Chapter 142:
Harry froze at the message to his head.
His deal was due? But he wasn't spiralling! Was he? He was…settling, balancing out. Tom had assured him so.
But his deal…if I have a huge shift in personality, turn against my friends and/or lose my morality. He'd never specified how much of his morality he'd had to lose, because at the time it was hard to see in shades of grey and some part of him had hoped Tom would pull out in the last second.
He snorted bitterly.
Of course not. In Tom's head, he always had to be right, which meant he couldn't possibly concur that maybe Harry knew his own limits better than the Slytherin Heir did. He supposed it came with the narcissism…though Tom was a very odd psychopath.
It was a sociopath who could form links with people, but then, a sociopath would not be capable of planning like Tom did and oh it all got so confusing. He rubbed his head.
Panic flared in his stomach, along with rage and resentment, fear and sorrow.
Though he was only on the tiniest spiral, he was on the edge of a spiral anyway, and that was all the oath cared about.
He hadn't made his specifications tight enough at the time. Damn.
Dying now would be so inconvenient.
Nonetheless, he couldn't refuse to, as then the Death Vow would kill him anyway. He walked out to the edge of the grounds, pleased that he'd hurt Tom enough that the other wasn't likely to come looking for him anytime soon.
Oh.
How exactly could Voldemort kill him with the lifebond and Horcrux?
The Dark Lord stared at him as he approached, no emotion on his face, and Harry didn't feel aware enough to try and read him.
"Sup," he said lazily, popping the p, when the other didn't speak.
"What have you done?" Voldemort demanded, icy scarlet eyes scanning across him.
"Made a horcrux." There really wasn't much point in being evasive about it, he gained nothing for the deception. "And no, I don't know what Tom put it in, ask him, maybe he'll tell you."
Voldemort's eyes darkened, but there was no surprise of his face.
"And you didn't mention this before your deal? Or think about it?" the Dark Lord questioned. "No, I don't suppose you were thinking all that clearly at the time."
Harry suddenly felt anger flash through him.
"What was up with you telling Tom about that anyway?" he asked irritably.
"You didn't enjoy the attention?" Voldemort smirked. Harry shot him a foul look.
"I'm not Lestrange, despite what you may think, neither of you are the centre of my world."
The other burst out laughing, a malicious, unnerving laugh. It was bizarre, but Harry felt a bit better, in comparison to the snake-faced man his soul was still relatively normal. The feeling vanished at the words that followed.
"Yes we are."
His eyes narrowed dangerously.
"Excuse me?"
"He is the centre of your world. Your whole life revolves around him…or had you not noticed?"
"You're seriously going to make a comment on the relationship between me and Tom?" he demanded, incredulously. "You?"
"You forget I know quite a lot about it."
Harry stopped at that, frozen, before shaking his head.
"Have you figured out a way to kill me around it, and the life bond yet?"
Voldemort's head tilted.
He tilted his own head in return, mimicking the gesture mockingly.
"I have no need to get rid of your Horcrux, knowing you, Tom would only have taken the smallest, harmless fragment, barely enough to survive on, but enough to fit the purpose. I don't even need to get rid of the lifebond, if you shan't die."
Harry's insides squirmed with a sudden horror, a revulsion, a terror.
He'd…be like Marvolo, essentially. A thing torn into immortality forever, but not alive, barely himself, unable to do anything. He swallowed. And he couldn't stop it.
Oh damn Voldemort was good, had he guessed before, what Tom's plans were, and allowed him to walk into this trap? He'd be forever out of the way, and it would an eternity of torture for him. Any sense of comfort drained out of him.
"I'd take you with me, I swear to that, I have your Horcruxes all set in place," he hissed.
A lie, but Voldemort didn't know that, and he found he could lie so easily now. For the first time, something else darted across the other's face.
"You're bluffing."
"Try me."
"You couldn't possibly stab them all at once if I were to kill you now," Voldemort snarled.
"You think I didn't tell Dumbledore?" he returned, smiling, eyes glinting like ice. "And you think Tom, if we apparently revolve around each other, wouldn't hunt you down and destroy you?"
This time, he was the one who was laughing, manically.
Before, he may have been embarrassed to drag Tom into this, but now…he just didn't care. He would do whatever would let him finish his job and live. It didn't matter if Tom would or not, so long as Voldemort believed he would.
"Tom wouldn't be in a fit state to challenge me," Voldemort smirked, with a gleam in his eye suggesting he knew something Harry didn't. He wanted to choke someone at the feeling.
"You'd end up dead either way, and he would be free to go and live his life."
"Without you," the other's voice abruptly turned quiet. Harry shrugged. That had always been the outcome, to his plan, anyway.
"Shouldn't you sound more happy about that? You've always made your distaste for us perfectly evident."
"Indeed," Voldemort murmured, still staring at him. "You cripple him, and it is best for everyone if you die."
"Then let me die, and I won't fight against you. I will not, however, let you keep me like that."
"And yet he's happy with you."
Harry froze for a second time, completely wrong footed. His mouth felt dry.
"What are you on about? The great Dark Lord is suddenly feeling sentimental? Going to miss me when I'm dead and gone?" he sneered, feeling a similarity to his conversation with Tom strike him.
Voldemort simply appraised him, almost exactly like his younger counterpart did sometimes, no emotion on his face, just coldness.
"You've been my obsession, one way or other, since I was sixteen and you were one," was all the other said, walking up towards the castle. "I'll see you at the finish line."
Tom's head snapped up from his notebook, immediately sensing the presence. The Common Room fell silent instantly, and his wand was in his hands in the same time.
"What are you doing here?" he hissed. How had the other got in?
"The current wards won't keep out the Slytherin Heir."
"Doesn't answer my question," he returned.
"Harry."
"Of course."
They surveyed each other warily for a moment.
"His deal isn't applicable," he continued coldly. "You can't kill him."
Voldemort smirked.
"Then clearly you don't know all the terms...what, he didn't tell you? And there was me thinking the two of you were close."
He didn't bother responding to that, for to speak would only confirm the statement, and it was stupid point anyway. His elder counterpart couldn't kill Harry... otherwise he would have done it by now. He inwardly shuddered at the thought.
Voldemort turned a gaze across the cowering Slytherins, pausing intently on Abraxas, Zevi, Alphard and…Lestrange., before settling on him again. He observed the other carefully.
Voldemort had a reason for being here, talking to him, he knew it. He just had to wait for the other to reveal it.
"Can you imagine spending thirteen years as a spirit, lesser than the meanest ghost, barely alive, child? That's the fate in store for our boy wonder, but for thirteen years going on eternity. It will be torment for him…and for you. Risky tactic, making yourself his Horcrux."
He stayed still, cursing his lack of standing in this conversation. He didn't know how much the other knew, whether the man had worked it out himself, or if Harry had told him.
He wouldn't let that happen, but to say so would be childish, and the other was fully aware of his opinion, no doubt. No, there was something else.
"Why are you telling me this?" he asked instead. Voldemort smiled, an awful smile.
"I want to congratulate you."
He blinked, but allowed himself no other reaction, fiercely keeping his emotions and features under masks of composition.
"Congratulate me?" he drawled, watching the other bristle almost unnoticeably at the arrogant tone, though the smile only became a smirk.
"You destroyed him better than I ever could."
Any humour he might have had for this conversation, shattered, and he pointed his wand at the other, only to have the self same yew wand dig into his throat in response. Stale mate.
They circled, studying for any flaws, knowing that if even one showed, the weak would be shredded to bloody broken pieces.
"Oh?" he questioned coolly. The Dark Lord abruptly seemed to change the subject.
"You would also go to sickening lengths to save him. What if I told you that you could?"
His head tilted back.
"Then I would ask you what the catch was, and why on earth I should believe or agree to any word that slips passed your…well, I'd say lips, but you're rather lacking in that department."
He licked his own, twisting his mouth in a cocky smirk, tauntingly, knowing full well that the other envied him for his appearance, his youth. Rage.
"Leave, become me and let the timeline run in its course, or watch him shatter…and you can't bear that, can you Tom? You're still too human to deal with him like I do."
"I won't let you hurt him." Childishness be damned, he was making that clear.
"I don't need to hurt him," his elder returned, immediately. "You've done such a magnificent job of it yourself. Can you even comprehend what you've done to him? You judge his capacity of unpleasant things by how much he can take from me, but don't you see…it's because it's from you that it would destroy him. He's in love with you, you know."
"Don't be deluded-" he began, witheringly.
"It matters not, ultimately," Voldemort dismissed him, but there was a cruel spark in his eyes. "But…if you do as I request, now, I will spare him."
"You never would before."
Voldemort was feeling the pressure, obviously, he wasn't sure he would win, which was why he was forced to lower himself to negotiation.
"You would get to keep him too, for all eternity."
They would be one and the same, in a manner of speaking, if he became Voldemort. Enticing, but, he would have that without the other's help. He didn't share, and he wouldn't share with this pathetic shadow of who he could be.
"And if I refuse?"
"Then I will destroy him."
"I'll kill you."
"It wouldn't bring him back to you though," the other said slyly.
Tom could feel a fierce, violent fury building up inside him, boiling his blood.
"He would never be with you, he hates you, does that hurt you? Is that why you're so obsessed with ruining us? With killing him? You can't stand to look at what you want knowing you will never have it again!"
Voldemort's aura lashed out at him, no spells, just a crash of painful magic that he met with his own.
"That's a no, then," Voldemort breathed after a moment.
Harry was his. Always his. Not anyone else's. He would never willingly spare even a corner of his friend for anyone else.
"I'll give you my answer within two days," he replied. He needed time to complete his plans, his spell. He couldn't have the Dark Lord ruin things now.
Voldemort inclined his head after a moment, eyes narrowed. The man needed this, he couldn't resist, for Tom was his creator.
Hook, line, sinker.
The Dark lord left the way he came.
A/N: Can you feel...the tension building? :)
Regarding Post Fate's Favourite, I think I shall write Past's Player, rewriting everything I've done on it so far and starting from scratch though, as i loathe the current version for its crappy quality. I feel ashamed to have it under my name, I feel I've improved so much since then. What do you guys think of the Name Providence's Prince?
(Providence is another word for Fate, if you didn't know)
Anyway, enjoy, and, at least enjoy the quick update if nothing else. Thank you for the amazingly awesome reviews :D