Guess who is alive?
All I do now is work, struggle to sleep, work more, go to the theatre after work, and feel burnt out and exhausted (or work from home to catch up on paperwork) on the weekends. I will complete this fiction, even if it takes me 3 more years!
Chapter 14
Words: 4,944
21st December 1995. Malfoy Manor.
Lily and James Potter were at St Mungos – more specifically, they were in the Mind Healing Ward, speaking with Mind Healer Wilkes about their son's progress, or lack thereof. Tarrant Potter still seemed entirely unwilling to give up the notion of being the consort of Lord Voldemort, even if he had finally (accompanied by many, many tantrums) accepted that Harry Potter was Voldemort's mate. Somehow, Tarrant had convinced himself that this fact did not matter; that he and Harry had previously both been betrothed to Draco Malfoy and both had planned to marry the same boy, so surely, the same could be now applied to Lord Voldemort's unique circumstances. Wilkes had fought very hard not to burst out laughing the first time Tarrant had made this suggestion, though she had done her best to disabuse the boy of the ridiculous notion. Lily had blushed bright red when Wilkes had detailed this conversation (and the many following conversations which repeated the frankly ludicrous theme) to Tarrant's flustered but well-meaning parents.
"It was easier than arguing with him", James eventually admitted, eyes downcast and fingers clenching at the hem of his robe sleeves. They had argued of course, tried to explain that that wasn't how betrothals worked, that legal marriages happened between two people not three, that Harry wasn't allowed to keep sneaking into Tarrant's bed at night because they were far too old for that, but these arguments never really got them anything but more arguments for their troubles. It really was easier, looking back on it, to not argue – but all that had achieved is one son, Harry, who was hurt by their negligence and another son, Tarrant, who hated his brother for being the 'favourite' so much so that he had cast the Cruciatus curse on him.
Mind Healer Wilkes had sighed, slowly shaken her head, and declared that Tarrant would need to stay in St Mungos for longer than they had originally anticipated. As a result, James and Lily had been given permission to visit their son for Yule and to stay overnight. Harry, understandably, did not want to camp out on a hospital floor (even with a transfigured bed) when there was a risk of being murdered in his sleep, so, instead, Harry opted to stay at Malfoy Manor for the holidays.
Harry still went back and forth to Potter Manor and to Grimmauld Place, visiting various family members, and also getting his arsed handed to him by Mad-eye Moody in their monthly training sessions (now that there was a two-week school holiday to take advantage of, Moody had increased these to twice a week). Draco had, shockingly, been invited (shockingly, because Moody had almost cursed them both into oblivion when Harry had dragged Draco along during the summer holidays and not warned Moody in advance). Turns out, Alastor had heard about the Dark Arts curriculum which promoted the heavily frowned upon practice of cursing fellow students in order to learn the course material, and Moody thought it would be a perfect time to implement the same learning tools in his own lessons. Namely, Harry was asked to curse Draco, or defend himself from Draco, Moody, Remus and Sirius at the same time (which honestly Harry thought was bullshit, because he couldn't fight the other three simultaneously at the best of times and now they were encouraging his friend to beat on him too? Bullshit).
Yesterday had been one of those lessons and Harry had looked forward to lying in bed until an indulgently late hour, rising and scandalising Narcissa by turning up to lunch in his pyjamas. Instead, he had been woken at 7am by Professor Dolohov bursting through his bedroom door and firing off the Imperius curse while Barty Jr and Rabastan watched wide-eye from the hallway. Now, Dolohov would never have dared curse his Lord's mate, however his Lord had given him blanket permission that day (as long as Harry was not maimed, killed, or irreversibly traumatised, and the Unforgivables were only used once – or not at all in respect of the Killing Curse): Dolohov had free reign to test Harry Potter's mettle and hopefully complete his internal and secret assessment as to whether the boy was worth recommending to Rook for the Necromancy NEWT class (if so, the boy might as well sign up for Blood Magic too but Dolohov didn't know that professor personally so wouldn't be doing any favours by vetting the idiot children at Hogwarts on his behalf).
Harry blinked slowly, mind feeling sluggish and heavy. He was sleeping, he – wanted to sleep? But now he was awake, did he want to go back to sleep? No, no he wanted to get out of bed and cr—aww-awl – he wanted to crawl? That didn't seem right, his mind whispered, the words syrupy and hard to grasp. He didn't want to crawl, or did he? Crawl where? To… master? Who was master? Dolohov? Professor – what was his Hogwarts professor doing here, Harry thought as he swung both feet over the edge of the bed. This was familiar, he thought, this felt familiar – he had done this before, but he didn't want to do this… did he?
"No," he said, shaking his head furiously. "Fuck off," he snarled, throwing himself back onto the bed and rolling off of the other side. He came up, wand arm outstretched but there was no wand.
Dolohov smirked (Barty had used the Imperius on Potter when he was a fourth year and the boy had thrown it off almost immediately, but it seemed that being asleep lowered his defences; though, a 1 minute reaction time was nothing to scoff at. Dolohov thought it could be improved – he resolved to speak to Lucius about cursing the boy in his sleep every morning for the rest of the Yule holidays. No telling what one of the Dark Lord's enemies could do to the boy in that one minute after all.
Harry flicked his fingers, the way Voldemort had taught him, and Dolohov flew back into the hallway, knocking Rabastan to the ground (but breaking his own fall). What followed was 25 minutes of Harry scrambling to find his wand in the mess that was his bedroom (and yes, Mad-eye, constant vigilance, I know, I know, I suck sorry) and using wandless magic to fight Dolohov off as best he could. As frustrated as Harry was with his inability to fight three Order members at once, it was plainly enough to hold off one Death Eater, even without a wand, but that changed when Dolohov cast the purple curse at him. Dolohov made a sudden slashing movement with his wand, and from the tip burst purple flames which flew directly at Harry's torso. A non-verbal Protego shattered on impact, and the Protego Totalum that Harry had been trying to cast wandlessly was too slow to stop the curse. He crumpled to the floor like a puppet whose strings had been cut, silent and still, limbs akimbo. Dolohov inched forward, wand out in front of him like a shield, pointing up towards his face – ready to strike if Harry was feinting (like 12 minutes ago when he had almost severed Antonin's left leg). The teenager did not move.
"Get Draco," Antonin instructed, as he levitated Harry back onto his bed. The brunette's face was twisted into an unpleasant grimace; it was clear that even unconscious, he was in pain. Barty returned in 4 minutes exactly with the Malfoy boy, who was trembling head to toe, and with Lucius and Voldemort trailing silently in his wake. "Consider this your end of term assignment."
"But I already completed-" Draco started to protest, and then trailed off with wide eyes when he noticed Harry laid out stiffly on his bed. "Is he-"
"Heal him," Dolohov ordered. Of the scant few students who had made it into the OWL Dark Arts class, only two of them had successfully completed the assignment and identified the purple (unnamed) curse Dolohov had invented – Draco was neither of them. Harry, who was unconscious and was already starting to show signs of necromantic decay beneath his torn pyjama top, was one of them. The curse had struck over his heart, and while there was no mark or scar to indicate this, the flesh was slowly bruising and the longer they watched Draco try and fail to reverse the curse, the darker the bruising became until eventually the skin blackened and started to peel away from itself – little slivers of skin curling up and loose, away from the rest of his body, like ashes floating away from charred remains. Draco's pale face was green, his hands shook, and eventually Dolohov sighed and nudged him out of the way. "You will not be taking the Necromancy class for your NEWTs," the Unspeakable decided curtly, even as he worked swiftly to undo the damage his curse had wrought.
"I wasn't planning to," Draco whispered, voice shaking like he was struggling to take in the air needed to form the words. "Is Harry ok?"
"Good as new." Even as Antonin spoke, he turned to face the Dark Lord and dipped into a low bow. Voldemort acknowledged him, in an off-hand, unimportant fashion – his attention firmly on his mate, whose eyes were starting to flutter open. "Very good, Potter. Keep it up and you might impress me yet."
"Wha—" Harry slurred. He shook the foggy-feeling out of his brain, wincing when it caused his temples to throb and ache, and rubbed at his eyes until black spots danced in his vision and then faded away. "Some people are too hard to please," he moaned petulantly, thinking back on Moody's 3-on-1 approach which had since been upgraded to 4-on-1 and now this – cursed with curses that no one can defend against. Bullshit.
"I am pleased by you," Voldemort hissed in Parseltongue as his eyes blatantly checked Harry out, from his sweaty hair, to his ripped top and the muscles that peeked through, to his bare thighs and feet. Voldemort's lips curved up at the corners as he took great pleasure in watching Harry's eyes and mouth go wide, and a blush explode across his cheeks as the meaning of those words registered. The boy disappeared under his duvet so fast one might have thought he apparated, and it was only Voldemort's low chuckles that prevented any one from asking what had happened. Unanimously, and without question, they decided that they did not want to know.
XXX
19th February 1996. Hogwarts.
The Valentine's Hogsmeade weekend had been fun. Cadmus Gaunt had met Harry for a private dinner in a private room at the Hogs Head pub, they had avoided the unseemly pink spectacle that was Madam Puddifoots, and Harry had prevented Voldemort from cursing unsuspecting witches in the back every time they were overheard gossiping about how they planned to 'get' Harry to ask them out next Valentine's Day, or next Hogsmeade weekend, depending on how confident they were in their own allure. None of these girls ever realised how close they were to being a bloody smear on the cobblestones, and Harry's lips were bruised and swollen from the number of times he had to frantically mash them against Voldemort's own without warning or finesse. Undersecretary Gaunt had walked Harry back to the school, even though he would have much preferred to drag him back to the Hog's Head and finish what they had started (but the boy was only 15, Voldemort reminded himself, he had to be patient). He went to speak briefly with Headmaster Dumbledore (about their plans to slowly 'kill off' the Dark Lord and finalise their list of concessions and demands, since the initial meeting had been rudely interrupted and it had been decided that it would be best to proceed only with the main parties present from now on). Lily and Severus had joined them, as well as Barty Jr, as they were all professors in the school so it was normal for them to visit the Headmaster, and none of them were on babysitting duty at Hogsmeade – unlike poor Dolohov who was mere moments away from ending several bloodlines if their spawns did not learn to behave in public.
Harry went to his dorm, dragged Elphaba out from where she had curled up underneath his pillow, and then – to his shame, which would never be shared with anyone but his pet snake – he gossiped like the dramatic teenage girl he was(n't) about how wonderful his date had been.
That was 5 days ago. It had been a nice, even paced 5 days, full of classes and just enough homework to be taken seriously but not enough to make him want to cry constantly (unlike Dark Arts, because Dolohov was a sadistic arsehole who wanted them to kill themselves so he didn't have to teach anyone apparently). Now, he had the unfortunate – uh, privilege – to be sitting with Professor McGonagall and his mother while they discussed possible career choices and tried to talk him out of signing up for the Necromancy NEWT class.
His mum had tried to be funny, joking that with the frequency Harry got injured he should take the Beginners Guide to Medical Magic class but Harry just didn't find that to be an interesting prospect. Don't get him wrong, he had great respect for Healers and Medi-witches and every single person who had stitched him back together over the years, but that wasn't something that he saw himself doing for the rest of his life. He half contemplated pursuing a professional Quidditch career, not something he was one-hundred percent certain of, but something that maybe might just interest him. It would certainly make his dad and Sirius happy, Harry supposed, but he wanted back up options. Professional sports careers didn't last forever after all, and even though they were rich as a family, Tarrant was set to inheret the majority of their income and holdings (thanks to Dumbledore's idea of trying to make them "equal" as children, Harry was the political heir but Tarrant was the one who inherited the fortune attached to the Potter name). Yeah, Harry would inherit from Sirius too, but only if he didn't have any children before he died, and it wasn't his money, not really – it would feel weird to spend his life relying on what might otherwise be considered a handout. Harry had Voldemort to support him, as his dominant mate, but again, the thought of that made him shift uncomfortably in his seat and scuff his feet against the floor. He wanted to be self-sufficient, he wanted to make something of his life, earn his way in their world, and – well, healing was not the path that would help him achieve that.
"I think I want to be a lawyer," Harry decided eventually, after the silence from his mum making (another) joke about him being a professional celebrity had long turned awkward. "I want to be involved in the Wizengamot, and politics, and eventually I think I would like to run for Minister for Magic. But to do that, I need to study law. I looked it up and there are no educational facilities in the UK – there is one in America, in New York, and one in France. There are some private individuals who will tutor, they are for the most part regulated in the UK, and the exams can be taken independently, but it is very difficult to get any one of them to agree to take on a pupil. I want to have a backup in case that does not work out. I can always qualify in another area, and work my way up in the Ministry without a law degree, though obtaining one would be preferable." Harry drew in a deep breath, mentally preparing for his mother to hit the roof, and continued: "if I cannot be a barrister, I want to be an Unspeakable. To do this, I will need to take Blood Magic, Necromancy, and Dark Arts for NEWT level, as well as separate tuition in spell creation. Cadmus has already found me a suitable tutor and I can start over the summer holidays."
Spell creation was not taught in Hogwarts; there were too few people with the natural affinity for it, and so finding a tutor and paying them a yearly salary was not worthwhile. While Necromancy and Blood magic were almost unlikely to result in a full classroom, the subjects themselves would be pursued by the darker families who had for years been without representations and real choices in school – their children would fill the classes, whether they had an affinity or not (in the same way there were always full Herbology classrooms, when only 4 or 5 students ever scored an Outstanding on the final exams). Spell creation was not a class that could be supplemented with written essays and lectures on theory – you either had the talent to create a brand new spell, or you would fail. Classes that were bound for failure were not highly sought after and so Hogwarts left those branches of magic to the students who wished to pursue Masteries and could afford to hire specialised tutors, either privately or through the Ministry of Magic's registry [Lily was on that registry but she rarely received requests for private tutoring, not when there were many others – Purebloods – who had the necessary qualifications in Defence Against the Dark Arts and Charms].
Professor McGonagall prided herself on remaining stoic in the face of every possible set of circumstance that might arise, no matter how wild or problematic or difficult they may be – including where she was just informed that the Dark Lord Voldemort had hired a private tutor to instruct the Boy-Who-Lived in how to create his own spells, so that he could infiltrate the Ministry of Magic and—and what, McGonagall thought trying to calm her racing heart. If Voldemort wanted to take over the Ministry, he could have done so – he had several Death Eaters in key positions. Instead, he was pursuing his original political ambitions; those that Tom Riddle had thought up and advocated for, even when Purebloods scoffed and sneered at him, pushed him down and ground their heel into his ambitions as they walked right over him. He was no longer that unknown uppity Mudblood boy – he was using the name of his ancestor, the Gaunts, the descendants of Salazar Slytherin, and as far as the general population knew he was someone to follow. Even without the gaggle of loyal sycophants at his beck and call. There was no reason, she realised, for Voldemort to support Harry in this goal unless it was simply because that was what Harry wanted. No ulterior motive, no sneaky backhanded plan, no risk of death or destruction or the culling of Muggleborns as a result of Harry's studies. And wasn't that a weight off of her shoulder, once she was able to think straight again.
"Well, Mr Potter," the Professor said, in her normal calm and even tone, "you've clearly thought this out. I must say I am impressed."
Harry grinned widely, cheeks plump and teeth peaking out behind red lips (that he had been furiously chewing on while he waited for condemnation or vitriol that never came). "Mum?" He glanced shyly at his mother, who still sat silent, blinking slowly, even as she stared straight through him.
Lily smiled softly, as he spoke. She reached forward to cup his cheeks with both hands, fingernails resting just below his eyes. To anyone else it may have seemed threatening, but Harry knew this was his mother's way of remaining calm, of trying to appear understanding when she didn't really understand but was afraid that her children would escape before she could hash things out. Instead of pressing him for an explanation however, Lily remembered Lord Voldemort handing over a very reasonable list of demands at their initial parle, and then again in the Headmaster's office only last week being more than agreeable, and she remembered Harry's stilted conversations about his betrothal process and courting and dates, blushing bright red with his eyes squeezed closed in mortification when he quietly admitted Voldemort had kissed him for the first time and he liked it but what should he do next. Lily had to trust Voldemort to do what was best for his mate, what was right, whether she herself believed it to be 'right' was immaterial, and she knew that Harry – as sweet and as kind as he was – did not share many political beliefs with his parents, but he was not a monster (not like some of the Purebloods Lily had the displeasure of meeting and being verbally eviscerated by). If anyone could temper the monster that was Lord Voldemort, it was her brave, sweet son – but in doing so, Lily would need to accept that Voldemort would likely change Harry as much as Harry changed him. Hopefully, both for the better.
With that in mind, she smiled wider before placing a soft kiss to her son's forehead. She withdrew both hands from his face and instead curled them around his shoulders to pull him into a tight hug. While Harry was busy suffocating against her shoulder, she whispered, "I am so very proud of you" into his hair, and then squeezed him harder.
When asked later, by Draco and Theo, had weird or useful or uncomfortable the careers counselling had been (both of them had found it a bit tedious, McGonagall had merely nodded and agreed to their suggestions, and made none of her own, and Severus who had attended as well had agreed with Dolohov that Draco would not be taking Necromancy next year and refused to budge on that decision), Harry had shrugged one shoulder while hiding a grin behind his hand. "It was great," he said honestly, and Blaise who had yet to attend his session, glanced over with a raised eyebrow which made clear that he wasn't buying that response for a second. No one else had claimed to have experienced anything great about it, but then again, Harry Potter was a bit special, wasn't he?
XXX
9th June 1996. Grimmauld Place.
Many years ago, Harry had found a golden locket at Grimmauld Place and decided that it belonged to him. It felt the same as the bloodstone that Voldemort had had Peter Pettigrew deliver to Tarrant, which Harry had also commandeered for his own. Unlike the bloodstone, Kreacher had kept hold of the locket and apparated away with it, hiding it safely in Regulus' old bedroom (instead of in his own cupboard where he slept). Harry had been too young to remember the locket, being only 18 months old at the time, and he had never come across it since. It had completely slipped his mind – in the same way that he sometimes forgot that not everyone could speak Parseltongue, and talking to Elphaba in the common room made some people uncomfortable – or like how he forgot it was a bit odd to sleep with a cursed dark object under his pillow, just because the Dark Lord gave it to him (well not him but close enough) – or how he never used to think it was weird for Tarrant and Harry to decide they would both marry Draco. Some things just weren't important enough to worry about. The OWL exams however – they had contributed to about 90% of Harry's worries recently, but they were finally over and while he was not entirely sure that he had done as well as he could have, he was sure he had passed enough of the exams to qualify for the NEWT classes that he wanted to take.
His current, worry-free state made it possible for him to recall a conversation that he had heard Lucius and Bellatrix having at Malfoy Manor on 5th June when he visited for Draco's birthday party. While ruminating on that conversation (which he most definitely was not supposed to have heard, but well what the Death Eaters didn't know wouldn't get them tortured by Voldemort, would it?) Harry recalled the black diary that he had found years ago in Malfoy Manor. He remembered Tom, and how safe and comfortable Tom made him feel, and while he was too young at 12 to really think about sexual attraction, Harry imagined that if he met 16-year-old Tom today he would experience the same warm, fluttering ache in his chest that Voldemort caused when they kissed.
Thinking of Tom however had the strange side effect of making his magic curl and weave around his body, like tentacles emerging from the depths of the ocean the tendrils of magic seemed to materialise out of nowhere and they swayed and weaved through the room – growing longer the further away from Harry they stretched, until he felt like he was attached to a very long rope and had no choice but to catch up to the other end before the rope snapped. Almost without realising what he was doing, Harry found his way upstairs, and upstairs again, to the cluster of bedrooms where Sirius and his brother were raised (bedrooms which Sirius had closed off and not renovated even when he renovated the remainder of the house and invited Remus to live with him and invited the Order of the Pheonix to freeload off of his generosity). The only person who went into those rooms was Kreacher, and even then all he did was make sure nothing was moulding in Sirius' room and no Doxies or a lethifold had appeared to start a new infestation since the last time the house was cleaned out. For Regulus' room, Kreacher used to stand there, one fist clenched around the chain of the golden locket, the other hand hitting himself in the head in punishment for failing to carry out his Master's last orders.
Today, Harry opened the door with a quiet click, feeling weirdly dizzy and light headed. Kreacher was not there this time. Kreacher was downstairs with Sirius arguing (as much as a house elf who hated their current Master could argue) about the menu for the Summer Solstice party they were planning to have on the 21st. Remus was out, most likely avoiding the argument or making his own party arrangements behind their backs because sometimes that was just easier. Lily and James were in St Mungo's for what was hopefully the last time: Tarrant was due to be released in a week but no one had told Harry about this yet in case Mind Healer Wilkes changed her mind again. Today, it was just Harry – and the golden locket that he had dangling from his right hand, fingers curled between the chain like he wanted to absorb it directly through his skin, to become one with the gold and metal and… hissing.
The locket was hissing?
The diary didn't hiss, or at least Harry couldn't remember it ever hissing. Was that normal for a locket, he wondered? But there was a snake engraved on the front of the locket, in solid gold, with scales carved in that jutted up and to the side in places and cut into the palm of Harry's left hand when it came up to cradle the egg-sized face of the locket. There were small drops of bright red blood, drip, drip, dripping onto the carpet while Harry stood and watched: his legs trembled, he felt his body swaying side to side while the snake hissed louder and louder but he could no longer make out what the snake was saying. Was he a Parselmouth? Harry couldn't remember. He closed his eyes, trying to will away the headache that had appeared out of nowhere, so sudden and unexpected, he wondered if he had been cursed.
Harry didn't know what happened after this – he thought distantly that he should clean up the blood, Kreacher wouldn't be happy if Harry made a mess in Regulus' room, but he made no move to do so. He felt his body swaying, swaying, and then it stopped. Harry tried to move his hand, to inspect the cut, but it was like his brain was no longer connected to his arm – nothing happened no matter how much he tried to insist his arm move. The hissing stopped around the same time that he felt like the breath was knocked out of him, and his eyes which were squinted, half closed against the light, took in the bottoms of the furniture in the room (as if he had been lying down, but Harry couldn't remember lying down at all). Why was he looking at the legs of the table – he had been looking at the locket while standing beside the bed, hadn't he?
He was bleeding still, was Harry's last thought as he glanced down at the slow rivulets of blood that danced between his clenched fingers – his fingers were attached to a hand that was stretched out in front of him, like he was reaching for someone to grab hold and pull him up out of the mire that he was sinking into. No one grabbed his hand (no one was there). Harry watched the blood stain the carpet. His eyelids fluttered twice and the last thing he remembered seeing was the golden snake with glowing ruby eyes, smeared with his blood, lift its head off of the locket – a black tar-like cloud of something that shouldn't exist rose up and up until the snake was rearing over Harry's unprotected face and Harry could only stare, until he couldn't.
XXX
We didn't get a chance to enjoy Diary Tom, so here's some Locket Marvolo instead. Eh, I hope he doesn't mess up Voldemort's plans to not be a Dark Lord and seduce his mate…
;)