The Wolf in Your Darkest Room
I am the reason
The reason for you
You can only breathe because I let you
Come to your senses
Wake from your dream
I am the wolf in your darkest room
And I just want to taste you on my teeth
And clawing at your neck to feed my needs
You thought you found my limit
But you don't seem to know
No, you don't seem to know
How far I'd go
I am your future
I am your past
I am the secret out at last
I'm sticking to your walls just like the smoke
Now it's all eyes on you as you choke
He was side-along Apparated after breakfast—during which Voldemort ate little, and Harry didn't push the issue—the Dark Lord struggled to take his arm on account of Bed Sheet, reluctant to touch the Lethifold. Harry had grabbed his elbow in the end, already probably too comfortable with his new cloak. Purrs occasionally bubbled at the back of his head when he jostled too violently, reassuring him further. He didn't know what would happen when he got hungry, or when that would be. He figured they'd find out.
Voldemort seemed surprised to see Bed Sheet when they reappeared outside the Malfoy Manor. Harry hadn't dared say much, though his mind would occasionally wander, and he'd forget the dream, forget it was best to hold his tongue.
"What are we doing here?"
Though he was masked and hooded as usual, it was easy enough to tell how he was feeling. If you asked Harry. Again, he clamped his mouth shut. Voldemort radiated shocked fury.
The image of his Horcrux sweeping the Dark Lord to his knees almost made him trip up the step. He wondered how long it would take for the shock to wear off. Tom was non-responsive, and there had been no sign of his Horcrux, either in his head or Voldemort's demeanour.
His question was ignored, as was customary. He worked out where they were going once the Portkey to Nurmengard was presented to him in one of the Malfoy's sitting rooms. He only found out what they were doing there when the Dark Lord said it to someone else. A nameless Death Eater received the order to move Ollivander from the prison to the Malfoy Manor. He didn't bother asking why.
'…How worried should I be? What did you hide in there?'
'Everything I can't… That I can't bear. Everything I needed hidden from your Horcrux. From Voldemort.'
Harry hadn't been expecting an answer. The answer felt worse than silence, but he kept asking anyway, 'Like?'
'I told him- I lied to him. I told him part truths. And outright lies.'
Rushes of panic stopped any further questions. He didn't want to drop to his knees from the fear in Nurmengard, with Voldemort, wearing a Lethifold. He was taken into the depths of the prison, down three sets of long, winding staircases into a damp and cold dungeon.
"You will leave it here," the Dark Lord said, inside a room with weeping stone walls, nothing else.
"What?"
"The Lethifold."
As though he could understand, Bed Sheet tightened, gripping Harry like a boa constrictor.
"…I—think- thinkhesaysno?"
"Use your Patronus."
"No?" At Harry's refusal, Bed Sheet relaxed, though he held his hem outward like a frightened octopus. "…I think he understands? I think he knows what we're saying?"
Voldemort stared at him, blinking too fast under the mask.
"…Bed Sheet? If you can understand me, put the hood back?" When he finished his sentence, the hood flicked down, then back onto his head.
"…Of course. Of course?" He threw both arms in the air and spun in a quick circle as though he'd find relief from Harry's bullshit somewhere in the room with him.
"We can't leave him here. Imagine what Nagini would say?" Harry gestured at the cold, slimy stones.
"You cannot wander about the castle with a wildly unpredictable beast on your back."
Harry almost said, 'You do?' but it was probably not appropriate or wise. Instead, "I wouldn't say wildly unpredictable, would you, Bed Sheet?" His hood shook itself for 'no'.
"Plus, I think he'll act as another layer of protection, right? For your 'Human Horcrux'? And," Harry said, thinking fast, "The competition? The one I have to win? The one with no rules?"
Voldemort slowly turned to look at him, and he knew he'd won.
"Bet none of them are bringing a Bed Sheet into the ring," he finished.
"…You will ensure it does not eat anyone that has not been approved for consumption."
Harry snorted briefly at 'Approved for consumption'. "You can do that, right? Only approved… Consumption?" He spoke into the hood and lifted the Lethifold.
He cooed, nodded the hood, and Harry took it as an unequivocal yes.
"How… This," Voldemort barked an angry laugh and didn't finish.
"I reckon maybe he picked up English while he was being starved? Holds more weight then, doesn't it? The Assassin Bed Sheet theory. Did someone send you to us? To try and kill us?"
Again, he nodded.
"A shame he did not learn to speak English," as Voldemort spoke, there was a metallic clang at Harry's feet.
He looked down to find the Squib snake that had withheld Seamus' magic, mangled chain links with bits of hair and fragments of bone caught between them. "…Gross."
The Dark Lord herded him back out of the damp, empty room—leaving the ruined snake on the floor for someone else to find—and Harry smirked all the way out of the prison.
He wasn't taken back to Hogwarts; instead, they returned to Malfoy Manor. They entered a sitting room—transformed into an office—that he had only seen while invading the Dark Lord's head.
"Tell me something, Harry. Were you paying attention at the schools?" Voldemort asked as he sat at the small, heavy desk—across from the fireplace that the Dark Lord liked to throw things at.
"That's a vague question." There was a window seat overlooking the lawn where Cassiopeia had trained the Death Eater fledglings. A lifetime ago. He took it and stared through the glass instead of looking at him. "I paid plenty of attention."
"Give me one of your insights," he demanded, and Harry detected a boring test.
"This has nothing to do with honour or success or friendly competition. You're recruiting, politically playing with them. Swiping their kids out from under them because you're looking at the bigger picture. I kinda think it's funny how…" He trailed off at first, then recommitted, "…Funny how as soon as you stopped wasting so much time obsessively trying to kill me, your rate of success just…" He pointed at the roof and made fireworks with his hands, exploding noises with his mouth. "You know?"
He removed the mask and sighed, put his face in both hands, elbows propped on the desk. "Name a student. Any student. Give me their strengths and weaknesses." Words muffled by his palms.
Harry remembered one name, but Tom caught it on his tongue with a warning, so he didn't say Marc. "Uhh…"
"I thought so."
"No, hold on, I can…" Harry held up a hand, squinting furiously at the floor. "Shit. Okay, no names, but there's a kid at Durmstrang that can turn into a giant bat-lizard thing. His weakness is cold?"
The Dark Lord groaned, tugged at his hair in a way that made Harry's stomach jump and return his eyes to the frosted window. That was the end of his line of questioning. He summoned a stack of letters and glared at them so egregiously Harry thought he might scream, his lips white, baring his teeth repeatedly while a vein pulsed in his temple.
"…Are you…" He'd almost said, 'Aright?' Instead, he let it hang in the air and occupied himself with the hem of his Lethifold cloak. Bed Sheet was awake, purring loudly at the back of his head as though still pleased with the victory.
Instead of answering him, Voldemort cleared his face to the best of his ability—which wasn't that well, in Harry's opinion—and began tearing letters open.
'How bad is this?' He wondered, not for the first time.
'I don't know.'
He felt like he was waiting for the guillotine above his head to drop; each second that passed with no contact from his Horcrux was draining.
'What did you lie to him about?' then, 'Why lie to him in the first place? You're always saying, 'Lying is a pointless waste and you always get caught up in them blah blah lying bad'?'
'I didn't feel like I had a choice, but yes, Harry, I've proven myself irrevocably correct in the most foolish way possible, as always.'
'…Are you alright?'
'No. I'm fucking terrified.'
Harry winced and sat upright, kicked his legs out straight on the window seat, and shook his head as he corrected himself against the wall. The fire wasn't lit, and the room was cold. Bed Sheet swaddled him against it, tucking his arms tight against his chest. The Dark Lord seemed content to sit in the freeze, but Harry said something anyway.
"Are the Malfoy's not here? You could call a House Elf to light the fires? Why aren't we at the school? Or that house?"
"This room is as close to unreachable as I can be without vanishing entirely."
"Hiding from your followers?"
"Yes."
"How come?"
"Shut up."
Nightfall brought Cassiopeia, bursting through the door. "Oh, my god. I was about to send a damn search party with the way you two are impossible to locate."
"…Hello," Harry said.
"Just two dudes hanging out?" She asked as she sat down in a free armchair, crossed her legs, and tossed her bright red, flowing dress over her knees twice before it sat in a satisfactory way.
"I need Narcissa and Severus tonight," Voldemort said.
"That's cool," Cassiopeia said, nodding and then shrugging.
The Dark Lord sighed, his eyes almost rolling, "You will retrieve them for me."
"No, I won't. Press your magic stick to your magic tattoo, snake boy."
Harry grinned, "I think he just wants you to get out."
"…Why has your cloak got you cocooned like you're a caterpillar in metamorphosis?" She asked.
"It's freezing in here," he said.
"It is a Lethifold." The Dark Lord said at the same time.
"He," Harry corrected again, though he had no idea. He was better than it. "His name is Bed Sheet."
"I will not call it Bed Sheet."
Cassiopeia laughed, giggling until she was too loud to speak over. "A Lethifold. You would go into the Amazon and come out with a tame demon straight from hell, wouldn't you? I'm barely surprised. Are you surprised?" She asked Voldemort.
He'd taken to ignoring them both, scowling at a letter that he brought to hover directly in front of his face.
"I take it you being absent from your classes and your school entirely means something is going on here?" Cassiopeia continued as though she wasn't talking to a floating scrap of parchment.
"I'm home-schooled now." He wished, in that moment, that Cassiopeia didn't bring out the giddy mischief in him. He smirked at her sharp grin anyway.
"What a strange development. Comment?" She asked Voldemort.
"He is a nearly irredeemable idiot carrying a fragment of my soul. I should have taken charge of his education far sooner."
"…Like, in my first year?"
"He was quiet until you came in here, Cassiopeia," the Dark Lord deadpanned.
"Sounds boring. I need a prisoner for Vanya."
Voldemort waved a hand, "You know where to find them."
"It would be ever so convenient if your minions could just bring two every three days? Maybe?"
"…Speak to Narcissa."
"I'm speaking to you, right now."
The letter fell to the desk. He seemed desperate and broken at once, looked at her like he was asking for help—too proud to say it—and even Cassiopeia winced.
"…You need me to ask Narcissa. And you want Snape. Here, in this room?" She repeated.
His eyes slowly closed, and he nodded once.
"Fine. I'll talk to them, and I won't be back tonight. I do expect a conversation. Soon. One where you spill some fucking guts, please?"
He made a face when she said, 'spill some fucking guts', one that she ignored. She swanned out of the room, blowing Harry a kiss.
"Uh, you seem. Is everything…? Because, er." He didn't know how hard to press; he just knew that he should.
If he didn't question, it would arouse suspicion. It would seem as though he knew something he shouldn't. How much he should ask was another thing entirely, and Tom was no help, reeling in his mind as though his Horcrux had dropped a flash bang inside it.
Voldemort's glare was a warning.
"Okay, don't tell me. It just seems like you might… Blow up. I don't want to see Snape."
He didn't ask why he didn't want to see the headmaster; Harry figured he already knew. He flicked the Elder Wand at the bookshelf beside him, and it shifted to reveal a narrow door.
"Then do not see him. I don't have the time nor the patience for your vendettas."
"Pretty valid vendetta, though," Harry muttered as he untangled himself from Bed Sheet. He took the out offered and squeezed sideways into a small room. Room enough for two armchairs, a tiny round table, and a wrought iron bookshelf—its intricate see-through doors were chained shut with a heavy-duty lock.
If he were capable of falling asleep, he would have done so in the quiet, dimly lit room—kept warm by Bed Sheet, rumbling a soft crackle in his ears—lulling him into semi-consciousness, blinking blankly at the old carpet. Over an hour passed that way, and when the door opened, the Dark Lord looked as though he'd run a marathon. One in which he was furiously enraged.
"Don't speak. Do not say anything. When I touch you, you will be silent. Is that clear? Nod."
Harry sat upright, shaking off the lethargy. Then he nodded, hoping that he was actually capable of pure silence, when the bliss rolled his head. He gestured for Harry to stand, and when he did, the chairs were transfigured into two narrow beds.
"You try anything, and I swear to you I will…" He strangled the air, words caught in his throat.
Harry shook his head no as he sat down on the bed on the right. Bed Sheet became a burrito wrap once again. Easily the most comfortable blanket he'd ever had. He fought a bizarre laugh at the fact he was wrapped in a Lethifold, warm and cozy, with the Dark Lord.
Voldemort collapsed into the bed beside him and held his hand out, palm up.
Harry didn't hesitate, wormed his arm out from under Bed Sheet and took his offered hand, hummed when the liquid joy bled through his skin and closed his eyes.
Harry was wrapped in Tom, holding him as though they were on a raft in a storm, arms tight around his chest, legs coiled together. Harry's arms locked between them. Tom kissed the top of his head repeatedly, and for a moment, it felt so normal and right that he forgot that Tom didn't have his own body.
That he wasn't really in the Room of Requirement, in his bed; that he was dreaming. He got the sense something wasn't quite right, though he wasn't sure why. He tried to sit up, and Tom held him down, either oblivious to or disregarding his attempts.
"…Tom," he tried again and realised that he was hiding his face, that his shoulders were shaking.
"Tom?"
"You know, you shouldn't leave your back door open while you sleep." The voice at the end of the bed had them both bolt upright.
Harry's Horcrux rested his chin on the corner of the bed; arms stretched out to grip the blankets so hard he had to have been breaking his fingers.
"I'll give you one warning, and I'll tell you why you're lucky enough to get a warning. Here's the warning: you're eliciting a predatory response in me. Don't move. Sit very still. If you try and push me out I'll tell him everything I genuinely don't give a fuck." He bit the bed, teeth sinking into the fabric.
"…Alright," Tom said, holding Harry's wrist so tight he was flinching.
"You get that warning because of the guilt." He released his teeth just to sink them back in, twisting the blankets in his shaking hands. "You lied to me. You didn't show me all of it. You've been hiding your feelings and thoughts in there with his. I don't think it's very funny, actually." He stood up and Harry jumped, couldn't help it.
His wild red eyes, the way he was still holding the blanket—dragging it with him as though trapped in it—even the way his hair stood on end at all angles unnerved Harry. Not to mention his teeth. A mouth full of daggers.
"You said you weren't scared of me. You said you don't lie. I knew you were full of shit such a fucking snake. And you're so good at it? Almost believed you. Were you lying when you said if you could, you'd… Fuck that. FUCK YOU. Give me a reason not to blow your shit sky apoca-fucking-lyptically high. Do it. Give me a reason. Go. I—SAID—DO—IT!"
"You're right. I lied. I am scared of you. Terrified. So terrified that I lied even though I knew… I knew it was the wrong thing to do. I- you… With that knowledge… Scares me."
"You put in there what scares you?"
"What I can't take."
"…Happiness?" Wide-eyed, he dropped the blanket and crawled onto the bed, "You can't take happiness? I like that. Good. Keep going."
"…There is more to it. What you found in there are the things I don't want him to find. Didn't want you to find. What did you- what did you see?"
"Guilt. Happiness. 'If you let him have what he wants, you control him'." He paused, reached out slowly and yanked Tom's hair, pulling him toward the bed. He went without resistance, still holding Harry's wrist, hands shaking.
"Fear. Lies. I see you keep the special sauce in there. Can't handle the weight of that, either?" His Horcrux continued.
"…Not well."
"Figures. I've thought about it a lot, Tom. And I don't agree with you. I'm not Harry Potter. Not like that one." He pointed at Harry and tilted Tom's head so he could see the fear in his eyes, "We aren't the same, and we're definitely not one. Maybe you insist because of that pesky guilt? Not so bad if you convince yourself we're not separate. Maybe it helps with the jealousy? Is that it? Soothe you a little to think your Harry is thirsty for Voldemort's cock on your merits? Because you think he's you? I can tell you with rock-hard certainty that you're not him either. You're NOT HIM EITHER!" He screamed the words directly into Tom's ear.
"…Harry, don'-" Harry began.
"Uh-uh. No. Gross. Don't do that. Ew? Why is it so weird when you say it?" His Horcrux seemed to be fully registering that he was even there. Like he had been nothing but a prop.
"…What do I call you then?"
The question sufficiently distracted him, and he let go, scooted towards Harry with curiosity lighting his eyes. "Huh. I don't know? If we're separate, we should have separate names, right? Except… Harry is my name. And you don't even remember them. Not like I do. My parents."
"No. I don't remember them."
"Do you remember the train? I can't stop thinking about it. Dad gave it to me. He said… He said, 'This train is blue, not red, but it looks just like the train that will take you to Hogwarts one day. It blows bubbles you can't pop, see? You'll be a Gryffindor, like me, eh?' And it did blow bubbles, but I never got on a train, Harry."
Tom looked devastated, his mouth hanging open as Harry's Horcrux turned to him, "Here's what you're going to do, Tom. You're going to take it all out of there. Save for the parts pivotal to your stupid little plan, wouldn't want egg-head here to know a single thing—say I'm merciful." There was a brief pause, "I said say it."
"…You're merciful?" Tom said, wincing.
"Good enough. You're going to take it all out of there and you're gonna feel it. I want to see it break your fucking back. I'll know if you put it away. And I get a dream whenever I want. Wherever I want. No questions asked. And I'll see the rest of it, everything you're hiding." He returned his attention to Harry, "…Harry, I like your Bed Sheet. That's pretty cool. Wish I had a Lethifold… Fuck you. I guess you call me Crux. Not you. You call me Harry." He yanked Tom's head back once more and slammed his teeth into his neck.