Title: The One True King

Author: Shara Lunison

Beta: Batsutousai

Rating: M

Pairings: eventual HP/LV, JP/LE, HP/everyone, ever

Warnings: AU; OoC; character death; pseudo Lion King crossover; dark, insane, promiscuous, Slytherin Harry; pseudo incest; more as they happen

Disclaim Her:

~Once Upon a December~

"How is your recruiting going?" Tom asked.

Harry hummed as he crossed the room to flop sideways into his accustomed chair before the Dark Lord's desk. His legs swung over the arm on one side, while his head rested on the other. He waved a hand negligently, and said, "I've gotten every interested student down to the first years involved with the Knights. The other sixth years are as ready as they will ever be for Easter. And I've been personally grooming one of the fifth years to take my place next year. There's really not much else for me to do, aside from the lessons for the Knights. We've had to cut the number of meetings, though. There have been a great number of rumors about there being students at the school who are already Death Eaters. Dumbledore is actually taking some of them seriously, so patrols have been boosted in an effort to catch us out."

Tom frowned, pausing in the midst of some document he was writing notes on. "Dumbledore is sniffing around?"

Harry shook his head, crossing his arms over his chest and closing his eyes. "Not personally. Mostly he's just sending the prefects on longer, more specified patrols. When they started paying especial attention to the dungeons, we agreed to meet in smaller groups and in different locations every time. None of the groups are meeting in the dungeons anymore."

"Good." Tom nodded, and returned to his paperwork. Harry opened his eyes a little to look at his lover. There was a little crease between Tom's eyes as he concentrated on what he was reading. Harry knew now that the more pronounced it became, the more tired the Dark Lord was-or the more irritated. As yet, it was a fairly relaxed expression.

Harry closed his eyes again and contemplated a nap. It really wasn't the most comfortable position for such things, but Tom was clearly too busy to talk. There was a question burning at the back of Harry's mind-one he had been dying to ask for more than a month. The opportune moment had yet to present itself.

"What is it?" Tom snapped. There was rustling sound, as though the document he was holding had been forcibly rolled shut with a spark of magic.

Harry sat up and stared at Tom. That little crease was quite defined now. It had been some time since Harry had upset Tom this badly. "I..."

"You've been dancing around for weeks, Potter!" Tom growled, standing from behind the desk and coming round it to lean over Harry's chair. "What. Do. You. Want?"

Harry looked away, shame making a blush cover his face. He had ended up distracting Tom anyway, by not speaking up when he had first thought of the problem. "I just wanted to know if we could spend Christmas together," Harry mumbled, not daring to look up.

He could hear the confusion in Tom's voice. "I thought we had already agreed that you would be spending Christmas break here."

To his horror, Harry felt tears pricking at his eyes. Why was this so hard? "I meant...actual Christmas. With presents, and a tree, and just...being together," he finished lamely.

Tom snorted and returned to his seat behind the desk. "I don't do Christmas, Harry. It doesn't hold any fond memories for me. Quite the opposite, in fact."

It felt as though a hand reached into Harry's chest and squeezed his heart in a tight fist. "Christmas is the day we first met," he whispered. Then he stood, and left the office as quickly as he could without running. He thought he might have heard the Dark Lord curse as the door slipped closed behind him.

Harry retreated to his little office on the second floor. He sat in the stiff wooden chair by the desk, and opened the bottom drawer on the right. Inside were two tastefully wrapped gifts, in green and silver. He stared at them for a long moment, then shut the drawer with a sigh. He would probably never be able to give them to Tom. Not if the Dark Lord really hated Christmas that much. Harry hadn't even dared to ask about Tom's birthday, which he knew fell on New Year's Eve.

"One present for Christmas. One present for his birthday," Harry whispered to the empty room. He slumped over the desk and pillowed his head on his arms. Why does love have to hurt so much? he asked himself.

Time passed, and Harry thought he must have drifted off for a while. He was awakened by the door opening softly, and he stiffened as he came fully awake.

"I...apologize," came the Dark Lord's voice. "I was not speaking of recent memories when I said that Christmas holds no meaning for me. I was thinking of my childhood."

Harry slowly sat up straight in the chair, but did not turn to face Tom. The Dark Lord had never spoken of his childhood, but Harry had wondered for some time now whether it had been as unhappy and unloved as his own.

"I grew up in an orphanage," Tom continued. "We never had Christmas, because there was never any money. The first time I ever saw a Christmas tree was at Hogwarts. I had no friends. I never received presents until after I was revealed as the Heir of Slytherin-and then, they were all empty gifts. Given in fear, or awe, or in expectation of something in return. And that has never changed.

"Until you," Tom said softly. "I don't know how to give you what you want, Harry. I don't even know if I want to try."

Harry sighed. He still didn't turn around. "What about your birthday? I suppose no one ever bothered to celebrate that, either?"

He had surprised Tom, he could tell without even seeing his lover.

"I looked you up in the school records," Harry said. He twisted in the chair so he could lean on the back and look up at Tom, still standing near the doorway. "Your birthday is December 31st, isn't it?"

"Yes," Tom breathed. "No one ever bothered...no one ever knew..."

Harry rested his cheek against the smooth wood of the chair, and stared off into space. "I spent a long time thinking of what I wanted to get you, Tom. I..." he paused, then turned to the bottom drawer on the right side of the desk and pulled out the two packages wrapped in green and silver. "I got you two presents, one for Christmas, and one for your birthday." He turned to look up at Tom, who was staring at the presents with an almost vulnerable look on his face. "These aren't empty platitudes, Tom. These presents mean something to me, and I hope they will mean something to you. I don't need a Christmas tree, or decorations, or anything else. I just need you...to let me love you."

A confused expression crossed the Dark Lord's face as he stared into Harry's eyes. No words were needed for Harry to know what was wrong. He stood, and crossed the small space to stand in front of Tom, both hands reaching up to gently cup his face.

"You do deserve to be loved, Tom," Harry said firmly. "Even if you can't feel that love in return, you deserve to have it."

Harry's thumbs brushed across those pale cheeks and he could see Tom's surprise at the moisture on them. The Dark Lord reached up and touched his own face to feel the tears there, then stared at Harry in wonder.

"I love you," Harry whispered, leaning up to brush his lips across Tom's. He pulled back to see that Tom's eyes were closed, a pained expression on his face. "What is it?"

"It hurts," Tom said. "Your love hurts me."

Harry flinched, and let go of Tom as he backed away. He forgot how small the room was and backed right into his desk with a heavy thump.

"No," Tom said, moving quickly across the space to trap Harry against the edge of the desk. "It isn't your fault. It hurts more than anything I've ever felt before, but it also feels wonderful at the same time. I...like it."

Harry laughed mirthlessly and rested his head against Tom's chest. "What did you do to yourself, Tom?" he whispered. "Why are your emotions so strange? So closed off?"

Now it was Tom who moved away, turning to lean against the doorframe. "I...can't trust you with that information. I'm sorry."

Harry huffed, with real humor this time. "Two apologies in one day. I must have broken some kind of record."

Tom half-turned his head, a smirk on his lips. "I cannot actually recall the last time I apologized to someone. I think you owe me."

Harry raised one eyebrow. "You can't trust me, and yet you want me." He shook his head. "Well then, my lord..." Harry stalked forward and fell gracefully to his knees before the Dark Lord. "How can I serve my master?"

Tom's eyes darkened immediately, and he reached out one long-fingered hand to grip Harry by the hair. He forcefully pulled until Harry's face was pressed against his crotch, the evidence of the Dark Lord's arousal quickly becoming apparent there.

Harry ran his tongue over the fabric-covered bulge, nuzzling his face against Tom's groin as he maintained eye contact. Tom tightened his grip with a growl, forcing Harry's head to remain still. Taking the hint, Harry ran his hands quickly up Tom's legs and reached out to undo the Dark Lord's belt and trousers, pulling them down just far enough to reveal his prize.

Tom tugged his hair once more, and Harry obliged by taking the length into his mouth, moaning as it hit the back of his throat, nearly making him gag. The fingers in his hair tightened painfully, and Harry felt Tom twitch and swell in his mouth. But he didn't move. Harry had a desperate desire to be used, and he knew the Dark Lord would oblige.

Reading the intent in Harry's eyes, Tom narrowed his own crimson orbs until they were mere slits glaring down at him. Then he pulled out, and slammed back into Harry's mouth and down his throat. Harry gagged, then tried to relax his throat around the intrusion with minimal success. Tom ignored his efforts and simply continued thrusting in and out with abandon. It didn't take long for Harry to lose his gag reflex altogether, and he focused more on sucking and using his tongue to pleasure the Dark Lord.

The hand in his hair loosened its painful grip as Tom grew closer to the edge. "Harry…" Tom moaned.

Harry hummed when the hard length entered his throat again, and it drove the Dark Lord over the edge. He choked on the cum as it spurted into his mouth, then swallowed greedily.

Tom pulled his limp member out of Harry's mouth, tucking it back into his pants as he stared down at his younger lover. That vulnerable expression was back in his crimson eyes.

Harry snaked his way back up Tom's body and leaned in to steal a kiss. The Dark Lord granted him entrance and then turned the tables so that he was plundering Harry's mouth instead. Harry gasped into the kiss when Tom's hand gripped him around the waist and pressed him hard against the taller man. His own erection was now trapped between them with no friction to give him any pleasure.

Tom pulled his head away and stared down at Harry seriously. "I don't want to hear any more talk of feelings for at least a couple of years, Harry."

Harry gaped at him, his mind still swimming with lust, until the words sank in. "Two years? Do you think you'll still want me by then?"

Tom chuckled, leaning down the suckle at Harry's neck. There was almost always a mark there, and he enjoyed making sure it remained. "Harry, I normally have a lover for one or two nights and then move on. With you, it has already been almost five months. I call you here to have sex at least twice a week. If I was going to tire of you that easily, you would already know it."

Harry felt Tom getting hard again and smiled. Still… "Two years is a long time, Tom," he said.

"I know. All I ask is that you stop trying to get me to feel something."

Harry opened his mouth to protest that he wasn't trying to do that at all, but Tom cut him off.

"My emotions are closed off from me, Harry. When you start getting upset because I don't have a normal reaction to things like spending Christmas with you, it physically hurts me. There's nothing I can do about that just yet."

"Yet?" Harry grasped onto that word like it was a lifeline.

Tom grimaced, his hands smoothing down Harry's back to rest on his hips. "I do not know if something can actually be done about it. My research suggests that it's possible, but I don't know if I am capable of it. It will take time."

Harry nodded, leaning forward to rest his head on Tom's shoulder. "I'll try, then. Knowing that you're trying as well will help."

Tom sighed against his hair, one hand trailing lower to squeeze Harry's arse. "Can we stop talking about feelings now and move on to more pleasant things?"

"Yes," Harry moaned.

Tom released him, opening the door and leading Harry a short way down the hall to the bedroom. Harry smiled softly at the action—going to the bedroom meant that Tom was done with his work and they would get to spend a good bit of time together making love.

Well, it was making love to Harry. He already knew it was just sex to Tom. But he was beginning to suspect that the Dark Lord was capable of feeling much more—or at least, he had been capable once. And he would be again. Harry was determined.

He lay naked on the soft down duvet of the bed, and watched as Tom slowly undressed and crawled up the bed to hover over him. This was all he needed. For now.

Harry reached up both hands and pulled Tom down for a kiss as the Dark Lord brought him back to peak with all the skill the older man possessed.

And when Tom entered him without any preparation, Harry gasped at the familiar feeling of pleasured pain. And he vowed that no one would ever again receive this kind of attention from his lord. Voldemort, Tom Riddle, the Dark Lord; they all belonged to Harry Potter. Someday, he would make them whole. He would return Tom and Voldemort to one person, as they should have been.

~This Isn't How I Go~

Harry spent the first day of his seventh year at Hogwarts in self-isolation. Severus had graduated and was now busily involved in the war, making potions for Lord Voldemort whenever needed. James and his friends were gone, so there was no one left for Harry to torment. Even worse, James and Lily had married that summer. He had seen the pictures in the Daily Prophet, because of course he hadn't been invited, and they disgusted him. James had no right to look so happy with his mudblood bitch.

They had joined the war as well, if the rumors flying around were true. Dumbledore had created some kind of group to fight the Death Eaters, because the aurors were too tied up in bureaucratic nonsense to respond in time to all the emergencies.

Tom had stepped up the number of attacks on mudbloods and blood traitors that summer. The Death Eater ranks were starting to swell after Harry's recruiting efforts at Hogwarts, and Lucius' recruiting in the Ministry. They finally had an army of a size with the task at hand.

So Harry sat in a window seat near the top of the castle, and he stared out at the stars in quiet contemplation. He wished desperately that he were spending the night with Tom, but the Dark Lord had insisted that the first and last days of school were ones Harry needed to spend in the castle.

It hardly mattered if he was here or there, though. Harry sighed, and his breath frosted the cool glass of the window in moisture. Tom was incredibly busy with the war, and the increased use of dark magic had once more begun to change him. He was not cruel to Harry, but he was not as gentle as he had once been. Harry suspected that because he was not trying to evoke some feeling in the man, Lord Voldemort was reverting more quickly into his Dark Lord persona.

Drawing a heart in the fog-covered window, Harry silently shook his head. It didn't make any sense. He had begun using dark magic more and more as the war stepped up, and it wasn't changing him to the same extent.

Sighing again, Harry turned away from the windows and closed his eyes, running through the Occlumency exercises he had learned from Tom over the past few months. He compartmentalized all of the worries that were causing him to brood into a corner of his mind and set his subconscious to sorting them on its own.

When he opened his eyes again, only a few minutes had passed, but he felt ten times better. It really was a useful skill.

"Is something troubling you, Mr. Potter?" The voice spoke up out of the darkness, and Harry instantly tensed and leveled his wand in the direction the voice came from. His mind registered who it was before the Headmaster even emerged from the shadows.

Gulping, Harry hastily lowered his wand and looked back at the window. The heart he had drawn was gone with the rest of the steam, but a heart-shaped smear remained. "Not really, sir," he answered finally.

"Love trouble?" Dumbledore asked, moving still closer. "I have heard a great number of rumors regarding your relationships in this castle. They suddenly stopped last year."

Harry looked back up at the Headmaster, and double-checked his Occlumency barriers to make sure the old man couldn't see into his thoughts. "I fell in love with someone who doesn't love me back, that's all, sir. It happened at the beginning of last year."

"I see," Dumbledore nodded genially and looked out the window beside Harry. "Isn't it interesting how a great tragedy often brings about great joy? I was the same way at your age."

Harry's brow furrowed as he tried to figure out what the Headmaster was talking about. Then he realized that Dumbledore was talking about the deaths of his parents, and the subsequent relationship he had formed with Tom.

"I would caution you, Harry," Dumbledore continued. Harry started at the use of his first name. "If this person cannot love you back, they are probably not a very good person to become involved with. Love is something that all creatures are capable of feeling—someone who does not have that capability is not human. I would not even consider them a living being, were I you."

He knows, Harry realized, staring up at the Headmaster with careful innocence on his face. "He…" his voice cracked and he struggled to continue, "He can feel love, Headmaster. He just doesn't know what it is, or what to do with it, or how to return it."

Dumbledore nodded thoughtfully and started to turn away. "Be sure you are not simply deluding yourself, Harry. My office door is always open if you want to talk."

Harry held his breath until he was sure the Headmaster was gone, then slumped against the window with his eyes closed. Subconsciously, his right hand moved to clutch his left arm over the dark mark.

"Tom…" Harry whispered. "What have you done to yourself?"

Whatever it was, he was sure that Dumbledore already knew, or at least suspected.

Perhaps he would get to see his lover tonight after all. He needed to let the Dark Lord know about this as soon as possible.

~A Single Flower in the Snow~

It happened in the middle of November. Harry was with Tom in Malfoy Manor, working on Legilimency just before a regular Death Eater meeting. A knock came at the door of the study they had borrowed, and Tom stopped in mid-lecture to say, "Enter."

Lucius stepped into the room and bowed low, his eyes watching Harry curiously. It was a poorly kept secret that Harry was the Dark Lord's lover.

"My lord, Severus has arrived and he says that he needs to speak with you urgently."

Tom frowned and waved his hand. "Bring him in."

Lucius bowed again and opened the door. A nervous Severus was standing outside, practically wringing his hands. Harry hadn't seen his friend so out of sorts in many years.

"You may leave, Lucius," Voldemort said. Lucius nodded and left.

Harry raised his wand to cast a privacy curtain without being asked.

"Report," Voldemort ordered.

Severus bowed quickly and then quickly laid out the details of why he had come. "I have been spying on Dumbledore as you asked me to, my lord," Severus began, "Earlier this evening he was interviewing a candidate for the Divination position at the school, because the current professor will be retiring at the end of this year. The candidate's name is Sibyll Trelawney. The interview was being held in a private room at the Hog's Head, so it was easy enough for me to listen in. I didn't expect to gather anything of use, but then the woman began to speak a prophecy. Dumbleodre threw up a silencing too quickly for me to get it all, but what I heard was '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'."

There was absolute silence in the study for several long minutes. Harry was horrified. Someone was coming who could or would kill Tom? He wouldn't allow it! He would lay down his own life first, if he had to.

"Repeat it again," Voldemort whispered.

Severus did. Harry began to decipher it now, and what he learned chilled him. A child would be born at the end of July, to parents who had somehow defied Tom three times and lived. If such a child were allowed to live to adulthood…

"Vanquished…" Tom murmured to himself. It was so soft no one but Harry could have heard it.

"What does it mean, my lord?" Severus asked anxiously.

"It means you must continue watching Dumbledore. Do everything you can to get the rest of the prophecy. Both of you keep an eye out for anyone that Dumbledore starts paying special attention to. If the child is born to pureblood parents, there will be an announcement in the Prophet. If it is born to the muggles…we will find out eventually."

Both Harry and Severus nodded, and Tom dismissed the potions prodigy from the room.

Harry watched carefully and saw that Tom was genuinely worried about the prophecy. "What will you do?" he asked softly.

"I will kill the child before it becomes a threat," Tom answered. "But I am not too worried—the phrasing, you see? Vanquished means that I might be defeated, but not killed. And it only says that the child will have the power, not that it will use it."

Harry nodded slowly, an unsettled feeling blossoming in his stomach. He hoped it were that simple…but something told him a storm was coming that could not be avoided.

Two months later, he learned why: Lily Potter was pregnant.