(TW: Some fairly graphic violent scenes in this one, as well as some murder, with mentions of abuse of a minor.)
Transylvanian Concubine, Rasputina
If you want to know how
To fly high, then go now
To the place where all the concubines
Meet and converse with them
Marvel at their pale skin
Wonder how they chew on their pointy
Teeth and hair are beauty
They know it's their duty
To be countess in their hearts and their
Minds that have to whisper
See in them a sister
Look into their eyes and you'll become
Transylvanian Concubine
You know what flows here like wine
Stay here with us, it's just time
Transylvanian Concubine
Sorrow is their master
Cackling with laughter
Now he's having just one piece of...
He awoke to find Nagini asleep at the end of his bed, a serpent coiled tightly half under his blankets. He could feel that they were still in the air. He cast a Tempus and found that he'd slept for six hours.
'How far is it to Bulgaria?' Harry wondered, slowly sitting up in bed. Though the room was dead silent, he did not want to announce that he was awake.
'Flying with Thestrals, depending on conditions, twenty to thirty hours.'
'Thirty hours?!'
'Not including stops.'
'…Why would we fly?!' Harry was alarmed at spending that long with the Dark Lord in such a small space.
'Political.'
'What? How? Why?'
'One hundred and fifty Thestrals?' Tom thought as though that was all he needed to say.
"Hello there," Cassiopeia said, startling him further into the corner as she ducked inside his curtains, "Heard your little heart pounding out of your chest."
She was dressed in nothing but a short silk fuchsia nightgown, her long, straight hair hanging past her hips. She sat on the end of his bed, not waking Nagini.
"It's daytime. Why aren't you sleeping?" Tom whispered.
"Flying makes me anxious. I prefer a coffin. I pull a face," she shook her head and opened her jaw wide. I've got a whole list of reasons. I've never been an easy sleeper, you know."
Tom watched the curtains. They could feel him, could tell that he was likely behind one of the doors that lined the wall to which his bed was adjacent.
"Showering," Cassiopeia said as though reading his mind.
"…Couldn't you have put me in another carriage?" Harry asked.
"…When you need the bathroom, use the one on the right if you want to live."
"Great. Thanks."
Nagini was awake and watching him, silent. When the bathroom door opened, she left him, sliding off the bed and disappearing under the curtain.
Within the hour, they landed. The bathroom door opened and closed after some muttering from Cassiopeia, then the main door and the Dark Lord pulled out of range. Immediately, Harry sprang up and closed himself in the bathroom, where the vampire was exiting. He showered at lightning speed, Cassiopeia hanging robes for him inside the bathroom at some point. He ate eggs and toast on his bed, was not willing to sit at the table, exposed. Cassiopeia was inside her curtained section, and the house elf was sweeping the clean floor. Nagini wasn't in the carriage, but with the Dark Lord outside.
Within half an hour, he felt Voldemort return, whispering something to Cassiopeia as the Thestrals returned to the air.
By then, entering his head was as simple as breathing, done with muscle memory, requiring little input.
"You have to tell me what he was saying. I've been so curious," Cassiopeia leaned forward in her seat, talking freely after silencing their conversation. Nagini was drawing, frowning at the paper.
"Nothing of substance. Parseltongue gibberish. He mentioned you. The headmaster, I believe. The curse."
"Me? What did he say?" She tapped the table, leaned forward, and then leaned back, baring her fangs briefly. Hungry.
"Nothing of substance," he repeated.
'YOU ARE NOTHING OF SUBSTAN-'
Tom went looking for the memory then, registering that they had been talking in their sleep, that the Dark Lord had been listening. He cut through Voldemort's defences as though he was made of the same material.
"I fucking did it, I killed him. Killed him. He is me. And if I were him—which I am… Not- not mutually exclusive… Things."
The sound of Parseltongue shocked him despite being warned.
"That's the curse, not me, not the curse…No retort? Knock it off, idiot. Tell Cassiopeia? Tell her?! I am so… Tired. do you think resisting… Is a better idea? He's… kept me alive so far. Like I'm the only sick… One, I am… Drying inward from the edge."
Cassiopeia was in the bathroom, as she had been for twenty minutes. He suspected for twenty minutes longer.
"I want this to stop please I'm tired. You are misunderstanding it…Wondering whether or not I am capable… And I am. Driving me insane."
"Does this continue all night?" He asked Nagini.
"You know it does," she said, giving him a very pointed look, then returning to her reading. He silenced the curtains that surrounded his Horcrux and frowned at the table.
'Well that's not super good, is it,' Harry thought as Tom removed them from his head, 'What if we just blurt something…'
Tom didn't have a response, making Harry grind his teeth. His curtains pulled wide open, and Cassiopeia mouthed at him, silent. He'd startled, frowned at her and shook his head before she realised that she hadn't given herself volume and cancelled her silencing spell.
"Ehem, what's wrong with you? Why are you going into cardiac arrest?"
"What? No, I'm not." He could see the Dark Lord behind her, unmasked, sitting at the table, glaring at him, making it worse with his neatly swept-back hair and sharp green eyes.
"…You're literally about to have some kind of episode. No exploding or otherwise is permitted in the cabin," she rummaged through a chest. Then, while his curtains remained open, she told the house elf to help her find some Calming Draughts. He fixed his bugging eyes on the fabric wall across from him, pretending they weren't there while he held his breath.
'What is the matter with her?' Harry wondered, heart palpitating.
The elf found the potions first, offered three to him, and he took them, heat repeatedly flooding his face.
'She is concerned we will blast the carriage apart and decimate her in the sunlight, Harry.'
'…Oh.'
He laid back on the bed and focused on his breathing, steadying his heart rate while dreading the thought of sleep. He didn't lie in silence long before Tom was back in the Dark Lord's head. He searched for a particular, recent memory and pulled them into it.
"It's been like sixteen minutes! I've been counting!"
He ignored Cassiopeia yelling over the pest's screaming and the sound of the curse hammering the wards. He was mesmerised by the sheer volume of magic bellowing out of it, consuming the prison and its wards in a shroud of writhing blackness, the stunning green of Nagini's magic dancing within it.
"Hello?! It's not enough! He's going to pass out! ANY second!"
He shook himself, immediately annoyed that she was right, that there was no sign of give, despite the magnitude…
He stepped forward and raised his palms.
'DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT FUCKING DO IT DO IT FUCKER-'
The light burned out of him, pure, undiluted beams of hatred, fury, and loathing shredding into the darkness with a divine symmetry. Imploding starbursts in tune with the thunder of his heartbeat, his brain perfectly empty, pain and anger sanding the inside of his skull smooth as the wards buckled.
He let go, grasped the slick railing and was immediately sick with rage as Cassiopeia took his Horcrux back to the warded house. He fought to straighten his back, put his wand to his throat and cast a Sonorus charm:
"The wards have fallen. You are free. To Apparate or to fight. Return to your loved ones and tell them that the Dark Lord willed it, or join my ranks tonight."
Few Dementors remained. He Apparated to the top of the prison; finally steady on his legs, though his chest was still full to bursting with the hate that fed the thing growing in his head. He cast Morsmorde before he touched the Elder Wand to his Dark Mark, intending to clear the cells of any stragglers one by one before tearing Azkaban into the sea. Pops and cracks of Apparition surrounded him, the forty he'd chosen appearing along the upper walls and whooping as they realised where they stood.
"Empty the cells; kill the guards."
He could already hear the chaos in the halls below him, prisoners revolting against their institution, and he itched for it. He blasted a hole in the stones at his feet and fell eagerly forward into the waiting darkness.
Tom was moody as they retreated.
'I want a fight,' he thought, and Harry rolled his eyes.
'That's why you're upset? Not because we've unleashed a bunch of criminals?'
'…Why would that upset me.'
'…Dunno actually.'
It appeared as though they planned to stop every six hours. During the second stop, Tom watched through Voldemort's eyes as he exited the carriage, taking Nagini on his shoulders as he checked on his followers, who were feeding and watering the Thestrals in an open, empty field. He saw Draco, with his parents, his father pale in the sunlight but improved enough to seem lucid, Narcissa locked arm in arm with her husband. They learned that there were plans to stop overnight after a final six-hour flight for the day. It was four in the afternoon, and Harry had managed to stay out of way and not get himself killed for twelve consecutive hours.
Cassiopeia would anxiously whip his curtains open every time his heart rate picked up, exponentially increasing his nervousness. Nagini didn't seem permitted to interact with him; she hadn't spoken a word to him, though she'd slept in his bed.
'Nagini seemed to mean that Voldemort does the same thing. Talks in his sleep?'
'Yes. He sleeps under a silencing charm before you get ideas.'
Harry got ideas regardless, 'What if we used the curse to somehow… Eavesdrop?'
There was a long pause while Tom considered it, 'High risk, low potential reward.'
'…So we're doing it or?'
'…Yes.'
Harry cast their version of a Tempus as the carriage landed for the night at quarter past ten. He kept himself awake with nervousness, careful not to alert Cassiopeia, his personal heart monitor.
Several silencing charms were cast and uncast through the night, and the Dark Lord came and went from the carriage several times. It wasn't until nearly three in the morning that Tom detected the charm being cast around the farthest bed from his.
'Last chance to reconsider your stupid idea,' Tom thought.
'Last chance to reconsider my stupid idea,' Harry returned.
In response, Tom summoned the barest thread of the darkness and snaked it through the fabric of the curtains, careful to keep their breathing even. They knew how to feel sensation with the darkness, and it wasn't much of a push to send other senses along the thread as they broke through the charm with ease, not designed to withstand something like the curse. He'd created rudimentary hearing and sight, not clear by any stretch, particularly the 'vision' —blurred as though he was nearly blind— but workable. He could see Cassiopeia, too, reading what might have been a romance novel, but he only guessed as much because the cover was bright red. She looked at his curtains, shook her head, and gnashed at the air every time his pulse picked up.
"-Not preventing you from doing anything," Voldemort said, sitting on the edge of his bed, Nagini behind him, tucked close to the wall. She made a face at the back of his head, poking her tongue out, before she began to shift, transforming into a serpent and coiling into a pile at the top of his bed, under the pillow, taking up a good portion of the available space.
Harry tried not to perceive the Dark Lord directly, only watching him in the vaguest sense, glad that he was mostly blurred into oblivion. He refused to fully realise that his stomach was rolling just because the Dark Lord had laid back on his bed with one arm behind his head. He was dressed casually, apparently sleeping fully clothed, boots and all.
'Ready for a fight,' Tom supplied, 'Your heart is beating too fast.'
'We're gonna fight in the air?' Harry tore his proverbial eyes off him and watched Nagini instead. She'd refused to give him more than a head's worth of space on his pillow.
'Not impossible.'
"It is a Horcrux. You have put too much into it," Voldemort continued, frowning at the ceiling, "It was not purposefully made, nor is it important now. I need you to see sense."
She remained silent.
It was close to five in the morning when the Dark Lord finally closed his eyes, and another hour before he spoke in Parseltongue:
"Get it out get it out. Get it OUT OF ME HATE YOU I hate HAATE. Please let me out please get it out out out OUT," he was thrashing as he hissed and the movement of the carriage returning to the air startled him awake.
Tom retracted their magic, and they both frowned.
After that, he fell asleep, too tired to resist. He woke nearly hourly, simultaneously annoyed and relieved that he couldn't stay asleep. He gave up near midday when they landed for a break. Voldemort left the carriage, and Nagini and Cassiopeia exploded into his curtains.
"No success yet; he's too stubborn even to say there is any relief besides my magic or three bottles," Nagini whispered, though the Dark Lord was well out of hearing range.
Cassiopeia was watching him, her arms crossed, opening and closing her mouth as though biting the air.
"And politically I'm still useful, right?" Harry asked, directed more at the vampire.
"…Sure, yes. Make this count, okay? You need to weigh more than…" She gestured at her temple with an open hand, jaw still working.
"Are you… Okay?" Harry asked her.
"Starving, holy fuck. Irrelevant," she waved him away and unhinged the lower half of her face.
"How is it? Inside his head? He won't tell me how it is, but I hear him at night…" Nagini asked.
"It's bad," Harry told her, "The Horcrux is just yelling. All the time."
"…Out, go, go," Cassiopeia shooed Nagini and she went without question, "I'm going to give you a haircut and shave your face soon, you magic-less limpet," she said. As she spoke he felt the Dark Lord approach and open the door, "We'll arrive between ten and eleven tonight, at this rate. You should get more sleep than you've gotten," the carriage door had closed while she chastised him, so he knew Voldemort was listening.
"So should you," Tom told her, barely a whisper.
"Sleep is for the weak," she grinned at him and ducked out of the curtains.
Cassiopeia fixed his hair and shaved his face inside his curtained section while the Thestrals landed for the final rest stop, and the Dark Lord took the opportunity to be far from the carriage. She cleaned the robes and cloak that Narcissa had provided him with magic, though he'd hardly worn them. She was chomping at the air, like a piranha removed from the water.
"Now that we're nearly there, we must discuss etiquette. Enos and his sisters are non-magical. We'll be keeping the magic to a minimum until… Are you aware of Skulmadras?"
"Yes," Tom said.
"Until then. Do not look them in the eye, particularly his sisters, especially when they're hungry. They'll be peckish when we arrive, but you know the tells, yeah?"
"…His sisters? Yeah, what you're doing now?" Harry asked.
She nodded, "What I'm doing now, to varying degrees. Yeah, Signy and Tofa. Valkyrie wannabes, insane, insatiable, really great tits on both of them. They're hot as hell, actually… Honestly… But psycho! Psycho. Wild. Truly. Baaad news. You do not want them to look at you. Or to look at them. Enos is a predictable big man. Cruel for no reason, very stupid, giant fist go smash. He's particular, though, don't try to touch him, not that I think you're about to do that. Ensure you're always clean; don't make a mess. Like, if someone slits your throat, don't bleed on his floor, you understand?"
"I mean… Yeah?" Harry said, eyes large.
"…Sorry. I hate it. With them. They make me…" She sighed, then rolled her head in a wide circle, mouth open, "They're disgusting. Christ, ten o'clock could not come fast enough, eh?"
"Why haven't you… Eaten?" He asked.
"It's custom to show up hungry and… Share a meal. They'll be hungry too. Hopefully not too fucking hungry. Hunnnngry," She rolled her eyes closed and took a deep breath, "You know to keep your mask on and an air of mystery about you, right? Best not to talk at all. It will be chaos. Know that. Just- just be still, okay? Don't try to run or anything."
"Yes, Cassiopeia," Tom told her.
"We'll get you through this yet."
By nine-thirty, the vampire had forced ten Calming Draughts into him while she paced the length of the room. She insisted that he keep his curtains open so she could 'keep an eye on him.' She'd begun making keening noises and squeezing her hands together as she rushed back and forth across the small space. The Dark Lord and Nagini watched her from the table, Voldemort already masked and gloved, hood drawn.
"Reckon I should bite him and be calm? From the Draughts? Why can't I breathe? I don't need to breathe," Cassiopeia asked, gesturing at Harry before flurrying to the other end of the room, startling the house elf.
"…Would you be arriving hungry?" The Dark Lord responded, the sound of his voice making Harry's stomach jump and his cheeks red.
"I could pretend," she whined.
"No. You are an unreasonably terrible actor."
"What the fuck I was in a movie once, you know?" She hissed at him, pausing her pacing.
"It was shockingly low quality," he told her, face unreadable behind the mask, tone neutral.
"Oh, get off, like you'd ever watch a movie; what was it about?" She put her hands on her hips and bared her fangs at him.
"…If ever I lay eyes on jewels the colour-"
"You did watch it!? WHEN? That was when—it was after we—before I was turned? And it wasn't like it was a big release—" She looked at Harry, shut his curtains with magic, and silenced their conversation. Though Tom was invested, so he dove right into the Dark Lord's head.
"…You would have had to have been keeping tabs on me," she said, sitting down at the table. Her jaw was still working, but she was no longer pacing.
"…Of course, I kept track of you."
She looked openly astonished before she cast her thirty-second Tempus of the hour.
"He didn't think the movie was bad or good," Nagini supplied, eyes on her drawing, hidden in her lap, knees near her face.
Cassiopeia snorted, "Thank you, Nagini darling."
"It was awful," he said.
"…Fuck off, Riddle, wouldn't know taste if it exploded in your face," she tsked, making an explosion gesture in his face with her hand, then putting her elbows on the wood, chin in her hands.
"…Better?" He asked her.
"…Yes. A bit. Thank you."
Twenty minutes past ten that night, the carriages finally stopped. It was Tom's turn to pace, shut inside his curtains as his heart thundered. He was fully dressed in his travel gear, with the addition of his own set of gloves, his face obscured by the half mask summoned by Cassiopeia.
He could hear shouting outside their carriage, but no one had opened their door. Thirty minutes passed, silent in the room, apart from Nagini's occasional hissed, 'Is it time yet?' that was met with silence. There was a booming voice outside the carriage, one of the deepest baritones that Harry had ever heard, making his eardrums vibrate, Enos, calling for Cassiopeia.
"Now," the Dark Lord said, and Tom opened their curtains to watch Nagini transform into a serpent. Voldemort kneeled for her to climb onto his shoulders, opened the door and stepped out as though he had all the time in the world. Cassiopeia gestured for Harry to follow behind her and made a 'shh' gesture, finger on her lips.
She hopped from the carriage and shouted, "Enos! Signy! Tofa! I've missed you desperately."
"I like your skeletal horse birds, wizard man. Let me have one," Enos spoke over her, drowning her out with his deep voice.
Tom took control as they followed her lead, only allowing them to take in a sliver of the scene with his peripherals under the draping hood. Enos was huge. All muscle, over six foot tall. Almost every inch of him was tattooed with runes and line work; the only clear skin was his cheeks. Three deep black lines ran parallel and horizontally on his forehead, Runes on his chin, on his lips, under his eyes, and under his fingernails. His head was mostly shaved, save for a mohawk of hair, braided back. He was shirtless and wore black trousers with no shoes.
His sisters were almost as tall as him, and their blonde hair trailed in the dirt behind them like veils. They were dressed in long white strips of fabric that seemed affixed to nothing on their waif-like bodies. Their nails were like talons, and thin gold chains were wrapped up to their elbows. They were chittering like birds, gripping each other's forearms, swaying and gnashing their fangs.
Harry couldn't see far, but he could see tents behind the vampires, and he hoped he would get a private one, desperately tired.
"I've been so excited to introduce you to my good friend, the Dark Lord Voldemort," she could not hide her distaste, evident in her voice, "In a more private location, over dinner, yes?"
Enos and his sisters were the only ones he could see; Cassiopeia and the Dark Lord were in his blind spot.
"Is this dinner?" Enos pointed at Harry, voice like a thunderclap, even at a regular talking volume.
Tom kept them perfectly still.
"He's definitely not on the menu, but we've brought a plate, of course."
"Ah, a shame, he's terrified. To the castle, then. Along," he boomed as he started walking, his sisters following behind him as though they were one entity.
Tom waited for the Dark Lord and Cassiopeia to move ahead of him before he followed, head down, taking in nothing but the concrete, stone, and gravel under his feet as they walked. He could feel eyes on him, though he could see no one. He followed them through halls, watching carpet change to wood, then to stairs, through a doorway with more carpet, this time white, though covered haphazardly with several blue tarps.
"You know, I always thought you were full of the bullshit when you said the Dark King Lord Dickhead Magic Man of Europe was your school friend. What happened to his face, did it get worse? Ha! Tell me honest, Cassiopeia, did you ever suck his cock?"
"…You know I hate cocks, Enos," she seemed bored.
Enos was sitting on an oversized brown leather couch, and six young women lined the wall behind him, their heads bowed.
"That's a nice snake. Does it bite?" the giant man asked, opening his jaw wide and grinning. His black eyes were dull like holes.
"Yes," Voldemort said, the first word he'd spoken.
"Oh, where are my manners? I have not offered for you to watch me eat my dinner," he bellowed a laugh and gestured one of the servants lining the wall over to him, "I've been promising them all to turn them. Come here, little dove. Tonight is your night. You can put on a show for our guests. This one has been here six years! Amazing, no? Dedication. One of my favourites. Sasha, I think is her name?"
She didn't answer, and Cassiopeia bristled.
"She can't be older than twenty," she said.
They watched the young woman approach, her eyes glued to the floor. Her tanned skin was covered in dozens, possibly hundreds of bite scars, dressed in a short white tunic dress.
"How old are you, girl? I can never tell; they all look the same to me now," he asked her. With a wave of his hand, he shooed the rest of the servants out of the room.
"…Nineteen," she whispered, offering her arm for him to bite. He yanked it, pulling her into him and slamming his fangs into her neck. She didn't scream or struggle, though her eyes were wide. She wasn't looking at anyone, watching the ceiling as her arms and legs went rigid. Harry tore his eyes away and put them on the carpet.
Immediately, Signy and Tofa were screeching like sirens, an ear-piercing, grating sound.
"I need those prisoners here, Tom, please," Cassiopeia said. Her hands were the only part of her that Harry could see, gripping her cape and twisting the red fabric.
The woman who might have been Sasha was beginning to spasm; he could see her legs no matter where he put his eyes, so he closed them, nauseous, sweat itching his neck and face. She'd started to make gargling noises, almost drowned out by the increasingly louder shrieking from the sisters.
After an achingly long moment, the vampire shouted at his sisters, silencing them to a low whine with his anger. Harry looked to find Enos had dropped probably-Sasha on the tarp and was standing, wiping his mouth on the back of his arm.
"The joke is I'm not going to turn her! Do you get it? It's funny, yes? No, stay! Stay on the tarp. This is white carpet," he was kicking her repeatedly into the centre of the blue plastic while she writhed, pale, bleeding profusely from her neck, shooting jets of blood in time with her rapid, slowing heartbeat, face wild as she grasped at the wound. She tried to grab the vampire's leg and earned another swift kick in the ribs, making her wheeze. Harry's legs twitched as though he could do something, though Tom didn't let him move. Enos was already rolling her in the blue plastic.
He realised that he'd been holding his breath, that he was dizzy. Tom forced an inhale.
Cassiopeia barked a humourless laugh, "Oh, piss right the fuck off," she snarled, suddenly standing over the top of the bleeding woman and shoving Enos away, pulling the tarp off. She didn't faze him, though his smile dropped, his black eyes sharp as he took a casual step backward.
"Fuck. Fuck! Fuck. Okay," Cassiopeia bit into her wrist and straddled probably-Sasha, who weakly fought, eyes rolling into her head, "Here we go, you're okay," she put her bloodied wrist to the woman's mouth, and she latched on like a starved newborn. As they watched Cassiopeia turn the woman on the floor, the sisters were creeping closer to the scene, snarling and snapping at each other while simultaneously not letting go. Within seconds, they were biting and scratching each other, screeching again, scrambling and spilling their blood on the carpet, earning an instant reaction from Enos, who was exploding at them, yanking them apart by their hair:
"Not on my carpet!" His hands were nearly as big as their heads. Signy and Tofa kicked at each other, using Eno's grip as leverage to lift themselves off the ground and buck wildly.
At that exact moment, the doors swung open behind them, and Harry turned without meaning to. Five chained men with fabric bags over their heads were led into the room, flanked by ten masked Death Eaters. Enos let his sisters go, and they sprang like cats into the prisoners, wrestling them into the ground as they bit into their throats, the room filled with shocked screaming for an alarmingly brief moment. Cassiopeia disconnected from the woman on the floor with force, stumbling for her own shackled man and pulling him to the ground, growling low in her throat as she fed. Probably-Sasha was groaning and contorting, then vomiting profusely, doused in sweat and pale as a corpse.
"She gets shit or piss or vomit on this carpet, Cassiopeia. I lose my appetite. I blame you for your baby, okay?" Enos said, taking a chained man and lifting him off the ground with one hand, making him flail in alarm before the giant man lowered him to his fangs as though he were shouting, struggling fruit.
'…What the fuck is happening?' Harry finally thought, his heart blitzing in his chest.
Cassiopeia left her dying dinner on the floor and had come to stand between Harry and the Dark Lord, who had motionlessly watched the whole flabbergasting show in silence, spending most of his time in Harry's blind spot.
"Well, I didn't plan on becoming a mother tonight, but that's the magic of life for you. I'm naming you godfather," she told him as Tofa and Signy fed on the remaining whimpering prisoner, and Enos retook his seat on the long leather couch.
"A private meeting would be best from here, Cassiopeia. Put it to bed," the Dark Lord said; Harry assumed he meant him, and she spoke to Enos:
"Who can show us to a room?"
Enos whistled, and the door creaked open once more. A servant was ordered to take them to his quarters, and Harry tore his eyes away from the woman on the floor, stiff, blinking slowly, blindly at the ceiling, gasping tiny breaths. All but one of the prisoners were already dead, their chests still. The fifth wasn't far behind.
"Oh, we have missed your silly bleeding heart, Cassiopeia. Was such a shame to see you go," Enos called after them as they followed the young woman in a tunic dress out of the room, flanked by four Death Eaters.
The room she took them to was large, with a dark wooden four-poster bed in the centre, white walls, and dozens of windows draped in lace. He turned to her as the servant left them alone, clocking the blood all over her, the pink flush of her skin, and the brightness of her eyes.
"Tom will be next door. You'll have a guard outside your room. You know how to scream real loud, right? Worst comes to worst: Make them hurt, and they'll lose their curiosity. I'll get Narcissa to take you for a walk in the morning. Most of his followers have been restricted from the castle grounds. They're in tents, in the fields. So, there are just a handful to worry about. Don't take off the mask. Not even while you sleep. I've… I've got to go and- ha! Ha! Ahhh, fuck me. I've got to go and bury my new offspring."
"…Who's curiosity?"
"Harry don't be dumb. We're in a vampire den. Get some sleep."
"…Okay."
Harry did manage to sleep, succumbing to unconsciousness the second he was horizontal, despite being in a vampire den. Desperate for rest after spending such a long time with his heart bursting in his head.
Narcissa did collect him just after sunrise, unmasked and smiling demurely at him, "Good morning, Harry."
He threw the cloak over his dress shirt and called it an outfit, mask still in place, as he followed her. Four Death Eaters were in the hallway outside his room, all following him with their eyes.
He could finally take in the castle and the grounds in the daylight, free to look up.
The first thing he noticed as he walked out the wide front doors into the elaborate, fountained gardens was the enormous statue of a werewolf, a naked woman with demon wings sitting on its shoulder, attached to the small castle's side. The statue's base, and most of the building itself, was swallowed by ivy.
"Where are we?" Harry asked Narcissa.
"This estate is called Ravadinovo," she told him, walking a little way ahead. She led him to a large, square, artificial lake, where two swans were fishing for food near the centre.
Harry sat down on a bench, and Narcissa continued walking.
'Did you ever… Was there anyone after Alicent? Or… Before?' Harry wondered, watching the swans bobbing.
'Even as I see the thoughts coming… Never on task. No, not before, not after. Not that I am aware, anyway.'
'…I meant you; I don't care what he's doing,' Harry paused at the implication of his thought, though Tom thankfully let it slide.
'Why… Why not?' Harry continued.
'No one caught my attention. Then it became irrelevant.'
'Because of the Horcruxes?'
'Yes. Are you asking me this because you find me devastatingly attractive?'
'…That's a strong word, no, I don't find you… That,' Harry returned to denying it.
'Oh, right, of course. Fantasising about-'
"No," Harry hissed in Parseltongue, "I'm not doing any of that. I wasn't asking because- I mean, what does it matter that you're- that I'm- it's not like I could ever love you."
His stomach dropped in response; then Tom slammed his mind shut.
(AN: Double-sized chapter, damn.)
