Chapter 82:
He was in Malfoy Manor…he thought he was anyway…the elaborate setting was similar to house he'd visited that one time in the past.
Mr and Mrs Malfoy had promptly tried to throw him amount due to his 'filthy halfblood' status, but relented to their son's requests. Fun times, that.
It looked like Malfoy Manor, but he wasn't sure. There were a lot of rooms, and he'd only been in a few during his own time there.
The room he was currently in was absolutely exquisite, tastefully decorated in deep blues, greens and silvers. It was very grand, but almost too beautiful and formal for him to relax in.
Why was he in Malfoy Manor again? Something in his gut felt wrong, but distantly, like a sensation foreign to him. He looked around the room with a wary interest, before going to the door and trying the handle.
It was locked. His brow furrowed marginally, the tension growing in his stomach.
"Hello Harry," a voice greeted quietly.
Harry spun around, heart thudding, before settling again into an anxious caution.
"Tom," he said, studying the other. The feeling that something was wrong was only intensifying. Wasn't he in Grimmauld Place only moments before? Or was it weeks? That felt distant too, surreal and somehow unreal.
Time didn't exist here, and as soon as he thought it, Harry didn't know how such an elusive conclusion had presented itself to him.
The Slytherin Heir entered further into the room by an other door, which shut behind him, sitting down to lounge on throne like armchair, surveying him coolly.
The chair itself was a dark green, spiralled by intricate silver weaving.
"What are we doing here?" Harry asked, with the strangest déjà vu, not sure why he couldn't catch his whimsical notions of wrongness more firmly, for analysis. They simply floated away from, dreamlike…"is this a dream?" he asked suddenly.
Tom smiled at him, a cruel twist of the lips that looked both perfectly placed and entirely alien on his features.
"It's in your head, yes," the other agreed, carelessly. In his head, but not specified as a dream.
The sense of forbidding was growing, before a bolt of realisation as sharp and bright as lightning pierced through his mind.
"Voldemort…" he murmured, horrified, stumbling back a few steps away from the chair, reaching for his wand, only to find it wasn't there.
Voldemort laughed, coldly, but not in that high pitched tone that Harry was used to from the snake-faced man. Except, the snake-face was gone, replaced by Tom. He was so confused. How had he not noticed the subtle shift in personality immediately?
"Are you sure you can tell the difference between us, Harry?" Voldemort questioned, a gleam in his diamond hard gaze. "Are you positive, would you vouch your life on it?"
"This isn't real," Harry said stubbornly, clinging to that, not examining the actual response too closely…he couldn't, dared not to.
"I see," Tom-Voldemort began delicately, "do you mean like how your visions aren't real? Because it's in your head? The whole world is in your head, Harry, represented in the tiny particles of sense data that you use to perceive it…what ever makes you think your dreams are any less real than your so-called reality?"
Harry felt sick.
"Either way, you'll be gone when I wake up," he snapped.
"And waiting for you whenever you fall asleep," Voldemort returned, without missing a beat, still smiling that horrible smile.
Harry drew in a shuddering breath, looking away from the other. It was too painful because all he could see was TOM. This wasn't real. This was just a nightmare. Just...
"What exactly are you trying to achieve?" he questioned harshly, turning back to face the other after a moment. "Even if this is a…vision, or a dream, or a mind meeting, or whatever, you can't do anything to me. It's only happening in your…my…our minds."
"And the mind is what makes us feel pain," Voldemort replied softly, a crystal tumbler of bourbon appearing in his hand.
"Then get to inflicting it," Harry snarled. "Instead of acting like this is some twisted little tea party."
Voldemort…Tom…Voldemort merely smiled at him over the glass, taking a sip. There was a long oppressive pause, that only served to make Harry feel more twitchy.
"Does it bother you?" Voldemort asked finally, eyes intense and head tilting exactly like Tom's would, appearing exactly like Tom with Voldemort's words.
"Does what bother me?" Harry demanded, through gritted teeth, his head spinning.
"That you need a handsome young face to have any inclination as to which one of us you're talking to?"
"That's not true!" Harry growled. "Trust me, I can tell the difference between the two of you fine, without…why the sudden face change, anyway? Did you get bored of looking so damn ugly?"
"Midlife crisis," Voldemort deadpanned, though his tone had tightened along with his grip on his wand. The same wand.. "Are you sure you can tell? It just seemed to take you longer than one might expect to figure out I wasn't him...perhaps we are not as different as you like to pretend."
Harry stared back flatly, refusing to yield to the uncertainties swelling inside his chest.
He knew the difference…there were more differences to Tom and Voldemort than their looks…he'd just been surprised at first, and somewhat oblivious. He'd had a feeling that something was wrong anyway…but it was still so hard to look at an evil replica of his…friend.
The similarity was alarming, unnerving, and obviously flaunted for the sole purpose of screwing with his head even more.
The Dark Lord drained his glass, before rising to a stand, appraissing Harry.
Harry resisted the urge to run, something in those eyes…those eyes that looked so like Tom's in colour, but so different in countenance.
Tom had a cold, calculating, clever gaze, but the eyes before him now spoke of nothing but death.
Voldemort came to a stop before him, wand twirling idly in his fingers. Harry could no longer look away, even if he wanted to.
"Your faith in him is impressive, I'll give you that," Voldemort said, quietly, the wand trailing to press against his temple.
Harry didn't flinch, and didn't move away, because any magic in this…dream…was temporary for only as long as he was asleep…wasn't it? Nor did he say anything in response.
"But everyone has to wake up eventually…how long can you endure before the lines blur? The heart does not follow the head."
A sick smirk marred Tom's face, Voldemort's face, as he continued once agan.
"It's time to wake up, Harry. Crucio."
Pain, lingering pain, and a crushing grip on his shoulders, shaking him roughly, and the sting of a mean backhand.
His eyes snapped open, wide, staring up into the face of the one who had just tortured him as he gasped for air. What had just happened? What was that? A dream? Something more?
On instinct, he scrambled backwards, only for Tom's hands to curl tighter to keep him steady.
"Harry - easy - stop - Harry!" Tom hissed, a mixture of commanding and soothing, forceful and gentle.
A paradox all round, really.
The heart knew that this Tom was different, he could see it by the well disguised concern and flashes of emotion in the other's face.
His head would only give him post traumatic flash backs of what had just occurred; a blinding, vicious screen play of agony on his eyelids.
The door burst open as Sirius and several Weasley's charged in, to see what the commotion was, the screaming.
Harry could only stare at them. And stare at Tom.
It was Christmas Morning.
Shit.
A/N: So…I am now 18, and officially a 'mature' and 'responsible' person…yeah.
Thanks for the reviews. Hope you enjoyed the update, or didn't hate it at any rate ;)
Bet you were expecting another fluffy christmas chapter, weren't you :P That's next time, haha.
Reward for 1500 reviews is on Destiny's Darling, another pseudo kinda slashy piece. For me, anyway. But I will take requests otherwise, just for when I get bored. :)
Harry as Voldemort's Heir/Son story suggestion request:1) Kurinoone's series (first one in particular.)2) Prince of the Dark Kingdom.
3) His Slytherin Descendants (Dark Cyan Star)
4) Possibly Krystal Roze's Slytherin Connection series…
PS: Sorry for the constant repetition of fics.