Thank you again for all the reviews! This is the end of the story.

Part Three

"My lord, I must insist on knowing what you are doing."

Voldemort turned his head so that he was looking mostly over his shoulder at Rodolphus. "You must…insist."

Rodolphus paled a little and drew his robes back against his body, a satisfying sight that Voldemort thought he could stand to see more often. "I only—I only meant that I don't always know where you are, my lord, and I'm meant to be your bodyguard. Please tell me when you leave the room or when you mean to sate your needs with someone."

"Such a delicate way of phrasing it, Rodolphus," Voldemort mocked, but his thoughts were elsewhere. He wondered how Rodolphus would react if Voldemort introduced Harry to him, how Lucius and Bellatrix and Rabastan and Eldric Nott would react.

It was odd, for him to be thinking of that, when he had intended on never introducing Harry to them in the first place.

"My lord?"

"Yes, yes, I will tell you when I enter a new room so that you may stand outside the door, Rodolphus," Voldemort said, with a lazy wave of his hand. Rodolphus opened his mouth as if he was going to argue, but instead bowed, and wisely withdrew.

Voldemort glanced around, even though, since this was a meeting of his private council of advisors at Malfoy Manor, Harry would of course not be in attendance. His soul stirred in dissatisfaction at the thought. He wanted Harry here, wanted to tease him and hear him laugh, wanted to hear him offer his fearless suggestions to the Death Eaters, wanted to see the constipated expressions of those Death Eaters as they struggled not to voice their true opinion of their Lord's new consort.

I want to touch him. I want him to touch me.

Those desires were, of course, still present, but not as prevalent as the wish to watch people watching Harry. It was a new thought, to want Harry with him so much outside of bed. Lord Voldemort wondered what to make of them.

"Harry, we need to know who you're dating."

Harry went bright red as he stared at Sirius sitting at the table with his parents. For once, Dad had no edge of laughter to his smile, and Sirius's face was outright grim. Mum was smiling as she stood behind them, but it was a tight and unhappy one.

"Why do you need to know?" Harry asked slowly. "It's not exactly dating, you know. It is pretty casual."

"Casual dates don't give you presents like that," Sirius said, and pointed at the golden bracelet on Harry's left wrist, then the silver one on the right.

Harry's hand covered the silver bracelet, too late. It was made like the golden one, of flexible squares, and covered with even more runes, this time ones that would defend him against poisons and potions in food or drink by literally burning them out. Harry swallowed.

"I—why do you need to know?" That question, at least, he thought, Sirius still hadn't answered.

"Because these look like courting gifts, expensive courting gifts, and you need to know that whatever pureblood wanker is giving them to you but not openly standing at your side is just playing with you. Probably because you're a half-blood."

"Mum, do you agree with this?" Harry asked, turning to look at his mother.

Mum sighed and flipped her hair behind her shoulder. "I didn't at first. I thought that someone simply taken with you might have commissioned that first bracelet, if they had a good deal of money. But the second…Harry, do you realize what it indicates?"

"No," Harry said stubbornly.

"You're not just in a courtship, you're on the brink of marriage!" Sirius waved his hand madly back and forth. "How could my godson be about to get married and I not know it?"

"I didn't know I was!"

"Harry." Dad suddenly leaned forwards across the table. "Is someone—pressuring you to do something, against your will? What have they said to you to make you think you have no choice? Because I promise, if it's something to do with us and they threatened us, you should know that we can take care of ourselves—"

"No, it's nothing like that! It was just—it was casual!"

Mum and Dad and Sirius all stared in silence at the silver bracelet on his wrist. Harry flushed.

"Well, it was," he muttered.

"Harry, love." Mum stepped around the table and reached up to caress his hair, something she always did a gentler job of than Dad or Sirius. "If it was, it's obviously not now. But I am concerned that someone gave you these gifts and never mentioned the price for them. Or that he apparently wants to marry you."

"I don't think he does," Harry said, and then had to forge valiantly forwards in the face of her raised eyebrows. "No, really. He—he's the kind of person who delights in showing off his money and his—influence, I suppose. He might think it was a really funny joke to give me these presents and not tell me what they meant. But serious?" He shook his head, noting absently that his godfather was so upset that he didn't even make the expected pun about his name. "No, it's not that. It's not marriage. I cannot stress how much it isn't marriage. He never thought about that. I'm sure."

"So who is it?" Sirius demanded. "Because if he's a pureblood who just thinks it's funny to court my godson and get his hopes up—"

"He never said that, Sirius, oh my God—"

"So he is a pureblood!"

"Not—not exactly," Harry said, and withered beneath their stares.

"Harry, please tell us." That was Dad, leaning forwards now and extending one hand as if he could hold Harry in his palm the way he used to claim he could when Harry was born. "You're worrying us, and there's no reason to keep it this secret, is there? Not any reason that could possibly be a good one."

Harry took a deep breath and leaned back to stare at the ceiling. "If I tell you, you must promise not to scream."

"I don't scream," said Sirius.

"Yes, I promise," said Mum.

"I don't scream, either," Dad said.

Harry sighed, still keeping his eyes on the ceiling instead of his parents or godfather. It would just—make this easier. "It's the Dark Lord."

"What!" screamed Dad and Sirius.

"Harry, please stop joking," said Mum.

"I am not joking," Harry told the ceiling. The ceiling was really interesting. He felt he had never properly appreciated it. "He found me at a gala a few weeks ago, and we—we spent the night together. We've done the same thing at other parties and galas we've been at since. And—some other times. He sent the golden bracelet to me by owl last week, and he sent the silver one yesterday."

His voice trailed off, and Harry shook his head. Not even to his parents and Sirius could he talk about the ivory collar that Voldemort had fastened around Harry's neck with love and devotion in his eyes.

What you think is love and devotion. What would be love and devotion if he were anyone else. You can't count on that. You can't assume he means it.

Harry had just relaxed when someone gripped his arm. He looked down and blinked as Sirius aimed his wand straight at Harry's face and snapped, "Finite Incantatem!"

A sharp tingle ran over him, and Harry swore as it made all the hair on his arms stand on end. "Sirius, what the hell?"

"You were under Imperius!"

"You know I can throw that off," Harry snapped. It had been one of the things that had ensured him a place in the Aurors. "No, he didn't Imperius me. Unless with his cock," he added, because he wanted to make Sirius back the hell off.

Sirius released Harry's arm as if it was on fire and scrambled back, flapping his hands and squawking. "Too much information, too much information!"

"Trust me when I say it wasn't the Imperius," Harry muttered, and then finally dared to meet his parents' eyes again.

His mother looked quiet and surprised and sorrowful. Dad had his nose wrinkled. "Why do you think he did this, Harry? To catch us out?"

"To catch you out?"

"It's awfully convenient, isn't it, that he started—sleeping with our son when we're some of his greatest enemies."

"You've been his greatest enemies for the past twenty years?"

Dad blinked and faltered. "No?"

"Then I doubt that you had anything to do with it." Harry swallowed back the frustration and anger that had welled up in him, not sure why he was feeling it so strongly. Voldemort hadn't really known who he was at first, and the suggestion that he had slept with Harry just because of his parents—

No. No, it was because of me. Just the same way that I slept with him because of what he's like in bed, not because he's the Dark Lord or because I was rebelling against my parents.

Harry's hand went to his neck, imagining the ivory collar being there again.

Is it just because of the sex that I want him?

Harry took a slow, deep breath. No. Also because he made the collar for me, and he made the bracelets, and he looks at me as if I matter, and he asks me questions that make it sound as though it's been decades since he had someone who would tell him the truth.

So, yeah. Harry wanted the Dark Lord of Britain, and he might have a chance at the Dark Lord wanting him back for more than a quick evening here and there.

Hell of a revelation to have in the middle of your parents' kitchen, Harry scolded himself, and looked again to find Mum staring at him with her eyes wide enough that Harry thought he could see himself reflected in them. She caught her breath sharply, and Sirius and Dad both turned to stare at her.

"Lily, what is it?"

"Lils?"

"Harry, don't be in love with him," Mum whispered, not looking away from Harry. Her hand tightened on his until it was painful. "You can't—you don't understand what he is, what he's done. He might seem as if he's approachable now, but he will never be—he's immortal, he's not even capable of the kind of love and commitment you want—"

"Can we talk about the part where Harry's sleeping with the worst person in the world?" Sirius asked loudly.

"Yeah, that part?" Dad sounded forlorn.

"It's much worse that Harry may have fallen in love with someone who will never love him back," Mum said, and her eyes filled with tears. "Harry, please don't do this. You know that he can't return your feelings. I don't want you to break your heart over someone who's evil and terrible and—and not even handsome."

"Yeah, don't marry someone who doesn't even have lips!" Sirius said.

"If you knew what he was like when he was with me," Harry started, and then stopped when he saw the intensely skeptical look that Mum was turning on him.

"The way he is with you in private? The way he hasn't ever been with you in public?"

Harry closed his eyes and said nothing. Yes, that was the sticking point, wasn't it? He knew he was—well, in love or in something that he wanted to explore. But he had no indication that Voldemort felt the same way.

"Ask him if he would ever admit in public that he's sleeping with you," Mum said quietly. "Ask him. See what his answer would be."

Harry took a complicated, deep breath and opened his eyes again. "Yeah," he said. "I'm going to ask him."

Voldemort let his eyes linger on Harry, appreciatively. They were in the green ballroom at the center of Malfoy Manor where they had met for the first time all those weeks ago. Harry was wearing deep blue robes that Voldemort had sent him a few days ago. He was wearing the golden bracelet on one wrist and the silver one on the other. He was a vision.

"My lord? My lord?"

Draco Malfoy stood in front of him, the only Death Eater Voldemort knew of more prudish than his father Lucius. Voldemort turned to face him, bored before he even began to speak. "Yes, Draco, what is it?"

"Are you—my father said that you were—that you might require a private room?"

Ah. Here is the first Death Eater I shall introduce Harry to. "Yes," Voldemort said, deliberately opening his mouth to run his tongue around the edges of it. "I require a private moment with my concubine."

Draco choked. "Your—concubine, my—my lord?"

"Well, I am not sure that is the best word," Voldemort said, and turned around to meet Harry's eyes again. Harry looked at him with an expression of sad resolution that made several of Voldemort's senses rise on alert. But he maintained his composure, because Draco did not deserve to know any private business Voldemort and Harry would share this night. "My kept lover? Yes, perhaps that is it."

Draco choked on his own spit. "You—require a private room for an—an assignation?"

"You make it sound so crude, Draco." Voldemort waved his hand and ignored Draco's spluttered protests about how he didn't mean to do that and he was just trying to understand. "And no. I have a bedroom here, do I not? I would take Harry there if I merely wanted a tryst." He loaded the word take as obscenely as he could.

"Harry? Harry Potter?"

Sadly, it seemed his innuendo was wasted on Malfoys. Voldemort sighed. "Yes. He is my lover."

"But he's—he's a filthy half-blood! A nothing of a Gryffindor! A—"

"The love of my life."

Draco's face drained of blood, and he immediately bowed until his forehead was somewhere around his knees. "I m-meant no disrespect, my l-lord. Of course, if you want to—to pretend that you—if you want to say—"

"Why would I pretend anything when it comes to the love of my life?"

"Well, you never bothered saying it to me."

Voldemort immediately turned, eyes locking on Harry. He stood less than a meter away from them, and although he was standing as if he had been about to draw his wand on Draco, his attention was on Voldemort. Voldemort smiled. Good. It should always be there.

"I thought you knew and did not need to hear it," Voldemort said softly.

Harry shook his head impatiently. "Other people were the ones who told me these were courting gestures," he said, holding up his arms so that the bracelets on his wrists swung and jangled. Draco whimpered and covered his ears. Harry didn't even spare him a flicker of contempt. "Other people were the ones who said that you sounded serious. I thought we were just a—a temporary arrangement."

Voldemort narrowed his eyes. "Do you think I would commission such bracelets, such robes, and a collar for a temporary partner?"

"A collar," Draco whispered, apparently in a trance of horror. "Oh, sweet Merlin, no."

"I don't know. You didn't tell me."

"I asked you to be discreet—"

"Yeah, and now you're not. So what's with that exactly, Voldemort? Why are you asking me to be discreet and then announcing this in the middle of the ballroom?"

"He calls him by his first name," Draco whispered, and then apparently fainted dead away.

Voldemort did notice that no one appeared to be overly interested in coming forwards to catch Draco as he fell.

"I think we should discuss this in a more private setting, Harry," Voldemort murmured, and reached for his lover's hand.

"And I think we should discuss it right the fuck now!" Harry snapped, and set his feet, and refused to be moved. "If you can claim one thing in private and one in public, how should I know what to trust? Why am I bothering to defend you to anyone? I bet my parents are right and these are just—extravagant gestures that you're making to show off your power—" He lifted his hand and shook his wrists in Voldemort's face.

"How can you think that!"

"Because you told me to be discreet, and anyway, the kind of person you would marry is the kind that can circulate around a crowded ballroom and make devastatingly witty remarks to people—"

"I can do that myself, why would I want someone else to do it?"

"And I can't do that, and I'm the son of your worst political enemies, and—"

"The Potters. Lurking in the Ministry arresting criminals and making academic strides in the Department of Mysteries. Yes, truly my worst political enemies ever." Voldemort reached out and managed to snatch one of Harry's wrists, pressing tendon to bone until Harry gasped in pain. "Your parents are not the reason I chose you to fuck—"

"Fuck, not love. Not marry!"

"I will propose right now, in front of all these assembled," hissed Voldemort, and dropped to one knee.

Harry gaped at him, his jaw hanging so far open that he looked unattractive for the first time. Voldemort smiled up at him, tightening his grip on Harry's hands when Harry started to pull away.

This wasn't the way he had planned to persuade Harry to spend more time with him and make this a permanent arrangement, but they were here now. Voldemort only tightened his grip again and murmured, "Will you marry me?"

This is utter nonsense. I must be dreaming this.

But no matter how Harry stood there and willed himself to wake up, he didn't. He was still standing in the middle of the Malfoy Manor ballroom, at a ball he didn't even know the purpose of, and staring down at the Dark Lord of Britain on his knees before Harry. Okay, one knee. And not even to suck his cock this time.

Draco Malfoy was lying unconscious on the floor, but everyone else present seemed to be staring at them. Harry flushed and bowed his head.

"You can't just—ask this."

"Why not? I am the Dark Lord of Britain. I can do anything I want. And you can answer the question."

"You can't—because this isn't sane! Because you would regret it and change your mind tomorrow morning!"

"Why would I?" Voldemort turned Harry's hand over and kissed his wrist, his eyes daring and mocking. "I might change my mind about something said in private, but we are in front of so many of my people here, Harry. Ministry officials and Wizengamot members and pureblood supporters. Why would I change my mind?"

Harry looked up and swept the room with his eyes. Voldemort was right. Lucius Malfoy was there, looking tragic. Rodolphus Lestrange was there, looking livid. Griselda Marchbanks was there, looking astonished. Hermione was there, looking—

Shit! Hermione?

She was staring at him with an expression of utter betrayal. Harry flushed and jerked his eyes back to Voldemort's face.

"In the eyes of all those here assembled," Voldemort repeated, and his voice had gone gentle and soft and dark. "Will you marry me?"

Harry took a deep breath, admitted the possibility that it might not be a dream, and tried to think of what he wanted. It was all so mad that he might as well think of that instead of the broader political consequences, which Voldemort seemed to be ignoring anyway.

If he was just concentrating on what he wanted, then yes. He wanted to be by Voldemort's side, able to kiss him in public, able to act on the promises that the bracelets and the robes and the collar implied. If all he was thinking of was what he wanted.

Looking down into the blazing red eyes that had never left his, Harry was pretty sure Voldemort was only thinking of that.

"Yes," he whispered.

Voldemort surged up from the floor like a snake rising to strike. Harry nearly took a step back, unnerved, before Voldemort's arms closed around his waist and hauled him close. His mouth came down and struck.

Harry kissed him, hands rising to clasp either side of Voldemort's face, that cool skin and that lipless mouth, rejoicing even as part of him yelled and yelled.

This will never work. This isn't what he needs. This is what he wants, but not what he needs. Other people will be so angry.

This is what I want.

"Harry, how could you?"

Voldemort hissed softly against Harry's neck. He did not like this woman, this Hermione Dagworth-Granger, who had pulled Harry into a room off a small side corridor of Malfoy Manor and was interrogating him with her hands waving back and forth. But Harry seemed to like or at least tolerate her, and that meant Lord Voldemort must do the same.

He thought he would resent doing the same, but he did not. His hands were on Harry's hips and his mouth against Harry's neck and Harry shifted back towards him. His voice was steady as he answered Dagworth-Granger.

"I didn't exactly plan it, Hermione."

"But once you knew—how could you continue?"

"You changed your name to fit better into pureblood society," Voldemort said, lifting his mouth from Harry's neck to speak the obvious words that for some reason, Harry would not speak. "Do not question Harry for how he adapts."

Dagworth-Granger flushed, then turned ashen. She bowed her head, but said, "My lord, you must admit that—that dating the Dark Lord is a different thing than changing a name."

"Yes. Among other things, it makes Harry much more powerful than you. Is that the reason you are upset? You resent how he has vaulted past the influence you have managed to accumulate?'

"Of course not! My lord," Dagworth-Granger quickly added as Voldemort hissed at her. "I just—he didn't tell me!"

"Until tonight, Hermione, I thought it was an experiment or a fling that would be over quickly."

"You were stupid to think that," Voldemort couldn't help remarking.

Harry reached over his shoulder and squeezed his wrist. Voldemort leaned closer to him. He enjoyed the squeeze in a way that he had not enjoyed the way Harry had touched him a few days ago, as if leaving him behind.

"Maybe," Harry said quietly, and no more.

"It's," Dagworth-Granger said, and shook her head. "This is the kind of thing I need to have a private conversation with my friend about."

"Yes, I would agree. As long as you do not think that you will be talking him out of marrying me."

Dagworth-Granger shook her head again and looked back at Harry one more time. "I'll talk to you later, Harry," she said, and made it obviously threatening. Then she turned and swept out of the room with her head held high.

Harry sighed and turned at once to face Voldemort, tilting his face back. Voldemort bent down and kissed him, hard, before Harry pulled back and shook his head with what looked like a mixture of exasperation and pleasure.

"You still proposed in the weirdest way you possibly could," Harry murmured, one hand running up Voldemort's throat.

"I am the Dark Lord of Britain. I can do anything I want."

"I still worry that you'll regret it when you wake up tomorrow."

Voldemort leaned closer until his fangs rested against Harry's lips. Harry stared back, enthralled, his eyes widening.

"I will never regret you," Voldemort whispered. "I will do whatever I must to make that clear. To live with you. To not make you regret it, either."

Harry trembled, his eyes closing. But that didn't change things. He was still held in Voldemort's arms, the cold skin wrapping around his shoulders, the soft cold exhalations of his breath over Harry's mouth.

He was here.

It was real.

Harry opened his eyes and murmured, "I don't want to regret it, either. I want to stay with you."

Voldemort smiled at him and pulled back. Harry blinked, nearly following, until he realized that Voldemort had reached into his robe and pulled out the ivory collar.

"You—brought it with you," Harry whispered, reeling as much as he could while he was standing still.

"Yes. I always intended to offer it to you, Harry, and to have you walk back into the party wearing it. Events—moved fast and overcame both of us." Voldemort smiled and leaned closer. "But now, you will wear it openly. Proudly. Be as proud as you want."

Harry reached out, his hands shaking, feeling as if he were in a dream, and picked up the collar. He slid it around his neck and latched it shut.

And the dream fell away.

He was here, in front of the Dark Lord of Britain, with the ivory collar that meant a proposal of marriage around his neck, and Voldemort in front of him, staring at Harry as if he were the center of the universe.

Harry reached up and slid his hands around Voldemort's neck. Leaned up and kissed him gently. Felt the man's arms come around him and hold him as tightly as the collar.

This was still mad. Harry would still have to face so many people, only beginning with Hermione, and talk, and listen, and scream, and accept, and decide.

But with Voldemort at his side, Harry was now certain he could outface them forever.

The End.