(TW: Sexual scene.)
Desire, Meg Myers
Baby, I wanna touch you
I wanna breathe into your will
See, I gotta hunt you
I gotta bring you to my hell
Baby, I wanna fuck you
I wanna feel you in my bones
Boy, I'm gonna love you
I'm gonna tear into your soul
Honey, I wanna break you
I wanna throw you to the hounds
Yeah, I gotta hurt you
I gotta hear it from your mouth
Boy, I wanna taste you
I wanna skin you with my tongue
I'm gonna kill you
I'm gonna lay you in the ground
Desire, I'm hungry
And I hope you feed me
How do you want me, how do you want me?
Hermione had lost consciousness during the procedure and needed to be levitated out of the room by the Dark Lord, dropped unceremoniously outside the doors. He ordered Nagini to led the other hostages, still Imperioed, out of the room. He locked it behind her, placing wards after he did so.
He sat down and gestured at Harry's chair. He took it as he was bid and placed his hands palm down on the table, still shaking from the curse and what he'd done with it.
Voldemort didn't immediately touch him. Instead, he summoned a small stack of letters from the fireplace's mantle and set about opening them.
Harry squirmed in his seat and pretended he knew how to breathe as he watched the Dark Lord's fingers tear through paper, begging Nagini to return with his thoughts.
'Why were you making me ask him questions?' He wondered again.
'Ask him another one.'
'What? No?'
'Do it again,' Tom demanded.
"Where's Peter Pettigrew?" He'd asked the first thing that had come to mind, sticking to the serpent tongue because it seemed to work.
Voldemort dropped the letter he'd been meticulously shredding to pieces and looked at Harry as though he'd spewed on the tabletop. Then his eyes narrowed, holding Harry's gaze as he leaned in, the muscles in his jaw working, "Shut up."
'Okay, ask him something less wildly provocative.'
'What? What the hell are you doing? He just told me to shut up?'
'Tell him about the Horned Serpent. Iphine.'
'Why?' Harry demanded, his cheeks red.
The Dark Lord had returned to the envelopes, still glaring.
'Do it.' Tom straightened his back.
Harry bit his tongue to keep his face clear, then said:
"I went to Château Delacroix the night of Ginny's first necromancy lesson," he was whispering by accident and tried to speak louder. Voldemort's eyes went wide and slowly landed on him, his lips white.
"In the basement there was a Horned Serpent-"
"I know." His hands twitched along with his eyelids.
"They're extinct. How does he have that?" Harry continued anyway.
The Dark Lord's eyes flicked around the room, and he rubbed his face, apparently baffled. He sat back in his seat, dug his palms into his temples, and groaned—the most human thing Harry had ever seen him do.
"Obviously, they are not extinct."
'Can I stop now,' Harry thought.
'No.'
"Do you think it's possible there's more?" He asked, switching back to Parseltongue and wishing Tom would let it go.
"…What do you think the odds are that Cedrum has the only Horned Serpent left in existence?"
"Slim?" Harry asked.
"Yes."
"You spoke about Beauxbatons, Durmstrang, and Mahoutokoro. Is Ilvermorny on your list?" Tom asked.
"…Yes."
"So, you're already looking for another Horned Serpent?" Harry guessed.
Voldemort sat forward sharply and put two fingers on the back of his hand. "Yes."
He laid his head on the wood so the Dark Lord wouldn't see the inevitable grin that came with the rush of comfort.
"Is Charlie dead?" He asked, trying not to sigh.
"…No. Stop talking."
He did as he was told, once again wondering what Tom was doing. 'Why were you making me ask him questions.' His muscles released all tension.
'He kept answering them.'
'That is weird.' He rolled his head on the tabletop, and Tom shushed him.
He'd been lulling towards sleep when a burning pain snapped his eyes open. He swallowed and shifted his free arm, already certain he knew what he'd see.
The searing gold and red light streamed from the Dark Lord's fingers into the back of his hand. Voldemort watched as though in a daze, like he wasn't truly aware of what he was doing.
Harry's heart immediately took a sharp, uneven pace. His cheeks flushed as the light singed him, a particular, familiar pain. He fought the noise in his throat, suddenly tight.
Summoning the curse was nearly instinctual, not something he actively thought about doing. He wanted to watch it snake around his glowing fingers, and so he did. His mouth fell open as he watched the fluid darkness lose its edges and disintegrate in the light, and the jagged red vanish in the black, dancing with the poisonous green.
The Dark Lord sucked in a breath as their magic combined, a concerted agony that bled up Harry's arm and into the rest of him like a flood. His cock was instantly painfully hard. He swallowed repeatedly as he moved the curse up the Dark Lord's wrist and flicked his eyes to his neck, watching his Adam's apple bob under his skin. Harry moaned low in his throat and sat up, snapping Voldemort out of whatever state he'd been in, his hooded eyes suddenly wide as he ripped his hand away.
Without the combined curses and the soothing that came from psychical contact, Harry was left with a bubbling disgust and a shocked embarrassment, one that he was sure would increase the more he considered it.
He shot out of his seat before he was told to, the Dark Lord rendered silent. He glared at Harry as he tried to rush from the room, something that he didn't need to see to feel. He had to awkwardly wait for the wards to be brought down, gnawing his tongue and keeping his eyes on the wooden frame. He bounced his leg and willed the magic down faster, his whole face and neck bright red. Once able, he yanked the doors open to find Nagini.
She looked him up and down, seemed satisfied that he was in one piece, then pushed past him, complaining about the locked door in Parseltongue.
Cassiopeia had waited for him—though Vanya was gone—much to his irritation, as his heart rate was sky-high. Something she seemed to notice as he approached her. She raised her brows, then frowned, narrowing her eyes.
She let him walk in silence to the edge of the wards. Inside his head wasn't quiet, his thoughts overlapping as he tried to make sense.
When she made to take his arm to side-along Apparate him, Tom stepped back.
"If I… Wanted to take a slight detour?" He crossed his arms behind his back, "I would be back well before sun-up. I have a built-in tracker."
"And you were recently kidnapped. Because you're very high profile."
"I will be careful."
'What are you doing?' Harry wondered.
"What are you up to, snake boy?"
"Nothing, Cassiopeia."
"Huh. Lie to my face. Bold. Fine, one hour and I call the whole cavalry. If pressed, I'll say you tried to kill me." She checked her fingernails as Tom Disapparated.
Harry stumbled when they reappeared. It took him a few seconds to recognise the woods outside Little Hangleton. Dead yew trees surrounded him, lit by the half moon.
"Why are we here?" He whispered the question in Parseltongue.
"Explain to me what you think happened?" Tom asked instead of answering.
"I- what?"
Tom leaned against a tree and then slid down it, the rough bark catching his robes.
"At the manor. What happened?"
"He… Burned me?" Harry looked at his right hand as he spoke, already blistered, redness radiating up his arm.
"Astute. As ever." Tom summoned the curse, and it swallowed the stinging mark, making Harry gasp.
His heart was beating painfully fast, and he wasn't sure which of them was nursing a flourishing panic.
Tom used the hand that was spitting darkness to unbutton his pants, halfway done before he registered what was going on. Harry yelped and sat up, looking around the woods with wide eyes while Tom smirked in his head.
'What are you doing?' He asked in his mind, suddenly worried about being heard.
"No one will find us here."
His hand was on the buttons, undone as he spoke. The Parseltongue weakened Harry's resolve, and he glanced around again, more aroused than confused, though he had several questions. He was still achingly hard, something else he didn't know how to acknowledge.
'I hate him,' he thought. He felt like he was convincing himself as Tom slipped his hand under his waistband, ignoring his words. As the burn grazed his pants, he hissed, his stomach rolling at the thought of it, a mixture of rage, disgust, and desire.
Tom was moving too slowly for his liking, and he yanked himself free, grasping his cock with his cursed hand, forcing it out of Tom's control. He grinned in response and let Harry take full control. He squeezed too hard, succeeding in making himself flinch and taking the smirk off his face.
He swung his head back into the tree and forced his eyes closed. 'Tell me, then,' he thought, squeezing harder. The darkness gripped his thighs and made his legs shake. 'What was that.'
In answer, Tom flooded him with want as though a dam had burst in his head. Bright starbursts of desire that mixed with his own, overwhelming in intensity, emptying his mind of all other thoughts as he bucked his hips.
His mouth swore repeatedly, though he had no idea who was saying what. Tom continued to let him take the lead—his only contributions were the curse, snaking up and down his body, and the nearly stunning glimpse of how he felt—so there was no rhythm to Harry's movement.
He made no sound when he came; the noise caught in his throat as the pressure broke. Held in with herculean effort. Supernovas in his head and abdomen, always taking his breath away with the force of it, shocked by the way he responded, blind with the pleasure, his body frozen, air forced entirely out of his lungs.
As soon as he recovered he was mad and grossed out again. He cleaned himself off with the curse, gasping as he did so, before he jammed his pants back up and frowned, confusion and guilt joining his inner struggle.
"Why did you bring me here?" He asked, struggling to drown the emotions.
There was also a thought. One that he pushed away immediately, eyes going wide as he registered and dismissed the idea, knowing that Tom had seen him think it.
"What?" He snapped when Tom said nothing. He stood up—nearly jelly-legged—and forcefully Disapparated before he could answer.
The same thought popped into his head unbidden dozens of times late into the night and all through Sunday, a day he spent locked in his room, ignoring the map.
Tom didn't acknowledge Harry's thoughts or the reasoning that followed, each one adding more weight to the idea, making him feel like he might vomit. His ignorance of his train of thought annoyed him. He wanted to be told to stop, that the idea was insane. Instead, he was watched in silence, growing more agitated every time he examined it instead of pushing it away.
"I'm not really thinking about it," he said when he caught himself for the umpteenth time.
Tom shoved Harry's thoughts where the Dark Lord couldn't find them without a word.
"I'm not," he repeated. "It's just… I don't know. I don't know why. Leave it alone." He snatched the map out from under his pillow to find almost everyone he'd ever met waiting outside his door.
Cassiopeia, Ginny, Avalon, Eris, Draco, Pansy, Reed, Ruby, and Pollux stood at the centre of his Death Eater guard, that he'd re-obtained in the entrance hall the night before.
He frowned and rolled out of bed, putting a shirt on before he opened the doors. They flooded in, Ginny talking first.
"Percy was really keen for a meeting, apparently." She sat down, and so did the rest, apart from Cassiopeia, who stood, smirking at him with narrowed eyes.
"Holy hell, no worries, we accumulated out there for over an hour," Cassiopeia said.
"So, he's here tonight. Soon. You're still going to come with me, right?" She continued, ignoring the vampire.
"Uh, yeah. Has anyone seen Hermione? Or the others? Around?" Harry asked.
"I have," Cassiopeia grinned wider.
"…No," Ginny said, looking around the group, met with several shrugs and shaking heads.
"Don't worry, they should be wandering about the castle mournfully by now." The vampire came to stand right beside him.
"Why? What happened last night?" Ginny asked.
"Oh, I could guess," Draco said.
Harry shot him a look. "He turned them into Squibs. The chains aren't the same. They… Go inside."
Avalon and Eris didn't appear shocked, though he looked sick.
"Inside?" Pansy repeated. "Inside what?"
"Inside your skin, Pans."
"Oh!" She made a face, "Gross. Forever?"
"I don't know," Harry said.
"Certainly not for a short time," Cassiopeia tilted her head and smiled at Eris. "Hermione would need to cut off her head."
"I'm sorry, what?" Ginny exclaimed, and Harry shrank in his seat.
"What happened to your hand?" Cassiopeia whispered, close to his ear. He stood up instinctively, tucking his right arm behind his back and narrowing his eyes at her.
"So if I punch him now I get a magic killing snake inserted into my head?" Eris asked.
"Yeah, that's not very fair, is it? I mean, raise your hand if you've ever been personally victimised by Harry James Potter." Cassiopeia raised her arm.
Pansy was the next to raise her hand, and shortly thereafter, Pollux was the only one with his arm not in the air.
"Wait, what have I done to you?" He asked Ruby, who shrugged.
"Nothing. Everyone else had their hand up," she quickly put it down while Harry glared.
"…And you?" He said to Avalon.
"Eh bien, il y avait la dissimulation de la compréhension du français. Et aussi cacher ce que l'on est, être très dangereux en général."
"Love it when she speaks French," Draco said. To whom, Harry wasn't sure.
"Une vraie tête de noeud," Cassiopeia said.
'Avalon said we withheld knowing French. And that we hid what we are. Dangerous in general. Cassiopeia called you a dickhead,' Tom thought.
'How do you know she wasn't calling you a dickhead?'
'Subjective.'
"Vous me pardonnerez. Surveillez votre bouche, Cassiopeia," Tom said, not translating for Harry.
"When did you say you were meeting Percy?" He asked Ginny when everyone had put their hands down, still standing with narrowed eyes.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, sorry, did you just- did anyone else hear him speak French just now?" Pansy pointed at Harry and looked around the room.
"Pansy, si toi et moi étions les deux dernières personnes sur Terre, je marcherais dans l'autre sens. Il n'y a rien de personnel, c'est juste que je te trouve si irritante. Va te faire foutre," Tom crooned, again not translating. Avalon hid her mouth behind her hand and Eris' eyes bulged.
Pansy giggled, going red and avoiding Harry's confused eyes.
"Maintenant, dites-le en anglais, je vous mets au défi." Cassiopeia sniggered, then said, "We'll be meeting Percy in…" She cast a Tempus, "Forty-seven minutes or so. Time enough for dinner first. Afterwards, might I recommend you get off your ass and run? I can smell the weakness on you. I'll destroy you on Tuesday."
Harry was the first out of the room, flustered by Tom, his own thoughts, and the ever-present pressure he felt from nearly every angle.
'I'm not thinking about it. And if I was, why haven't you said it's a stupid idea?' Harry thought as he led the way to the Great Hall.
'Would you like me to tell you it is a stupid idea?'
'I- no, I want you to think it's a stupid idea. Which it is. Right?'
Tom ignored him, and he stopped on the third set of stairs in the defence tower, next to the nearly perpetually broken rhinoceros skeleton, remarkably not recently destroyed by first-years looking to test their spells.
'It's a stupid idea,' Harry repeated, as Tom deftly jammed his thoughts away from him, nonchalant.
The others caught up to him, slowing to a stop until he shook his head and moved again. Ginny took his arm and frowned at him, so he tried to hide his emotions better as they took the transfiguration courtyard route, adding time.
He was the first to spot Hermione, Lavender, and Seamus in the library annex, standing around the fountain in the centre with a significantly reduced guard of two Death Eaters.
"Oh," Draco said, stopping when Harry did, stepping in front of him when Hermione saw them.
Instead of staying put, Hermione crossed the annex stones, one Death Eater following her lazily. Seamus and Lavender stayed put, but they watched her cross the space, his eyes sharp, clenching and unclenching his fists. Lavender's eyes were bright red and puffy, as though she hadn't stopped crying since he'd last seen her.
Harry's own guard didn't seem phased by her approach, nor did Cassiopeia, who smiled wide enough to show her fangs as she stopped the rest of the group.
He stepped out from behind Draco and released himself from Ginny's grip.
"Do you know," she said as she reached them, her voice hoarse and rasping, "What he did to us?" She directed her words at Ginny, who also stepped out from behind Draco, immediately interrupted by Eris and Avalon.
"Get away from her," Eris said, wand ready.
"Do you know what he did?! Did he tell you? Does he tell you what he does with Voldemort?! They- he was-" she held her neck as she fought to speak.
Harry glanced at Ginny and Cassiopeia both, unsure how to stop it, unsure why the vampire wasn't. She seemed nothing but amused. While Hermione tried to get her words out, Seamus joined her, gripping her elbow and glaring death at Harry.
"His magic- he used it to- and the snake-" she was hyperventilating, her inhales apparently insufficient, "It's wrapped around my- in my neck, I can't-"
He felt a tap on his arm and was almost too disarmed by Hermione to register it. By then, a crowd had gathered in the annex, and in response, more of the Dark Lord's followers had surrounded them, controlling the students who stood to watch but doing nothing to prevent his once friend's outburst.
He felt the tap again and turned to find Reed pointedly looking at him, then at Seamus and Hermione. Tom understood her faster than Harry did, and he shook his head, not wanting her anywhere near their minds if they had even the ghost of an idea of what he was.
"Harry put it down my throat. With his magic." Hermione finally fought her words free.
There was a moment of awed silence before Ginny broke it. "No. You- did you?"
Tom turned on her, "Tell me you are shocked. Say it."
She winced and looked back at Hermione, chewing her thumb. She squeezed her eyes shut briefly, then returned them to her. "You… He said you used second-years to throw him the Portkey. If that's true, they could have died… Then the shackles—he had to tear his hands out," she whispered, and Hermione let out a shocked noise, echoing in the huge, silent space.
"Ginny! He's… He stood next to Voldemort and smiled while he- and his face- Voldemort's face- and the way he watched him it was… He's sick. There's something wrong-"
"I did smile." Tom summoned the curse, wide and immediately aggressive, making Hermione, Seamus, their Death Eaters, and the students behind them run, stumbling as they fought to get out of the way.
Tom was careful to avoid all but his targets, grabbing Hermione and Seamus by the legs and slamming them face-first into the stones with a thud and a crack. Hermione rolled and gasped in a breath, her hands searching for her face but floating around it instead. Seamus was out cold. Harry retracted the darkness, forcing himself to inhale normally as he watched the Death Eaters levitate them back over to Lavender, who was sobbing.
"Remind me not to get on your bad side. Again," Draco muttered, eyebrows raised, smirking.
"…Harry," Ginny said, her hand on his arm.
Tom turned around to glare at Cassiopeia. "Where are we meeting Percy."