Welcome all to another chapter of "In the Coils of a Serpent" I'll be trying to finish this up in three or four chapters.
In this chapter we get a bit of a time skip by a few months, Harry and Draco meet once more, a ball is thrown, Harry dances with two demons, and learns what happened between his mother and her killer.
On with the show.
Harry Potter, December 15th.
It has been an odd few months for Harry as he was finally allowed out of the cell he called a room, his private lessons with Voldemort had rampant up focusing on what she called Mind Magic or Occlumency, the art of clearing one mind of thoughts and emotions, to feel the edges of his mind and know it as well as he knew his wand. Harry was, unfortunately, pants at it, but after the last few months of three lessons a week, he was able to suppress the alien emotions that would bleed into him from both Voldemort and Delphini. The connection between the three of them had continued to evolve over the past few months, Harry knew where both Voldemort and Delphini were when he focused on them and could easily track them both down, though neither of them could do it to him for some reason. Harry had the idea because he wasn't a part of the whole that is Voldemort, he was just an outsider watching them on the telly, he was able to see them, but they couldn't see him.
That explanation had confused them both, so Harry had to explain what a Telly was to both of them, which was amusing.
The emotional bleed over was also getting worse, the echoes of emotions were getting stronger and left Harry with waking visions of what both Voldemort and Delphini were doing at the time. From Voldemort sitting in a meeting at the Ministry trying not to torture the incompetent fools she had to deal with, to her torturing someone for information on something called the Order of the Phoenix, to her nights with Bella or some random guy she liked the looks of or did something that impressed her, though she tried to hamper or cut off the effects of the bleed over, and always failed much to her anger.
Delphini on the other hand, had a field day with it, Harry would be in the library or his room minding his own business when he would randomly be slammed with a vision of Delphini somewhere in the manor pleasing herself and whispering to herself for Harry to come and find her, to come and fuck her. Harry tried to ignore it for the most part during the beginning, not wanting to give her anything, but then she start with other tactics, namely, what she had done to Hermione and Ginny in all the grizzly details, which was more than enough to throw Harry into a rage and hunt her down which always ended in a fight between the two in the west wing of the manor. Delphini laughs and uses the Holly wand as Harry screamed and uses the Yew wand, sometimes Delphini would win, and sometimes the weird gold thread would connect their wands until they both stopped.
Honestly, in Harry's opinion, their antics were getting a bit out of hand with how they harassed and attacked each other. Like the time He was minding his own business in the library, reading up on something or other that Voldemort wanted to show him when all of a sudden he found himself bound to the chair he was sitting in by thin ropes before he was magically blindfolded and gagged before he felt someone approach him from behind, they didn't say a word as they used him for a long twenty minutes, trying to give off an air that it was a stranger, but Harry would know those moans and gasps even if he was dead and the worst part, Delphini didn't even let him finish, just tipped his chair over to the ground and left him there for three fucking hours until Bellatrix found him.
Bella still hasn't stopped calling him "The Turkey Who Lived,"
Harry got his retribution the following day when he found Delphini in the Billiards room shooting a game by herself, she had bent over the table to line up a shot before Harry hit her with a freezing charm, stopping her dead, before transfiguring her robes into one of the skippy outfits she hated wearing before having his way with her. He also did some interesting things with the pool stick using the top half to leave thin red welts across her bottom and using the bottom half too, well, after Voldemort found Delphini(and after laughing herself near hysterical) had been calling Delphini Harry's "Stick puppet" since then, much to the younger woman's eternal mortification.
Harry and Delphini seemed to have an unspoken understanding at the end of the day, the fight would last until one or the other had gotten the upper hand on the other and proved to be able to hold the other down somehow, at that point, the one who lost would struggle but never truly fight back until the next round started. Like the time at the end of a duel, Delphini had hit him with a body bind before kicking his wand away and riding his face until she finished. Harry could have done nothing while she did so, but lapped at her wetness as Delphini told him to do, she had finished and walked away with Harry still bound in the spell in the middle of the hallway, no less. Or when he had Delphini hogtied in the greenhouse and used her throat leaving her looking like a complete mess of running makeup and drool before leaving her like that.
Delphini had moved back into his room but there had been a few days where things got too hated between them, so Delphini would stay in her room those nights, but the sense of longing would never leave Harry those nights and he didn't know if it was Delphini or himself that felt that. They were softer with each other at night, they would still fight for dominance and tear at each other, but it was softer, sweeter, somehow, and in ways Harry didn't have the words to express.
But Delphini and Voldemort weren't the only people Harry interacted with, and finally being able to explore the sprawling manor was also nice, Harry wasn't allowed to go outside but it was still better than being trapped in one room, and was always invited to sit down for a cuppa with Narcissa whenever they crossed paths. Harry found the matriarch of the Malfoy family to be a rather odd, if not, polite woman, she always had a story or a piece of advice on how to deal with Delphini or Bellatrix whenever they came up in conversation, Narcissa never pushed Harry to talk about his relationship with Voldemort but did ask a few questions, and Harry, not wanting to be rude to his host, told Narcissa an edited version of the story.
How they had met in his first year while she was under the guise of Olivia Twist, how she had taken him under his wing during that year, teaching him privately before telling her the events that led up to the confrontation in the catacombs below the school. Harry didn't tell Narcissa about the Horcruxes or that he was one, nor her offer to take him away from the Durselys he didn't even know just how much Narcissa knew, but Harry wasn't about to spill the beans about anything that liked him and Voldemort on that deep of a level.
Harry didn't know if it was how he talked about Olivia Twist compared to how he spoke about Voldemort or some deeper wisdom and insight one only achieves from being older, but at the end of the story, Narcissa shared with Harry something that drove a stake through his heart.
"Mister Potter, I won't sit here and pretend to know the full details of your relationship with our Lady, but, if you allow me, to comment on something I had noticed when you spoke of her," Narcissa asks putting down her cup and looking him in the eyes, Harry paused for a moment before nodding once, "I noticed that you seemed to separate Olivia Twist from our Lady as if they were two different people, but from what you've told me about Olivia she didn't act any different from how our Lady acts with you, and you may think this is because she is keeping up the act that started in your first year, but you couldn't be farther from the truth," Narcissa says, causing Harry's brow to furrow in confusion.
"There are very few who can truly say they know Voldemort as the person rather than the myth and monster that she is so commonly seen as. I and my sister are apart of those lucky few, Barty would be another, but, I think out of all of us, you would know her even better than us since I won't even begin to contemplate the relationship between my niece and my Lady," Narcissa says before reaching across the table to put her hand on top of Harry's who had a hand next to his cuppa, "So, believe me when I say, that how she acted as Olivia Twist, sounds just how she would act to those of us who know her the best," she says with a smile before patting his head, "And I do believe, that it's about time you reconcile the feelings you had for Olivia Twist and feelings you have for Voldemort, and finally decide what they mean to you,"
Harry couldn't think of a single thing to say and only nodded.
That time wouldn't come until a few weeks later when he was having breakfast with Voldemort, Delphini, and Bellatrix in their wing of the manor, where Voldemort told Harry about the Yule Ball that was being thrown at Malfoy Manor this year.
"Okay?" Harry says, looking at Voldemort confused with a scorn covered in jam halfway to his mouth, as Delphini was downright giddy about something(which was never good,) and Voldemort was greatly amused(which meant Harry had missed something obvious that she found cute), "I'll be in my room until it's over, right? Pretending I don't exist," Harry says with a shrug, which didn't bother him all too much, he'd just have to wait till Delphini showed up to keep him company when she got bored with the Ball, which wasn't a big deal.
"Sure," Voldemort says with a nod of her head as she puts down her cup of breakfast tea, "Thats certainly one idea, or you could attend it," She says while Looking away from Harry and adjusting the cuffs of her suit jacket, she was back to looking boyish today, which Harry had long gotten used to her ever-changing appearance.
"Er, doesn't that- Wouldn't that-," Harry says, at a loss for words at what Voldemort had just said before putting down the scorn and leaning back in his chair, "I thought the whole point of keeping me here was for me not to be in public, the whole not questioning your power thing? Right?" Harry asks, feeling that Voldemort was uncomfortable with something, unsure about something but looked as the picture of confidence and ease as she sat across from him.
"While, yes, that is the main reason for keeping you locked up here, I just thought you'd like to socialize and do something fun that's not studying or fucking Delphini," Voldemort says, burying her fear about anyone other than who she trusts absolutely finding out that Harry was alive deep within her, but not deep enough for it to escape Harry's noticed.
Bellatrix giggles a bit madly before mumbling the word "Turkey," causing Harry to glare at her before turning back to Voldemort.
"I feel the need to point out that I have a very recognizable feature," Harry says before pointing at the scar on his head, the one Voldemort carved all those years ago, the same one that held a piece of Voldemort's soul.
"Oh, don't worry about that, Harry, I have some ideas on how to disguise you," Voldemort says with a smile.
"Like Polyjuice Potion?" Harry asks, and he immediately feels a lick of white-hot anger at his voiced idea coming from Delphini, Harry turns to her confused just to watch her take a bite out of her eggs with a content look.
"No, Harry," Voldemort says as Harry turns back to look at her, "It won't be Polyjuice like I said, don't worry your cute little head over it, and let me worry about it, Okay?" She says with a smile, though the feeling of uncertainty remains, "Now, there is another detail you need to know, a small, tiny thing," she says while waving her hand to almost dismiss it.
"Okay, what?" Harry asks, sounding unsure himself.
"You'll have a handler the night of the ball, someone, to make sure you don't run off, or make a fool of yourself in front of everyone," Voldemort says before picking up her cuppa.
"Delphini?" Harry asks, looking at her before looking back at Voldemort who takes a sip of her tea with a feeling of hesitation shooting through her as the feeling of giddiness comes back to Delphini.
"No, no, not Delphini, though I'm sure she'll find you once the ball starts, no, I was thinking more Narcissa son," Voldemort says before looking away from Harry and taking another sip of tea as Harry's jaw drops at Voldemort's words.
December 23rd
As Harry sat in the library he couldn't help to feel a bit peeved at Voldemort and Delphini, for when they asked Hey, do you want to go to a ball? What they meant was, Hey, you're going to the Ball and your school rival is going to be your tag-along, have fun! Leaving Harry little choice in the matter, though he was sure that a bigger scheme was going on somehow by how Delphini's emotions would go highwire whenever he mentioned it but smiled at him like she knew nothing at all. Voldemort still wasn't sure about all this, hesitation mixed with a bit of fear, and a feeling Harry couldn't put his finger on, it was like want but not in a sexual way, more covetous, maybe?
Voldemort had informed him at breakfast that morning that she would be teaching him how to dance later in the day after he met with Draco. Harry sighed to himself, not even remotely liking this idea at all, Draco and Him were like oil and water, and Voldemort knew this, so Harry couldn't even fathom why and how she thought this was a good idea, but if Harry was going to do this, he was going to have some fun with it.
Harry was sitting in the dark of the library with the curtains closed and only a few candles were lit to throw shadows ominously around the Library as Harry was in one of the many comfy reading chairs that were facing away from the door with a small end table at the side of the chair where a glass of whisky(butterbeer in a whiskey glass), and Harry couldn't help but to wonder if he somehow adopted Tamsyn's sense of theatrics. But as he takes a sip of his whiskey(butterbeer in a whiskey glass) he hears the doors to the library open, and an old familiar voice calls out.
"Hello?" Draco says, sounding a bit confused, "I was told that someone was here I was supposed to meet?" he says, as Harry hears the door close.
"Yes, Mister Malfoy, I have been waiting for you," Harry says in a very thick and very fake-sounding German accent, "You were supposed to arrive five minutes ago, and I do so hate having my time wasted, was it your intention to upset the honored guest of the great Dark Lady Voldemort on purpose?" Harry asks before feeling a spike of humor from Voldemort, apparently, she was paying attention to what was happening for some reason.
"I, ah, I didn't mean to," Draco says with a slight cough, "My mother only informed me of this when we arrived home just a few moments ago," He defends himself.
"You think this excuses you?" Harry asks, before slamming his fist down onto the arm of the chair, "Nein! There is no excuse for laziness! I should have your skin stripped from your bones!" Harry yells, trying to keep his and Voldemort's amusement out of his voice.
"I'm s-sorry, er, sir," Draco quickly says with a bit of fear entering his voice, "It won't happen again, I swear," He says quickly.
"It better not, Mister Malfoy, it would be a shame for me to inform Narcissa, the lovely host she has been, about her son's untimely demise, Ja?" Harry says and quickly cuts Draco off by flicking his wand to light the remaining candles in the library, "Now, come into the light, Mister Malfoy, I wish to see you, I wish to take you all in," Harry says as darkly as possible and quickly comes to terms that Tamsyn was rubbing off on him because fucking with people was starting to become way to much fun.
Draco quickly makes his way around the chair, before double taking at who he saw sitting in it, his jaw dropping and his eyes going wide as he freezes in place, watching as Harry takes a sip of his whiskey(Butterbeer), "POTTER!?" Draco yells in utter disbelief before Harry starts to cackle at the look on his face.
Malfoy Manor Ballroom, an hour later
Draco had tried to help him escape, "We have to get you out of here!" was the first thing he said to Harry after getting over his shock at him being alive, it was very odd and Harry honestly didn't know how to feel about it. Then they ran into Voldemort as Draco was dragging him through the halls, going for the back door, which was another degree of hilarity to it all because Voldemort pretended to not know Harry was in the manor causing Draco to almost have a conniption when she approached them both with wand drawn before delivering a monologue about how she couldn't believe Harry was alive and Draco's secret gay love, how she was disappointed in Draco for betraying her in such a way before telling them both she was going to torture them…right after giving Harry his dancing lessons.
The look on Draco's face was priceless.
After it was explained to him and he was told(see threatened) not to tell a single soul about Harry, Draco was sent back to his Mother before Harry and Voldemort went to the large ballroom, because of course the Malfoy's had a large ballroom, and Voldemort was walking Harry through the steps of a few simple dances as to not embarrass himself in a few days.
"I don't even get why you want me there," Harry complains holding one of Voldemort's hands and his other on her waist, it was honestly bothering him how much it didn't bother Harry that he was touching Voldemort in such a way, as they move through the steps of the first dance again.
"Hmm," Voldemort makes a sound like she was considering her response, and she honestly was, wrestling with uncertainty about something, "Would you believe me if I said I wanted to show you off, in a sneaky, weird, roundabout way?" she asks, looking back at him with a smile that hides a tiny amount of fear.
"Like a trophy?" Harry asks, confused and slightly insulted by how she phrased that.
"Yes, something like that-" Voldemort says with a nod of her head before instructing Harry about the next steps of the dance, "-But a secret trophy, one only known to few, besides sharing the opening dance with you is probably the best way I can thumb my nose at Dumbledore in death," She says with a small smile, but Harry knows that wasn't the whole reason. Voldemort wanted something else, Harry could feel the same covetous greed he felt from Voldemort whenever they talked about the ball.
Harry narrows his eyes at the woman in front of him, "It's not about showing me off, not really, is it?" He asks, causing Voldemort to slow her place.
"I really dislike that you can read me so well," Voldemort mutters but says nothing else as they slow the steps to the dance down a bit, as different emotions swelled and swirled inside of Voldemort as her face looked thoughtful like she was considering something, "I just…" she says, trailing off with a frown before shaking her head, "It's nothing, Dodg-Harry, don't worry that pretty little head over it," Voldemort finally says softly.
"You can call me it if you want," Harry says quietly, causing Voldemort to look at him as a spike of uncertainty shoots through her, "Dodger, I mean, I-I don't mind it," Harry says with a sigh, looking away from Voldemort for a moment, "Hermione told me all about it, after, after what happened, Jack Dawkins, The Artful Dodger, the sidekick to Oliver Twist who, in the end, betrays him," Harry says quietly as they both stopped, "Like how I betrayed you, in the end," He says, looking down at his feet.
"You didn't betray me, Harry," Voldemort says softly, causing Harry to look back at her as he feels a melancholy twist in his mind like a knife, "I don't know if it was bad luck, or fate playing a sick fucking joke on us that brought you into the catacombs that night, but you never betrayed me," Voldemort says, placing a hand against his cheek, a sad look twisting in her inhuman scarlet eyes, "You did what you saw as right, and I have never once blamed you for that if anything, I saw it as retribution for what I did to Lily and James, and I could never hold that against you," She tells him, stopping the dance completely.
"I called you Dodger because it sounded funny at the time, not because I knew you would betray me in the end, because you looked like a raggedy orphan, not for some silly grand meaning behind the name," Voldemort admits with a sigh before crossing her arms before she begins to pace, "The nickname just-just took on a meaning of its own after a while, because it wasn't just a play on words anymore, you weren't just the Jack Dawkins to my Oliver Twist, you were MY Dodger and if I had known you were one of my Horcruxes back then, i-i would have done a few things differently," Voldemort tells Harry in a soft voice as she crosses her arms.
"Like what?" Harry asks, his voice almost hitching a bit, honestly curious about what Voldemort would have done.
"Well, for one, I would have leaned more into how you saw me during those last few months," Voldemort says, not turning to look at Harry as his heart hitches as he realized she has known this whole time, "I would have turned you away from the stone for another, let you live that year as a kid and not some Intrepid investigator, and-and I would have never confronted you down in the catacombs," she says the last part in a breath above a whisper, "I would have made sure you would have stayed away, so I could try and steal the stone and if I failed, I would have gone back to my office in the castle, write out a letter to you, before leaving the body to die," Voldemort says.
"I got it, the-the letter you left for me," Harry admits, shuffling his feet and looking away for a moment till he heard her speak again.
"That's-That's good, I had hoped that you would have," Voldemort says, turning back to Harry, "I-I didn't want it to end like that, Harry, I would have much preferred stealing the stone and leaving the school before you even left the Gryffindor common room, and when you were heartbroken over my disappearance and stepping off the train at Kings Cross, I would have been there waiting for you to offer you the same deal I had down in the Catacombs," Voldemort says, looking at Harry with sad eyes of the what if's and maybe's that could have happened if things were just different if she had known Harry was Horcrux she would have snatched him away sooner, and Harry felt all those emotion percolate and twist within his mind, and knew Voldemort was telling the truth.
"I-I think I would have don't things differently as well if given the chance," Harry tells Voldemort with a sad smile.
December 25th.
"Ow, Ow, Ow," Harry says as he sits in front of a mirror while Narcissa passes a comb through his hair and feels as she rips out chunks of knots from his wild and shaggy hair, "Why-Ow, are you-Ow, doing-Ow this again?" Harry asks as he grips the edges of his seat trying not to flinch too much or swat at the older woman who would no doubt charm his hands to the chair if Harry tried.
"Because I've been wanting to tame this mop top you call hair for the last three months, Mister Potter, and My Lady has finally asked me to do so," Narcissa says before putting down the comb and picking up her wand and running the tip of it through his hair causing it to get wet before picking up a jar of something and scooping out a clop of clear looking gel and working it into his hair roughly.
"Yeah, I get that part, but why?" Harry asks as Narcissa moves his head this way and that to make sure the gel is worked into every single strand of hair.
"Because Mister Potter, this best way to disguise someone, is making them look like nothing they would normally look like with the least possible changes, hence the hair, and after that, your scar, My Lady has something in mind for your eyes and voice," Narcissa says before picking back up her torture device of choice, the comb, and working it much more smoothly through his hair, finally doing something Aunt Petunia had spent years trying to do, tame his unruly hair.
"Oh," is all Harry could say, as he falls quiet and lets Narcissa work her magic as he thought over the last two days. It had felt rather hollow in Malfoy Manor the past few days for the simple fact that Delphini wasn't there. She and Bellatrix had left to go to Oddment House, the ancestral home of the Lestrange family, to prepare for the Ball, all for appearance's sake. Most people didn't know that Voldemort was fucking Bellatrix, and not behind Bellatrix's husband's back like Harry had thought, but with his blessing, because apparently, Rodolphus Lestrange was gay and didn't care who Bellatrix was fucking so long as it wasn't known. Something about keeping up appearances that Harry didn't understand or care to to be completely honest.
But, without Delphini in the Manor, it had gotten rather boring, the days weren't filled with sex and antics and moved rather slowly, and Harry, oddly enough, found himself missing it, missing Delphini. He could feel the same type of boredom coming from Delphini invading his head, tinged with the same type of giddiness that she was giving off since she had learned about the Ball. Harry hadn't learned why she was so excited about it, only that for some reason she really liked the idea of a Ball, but that didn't help with the boredom that has taken over his life for the last few days. It had gotten so bad that Harry had even talked with Draco, which was as enlightening as it was odd.
"Dead? I've never wanted you dead, Potter, I didn't want Granger or Weasley dead either," Draco had told him when Harry had asked why Draco wasn't more upset that he wasn't dead. All he ever wanted was to "put Harry in his place" whatever that meant, and after his supposed death, and the death of Ron and Hermione, he saw what he had done to them and his rivalry with them as childish. Draco had even given Harry his condolences about Ron and Hermione's deaths, even if Draco knew they weren't close by the end, it was also very funny when Draco found out about him in Delphini.
"You're actually fucking that mad bint?!" Draco had said in shock over lunch in the Library.
"You know you shouldn't talk about your cousin like that, right?" Harry had asked back before taking a bite of his sandwich as Draco looked at him like Harry had lost his mind, which, granted, he probably has.
"I know she's my cousin, Potter, which is how I know just how batshit crazy she is," Draco snapped back after getting over his shock, "I've watched her skin a house elf, alive mind you, for going into a room in the west wing without her permission, she was laughing the whole time when she told it to finish the job himself, she goes on raids with Bellatrix! That should be bad enough!" Draco yelled at him, and Harry ideally thought that it wasn't that bad, which made him stop and consider just how wrapped he had become now that skinning someone was now kinda vanilla to him.
Narcissa moved on to cutting his hair before shipping it into a parted comb-over look that made Harry look a bit like a ponce in his personal opinion, but that was kinda the point after all. After that, Narcissa breaks out the magical makeup. She told Harry everything she was doing with concealer, blenders, and different scales of shades that Harry had no hope of following along with as Narcissa works only on his forehead as he faces her. It takes close to an hour before Narcissa is done and spins the chair around to face the mirror once more, and Harry feels his shock ripple through him as two other sources of piqued interest ripple back.
"I look…normal," Harry thinks to himself as he takes in the sight of a blank forehead, the lightning bolt scar that dominated his life for so long was nowhere to be seen, "I look like a normal ponce," he thinks, he lifts his hand to run his finger down the path that the scar took, ghosting over the makeup before he leans back in his seat.
"A bit much for you to take in, I would imagine," Narcissa says as she lays a comforting hand on one of his shoulders, "Something that defined your life for so long is finally gone enough in the hopes you'll enjoy a relative facelessness for the first time in your life, hmm?" She says with a tilt of her head and a smirk on his lips as Harry numbly nods his head. After Narcissa leaves the room, Harry quickly dresses in the dress robes that Voldemort got him, they weren't full robes and were cut like the suits from the Victoria Era more than what you would normally see with just a thin silk robe that went over the suit of silver, black, and emerald green.
Harry already knew where to go after he got dressed, he could feel her after all, Voldemort's anticipation was like a weight on the back of his mind while Delphini burned and sparked like static throughout it. Harry followed the feeling through the halls of Malfoy Manor, at this time most of the guests should have arrived by now, greeted by Draco before being directed to the Ballroom so no one was found wandering places where they shouldn't. Harry finds Voldemort in her office, looking akin to the dark goddess he met back in the graveyard after the third task, already in a sweeping ballroom gown of the blackest silk and threaded with silver to give off depths of the deepest shadows, she wasn't alone either, Barty was standing dutifully by her side as she was reading something or other over when he walks in without knocking.
Voldemort looks up at Harry for a moment before double-taking at the sight of him, the stabbing feeling of covetous greed, and a small amount of lust shoots through her as her wide crimson eyes land on him with a smile so blinding that Harry nearly flinches at the sight before flushing red. "Well, well, well, look at you, Harry," She says before tossing the document into the fireplace and moving as if she was floating over to Harry, "My, what miracles Narcissa can work, you went from a shaggy puppy to a refined young man and heir to an Ancient and Noble house," Voldemort says, brushing the back of her hand across Harry's cheek making him blush deeply.
"I look like a Ponce," Harry complains while he turns his head to get away from Voldemort's hand as she chuckles.
"But a very good-looking Ponce, a handsome Ponce, maybe even a Princely Ponce," Voldemort says with an infectious smile and causes Harry to snort at her, "You look amazing, Harry, Ponce or not, is what I'm trying to say," She tells him and Harry just shrugs.
"Narcissa said you wanted to do a few last-minute things to complete the disguise?" Harry asks as Voldemort nods before taking his hand and leading him to a seat in her office before gesturing for him to sit down before pulling out her wand and pointing it at him.
"What I'm going to do is very simple and very reversible, as it will come undone in a few hours by itself if nothing else," Voldemort tells him and Harry smirks.
"So, I should be back in my room by the final stroke of midnight?" Harry asks, cheekily, to which Voldemort lets out a scoff.
"And don't forget to leave behind a glass slipper," Voldemort says with a roll of her eyes, causing Harry to chuckle and Barty to look over at the two looking completely lost, "But no, It should last well into the night and long after your asleep, I'm just going to change up your face a bit and the color of your eyes," She says before rising her wand once more only to stop when she feels a spike of horror and fear from Harry before he raises his hand and places his palm over the tip of her wand, much to Voldemort's confusion.
"Will-Will you tell me how you met her first?" Harry asks, his emerald green eyes looking into Voldemort's scarlet ones, causing her to freeze for a moment before sighing.
"Barty," Voldemort says before turning to the man who stands a bit straighter, "Do you mind giving me and Harry a few moments alone?" she asks, and to the man's credit, it only takes him a moment to nod before leaving the office like a dutiful servant. Voldemort turns to the fireplace that was throwing light into the dark office, spinning her wand in between two fingers as she looked into the flames, a solemn look in her eyes as the same sense of melancholy that Harry feels from her whenever his parents are brought up covers her mind like a blanket.
"I first met Lily Potter, who was still Evans at the time, about six months after she graduated Hogwarts," Voldemort begins in a soft voice, "Though we had been talking to one another for about a year at that point through letters, you see, the brilliant witch that was your mother had written a thesis about protective blood rituals which got published in charms monthly, the thesis was brilliant, engaging, and thought-provoking with a depths of understand that you would be hard pressed to find in many wizards and witches the world over, let alone Wizarding Britain," she says with a scoff and a shake of her head, "So, after reading the article, I had a few questions of my own so I wrote to her under the name Tamsyn Blackmoor, and I was shocked to find out that the person who wrote the article was still in school and from there we shared many long letters about the nature of magic, the nuances, and common misunderstanding to the true nature of it; and in her, I found somewhat of a kindred spirit," Voldemort says with her lips twitching before turning back to Harry.
"We met for lunch in muggle London and talked the afternoon away under a shaded parasol before parting, I wouldn't see her for a few more months, and this time as Voldemort, and I offered her and, her then-husband, James Potter a place at my side," Voldemort says with a sigh of disappointment.
"You wanted to recruit them? My parents? My Muggleborn mother?" Harry asks, shocked and confused.
"Yes, I wanted all the Marauders at one point in time, though I only was able to recruit the most useless one sadly enough, but I very much wanted Lily at my side," Voldemort says, watching as Harry grits his teeth and his hands clench at the mentioned of Wormtail, she could feel the boy's rage and anger spark to life like an inferno. No matter how displeased she was with Delphini on how she treated Harry during their time alone, Voldemort could help but feel a bit grateful to her younger self for how she slowly worked Harry's anger, rage, and want for violence like bellows to a forged, that will come in handy one day soon.
"But, …she was Muggleborn?" Harry asks, sounding confused and lost as Voldemort smirks at him.
"Harry, if you honestly think I care about blood purity, then you haven't been paying attention all that much," Voldemort tells him with a roll of her eyes, "There is only power, and those too weak to seek it, your mother wasn't weak, and I was willing to give her a pass among my servants because she was strong, so long as she cast away her muggle roots I would have been more than happy to welcome her and James to my side," Voldemort says, crossing her arms over her chest, at Harry's surprised look, "But in the end, she turned me down and so did James, every time. I met with her as Tamsyn Blackmoor a few more times, once when she was pregnant and another only a few weeks after she had you, she had shoved you into my arms while asking me to hold you as she ran to use the bathroom," Voldemort says with a sigh before looking back at the flames again.
"You gurgled and babbled at me while trying to eat my hair, the disgusting little thing you were, but as I held you and looked into your eyes as you laughed, I had a premonition of sorts and I knew if I allowed you to grow up, you would become just as powerful as I was, I think it was then that I had decided to come after you," She admits, not turning back to look at Harry, "I met with Lily and James a few weeks later, and Lily had somehow figured out Tamsyn Blackmoor was Voldemort and confronted me on it, so I drop the ruse and asked them for the third and final time to join me, they refused, of course, and I didn't see them for almost a year till I came calling on that Halloween night so long ago, and if I had realized that the damn prophecy was self-" Voldemort begins to say, anger creeping into her words, Harry cut her off.
"Prophecy? What prophecy?" Harry asks as Voldemort turns to him with a surprised look on her face.
"The prophecy between me and you, did Dumbledore never tell you?" Voldemort asks, before scoffing as Harry shakes his head, "Of course not, foolish old goat," she says with a roll of her eyes, "Dumbledore was given a prophecy by a drunk seer some months before you were born about a child born with the power to vanquish me, how they would have a power that I either didn't know of or could not comprehend and how I would mark them as my equal," She says and watches Harry's hand immediately move to his scar, "Yes, I did indeed mark my equal that night, Harry, I marked you," she says solemnly before walking back over to him, softly grabbing his chin and raising his head so he could look her in the eyes.
"If I could go back, Harry, if I could stop myself from going to your home that night I would, if I could give them back to you, I would, but I can do neither, nor will I apologize for what I did and give you false platitudes," Voldemort says before slowly and carefully, pushes Harry back in his seat before sitting down on his lap and Harry automatically wraps his arms around her waist as she does the same around his neck to look into his eyes, "I could offer you power, fame, and gold to make up for what I've done, but you already have all that without me, so I try to give you a life you should've had while growing up, but if that is not enough, if that is never enough, all you need to do is tell me and I will try and give you anything you wanted that is within my considerable power to give," she says, caressing Harry's cheek with the back of her hand before leaning in to whisper into his ear, "Even me, if you wanted," she whispers to Harry, her hot breath trailing over his neck and ear causing him to shiver and react like any teenager would before Voldemort chuckles.
"But be warned, unlike Delphini, I do not yield, I do not bend, nor will I ever kneel to anyone, and if you wanted to fuck me as you do her then, you'll have to get a lot stronger," Voldemort says before drawing her head back, her lips were set into a dark smile before she tilts Harry's head up to look up at her, her hooded scarlet eyes looking into Harry's burning emerald ones before she tilts her head forward and down closing her eyes just before their lips met.
Chapter done!
And boy did I have a lot more, because this was like the halfway point but this was such an amazing cutoff I couldn't help myself.
Now, Lady Voldemort, Big Tamsyn, the OG Dark Queen has an extremely odd relationship with Harry as it tends to dance between Mentor, Mother, and Lover and never stopping on one for long. Their relationship is a deeply intimate one on many, many levels, because, like Delphini, Voldemort understands Harry without him ever having to say a word on such a deep level that it's hard for others to understand, and Harry understands what makes the other two tick as well.
Lady Voldemort is the soft cruelty to Harry, the one that killed his parents and sent him to the Dursleys is the same one that freed him from them and gave him a mother figure before the mask of borrowed flesh all but rotted off. Now she is his warden, protector, and teacher all in one, and while Voldemort isn't sorry or remorseful for what she had done to Harry, she also knows the best way to keep him on her side is to make him Happy in every and any way possible.
And she is more than willing to do this, because of how she sees him.
Her only equal.
Does this make them lovers?
Swing by for the next chapter to find out.
Kingsaxcul, Out!
