wonder, Potter, why you? Why your parents on that night? Why you managed to not only survive but actually destroy the greatest wizard since Merlin?"
Harry just peered at him as Voldemort chuckled. "A prophecy made long ago, Potter…named for a child born under the same stars as you…a child who would be destined to destroy the Dark Lord for…" He paused to think before reciting. "'One must die at the hands of the other, for neither can live while the other survives.'"
Harry's jaw dropped. "I…no….you're lying."
"I never lie about my own fate, Potter," Voldemort snapped. "And Dumbledore never told you? Of course not, why risk losing his greatest weapon against me before the proper time?"
Harry's anger grew. "Dumbledore was a better man than you could ever hope to be, Riddle!" he spat.
Anger flashed at the sound of his real name but Voldemort kept his temper. "Actually, he is still alive. I would know if a wizard of such power had been killed. The Valeyard must be keeping him alive for some reason."
A burst of joy came over Harry at that news, tempered a bit by Voldemort's revelation. "Then I have to rescue him."
"That can be high on the list," Voldemort said. "But I do believe we could use more reinforcements first."
"You keep saying we," Harry said. "I'm still not convinced that I can trust you."
"I am not asking for trust, Potter," Voldemort said. "Simply to put aside our differences for a time. Alone, we do not stand much against the power the Valeyard currently wields. But together…with all our forces combined…we can stop this freakish being and take back our world."
"Which of course, you intend to make your world," Jack noted.
"It is my way," Voldemort said. He turned and extended a hand to Harry. "Do we have a bargain, Potter?"
Harry just stared at the hand, then up to the man, his face impassive. "You want me to shake your hand. You want me to shake the hand that held the wand that killed my mother and my father. That tried to kill me. You want me to ally with the greatest evil the Wizarding World has known in centuries."
Voldemort's eyes hardened. "As I said, Potter…we are bound together. I will kill you. That is a promise not to mention our destiny. Make no mistake, I will do so. But…" He took a deep breath. "I hereby swear under the name of Salazar Slytherin and all the great lords of the House of Slytherin that I will not strike at you while under the conditions of this truce."
Harry was a bit thrown by that. Even for Voldemort, breaking such an oath was simply not done which meant he was dead serious. Jack could see the look and moved in. "Harry," he hissed. "You can't. The guy's a total whack job, evil to the core, did you miss how he just killed me?"
"I know," Harry said to him. "But I also know that we need to fight the Valeyard. And…I can't do it alone, Jack. I really can't."
"Harry, he's a power-mad murderous psycho," Jack hissed. "You can't bargain with people like that. Trust me, we muggles tried it with a guy named Hitler, it didn't work. It never works."
"If we don't, then the Valeyard takes over," Harry said. "You know the magic world, Jack. You want to imagine such massive power in the hands of some sort of alien madman? You want to imagine him using it on your world?" He rubbed at his face. "I don't want this either, Jack. I know what sort of monster Riddle is. But like it or not…he's the only chance we may have."
He turned to face Voldemort, his face hardening as he stepped forward. "You don't hurt anyone, you don't kill anyone. The only ones you attack are the Valeyard and these Daleks of his." He leaned in. "And don't ever…ever think this makes us any true allies. Once the Valeyard is dealt with…"
"Then our war continues," Voldemort said with a nod. "Agreed." He held out his hand once more.
After a long moment, Harry Potter joined his hand to Voldemort's and tried to tell himself the chill that ached through his entire body was just from the cold clammy skin.
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Short, I know but I thought I'd throw it up. We return to the present next time with more of this new alliance which you know will go just swimmingly…
