(AN: Undeniably Harrycrux's theme song if you ask me, no questions.)

Nicotine & Piss, Geordie Kieffer

I put my head on the block

Swallow gum when I walk

I stick an arm with the needle

I left the punks with their rock

You got your face in the sugar

And your nose in the shit

You got your feet on the floorboard

Watch the wood start to split

I got the knife on my neck

Conduct the mind I will wreck

I suck the air out the ozone until there's just nothing left

You are the wool of a sheep, soft in the wind off my hand

Whether you like it or not, I hope you know I'm the Lamb

I got the vein of destruction, I got the carnival man

I got your brain in my basement, I keep it all spick and span

I got the hounds of the hunt tied to a dead cypress tree

Whether I like or not they're always howling at me

I am the edge of extinction, the comet on land

The leak in the boat, and the fist of a hand

I'm the ash in the hearth, the water on the sand

The touch of temptation, the legs of the stand

I put the knot in your neck

The spot on the fleck

The empty vessel of nothing

More than a force I will wreck

I am the dirt on your back

The wood from the bat

The turning cheek of defeat

The angry art of attack

He didn't pull himself off the dirt for a few minutes, breathing hard, wide-eyed.

The Death Eaters standing guard watched him, staying right where they were as Harry lay spread-eagled.

'…You're sorry? To him?'

His heart rate picked up all over again, adrenaline washing through him. Harry frowned, swallowing as he rolled and got to his feet.

"You're sorry to him?" He repeated out loud, stomping toward the bridge and stripping his outer robe off, leaving it in the dirt despite the chill.

'…Harry,' Tom thought, '…I was hardly talking to your Horcrux. Of course, to you…' He was suddenly hyperventilating, hanging onto the bridge's railing as his knees buckled out from under him.

His limbs went numb, and Tom was groaning continuously into clenched teeth until he was sobbing. a wild, uncontrollable fear rolled through him in waves, making him feel like he was falling—over and over.

Thoughts ceased, replaced with a primal brain scrambling for the panic to stop. He held his breath and struggled to make his body respond, flailing and futile, pins and needles creeping through his limbs into his torso—almost painfully numb. His vision changed colour—a familiar, sickening blue-green—his brain swimming in it.

He was going to pass out. He couldn't stop alternating between violent hyperventilation and holding his breath, his body shaking like a tree in a hurricane. No longer able to hold onto the rail or consciousness, he dropped to the wood.

"I did warn you about overdoing the adrenaline and Pepper-Ups?" A voice told him, so loud.

"…What?" Harry was exhausted, in a bed, someone staring right at his face.

Lydia. "The potions? Clearly, you've hardly slept and overdosed."

"Uh… Right," he sat up, and she stepped back. He squinted at the hospital wing while remembering how he'd wound up there. "I won't do it again." He pulled himself to standing, limbs just short of a ton, while Lydia looked suspicious.

"What time is it?" He asked.

"Hour past lunch, and I should hope you're taking yourself straight back to bed?"

"...Sure?" He wasn't sure why he'd said it in such a shady way; it was what he planned to do.

He ignored the pang that came with waking up in the wing alone, collected his four guards at the door, and tentatively assessed Tom's mood. When he couldn't get a read, he asked, halfway down a moving staircase. 'Are you… Okay?'

'No,' was the ready answer. '…Are you?'

Harry knew he already knew, but he appreciated the question, 'Not really.'

It was a long walk from the hospital wing to his room, and as expected for a Sunday after lunch, the halls and stairwells were brimming with students, all staring at him as he passed. It was standard by then, but if he had to guess, he'd say everyone had heard a whisper about the duelling competition.

He didn't see any of his friends, and he found himself almost glad for it. He didn't think he could summon the will to speak a word about any of it to any of them. He felt almost lost at sea, too far to reach them. He didn't have a plan, but every time he thought about his friends, about Ginny, Tom would become sheepish, thoughts nearly said hanging around in his head as though just to confuse him. He didn't bother asking what it meant.

He was beyond relieved to close the doors of the Room of Requirement, exhaling forcefully as he sat on the end of his bed.

Before he could think a fresh thought, a familiar but somehow different sensation at the back of his mind had Tom panicked.

'That's him. That's your Horcrux.' He was scrambling in Harry's head, rearranging thoughts, flinging them out from Harry's side to his, heart palpitating as the insistent tapping became an aggressive search for weakness, peppering his skull.

'Let me do this. Don't say anything. I'm sorry. Fuck.' Tom pulled his Horcrux into their head before he found a way in on his own.

'Quick! Hide the evidence! About fucking time, lazy fuck? Hit the pillow as soon as he dropped you?'

'…How are you here without him?' Tom thought, wiping Harry's hands on his knees.

'Pretty obvious, isn't it? He's got his eyes wide open on the lookout for intruders, got his eyeballs jammed in his cockhole when it comes to extruders. He's got his calendar full; all the dates are booked out for pissing his pants.'

Harry felt like he was also close to pissing his pants.

'I can't take you back in his head if that's what you want from me.'

'…it was an idea,' Tom thought.

'As long as we're being honest and open with each other and all, full disclosure only: I'd make sausage links with your guts.' He was rifling through Harry's thoughts like a raccoon in a dumpster. 'Fucking disgusting in here, anyone told you that? MESS. Disaster boy.'

'…Hey? I'm the disaster boy? You're a f-'

Tom stopped Harry's thoughts, eyes wide.

'Oh, no, don't talk to me. Pig.' His cackling was almost audible as he redirected his attention towards Tom,'Seeing as I'm here, and you want something from me, let's do a deal then? I have some thoughts. And information. For the right price. First, I want to see you meant it.'

Harry's heart was the proverbial canary in the coal mine, pinging frantically in its cage.

'…Alright,' Tom thought, pulling his Horcrux into his own private area in Harry's mind, away from his awareness.

There were a few moments of eerie silence in his head before his own voice sounded within it:

'I just kind of feel like a fucking inevitability, don't I look like one? It's okay you can tell me the truth, sick fuck. I can't wait to play, and I love that it hurts you, motherfucking cunt. I'll see you soon.' Then he was gone.

Tom was shaking, gripping the bed covers, inexplicably semi-hard.

"What…?" Harry said out loud.

"I- That was… I need- Kreacher!" Tom shouted, standing up.

The elf materialised with a pop and a bow. Tom requested a bucket of iced water, immediately.

When it appeared on his desk, he plunged Harry's whole head into it.

'Tom, what? What did he say? What did he want?' He flinched against the cold but wasn't allowed to pull his head free.

'He is alarmingly, problematically clever. And…' He flung himself out, slopping water all over the floor and gasping an inhale, gripping the desktop with both hands. 'The Unspeakable said if fusion was inevitable for us, so it would be for them. That Voldemort needs to be careful with his core, or…'

'They might fuse? Like us?' He figured the Dark Lord's fear made sense. If someone had told him what was coming before he'd fused with Tom… On the other hand, 'Wouldn't it be a good thing if they fused?'

'He's insane. He has nothing to lose and every reason to destroy everything the Dark Lord has worked for. And he's… I can't explain it. I just paid a substantial price for very little information and even less assurance.'

"Can you be clearer than that," Harry snapped.

"He wanted to see my guilt, among other things. In exchange, he confirmed what I suspected, that the Unspeakable told Voldemort what you are hiding from himself. It is still critical that we keep that space, particularly now that your Horcrux can… Be here. He said he would not stop pushing Voldemort, that he needs him to break for obvious reasons—he wants the fusion. He said he would 'help us out when we are around,' but I do not know what that means. Then… He mentioned the prophecy at Uagadou, and said it terrified the Dark Lord. You heard the rest."

"…Other things?" He pressed.

"Fuck, Harry, I'm trying so hard."

"Me too, actually," he switched to Parseltongue. "And you never tell me all of it—or sometimes anything—and I feel like no matter what I do, it's all going to fall apart, so please tell me you have a plan. That this is working. If you're not going to tell me anything, just tell me this is working."

"I… Can't. I don't know. I want to tell you everything."

His tone stopped Harry short, frowning, dripping freezing water, chest heaving.

The Dark Mark burned that night, alarming them both.

They'd spent the remainder of the day in the Room of Requirement, sulking. The last thing Harry expected after the disaster of a day was to quiet his Horcrux.

He'd showered and changed, the clothes that blocked his magic torn to shreds with the curse in the bathroom.

When he opened the doors, Cassiopeia was waiting for him, her hair piled on her head in a messy bun. "Finally, Jesus, did you stop checking the map?"

"Yeah. Can't talk unless you walk." He assumed he was heading to the house with the wards and the ridiculous chair.

"Went that well, did it?"

"Went absolutely fucked," Harry said. "As far as I can tell."

She kept his pace down the stairs into the defence tower. "I haven't seen him yet. How bad are we talking?"

Tom sighed and eyed his guards, "We will discuss it later. It is best if you stay in the castle. He will not want visitors."

"That's very ominous. Did you mean that to be so foreboding?"

"I would call it dire."

"Dire? How did you manage to land at threat level dire on a freaking holiday?"

"Was that a holiday?" Tom nearly laughed.

They'd cut through the transfiguration courtyard into the north hall. By that time of night, the ghosts were out, and the students were in. Death Eaters roamed the corridors; their muttered conversations reverberated off the stones.

"I might throw up?" Harry said, slowing down.

"Gross," Cassiopeia said.

"…Wait, no, I'm good." He didn't start walking again, though, standing next to a taxidermied cat in a glass case.

"Lydia said some Death Eaters hovered you into the hospital wing today. Said you're abusing your potions?"

"I haven't even had any. I- I had a …Freak out. Passed out."

'It was my… 'Freak out',' Tom thought.

'I suppose we aren't really gonna talk about that either?'

"Threat level dire?" Cassiopeia asked.

"Yeah."

"Well, if it helps, a little birdie told me assistance is on the way. Purposefully vague." She wiggled her fingers, making an 'Ooo' noise.

"Not at all, actually. Like, the opposite of help. I could hit you," Harry said.

"Here for you, buddy. Go team," she slapped his shoulder and jerked her head toward the bell tower doors.

Taking the bell tower exit meant he had to wander some ways into the Forbidden Forest to reach the edge of the wards. Cassiopeia left him at the doors, and his perpetual entourage followed him into the trees.

'You are mad at me,' Tom thought.

'I'm not not mad.' Harry felt for the wards and Disapparated when he found the end.

He reappeared in front of the green shimmering magic as he'd expected. The front door already open, light spilling onto the dying lawn. He hesitated once inside the wards, expecting some kind of fallout for Tom's apology. He rolled his eyes shut, held them closed for a few seconds, then squared his shoulders and took himself inside.

The Dark Lord was standing, unconcealed, facing away from him in the centre of the room. His seat was in its usual place.

When Voldemort turned to look at him, his expression was blank. He gestured at the chair, and Tom thought:

'Don't break eye contact,' as he cherry-picked his thoughts, ideas, and emotions, taking them into his own walled-off space too fast for Harry to catch.

Harry did as he was told, watching the Dark Lord, searching his face for any sign of… Anything.

Voldemort gestured at the seat, and he took it, the metal clasps snapping closed over his wrists and ankles. He didn't take his eyes off Harry's, stalking across the room.

'A catch twenty-two. Does he endure your magic and your mouth, or does he see you like… This,' Tom thought, a smirk in his eyes.

Voldemort was holding the Elder Wand, expression unreadable.

Harry thought he'd be gagged fairly quickly, but it didn't happen when the Dark Lord vanished in the blind spot behind him.

Tom caught Harry's words in his mouth when Voldemort's hand snaked around his throat from behind. "Our prophecy brought a poem to mind. Would you like to hear it, Harry?"

He almost said, 'I'd love to hear the prophecy, thanks,' but Tom stopped him.

He held Harry's jaw, nails digging into his cheeks. Voldemort wound his other hand in his hair—like he wanted to break his neck—as the bliss began to radiate. It made him drop his head backwards, resting against the Dark Lord's stomach.

He laughed without humour as he yanked his hair, a vibration in Harry's skull.

"In a dark time, the eyes begin to see." Voldemort tilted his jaw and pulled his hair, rolling his head to meet his eyes. "I meet my shadow in the deepening shade; I hear my echo in the echoing wood—a lord of nature weeping to a tree." He traced Harry's lower lip with a thumb and made him whimper, eyes hooded, cheeks red, the Parseltongue and his touch intoxicating.

"I live between the heron and the wren, beasts of the hill and serpents of the den."

Harry licked his thumb, gasping quietly. He felt Voldemort's stomach jump, tensed momentarily under his head.

"What's madness, but nobility of a soul at odds with circumstance? The day's on fire. I know the purity of pure despair, my shadow pinned against a sweating wall. That place among the rocks—is it a cave or a winding path?" As he recited, he summoned the red light, twisting it around Harry's neck, his jaw, and into his mouth.

He was instantly writhing, held tight against the Dark Lord's abdomen as the blissful desire became urgent.

"The edge is what I have. A steady storm of correspondence. A night flowing with birds, a ragged moon, and in broad daylight midnight come again."

Harry was trying to either suck his thumb or bite it, allowed to do neither, his whines becoming hungry moans. Voldemort was fully tensed, his breathing short.

"A man goes far to find out what he is—death of the self is a long, tearless night, all natural shapes blazing unnatural light."

Harry got what he wanted, his stomach rolling with want as he took the Dark Lord's thumb into his mouth, rolling his tongue; finally, blessedly, earning tiny, unrestrained gasps from Voldemort, his heartbeat pounding into the back of Harry's head. The angry red bleeding down his throat, affecting Tom and Harry equally, his cock achingly hard.

"Dark, dark my light, and darker my desire. My soul, like some heat-maddened summer fly, keeps buzzing at the sill."

He was looking up at the Dark Lord and knew he was begging with his eyes. He was alternating between biting his thumb, pulling at it, and sucking the burning heat; delicious and furious as it snaked around his tongue and poured down his throat. He was desperately pulling at the restraints, moaning continuously. The red was bleeding down his chest, under his shirt. He bucked his hips to meet it, silently pleading it lower.

"…Which I is I? A fallen man, I climb out of my fear. The mind enters itself, and God the mind, and one is one, free in the tearing wind." He let Harry go, a radiating shock to his system, gasping as he was released from the stranglehold and the light.

"…Huh? No?" He said, before he was gagged.

Voldemort sat down at the desk, and for an instant, the fear was visible, like a monster rippling under the surface of a lake, not quite breaking the water, "Quel est votre degré de confiance?"

'As confident as you are,' Tom thought, biting the fabric.

Voldemort laughed, but his eyes were sad. He closed them, and it was gone, two fingers on the back of Harry's hand.

(AN: Voldemort recites in a Dark Time, by Theodore Roethke.)