(AN & TW: School visit chapters will probably be double length or more. So daily updates may or may not be disrupted before and after these chapters, and some are scheduled back-to-back. All dependent on my benevolence and work ethic. While there are no sex scenes in this chapter, I would definitely say it is explicit. It also got so dark at one point that I cried. I choked myself. Mentions of child death, nothing graphic.)
Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Mount Greylock, Massachusetts, USA
Uprising, Muse
Paranoia is in bloom
The PR transmissions will resume
They'll try to push drugs that keep us all dumbed down
And hope that we will never see the truth around
(So come on)
Another promise, another scene
Another packaged lie to keep us trapped in greed
And all the green belts wrapped around our minds
And endless red tape to keep the truth confined
(So come on)
They will not force us
They will stop degrading us
They will not control us
We will be victorious
(So come on)
Interchanging mind control
Come, let the revolution take its toll
If you could flick the switch and open your third eye
You'd see that we should never be afraid to die
(So come on)
Rise up and take the power back
It's time the fat cats had a heart attack
You know that their time's coming to an end
We have to unify and watch our flag ascend
(So come on)
Narcissa had healed his face while scowling at him as though she disapproved. She'd put him in his usual room, and he didn't bother trying the door.
He didn't sleep, alternating between pacing the floor and sitting at the end of the bed.
"He killed Barty."
"Yes."
"Wasn't he like, one of his most loyal followers?"
"Yes."
He chewed his lip and bounced his leg, looking at his hands again, something he'd done repeatedly throughout the night. He was amazed at how sharp the world suddenly was, baffled that he'd had no idea.
"And you think we won that round?" Harry asked in Parseltongue.
"Yes. He is—as far as I can tell—struggling."
"That's vague."
"…He is difficult to read."
"You're him?" Harry scoffed and started pacing again.
"I do not know what he knows or is feeling."
It was before first light that Nagini collected him from his room after being rushed into dressing in a new set of robes—a combat-ready set with little flair and small black buttons, cut just below the knee.
Nagini held a finger to her lips the instant Harry opened his mouth, refusing to talk until they arrived in the empty dining room.
Two different boxes sat on the table. One was smaller and metal, engraved and painted with a deep blue varnish. The other was wooden; even the hinges were lighter chunks of wood.
"We're going to Ilvermorny first. He said we'll look for a Horned Serpent, so we're staying the night. Tomorrow, Egypt. He said there will be crocodiles, and we'll see the river." She nodded seriously while she hissed, forcing him to sit down.
'What school is in Egypt?' Harry wondered.
'Almadrasat Alsihria Kom Ombo. Hidden in the Temple of Kom Ombo, on the bank of the Nile.' Something in Tom's tone made Harry press.
'Is that bad?'
'Not… Bad. I do not particularly like the school's founder. I am surprised he made that choice.'
'Why don't you like them? Wait, founder?'
'It is easier for you to see than it is for me to explain.' Tom eventually thought.
The Dark Lord entered the room, interrupting their thoughts and distracting Harry thoroughly with his face and bare forearms. He wasn't wearing a robe, dress shirt rolled up at the elbows, top button undone, where Harry immediately spotted a thick, braided silver chain. His hair was set perfectly accentuating the almost curl. His face was neutral as he approached the boxes, briefly touching Nagini's head as he passed. The scent of cedar followed him, and Harry subconsciously leaned in when he sat down at the head of the table.
While Harry was enchanted, Tom was immediately wary.
Voldemort picked up the small metal box and shrank it further, dropping it into his shirt pocket. His eyes finally flicked to Harry, a look on his face that he'd only seen on Tom, a furious, seductive hunger. There and then gone, replaced with a tiny smirk.
'…Oh, fuck, he's…' His thoughts got stuck, malfunctioning.
'Remember, it is not genuine, Harry.' Tom warned.
'Whatever it is, he's good at it.' He could feel his cheeks reddening but couldn't tear his eyes away. A lump formed in his throat that he couldn't swallow, though he tried.
His smirk widened, and he abruptly opened the wooden box, making Harry sit back with the sharp movement. He glanced inside and asked:
"Is that an American flag?"
The Dark Lord's eyes shot to the ceiling, and the smirk was gone, "Yes."
Laid inside was a large, gemmed broach in the likeness of the flag—decidedly gaudy, in his opinion.
"Is it a Portkey?"
"No, I am collecting American patriotic propaganda. Yes, it is a Portkey." He didn't say 'idiot', but Harry felt it like a ghost at the end of his sentence.
"Are you going… Dressed like that?" Harry asked, and Voldemort gave Nagini a pleading look in response.
She was grinning, holding robes that he hadn't noticed. She passed them to the Dark Lord, and he slipped them over his shoulders, eyes on him as he slowly clasped the top button of his shirt.
Harry swallowed, "Oh. Yeah, that makes sense."
'What is going on?' he wondered.
Tom seemed to be still analysing the situation, bubbles of concern popping in his head. 'Do as I say, when I say it, alright? Try not to let your thoughts out of your mouth before I have examined them. Do not, no matter what he does, give in.'
'Yeah, you keep saying.'
'And you keep not listening.'
Harry had already stopped listening, eyes on the Dark Lord's mouth as he spoke.
"Ready?" He asked Nagini as he flicked his hood up. In response, she dropped to the floor, writhing as her skin became scales. She used the leg of the table to support her weight until the Dark Lord lifted her onto his shoulders and stood, picking up the box and holding it in the palm of his hand.
He summoned his mask, his hands left bare. He held the broach out for Harry to touch, and he did so at the same time as Voldemort, rocketed across the Earth to land, he assumed, in Massachusetts. It was dark and cold, his breath fogging the air as he exhaled.
Voldemort summoned light and a warming charm on himself, Nagini, and much to Harry's shock, on him. He sighed as the air around him went from frigid to toasted, rubbing his hands together, and was not allowed to say thank you.
Fir and spruce trees were the only green; the rest of the landscape was browned with the hint of winter. Though there had been the beginning of a sunrise poking through the windows at Malfoy Manor, it seemed to be the middle of the night. No birds or insects called, and the rustling of leaves with the breeze was the only sound.
He could see a mountain ahead of them, wreathed in cloud, almost camouflaged against the moonless sky.
"What time is it here?" Harry wasn't certain why he'd whispered the question.
"One AM." The Dark Lord whispered back loudly.
"Do they know we're coming?" He asked, not whispering anymore.
Voldemort sighed and shook his head, walking away.
"They know we're here," Nagini said, her head bobbing with his footsteps.
Harry followed and noticed that no guard had been brought with them, not even Lucius. "Are… Are any more Death Eaters coming?"
"…No," Voldemort said.
'Why not?' Harry wondered.
'Is it not obvious?' Tom thought.
'No?'
'This is private. Again, Harry, I need to stress that this is not real. He needs to submit to us, first.'
'You think he's trying to… Flirt me into giving in?'
'You nearly gave in because he did a button up slowly, you nonce.'
'There is no way I'm going to able to… Do what you said. That sounds impossible,' Harry thought, eyes glued to the back of the Dark Lord's head.
'It IS.' A wave of frustration came with Tom's thought, 'It is impossible. I need you to keep it together and let me work this out.'
'…Are you scared?' Harry wondered, nearly stopping, his feet skipping a step.
'Is that relevant?'
He frowned, his heart rate picking up due to the incline, the speed they were walking, and that it was suddenly obvious that Tom was frozen in the middle of a busy metaphorical highway making eyes at an oncoming truck.
'Why didn't you say anything?'
'…About what?'
'That you're scared!'
'Harry.'
'Tom.' He noticed he was scowling and smoothed his face with his hand, rubbing between his eyes. 'Why didn't you tell me?'
'It's… Not relevant. What you're doing is necessary and my feelings don't come into it.'
'You're doing that thing.'
'What thing.'
'Where you talk funny because you're panicking.'
'I'm not panicking; I'm stressing to you the importance of not falling at his feet like a dog.'
'More to it than that, I think.'
'Oh, great, Harry, be aware for once.'
The Dark Lord stopped and turned, "What is wrong with you? Are you unfit? You should not be, by this point."
"What?"
"You are making an unreasonable amount of noise."
He realised that he'd been huffing up the small mountain, both he and Tom making irritated noises at each other. "Oh. No. I'm fine."
'I still have no idea how you really feel about this,' Harry thought when Voldemort started up the mountain again.
'I know.'
'Are you ever going to tell me?'
'Everything is… Fragile. Please, not right now.'
'When?' Harry insisted.
'I don't know.'
He chewed his tongue as they neared the clouded peak, a small granite castle appearing in the mist.
"When Isolt Sayre—the founder of Ilvermorny—was five years old, her aunt, Gormlaith, killed her parents. She Kidnapped Isolt and raised her. An upbringing that was solitary and brutal. Gormlaith was a proud member of the Sacred Twenty-Eight; her obsession with pure blood, the dark arts, and her descent from Slytherin consumed her. She intended for Isolt to follow her creed." Voldemort turned to be sure Harry was listening.
He was. Enraptured by the serpent tongue and the tone of his voice, every word seared into his brain regardless of content.
"Isolt did not follow in Gormlaith's footsteps. Instead, she stole her aunt's wand and fled. In sixteen-twenty—when she was seventeen, she boarded the Mayflower, disguising herself as a boy named Elias Story. When she reached America, she faked 'Elias Story's' death and took the name Morrigan. A nickname given to her as a child by her father." He'd stopped short of reaching the castle, instead staring at it.
"Isolt married a muggle man she met after rescuing two young wizards from a beast that killed their parents. She adopted the boys, and in sixteen twenty-seven, Ilvermorny—named after her parents' home in Ireland—was founded with just two students, Chadwick and Webster Boot."
'What do I do?' Harry wondered.
'Ask questions.'
"…Sacred Twenty-Eight?" He asked.
"The twenty-eight Wizarding families considered to have truly pure blood." He was approaching the castle again, and so Harry followed.
Through the mist, a tall, slightly pudgy bald man was waiting at a gate shaped like a Gordian knot, repeatedly checking a pocket watch until he noticed them and made a squawking sound. "Ah! Thought you might have gotten lost in the fog. Thick this time of year. This time of night." He clicked his tongue and checked the watch again.
The man opened the gates with his wand and ushered them into the entrance courtyard. The front doors of the granite castle were flanked by statues of a man and a woman, and Harry assumed they were Isolt and her husband. The small courtyard was dotted with fir trees and a few stone benches.
"I'll show you to your room," the man said.
Harry tried to fix his glasses and realised they weren't there.
"That will not be necessary, Gideon. We intend to tour the grounds. Alone."
"Alone? I can't really… Let… You…Do- okay, alright, sure, I'm sure that will be fine. No problem." He laughed sheepishly, eying the castle door.
The Dark Lord had been slowly drawing his wand, "Most gracious of you. Strictly a friendly visit, of course."
Gideon swallowed, nodded, and cleared his throat. "Breakfast starts at six AM, and the kids are bursting with excitement. Not every day we get a celebrity here. If you want your room before then, you can find either one of the maintenance staff or possibly a Pukwudgie if you're up for it. Or myself in the faculty wing. Do you… Know your way around? I was given the head position only three years ago-"
"I do." Voldemort interrupted him.
"Well, Emma-Jean would be thrilled to fill you in on the history of our castle and our founders; the grounds are rich-"
"That will not be necessary."
"Oh?" He seemed suddenly far more nervous, pulling at his collar and laughing. "Alright, then, I'll- leave you to it," he backed away until there were a few metres between him and them before he spun and jogged awkwardly into the castle, a ring of keys jangling on his too-tight belt.
"He doesn't know the history? That you're related to Isolt?" Harry asked.
"He does. He was hoping I did not."
"Why would he hope… Oh, because you're Voldemort?"
The Dark Lord was walking toward the doors, pointing at the statues, "Isolt. James Steward."
"Her husband? The Muggle?"
"Yes."
"Chadwick and Webster, were they the ones that Isolt made the first American wands for? With the Horned Serpent's horn?" Harry asked, and the Dark Lord paused with his hands on the doors.
"…Yes. How much of this do you know?"
"Just that, I think."
He pushed the doors inward; the large, circular room within was lit by intermittent flaming torches. The ceiling was a glass cupola, with a balcony wrapped around the room's circumference above their heads.
"So the students can witness the sorting," Voldemort said, watching him looking. He set Nagini down, and she coiled at his feet.
In the centre stood four wood-carved statues around a large golden Gordian knot on the floor. The statues were creatures that he didn't recognise, like pillars. "New students stand within the Gordian knot; their totem glows to announce their house."
The Dark Lord touched each one and named them: "Pukwudgie, named by James. Wampus, named by Webster. Thunderbird, named by Chadwick. And Horned Serpent, named by Isolt."
"Pukwudgie favours healers and represents the heart. Pukwudgie are magical creatures distantly related to goblins. You will see them; they are still employed here. Exceptionally dangerous and secretive, fiercely independent. Isolt saved the life of a Pukwudgie, and they formed an unlikely friendship. The Pukwudgie refused to give his name, though, and so she called him William." Again, he ensured that Harry was listening, which he unequivocally was, blinking like an owl at the serpent tongue.
"It was William who killed Gormlaith. But we will get to that later. Wampus is said to represent the body and favours warriors. The Wampus cat is native to these mountains, fast, strong, and nearly impossible to kill—they can also employ Legilimency. They appear at first as though they are simply mountain lions, but on closer inspection, they have six legs." Harry couldn't see Voldemort's mouth but could hear the smile.
'I've got whiplash. Why is he being…' He thought, met with the same reply from Tom.
'Not real.'
He chewed his tongue and tried not to frown.
"Thunderbird represents the soul. Favouring adventurers. The Thunderbird is closely related to the Phoenix. It is a much larger, far more dangerous bird, with three sets of wings, summoning wild storms as it flies."
"Will we see one?"
"Exceptionally rare. And Horned Serpent—you tell me."
"Oh, uh. Isolt befriended one. Near here? I'm assuming."
The Dark Lord leaned on the serpent statue and said nothing, tilting his head.
"So, then um…" He bugged his eyes at the floor and thought, 'Help?'
'He would know if I helped you. This is better.'
"Uh, so… She made wands? With its horn? But they're supposed to be really aggressive. I don't know, the one I met seemed nice?"
Voldemort was tapping one finger on his upper arm. "She befriended the serpent before there was a school. It spoke to her and said, 'Until I am part of your family, your family is doomed.' At the time, she had no family—apart from her aunt—and so had no idea what that meant."
"How do you know all of this?" Harry asked.
"I make it my business." He was remarkably casual, shrugging one shoulder and crossing his ankles as he leaned his full weight into the wooden serpent. "Isolt made a mistake in naming herself Morrigan. Word of the small school taught by a woman named such eventually made its way to Ireland and Gormlaith." He was walking again, making Harry race a few steps to keep up, Nagini moving easily behind him as he pushed through another set of doors. This time, leading to a large, empty, and dark dining hall. Voldemort whipped his wand to light the torches and brought Harry to the large portrait behind the staff table.
A man, a woman, two little boys, and two baby girls.
"By then, Isolt had twin daughters. Martha and Rionach Steward. Gormlaith, being of a one-track mind, decided her plan might work if she tried it a second time. She aimed to kidnap the girls and kill their parents."
"You know…" Harry began, "This sounds almost familiar. The one-track mind part, especially. Family trait?"
The Dark Lord ignored him. "And so, Gormlaith assumed Isolt's father's name to board a ship and travel to Ilvermorny."
"…She looks like you. People say you got your looks from... not your mum. But—" Harry pointed at Isolt; her hollowed cheeks, high cheekbones, sharp jaw, and narrowed eyes were more Tom Riddle than what he remembered of Riddle Senior.
Voldemort had no reaction, still staring at a wall that held nothing of interest before turning back to the portrait. "Gormlaith did not know about the Boot boys. She used Parseltongue to disable Isolt's wand—the one Isolt had stolen from her—it was also the wand of Salazar Slytherin himself, made from Snakewood. When she did this, the wands with Horned Serpent cores warned the children of the danger." He was walking again, slower, allowing Harry to walk beside him.
When the Dark Lord opened the small door on the far wall, he partially blocked the way, holding it open so that he had to squeeze past him into a dimly lit hallway. Nagini slid over both of their feet and took the lead, waiting outside a large wrought iron door at the end of the corridor. It was locked, but Voldemort melted the lock free and glanced around the hallway.
He pushed the door and then Harry in, following closely behind.
Nagini shifted on the floor, quickly standing by the Dark Lord with her hands outstretched, eyes wide. They were in an impressive library that was not quite as large as the one he was familiar with. The ceilings were closer to their heads, and the atmosphere was far darker. The granite shelves were lit by haphazard torches.
He dropped a small metal rod into her palms and said, "Like I showed you. Find all the books."
She nodded enthusiastically and said, "Albus Dumbledore," to the device, following the tiny blue orb of light it sent out into the shelves.
"…Wait?" Harry pointed at Nagini and was shoved back out of the library.
The Dark Lord guided him back the way they had come, walking directly behind him. Although he continuously felt the urge to either run or turn around, Tom allowed him to do neither.
"If Isolt had two daughters, does that mean you have relatives somewhere? Alive?" He asked instead.
"Not that I have found. Rionach, it is said, decided that the Slytherin line should end with her. I have decided that she must not have known about Marvolo… Or his children. Martha was a Squib, who eventually left the school to live a Muggle life with a man from a nearby tribe. It is unclear if she had children; Muggle records of that time are beyond useless. In the Sixteen-twenties, it was not known that magical blood could potentially reemerge from Squibbed lines, so Martha likely did not feel a threat." He pushed another door open over Harry's head once they returned to the dining hall, leading into a dark granite courtyard.
A great tree stood in the centre, its head-sized leaves like scales that shone almost as though made of metal, overlapping and solid, unmoving in the breeze.
"Gormlaith put James and Isolt into a magically induced sleep, only for them to be woken by the cries of their infant daughters. In the chaos that followed, and assuming all was lost, Isolt called out to her father, William—long dead. It was the Pukwudgie who heard her, and he shot Gormlaith through the heart with a poisoned arrow." The Dark Lord had reached the tree, his breath fogging out from underneath the mask until he removed it with a wave of his hand.
"No one knows exactly why, but shortly thereafter, Isolt buried Salazar Slytherin's wand on the grounds. Within the year, an unidentified Snakewood tree had grown, resistant to all damage." He inspected the tree, running a finger over what looked to be fresh gouges in the dense wood. "…It was found to have unusual healing properties, and it became somewhat of a testament to the fact that Slytherin's wand, like his descendants, encompassed both noble and ignoble."
"Has someone tried to cut it down?" Harry asked, stepping closer. When he did, Voldemort spun, snatched him, and pinned him to the trunk.
"Yes." His face was inches from his before he whispered Parseltongue in Harry's ear. "Tell me."
He swallowed, feeling like he was falling, though he was pinned to the tree. "…Tell you what?"
He was careful not to let their skin touch, his breath warming Harry's neck, his lips close enough to graze. "Yes, when the dark withdrew, I suffered light, and saw the candles heave beneath the wax." his hands ran over Harry's robes, lingering on buttons, pressed hard against him. "I watched the shadow of my old self dwindle, as softly on my recollection stole a mood the senses could not touch or damage, a sense of peace beyond the breathing word."
He found he could hardly breathe, his thoughts incomplete and scattered as Tom fought to hold him perfectly still, whimpering.
'Do—not—say—please,' Tom snapped in his head, the only clear thought.
'I'm not. I wasn't. Please…'
"Day dawdled at my elbow. It was night within. I saw my hands, their soft, dark backs keeping me from the noise outside. The candle seemed snuffed into a deep and silent pool: It drew no shadow round my constant image, for in a dazzling dark, my spirit stirred."
Harry was no longer only whimpering, grinding his hips infinitesimally, unable to resist the friction or the serpent tongue at his neck, his hands grabbing back, searching for skin and stopped in their pursuit by both the Dark Lord and Tom.
"Tell me," the words came with a hint of a gasp that Harry considered a victory.
"Tell you what?" he repeated, breathless, face blazing, heart pounding.
Voldemort bit his ear, sharp enough to draw blood, his tongue flicking along his earlobe. "But still, I questioned it. My inward sight still knew the senses and the senses' tracks; I felt my flesh and clothes, a rubbing sandal, and distant voices wishing to console me. My mind was keen to understand and rummage to find assurance in the sounds I heard."
'The curse,' Tom thought, and he immediately obliged, bringing the darkness to wrap it around Voldemort's throat.
He felt the Dark Lord's thundering pulse and wondered how he hid it so well. Harry squeezed lightly, then harder when he gasped. In return, Voldemort held his neck and tightened his grip, pulling back to watch the bliss relax his face, his legs giving way. Voldemort held him hard against the trunk, his leg between Harry's with excessive force, not allowing him to move and sending him insane.
'…Oh, fuck, fuck.' He thought, Tom scrambling to remain in control in his head.
"Then senses ceased, and thoughts were driven quite away—no act of mine. I could relax and feel a fire no earnest prayer can kindle; old parts of peace dissolved into a whole, and like a bright thing proud in its new plumage, my mind was keen as an attentive bird."
'Stop it. Do not fucking say please, Harry.'
"Help," he said instead. He still held the curse, and it had become wild around the Dark Lord's throat, trails of bright green exploding into an Aurora Borealis that consumed them both.
"Tell me what you want, Harry. Ask me nicely, and you can have it right now," the Dark Lord said. A hissing rattle was coming from somewhere, just on the edge of his awareness.
'DON'T.'
"…What?" He was shaking, his legs entirely unable to hold him, his full weight held hard against the tree by Voldemort.
He couldn't see the red, angry magic but could feel it winding around his neck, burning and biting his skin.
The Dark Lord's mouth returned to Harry's ear, a melody harmonising with the strange hissing, getting louder, "Yes, fire, light, air, birds, wax, the sun's own height I draw from now, but every image breaks. Only a child's simplicity can handle such moments when the hottest fire feels cool, and every breath is like a sudden homage to peace that penetrates and is not feared."
A thousand Parseltongue voices were singing with him, the leaves rolling above their heads like waves in the ocean, rattling, grinding, and stealing the Dark Lord's attention.
He abruptly stepped back, the light still on his hands. Harry dropped to the ground, dangerously close to climax, the pressure still building infinitesimally without input, eyes bulging out of his head as he remembered they were in an open courtyard.
The green light from his magic and the electric red from the Dark Lord's clung to the tree's bark as it continued to sing, a mass of voices indistinguishable from each other.
'You are making this incredibly difficult. What is…Going on?' Tom thought, his attention torn between Harry and the tree.
'He did that poetry thing; I can't handle it when he does that.'
'He's done it once! I do that!' There was a rush of rage and a sharp jealousy with Tom's thoughts, unconcealed momentarily, making him flinch as he scrambled to his feet.
He dug his nails into his palms and shook himself, teeth clenched as he fought the intense desire down.
A single, gnarled, and pockmarked branch fell from within the solid leaves, landing at their feet and immediately snatched up by the Dark Lord, though Harry hadn't reached for it. His eyes were back on the tree, now silent and unmoving. He summoned the green light to fend off the darkness that had fallen again.
Voldemort held the branch in both hands, frowning with wide, confused eyes. The grey wood was serpentine and swirled with natural patterns, he assumed from grinding within the scale-like leaves for however long it had taken to create such a unique shape.
"It almost looks like a wand?" Harry said, whispering.
Voldemort startled like he'd forgotten he was there, jamming the stick into his inner robe pocket and blinking at him.
'Did he say right here? Like, in the courtyard? Like, what I think he meant?' He wondered, breath caught repeatedly in his throat.
'…Yes. Not—real.'
The Dark Lord smiled, slow and genuine, stepping forward at the same pace and pointing at Harry's head. "You shut up in there."
"…Pas la vôtre." Tom said, narrowing his eyes.
Voldemort breathed a laugh and pushed past him, brushing against him though there was plenty of space.
He turned to follow once more, suddenly exhausted and weary, feeling as though he'd been squashed paper thin and somehow survived. He carried the light with him as they pushed through a tall gate into what appeared to be wilderness, fir and spruce trees scattering the downward slope.
The Dark Lord walked ahead in silence until they stood before a large granite tomb. The plaque was engraved with a carving of a small bird carrying equally small flowers; the same flowers grew all around the grave despite the chill.
"Isolt?" Harry asked.
"Yes." The Dark Lord was considering the tomb before he turned sharply to look at him. He stepped forward and examined his throat, a stinging welt ringing his neck.
'Do you remember the poem 'Free Bird'?' Tom wondered, 'Recite it.'
'Recite it? I don't think I can remember all that. Or… Any of it.'
'It does not need to be all of it; just make him think of it. I will prompt you, but it cannot come from me.'
Harry struggled to remember a single line, staring at the bird on Isolt's tomb while the Dark Lord practically breathed down his neck.
'The free bird thinks of another breeze, and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees, and the fat worms waiting on a dawn bright lawn, and he names the sky his own,' Tom thought.
The next line came to him like a song he hadn't heard in hears, and so he recited what he hoped was close enough in a whisper, "A caged bird stands on the grave of dreams, his shadow shouts a nightmare scream, and his wings are clipped, his feet are tied, so he opens his mouth to sing."
Voldemort hummed, pulling the collar of his shirt down to reveal Harry's collarbone, "…And his tune is heard on the distant hill, for the caged bird sings of freedom. I have always preferred Gormlaith."
He shivered, closing his eyes. "Liar," though he wasn't sure, he hoped that wasn't the case.
He laughed on Harry's neck, then bit his jaw hard and without warning, making him gasp. "Am I?" The Dark Lord pulled back, and his absence was like a void, snapping his eyes open.
Voldemort cast a Tempus, showing it was just past two, and started back toward the castle without a word. Harry found that he was relieved to watch him walk away, not sure how much more he could take before he said exactly the wrong thing.
'Do you recall what he said last night, Harry? That it is not so hard to punish a masochist you cannot kill?'
'Yeah?'
'What do you think he is doing?'
'…Oh. I'm trying.'
'I know.'
The Dark Lord took them back to the library, replacing his mask in the courtyard as they passed through. They hadn't encountered anyone, either by chance or on purpose; Harry wasn't sure.
He locked and warded the room when they entered. Nagini sat on the floor with a large pile of books, some of which she had shredded.
She smiled up at them, "I started pulling some apart for you."
"Excellent, Nagini." Voldemort removed his mask and sat cross-legged beside her, a motion that jarred Harry, always bizarre to realise that he was somehow just human.
He lit the books with his golden magic and smirked while Nagini giggled, throwing the book she'd been holding into the pile.
"He wrote all those?" Harry asked.
The Dark Lord raised an eyebrow and warmed his hands over the burning tomes.
"Yes, Dumbledore wrote them," Nagini told him. She patted the stones next to her and Voldemort didn't object, so Harry sat down.
"…Tell me how it felt." The Dark Lord demanded.
Harry swallowed and said, "What?"
"Killing him." His eyes were intense, drilling holes in his own.
"…You've seen in my head," Harry had to look away from him; something about the fire lighting his face was particularly disarming.
'He wants to hear you say it,' Tom thought.
'Should I?'
'Yes.'
If any of the poems Tom had recited to him had stuck, the one he'd told him in the Slytherin Common Room directly after he'd killed Dumbledore was scored in, "To go in the dark with a light is to know the light. To know the dark, go dark." He said in Parseltongue, glancing at Voldemort to watch his face light up. "I couldn't walk through the viaduct courtyard for ages. Did- did you feel sick? The first time? Could you go inside the Chamber of Secrets after Myrtle? Or the… Riddle House?"
His eyes narrowed, then relaxed within a split second, "It passes."
"I've never felt anything like it," Harry said, switching to the serpent language and avoiding Nagini's eyes, pretending she wasn't there.
A savage smile overtook him, "Good. Go without sight, and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings, and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings."
He'd clenched his fists to stop them obviously shaking in his lap. By then the books had burned to mostly ash, rapidly demolished, filling the ceiling above their heads with white smoke. The Dark Lord waved a hand, vanishing the ash, fragments of paper and cover, and the smoke, standing as he did. He held a hand out for Nagini, staring at Harry.
He got to his feet, simultaneously heavy and light enough to float away.
Voldemort didn't enlist any help in finding their room, taking them confidently through a large room with a stained-glass window depicting the Snakewood tree, up a spiral staircase into the only tower in the castle.
He opened a room seemingly randomly and held the door for Nagini, once again forcing Harry to squeeze past him. He held his breath until he was inside and balked all over again when he realised it was an open space with four beds, dressed in cranberry red. Nagini instantly fell into one and was coiling into her serpent form.
There were two chests by the door that screamed 'Malfoy', so he assumed they had been sent ahead.
"Sleep," the Dark Lord ordered as he passed, removing his robes and lighting several candelabras protruding from the granite walls.
Harry kicked off his boots, shrugged off his robes, and tore his eyes away, frowning at the floor. He took the bed furthest from him, though he didn't think it would make a difference. He stared at the ceiling long after the room had gone dark, refusing to close his eyes or look over, regardless of how exhausted he was.
He didn't know how long he'd laid there blinking when he felt the Dark Lord move toward him. He jammed his eyes shut on instinct, unsure if it was a good idea or not. Tom offered no direction, alert like a hawk.
Voldemort's fingers on his throat almost startled him, tracing over the fresh mark with burn salve, quieting the distracting sting immediately.
"Roll your head," he whispered in Parseltongue, and Harry did as he was told, not opening his eyes as the Dark Lord smoothed the cream on the back of his neck. He healed the wound wordlessly, continuing to trace his throat. He increased the pressure until he was holding him to the bed, squeezing.
The contact had driven all fear, hate, and trepidation out of him with the familiar rush of contentment. He made a noise somewhere between a laugh, a sigh, and a moan until he had no oxygen.
He looked up at him, barely visible in the dark, and grabbed his arm with both hands at a speed that didn't suggest a single atom of urgency.
"Say it," Voldemort said.
He couldn't talk, so he shook his head and shrugged, going red in the face and squirming his hips up to meet the air.
"Tell me," he pressed harder, his eyes furious for a flash of a second.
'…What is he talk-' Thinking was too difficult, and so he gave up on it. Instead, he exploded darkness from each pore of his skin and heaved a massive inhale when the Dark Lord let go of his neck.
He let it clear immediately, barely able to hold it together without searing agony pouring over every square inch of him.
"…Go to sleep," Voldemort said.
"You go to sleep," Harry rasped.
He was awoken by laughter, what felt like seconds later. He sat up, confused about both his ability to immediately see and the fact that the Dark Lord was cackling, holding his sides and visibly fighting to stop. Doubled over in the middle of the room, wheezing shaky breaths, his eyes wide as though he was just as shocked as they were.
Nagini sat on her knees on her bed, glaring daggers at Voldemort and shooting apologetic looks at Harry.
'…I assume we were talking in our sleep.' Tom thought, sighing.
His cheeks reddened, and he looked away, glaring at the trunk and wishing for an iota of privacy.
"You stop it." Nagini snapped, which was apparently even funnier. He could scarcely breathe, nearly on his knees.
Harry glared harder. 'I've never seen him laugh like that.'
'…I have never laughed like that.'
The Dark Lord abruptly ceased, his face falling, then hardening, before he got to his feet and turned away like nothing had happened. Nagini gave Harry a purposeful glance, and he guessed his Horcrux had said something.
Voldemort pointed at one of the chests, which swung open, "The robes at the top. The bathroom is one door below. Take him, Nagini."
He got out of bed and took a fresh set of clothes and the robes as directed and as rapidly as possible, shooting out the door with Nagini right behind him.
"What did I say?" Harry asked the instant they were inside the bathroom and locked in.
"…I can't tell you; I don't think I should." She spun him, and though she was much shorter and far smaller in frame, she easily manhandled him toward a shower cubicle.
"No, what did I say? Was it…? Uh…"
"Take a shower, I'm not looking. You should hurry; it's nearly time."
He'd done as he was told, changing into the sleek robes he'd been provided. Though she'd said it was nearly time, the three of them were the first in the dining hall, followed minutes later by Gideon and a short woman with curly brown hair streaked grey.
"Oh! Goodness!" She said when she saw them—already sitting down at the staff table in seats the Dark Lord had chosen. She held her chest and shook herself before she plastered a smile on her face. They took chairs a few spaces down from Voldemort, and Gideon said:
"You're up early! For being up so late. Did you tour the grounds?" He seemed anxious about the answer, a sheen of sweat on his forehead.
A door at the side of the hall opened, and a short creature entered. He was almost like a house elf, though he had spines like a porcupine on his back. He was scowling, dragging a cart into the room filled to the brim with cutlery. A witch followed behind him, levitating the knives and forks onto tables. Soon, another Pukwudgie and witch repeated the process with plates, cups, and bowls.
"Thank you!" Gideon called, waving.
The Pukwudgie made a fart sound with his mouth and a rude gesture with his hand as he left the hall.
"…Well, the students will be along in around half an hour," Gideon was awkward, almost as though he was asking them to leave.
"The Snakewood tree has been recently damaged," Voldemort said, sitting back.
"Ah, yes. Wampus and Horned Serpent get into it, I'm afraid. Isn't that right, Emma-Jean?" He didn't wait for her to answer, "A casualty of house rivalry, unfortunately."
"He is lying," The Dark Lord hissed. Harry wasn't sure if he was talking to him or Nagini.
The headmaster balked at the serpent tongue and looked at the woman beside him, very visibly screaming 'help' with his face.
"Maybe it could be an idea—just floating the idea, Gideon, totally your choice," Emma-Jean laughed awkwardly. "I could collect our six now? We can introduce them before the rush."
"Alright, yes, good idea. Good Idea. I think we should collect our six and introduce them before the rush, don't you, Emma-Jean?" Gideon said.
She looked long-suffering as she nodded and stood up, smoothing her cranberry red robes and rolling her eyes to the ceiling.
Silence fell, one that Gideon unsuccessfully tried to fill three times with half-begun sentences until Emma-Jean re-entered the hall, followed by six proud-looking students in navy blue robes tied with Gordian knots at the neck.
Before any of them could speak, Voldemort was in Parseltongue. "Word of the little home school with two students spread to neighbouring tribes, and two children came from the Wampanoag tribe. and then two more, along with their mother, from the Narragansett tribe. As such, Ilvermorny was very quickly steeped in Native American culture and magic. Tell me if you notice something, Harry."
He looked over the students, all but one alarmed at the hissing from the masked Dark Lord.
"I can't be sure, but they all look like they're definitely not Native American?" He asked.
"Are any of you Native American?" Nagini asked them.
They all looked at each other and shook their heads.
"Do you have any?" Voldemort asked, turning to Gideon.
"Oh, yes, of course! So many," he laughed.
"You will bring two Native American students to Hogwarts. This is mandatory," the Dark Lord said.
"You don't prefer Gormlaith," Harry said, certain of it.
He didn't answer, watching the staff and students of Ilvermorny squirm in discomfort, then disbelief.
Gideon sighed loudly, then said, "…Karsyn Burgess, Nelson Ray… You'll need to head back to your rooms. Emma-Jean, could you inform the… Appropriate students of the change of plans? Let them decide who'll replace the boys; they'll like that, don't you think?" He seemed to be genuinely asking her, but she stood up to walk away.
"Whoa, no, what? No fucking way," one of the boys said, needing to be dragged from the hall by the other boy and Emma-Jean both.
Three of the remaining four shot each other wide-eyed looks while the fourth continued to appear almost militantly blank-faced.
Gideon waved one of them forward, a boy with blonde curly hair and hazel eyes.
"Name's Colby. Hunt. House Wampus. I duel, and I win." He said, and the one with the serious face laughed, then pretended he hadn't, staring straight ahead.
Gideon waved him off, and Colby stepped aside, glaring at blank-face.
He took Colby's place and inclined his head, "My name is Cassius Craig. House Horned Serpent. I duel, and I win," his brown eyes glittered with humour before he straightened his expression.
"They call him the Reaper," a girl with puffy cheeks, brown hair, and too much lip gloss said, looking Cassius up and down from behind.
He smirked and stepped back for her to step forward.
"My name's Georgia Townsend. I'm house Thunderbird." Her teeth were so white it was almost distracting, "I'm a sonimancer. I control sound waves."
Harry moved to ask, but she showed them, waving a hand and summoning a symphony. Several voices and instruments brought forth from nowhere, vibrating his eardrums with the volume.
"Yes, yes," Gideon said, unimpressed, "Don't break the glassware again."
Emma-Jean brought two more students into the hall, grinning from ear to ear and giggling quietly at each other before they forced themselves to be stern. They occasionally bumped shoulders while the last student from the first set came forward.
"I'm Justice Dorsey. House Thunderbird. Pyromancer." He shrugged and lit his hand on fire, dark blue eyes lit and unphased by the blaze.
The new girl skipped forward as Justice stepped back.
"I'm Salali Russell, and my family comes from the Cherokee tribe. I'm in Pukwudgie," she had a multitude of piercings scattered all over her face. She was short, with equally short black hair. She held herself with a cat-like grace and didn't break eye contact with the Dark Lord. "We appreciate this. Thank you."
The other stepped forward and Salali didn't step back, watching him and smiling as he introduced himself.
"I am Elki, from the Miwok tribe. House Horned Serpent." He was far more serious than she was, arms crossed behind his back, dark eyes unmoving. He was massive, head and wide shoulders taller than the rest of them, muscles almost too big for his robes.
"Good, Good, take your seats, now." Gideon gestured for them to leave, and Harry thought he looked irritated.
"I don't like him," He decided out loud in Parseltongue.
"You and I both," Voldemort said.
"Me too!" Nagini said, leaning forward and sneering openly at Gideon.
A handful of the faculty joined them at the staff table, each apprehensive and giving them a wide berth as they sat down and nodded stiff greetings.
The students who began trailing in at six AM didn't look particularly thrilled, in Harry's opinion, especially those who sat under the snake's banner, all glaring at Gideon, who seemed entirely nonplussed by it.
Once the tables had filled with students, Gideon stood up and shouted instead of amplifying his voice: "Ilvermorny! Good morning! Breathe in that fresh Massachusetts air! You'll notice our guests have arrived, and I know you'll warmly welcome them."
Every student in the hall had glared or grimaced at him, but he continued, either oblivious or uncaring. Harry looked at the Dark Lord, searching his eyes from the side for any sign of emotion and finding none.
"In honour of this occasion, we've all decided that it's high time that we take our school song out of the attic and dust it off. Isn't that right, kids?"
He was met with a painful silence, before Cassius started hissing from the Horned Serpent table, joined a few seconds later by Elki. Then the entire table was hissing, reverberating off the stone and drowning the quiet.
"…I can silence them again?" Emma-Jean asked, just loud enough for Harry to hear.
"Do not silence them." The Dark Lord's tone was calm, and he hadn't raised his voice, but Harry could feel his rage like a heat.
Cassius stood up, and so did his house. Gideon looked dismayed—openly distraught before he was shouting again. "Horned Serpent! You will stop this funny business! Our school song is about pride! Everyone, stand up and sing!"
House Wampus stood first, their eyes on Horned Serpent and muttering amongst themselves. A scattering of Thunderbird stood, and less Pukwudgie followed, most of them looking as though they wanted to be anywhere else.
"Yes, yes! Go on! You know all the words!" Gideon said, ignoring the continued hissing to the best of his ability.
"Caw-caw, caw-caw!" House Thunderbird began, and Harry immediately clapped his hand over his mouth.
"Purr-purr!" Wampus yelled at House Serpent, and he lost it, caught somewhere between intense embarrassment and it being the funniest thing he'd ever witnessed, choking on laughter and gripping the arm of his chair.
Pukwudgie stomped their feet, only a handful of them joining in, partially drowned out by the hissing.
"We stand as one united against the Puritan. We draw our inspiration from good witch Morrigan." They sang tonelessly, and without enthusiasm, their voices mismatched. Harry looked at Voldemort to find pain in his eyes.
"For she was persecuted by common wandless men. So, she fled from distant Ireland, and so our school began. Oh, Ilvermorny-Massachusetts. We choo-choose it. We choo-choose it. The wizard school supreme."
"Did they say 'Choo-choo'? The wizard school what?" Harry was unable to stop his comments.
"Your castle walls, they kept us safe. The days with you, a dream you taught us all our magic and now one thing's quite clear; where'er we roam, where'er we roam, our one true home, our one and own, is Ilvermorny dear."
When the song finished, House Horned Serpent stopped hissing, and there was an agonisingly awkward hush.
"Not only is it historically incorrect, it is embarrassing," The Dark Lord said in Parseltongue.
Gideon was clapping and eagerly looking at Harry and Voldemort, sweat on his brow, grimacing instead of smiling.
"…Wonderful. We will see you in December." The Dark Lord stood up, his heavy chair falling over with an ear-splitting crack, dragging Harry with him.
"Wait, weren't we looking for a Horned Serpent?"
"We are. There are none in the castle."
"Oh? Leaving so soon? We had—"
The Dark Lord held up a hand and turned to look at Gideon. Harry couldn't see his face, but he saw the headmaster's reaction, eyes widening before he nodded rapidly.
"Oh, yes, that's fine. We'll see you in December, at Hogwarts." He rambled and looked away, busying himself with his plate.
On the way past, Nagini ruffled Cassius Craig's dark hair, grinning at the Horned Serpent table. "Want to see something cool?" She asked them, forcing Voldemort to stop in his escape. Her skin became scales, and the table erupted in excited whispers.
She yawned her mouth unnaturally wide to reveal her sharp, clear fangs, dripping venom on the stone floor before she dropped down with it, writhing until she was serpentine and asking to be picked up.
Voldemort shook his head infinitesimally and gently reached for her, kneeling for her to climb atop his shoulders.
Cassius and a good portion of Horned Serpent were enthralled, grinning ear to ear. "She was right; that was pretty cool," Cassius told the room at large, the muttering spreading as they left the hall through the courtyard door.
By that point Harry was on his third day with little sleep, his head fogged with exhaustion as he followed behind the Dark Lord, past the Snakewood tree that made him nearly trip over his feet. Voldemort seemed unaffected, moving past it without even glancing, pushing through the gate and out of the school grounds as though he couldn't get out fast enough.
"Was… You said that Isolt was raised by Gormlaith; did she learn magic? Or go to school?" Harry asked, partially catching up but too tired to keep the pace he was setting.
"She learned plenty of magic; Gormlaith burned her Hogwarts acceptance letter."
"With no wand?"
"Yes, without a wand."
Harry thought about it, then about the song and everything the Dark Lord had told him about Isolt. Even her face, her eyes, said something different to him. She looked like she lived in the dark.
"…They called her good witch Morrigan? I feel like…"
"She was more than well-versed in dark magic and was not afraid to employ it. Before her death, the darker arts were accepted and taught in her school as with any other craft." He was still moving rapidly downhill, Harry following him with legs aching in protest, the effort of not stumbling down the slope taking almost all his focus.
"And they don't anymore?"
"There is not so much as a clear hint remaining that they ever did," Voldemort said.
They'd walked the rest of the way in silence, through sparse woodlands for what felt like half the day before they stopped near a crystal-clear lake. It was secluded, surrounded on two sides by small mountains, the mouth of the lake was before them, an abrupt edge to the water that snaked away from them as far as he could see. The Dark Lord told him it originated from a spring under their feet as he set up a tent with magic, pulled from his pocket and enlarged.
He'd stripped his robe entirely despite the chill, his mask removed nearly the instant they were away from the school. "This is the most likely place. I have had no luck with poachers nor with any of my connections." He didn't seem confident.
Nagini, on the other hand, was already calling out in Parseltongue after shifting out of her serpent form on the pebbles. The Dark Lord didn't join her, ducking into the tent, leaving Harry standing in the sun and unsure of what he was supposed to do.
He decided to loin Nagini, though he was done walking and beyond drained.
"Hey! Big snake!" It was difficult to yell in Parseltongue, but she gave her best effort as he approached. She threw several rocks in the water and grinned at him.
"He doesn't think we'll find one. Says we'll probably find a Wampus with our luck," she told him.
"Yeah, we've got pretty bad luck combined, don't we?" Harry said.
She was standing still, and he was grateful to finally stop.
"Tell me about your home, Nagini. Do you remember your family?" Tom asked. He sat them on the rocks and frowned at the water.
She sat down beside him. "I remember. My mother was taken by her curse when I was young. I had two brothers. Smaller than me." Her eyes were wide, lids flickering as she swallowed. "Before her curse took her, she was—I remember she would make up a story every night before bed. When a Maledictus sleeps, they most often become their cursed form, and so I remember sleeping in her coils most nights with my brothers. We kept her warm." She dropped a rock from palm to palm.
"My father was gone, and my brother's fathers, not a man stayed more than a night with a woman who would thrash and become a serpent in the sheets while she slept, so we ran all the time. They hunted us. My mother was just lonely. She didn't understand her curse any more than they did; she did not know it would pass to me. She didn't know it would one day take her mind and her body…" There were tears in her eyes that she ignored.
"We had a chicken coop in the forest. My brothers were four and three. My mother had built a shelter, and we were happy. All of us would pile onto her at night. Ibu Ular, we called her—Snake Mother."
The tears fell, and she looked at him, "One morning, I found her with the chickens. Still serpent, which was strange. I asked where my brother Bima was. Where is Bima? I kept hissing it, and she didn't know me. I realised she was fat with more than birds."
A chill ran through him as he understood what she meant.
"I took my brother Iskander to a nearby village and we hid there. He didn't understand why, and I couldn't tell him. I lied to him. When my curse took me the first time, I was so frightened that I… I left him on the doorstep of a family who laughed a lot with each other, and I ran away from him."
While the tears in his eyes could have easily been Harry's, they were Tom's. He snatched her into a hug that was nearly a stranglehold and cried into her hair. "Nagini…" Neither of them had words, and she clung to him as tightly as he did her.
They didn't call for a serpent after that, sitting on the bank in silence until they were too hungry and tired to resist the tent.
Voldemort was distracted for the rest of the afternoon, frowning at parchment in the expansive tent—once again a single room with three beds and the welcome addition of a tiny kitchen. The Dark Lord occupied the entire small dining table with paper and scribbled rapidly.
When Harry questioned Nagini with his eyes she just shrugged. Hours passed that way; he didn't dare sleep, not keen to say anything else while unconscious.
'What would we have said to make him laugh like that?' Harry wondered.
Tom didn't answer, wincing instead.
Their chests had been relocated to the tent, and so he spent over an hour locked in the bathroom, first silently panicking, then furiously wanking, over almost as soon as it started.
If he had spent another second in the tent—that smelt like him, cedar wafting into his face like an insult, with the Dark Lord scowling at his work; the way his lips moved like he was talking, muttering silently to himself, all while Harry swore he could still feel him pressed hard against him, whispering in Parseltongue—without relieving himself in the bathroom, he was going to lose his mind.
He knew his cheeks were red when he exited, regardless of the fact that he'd taken a shower afterwards and waited longer still.
They seemed to be waiting for him, making it decidedly worse. Neither he nor Nagini said anything, and the Dark Lord stood from the table cleared of parchment, a tiny smirk on his face as he left the tent. Nagini followed, and Harry squeezed his eyes closed for a moment before he did the same.
'I'm so tired,' he thought as he trailed behind them. Nagini was already at the water's edge, yelling for a serpent as the sky turned dusky purple.
'So am I.'
Harry didn't think he meant just physically, but he didn't press. Instead, he called out in Parseltongue, "Iphine is a pretty Horned Serpent, and she likes poetry. She's looking for a… Boyfriend? Snake boyfriend?"
Nagini had stopped calling and was giggling instead.
As the Dark Lord suspected, they didn't find a Horned Serpent, though they were up late all over again, guided by the light of several summoned silver and green orbs. His legs carried him on autopilot, and Voldemort blessedly left him alone. Harry wasn't sure if it was on purpose or because he seemed distracted; he was relieved regardless of the cause. Thankfully, they didn't encounter any Wampus Cats, though Nagini said she could take one on in a fight.
Almadrasat Alsihria Kom Ombo ( مدرسة السحر كوم امبو ), Temple of Kom Ombo, Egypt
Tikal, E.S. Posthumus
(Instrumental)
Harry was startled awake not by a sound, but by the sense that someone was alarmingly close to him. He nearly sat bolt upright, glad he didn't because he would have slammed his face into the Dark Lord's.
He was smiling, his teeth showing, not friendly. When Harry had opened his eyes, the Dark Lord started softly laughing.
Tom narrowed Harry's eyes, hit with the ghost of the urge to head-butt him anyway, not well hidden.
Harry was somewhere between embarrassed, aroused, startled, and angry. It took a few seconds for the irritation to win out. "What? What do you want?" He snapped in Parseltongue, realising that he was essentially pinned, Voldemort's hands beside his shoulders, sitting next to him and looming millimetres from his face.
The Dark Lord was still grinning. His breath smelled like spearmint and his shirt like cedar; his hair damp and tickling Harry's face, hanging loose. Voldemort laughed again, a wisp of a sound that ghosted over his lips, erupting goosebumps all over his skin.
"You think it's funny? Whatever I say in my sleep? Pretty funny when you're all, 'Please let me out, please get it out, out, out', in yours, asshole," Harry hissed instead of licking the Dark Lord's mouth.
Voldemort's eyes darkened, smile falling before it was back with a vengeance, eyes and grin manic as he leaned close to Harry's ear, "You cry me rivers in your dreams. Begging, hating, wanting me. Say it, and it is done."
'Don't.' Tom thought, but he didn't need to.
"You aren't who I want," Harry said.
"Aren't I? Get up." He was gone in an instant.
He squeezed his eyes shut and swallowed before slowly doing as he was told.
The tent was dismantled rapidly, though it was barely sunrise. The metal box was presented to him before light had touched the valley. Inside was a pendent of a fish, a golden loop where it would have once hung from a chain, set with a huge chunk of turquoise.
Voldemort wasn't masked or robed. He was dressed casually in a white dress shirt and had a warming charm over the three of them. "The headmaster of Almadrasat Alsihria is a Djinn. Do not take anything that he offers you." Nagini was on his shoulders, hissing about crocodiles all morning.
"What's a Djinn?"
He didn't answer, placing his fingers on the pendant. Harry quickly followed.
They didn't land in what he thought was a school or, as far as he could tell, anywhere near one. Instead, they were in a small walk-in wardrobe, filled to the brim with apparently random Muggle clothing.
"The school was partially discovered by Muggles in the eighteen-twenties. Several measures were implemented to ensure its continued existence in Kom Ombo. We need to pass through as tourists." He let Nagini off his shoulders, and she shifted in the cramped space. She was already dressed in a blue T-shirt and jeans, which Harry found bizarre. The Dark Lord removed a small fabric satchel from his pocket and enlarged it, gesturing for Harry to put his outer robes inside.
He did, struggling in the tiny, dark wardrobe. Voldemort removed a flask from his pocket and drank from it, his skin bubbling almost immediately. Polyjuice potion. Within a minute, Avrom Dermot stood before him, dark eyes locked on Harry. He opened the door, and Nagini slipped out under his arm.
The room beyond was empty; he assumed it had once been a bedroom lit by blazing sunlight. It was far warmer than it had been in Massachusetts, hotter than he'd ever felt in October, immediately causing him to sweat.
Nagini rubbed her hands together and grinned with her tongue between her teeth. "It's so warm."
Harry couldn't say he was as thrilled about it as she was, but he could probably say that he loved her. A thought that surprised him and didn't all at once. She had somehow become critically important. He didn't know if he was feeling what Tom felt or if it was purely his own. Her grin infected him immediately and widened when she sprinted down the stairs ahead of them, pausing at the bottom because she didn't know where they were going.
The rest of the small house was bare as well, and Harry never saw the outside of it. The Dark Lord opened a drawer in the kitchen and told them to touch the solitary fork when he did.
The second Portkey reassembled them inside a storeroom, dozens of cardboard boxes stacked to the ceiling and filling steel shelves. Voldemort pushed confidently out of the room into a store. The older woman behind the counter didn't even blink at them as they passed, a clicky fan in the corner and a humming fridge the only sounds.
"Where are we?" Harry asked. Though he knew the answer was 'Egypt', their Portkey jumping was confusing him.
"This is Aswan," Voldemort sighed when he said it, letting them out onto the street. "The Djinn likes to waste time. Particularly if it is not his. We take a felucca from here to the damn temple."
"…What's a felucca?"
"A boat."
The Nile was visible from where they stood—outside a currency exchange—lined with boats and cruise ships as far as the eye could see. It was the middle of the day, the sun high above their heads and stinging.
"Where's the boat?" Nagini demanded. "Which one's ours?"
The Dark Lord took them across the busy road as though he hoped to be hit by a car.
The felucca was a sailboat, motorless. It had two levels, but there appeared to be no private areas. On the first level, there was a large bed covered in cushions and plates of food, so open you could touch the Nile from the side. Above was the second deck, clear and unobstructed by guardrails.
"…How far away is Kom Ombo?" Harry asked as he stepped onto the deck, forced on first.
A man in a turban nodded at them but didn't say anything as they boarded.
"Best get comfortable," Voldemort said. He began warding the boat against Muggle eyes and Nagini immediately began contorting into a snake. She took the boat's bow and splayed out like spaghetti in the sun.
Harry looked at the Dark Lord to find him staring at his familiar, eyes soft as though she were a sleeping kitten before he jerked away from them and sat, semi-reclined, on the cushions toward the back of the boat.
He took the middle and couldn't resist the flatbread or the tomato-based dip. He didn't know what was in it, but he'd claim it was the best dip he'd ever had.
Though there was no motor, Harry was sure that their boat was picking up far more wind than those around them. The banks breezed past, and the vessels going in the opposite direction rocketed away.
Voldemort allowed the world's sounds to enter the boat for around two minutes before he put their boat under a bubble, cruising in silence; the buildings, people and ships whipped by in a bizarre quiet, as though he'd just gone deaf.
Harry risked a look at him, the Polyjuice slowly fading, his eyes brown, green, and distracted, frowning at the passing boats with almost enough intensity to light them ablaze.
'What is going on? Genuinely. I'm so confused,' Harry thought, desperate for Tom to answer a single question. He'd been infuriatingly cagey, and though he continued to claim 'good reason', he knew it was more than that—it was always more than that.
'I believe right now he is mad about Ilvermorny. And the Djinn. Because I am. As for his unpredictability…'
'Stop doing that, stop trailing off. His unpredictability what?'
'It's not possible though. He can't have… He didn't- he was nowhere near it. Even If I'd said something in our sleep, it wouldn't explain it. The timeline. The only thing I can think of is the Unspeakable, but I don't understand how.'
'What are you talking about?' Harry thought, scowling.
"Lover's quarrel?" The Dark Lord asked.
He glared at him and wished he could stop making angry noises when he argued in his head. Harry threw a piece of flatbread, missing Voldemort because it caught a gust of wind, and landed far to his right. He smirked and ignored the bread.
Harry sat up for hours, unwilling to risk lying on the cushions and falling asleep. He was left alone until sunset when the buildings on the banks of the Nile gave way to rice paddies, water buffalo, and children playing chicken with crocodiles.
The sky was hazy grey-orange behind the desert mountains, and the sun was red and large on the horizon, obscured by the milky haze. He felt the Dark Lord approach but didn't look, counting palm trees instead.
"She told me about her brother," Harry said, without really thinking about it. Nagini's story had played on a loop every time he looked at her.
She was still on the bow, nearly in the same position, though Harry assumed it wouldn't be long until she sought warmth elsewhere.
Voldemort said nothing and hummed instead. Harry swallowed and kept his eyes trained on the sleeping snake.
"Her other brother… Iskander, if he had daughters, would they be cursed?" He asked.
"No."
"That's good, right?"
"Iskander had two daughters and two sons. He named his children after his sister, his brother, and his mother."
Harry finally looked at him, "Does she know?"
"Yes, she knows. Iskander gave their family a last name. Two of his children are still alive—Susanti Ibu Ular and Bima Ibu Ular. Nagini is a great aunt to many."
"Was Susanti… Her mother?"
The Dark Lord was sitting cross-legged, hovering by the bread. Harry wondered when he ever ate anything. "Yes."
"When did you find this out?"
"I set about it as soon as she told me."
"Do you sleep?" Harry asked. "Do you eat food?" He wasn't sure why he was vaguely mad; he was happy to hear that Iskander had lived a full life but still annoyed about something he couldn't articulate.
Voldemort picked up a piece of flatbread and bit it forcefully, chewing with narrowed eyes. "What does that have to do with anything?" he asked after he'd swallowed.
He shrugged, frowned, and returned his eyes to the water and the swamps that curtained the bank. "I don't know. I hate you."
He barked a laugh that startled Harry, "Is that the word?"
His stomach jumped at the words, then rolled with dread and a slight nausea. Tom had said nearly the same thing to him before Harry completely lost control of himself. "How could I not." He said anyway.
"…Indeed."
Nagini was awake, thrashing on the deck before she came to join them. She dipped three pieces of bread in hummus and jammed the entirety into her mouth. "I love it here," was what Harry thought she said.
They docked at nightfall. The Dark Lord re-dosed himself with Polyjuice potion, and the man who had silently captained the boat walked with them to the temple. A few Muggles milled around with cameras at a distance from the small temple, but it appeared closed for the night.
The stranger led them up the stairs anyway. The structure seemed mostly in ruin, and there wasn't a soul around. There were a few light-bars scattered round, the carved and partially destroyed columns glowing under the fluorescence.
"Where's the school?" Harry asked as they reached the temple and found the limestone and granite construction was indeed empty.
The man who had steered the boat answered when they were inside the walls— in a small side section of the temple, and Harry felt stupid for assuming he didn't speak English.
"The spectre and the baby that killed him. Such an original situation. You're standing in it, killer-baby." As he spoke, he shimmered, as did the room they were in.
Like a mirage, the temple and the man shifted until they stood in a brightly lit, reconstructed version of the temple, echoing with laughter and chatter.
The man who stood with them was entirely different. He was shirtless, wearing loose-fitting white pants that almost flowed like a skirt. His tan skin glittered as though he was made of gold, and his bright blue eyes emitted their own light. He stepped backwards through the doorway they'd come through, smiling with his arms wide.
"Fucking son of a bitch," the Dark Lord said, right as Tom thought the same thing.
'What?' Harry wondered.
"I am Har-im-hotep. Welcome to my school, Almadrasat Alsihria." When they moved past him, he said, "Fucking son of a bitch to you too, darling."
It was as though they'd slipped into another reality, the temple lit by flaming steel braziers, over fifty students milling in the court. No tourists remained outside the building, nor were there any roads, ships, or constructions. Not a single sign of Muggle existence. Red poppies were growing everywhere, in pots and in flowerbeds. The court was open, with no clear line between inside and out. Frankincense resin burned in little dishes scattered about, white smoke snaking into the hazy air. Harry noticed that none of the students seemed young, all of them at least his age.
They'd all turned to look at them as they approached, smiling and laughing amongst themselves. He'd guessed there were around fifty of them. There seemed to be no uniform, though some of them wore white, loose-fitting robes tied at the waist with gold rope.
Har-im-hotep tsked at his students like he was shooing cats, and they scattered as though they were.
'I hope you enjoy this rare display of the Dark Lord being an utter idiot, Harry. I know I am.'
'…to be fair, I've definitely seen him be an idiot. But why is he being an idiot exactly?'
'The Djinn was with us on the boat. He saw his face, heard what he spoke about.'
'…And?' Harry pressed, following after Har-im-hotep while the Avrom Dermot version of the Dark Lord sneered beside him.
'Djinn are powerful immortal beings. They like to grant wishes, offer deals. There is always a catch. Har-im-hotep would now be able to assume several things correctly. That he did not even consider that the boatman could be an agent of Har-im-hotep's—let alone the Djinn himself—shows that he is distracted.'
'You didn't either,' he thought.
'…I am distracted.'
The Djinn led them to a large room overflowing with tropical plants—the carvings of symbols and gods poking through leaves. A ring of cushions and ornate carpets surrounded a large hookah. "Incredible to see you walking about on such a fantastic pair of legs, Nagini." He said as he sat down. "Which is not even to start on your face, Tom Riddle."
The Dark Lord was the last to take a seat, hesitating as though his body was made of wood. The Djinn removed a white glass pipe from his pocket, packed it with something from a small bowl in front of him, and lit the underside of the pipe with a flame from his fingertips.
As soon as Harry got a whiff of the acrid smoke, he winced and automatically said, "What is that?"
"Opium. Enhances visions. Want some?" The Djinn extended the pipe and he declined.
"Are you a seer?"
"No. He's funny, this one, isn't he? Cute as a button."
"Let's get this over with," the Dark Lord snapped.
"Why the rush? I have so many tales to tell you since we last met. You must tell me how your quest for immortality fares." His eyes were laughing, but his face was still.
"Your students." Voldemort summoned his mask and removed his robes from the bag in his pocket, shrugging them over his shoulders like he was trying to rip them.
"Who gives a shit about that? Tell me about this desperate sexual tension."
Harry choked on nothing, but the Dark Lord didn't flinch.
"What you think you perceive is not relevant."
"What I think I perceive? Honey, you reek of desperation. It almost gives me an idea…" The Djinn said.
"No, it fucking doesn't." Tom snapped, then he directed Harry's eyes to the hookah and tried to pretend he hadn't said anything.
"Oho?" His blue eyes were like daggers, and bright white teeth showed until he lit his pipe again. "Funny boy, have it your way; we have so much time." He whistled sharply, pinging off the limestone walls.
His six students entered, bowing low until the Djinn bid them to stand. All of them were physically stunning, as though it was a stipulation of acceptance into the school.
"Don't think it escapes me, darling, that you chose an establishment full of sight-gifted to invite to your little get-together. If only it were on the merit of our friendship. I know you want their strengths so you can guess their weaknesses. You'll forgive me if I don't oblige. This is Mohammed Asfour. He leaves faucets running incessantly. Look at those puppy-dog eyes, though. Hard to be mad about the flooding of my ancient temple."
Mohammed looked torn between frowning and smiling, nodding when he was introduced. He did have arresting eyes, black and sparkling in the firelight. His head was clean shaven, one of two who were shirtless.
"Odion Moghadam. He has the worst fucking manners. None whatsoever. Makes up for it with the tattoos and, again, the eyes," Har-im-hotep said.
Odion stepped forward, grinning wide as though he'd received an exceptional compliment. Though his skin was dark, his eyes were a striking light green. His body was covered in moving tattoos, various wild animals—birds, elephants, tigers, crocodiles— moved on every square inch of his skin. Harry watched a lion brutally kill a gazelle on his bare chest.
"Nassor Bazzi: too self-critical, in my opinion, but he has a lovely face. And his paintings." The Djinn kissed his own fingers and grinned at the Dark Lord.
Nassor did have a pretty face, his jaw sharp enough to cut paper. He didn't smile.
"Ismael Rahal: So modest and well-mannered you would believe we held competitions for it. We don't; we mess about with death and such. But if we did. Winner."
Ismael was the shortest of the group, with long black hair tied behind his back.
"Yasmeen Nassar: cold-hearted bitch; don't trust those friendly eyes. Look at the way she moves, though. Like a dancer."
She smiled, took three rapid steps forward, and said something in Arabic.
"That depends, pretty girl, on the prophecy you give, doesn't it?" Har-im-hotep asked. She didn't answer and sat down next to Nagini, still smiling. She looked first at the Dark Lord and then at Harry. Her skin was lightly golden, and her eyes were kind—a warm brown.
She picked up one of the hookah's tubes, lit the top, and inhaled it deeply. The massive cloud she exhaled stayed above their heads, expanding and contracting like it was trapped in a bubble. He could see flashes of images: burning buildings, running people, stripped landscapes, objects and faces gone too fast to make sense of. Yasmeen was staring up at it, eyes moving rapidly, grinning ear to ear.
When it was gone, her eyes were on Voldemort. "You had better be careful. That was a nasty one."
"That one's free; explanations are for friends only," Har-im-hotep said.
"Do friends hide their identities?" The Dark Lord asked, ignoring what was apparently a 'nasty' prophecy.
"Oh, come on, death-walker, of course they do. I knew you'd vanish the instant I showed my back; how else are we to spend any time together, lest I fucking turn around?" The Djinn said.
'Who… Is he to you?' Harry finally wondered, watching them squabble as though they were, in fact, friends.
'He took an interest in me when we first met and has been desperate to trap me in a deal ever since. He nearly had me once.'
The Dark Lord said nothing, and the Djinn dramatically rolled his glowing eyes.
"Last but certainly not least, Aaliyah Shadid, morbid as anyone I've ever met. A truly ghastly mind. A narcissist to boot, but holy shit, look at those abs. That hair. Like a lion's mane. Fucking majestic."
"…Thank you?" She said.
"She's always with the corpses," Har-im-hotep said, nodding at her. "Lovely. They're introduced to you, like you asked. You can flee like you always do, or we could talk. Privately. One of mine could take yours for a little walk around the temple and-"
"We will be leaving. Now." The Dark Lord was on his feet, and so was Nagini, openly disappointed.
"…We'll see you in December. I am so excited to be there," the Djinn was smiling while Voldemort dragged Harry from the chamber.
(AN: Help, this was ridiculous. What a marathon that was. I stand by the decision not to break this up into four and a half chapters (!) (though I changed my mind several times). Favorite chapter by farrrr, hands down. I love that they will say and do anything in front of Nagini like she's a house cat (Genuinely crying at her back story, where the fuck did that come from? Somebody hold me). Sorry, America, fair being fair, Voldemort will absolutely loathe his time in my country, scheduled for weekend No. 3. Politics, baby xx. So much poetry you'd think it was a slam. To Know the Dark, by Wendell Berry; Caged Bird, by Maya Angelou; and A World of Light, by Elizabeth Jennings. Also, when did the Dark Lord develop this 'public' kink? Crazy, I would have thought the opposite, but I'm just the author.)