Word Count: 5125

Warnings: Possible trigger for Stockholm Syndrome

Until My Last Breath

It wasn't what she would have chosen.

Had she been offered options, she would have left the country rather than being held here. She would have made a vow to not raise her wand against Voldemort, rather than sit in a gilded cage, rotting away with no purpose.

She had believed that he was going to kill her. When she lost the battle, when he had her at his mercy, with no wand, and no strength left, she'd thought that he would kill her.

Instead, he stunned her, and she'd woken up in a room, decorated in green and gold. She'd woken up in what would become her prison.

The news that most of the people she loved hadn't surprised her, but it had hurt, every name digging into her like a poisoned sword. Those that hadn't died had run, helpless, and were now hiding. They were probably out of the country.

She hoped that they were out of the country.

If they were somewhere away from England, away from Britain, then they still had a chance at a life, and honestly, that was the best that she could hope for them.

It was lonely, in her golden cage. Elves brought her food three times a day, and she was provided with books to read, and clean clothes to wear. She had a bathroom that was so big, it reminded her of the Prefect's bathroom at Hogwarts.

At first, she'd been filled with rage. She'd been so angry. She'd screamed and cursed and kicked at the walls and the doors and even the windows on a couple of occasions, because she didn't want to be there. She didn't want to be alive at all, because if she'd lost, if she'd let everyone she loved down, then what was there left for her? What was her purpose?

Eventually, the anger had faded into an odd numbness, and she found that she wasn't even sad anymore. She just didn't feel anything. Her expectations for her life had always been low—she'd never truly believed that she would beat Voldemort, how could she? She had been a child fighting an adult's war—but this was far worse than death, in her opinion.

She didn't even know how long it had been. The days and nights had all faded into one endless stream of reading, eating, and nightmares. She'd given up hope on restful sleep, these days, but since she hadn't had much of that before, it wasn't a surprise.

It just felt like she was on a monotonous train ride, except there was no stopping. She couldn't get off of it.

…

The door opened, but she didn't look. It would likely be an elf, with whatever was to be her latest meal. She lay on her stomach on the bed, her face half pressed into a pillow. Her bedding was currently green silk, and it felt good against her skin. Cooling.

She supposed that there must be a charm on it, to keep it so. She'd never really cared for household charms, so she didn't know if it was a charm, or elf-magic.

"Miss Potter."

Frowning at the human voice, she pushed herself up slowly and turned her head to look over her shoulder. A man stood by the door, smirking at her. She didn't recognise him, but there was something… oddly familiar about him. Almost like she should know him.

It took her longer than it should have to notice the red gleam in the man's eyes, and she gasped.

The last time she'd seen Voldemort had been at the battle, and he'd still been pale and noseless, more snakelike than human.

This man was about as far from that as one could get. He had a nose, for a start, but there was also thick, dark, wavy hair on his head, and a strong jawline. His cheekbones were sharp and prominent, and Harry had the oddest thought that, if he were to smile, he would have dimples.

Her movements cautious, she turned over and scooted up the bed, so that she was sitting upright against the headboard, supported by the pillows. She pulled her knees up so that she could wrap her arms around them.

Her scar, oddly, didn't hurt when he walked—practically prowled—towards the end of the bed.

"I've been informed that you've stopped reading the books that are being sent up for you," he said, leaning casually against the bedpost at the bottom of the bed.

She shrugged. She had, he wasn't wrong. There were only so many books that she could read before the boredom became too much for her to handle.

She'd never been like Hermione; she didn't mind reading, but it wasn't what she considered to be a 'fun' activity.

"Is there anything else that I can have delivered to you?"

She frowned. "Why am I here?"

He tilted his head, regarding her as though she were a puzzle for him to solve. "Would you rather I have killed you, Harriet?"

She nodded silently, and despite her best efforts to suppress it, a single tear rolled down her cheek.

"I'm afraid, my dear, that I cannot allow you to die," he said softly. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry about that."

Harriet looked away. His words had unsettled her; Voldemort apologising to her was about as normal as pigs flying without the aid of magic.

Nothing about this was right. She didn't understand why he suddenly looked the way he did, or why he seemed… sane.

"I came to tell you that you have the run of the house," he said, shifting slightly where he stood. "My Death Eaters have been instructed to leave you alone if you run across them. There's a library, a music room, and a games room on this floor, if you are inclined to any of them."

"Why am I here?" she asked again, turning back to look at him.

He smiled slightly. "If you need anything, send one of the elves to get me."

Turning away, he walked towards the door. When he reached it, she spoke, making him pause.

"Can I go outside?"

He looked at her over his shoulder, and then nodded his head. "The grounds have been warded quite… stringently. If you try to leave them, I don't believe that you would enjoy the consequences."

He slipped through the door and closed it behind him with a quiet snick. Harriet remained where she was, leaning back against the headboard.

The idea of fresh air was almost enough to make her get off the bed, but, in the end, she lay back down and closed her eyes.

Even the grounds would be a cage, at the end of the day. A larger one than she was in right now, sure, but still a cage nonetheless.

…

"Come."

Harriet glared at Voldemort. "No."

He sighed, and then his wand slipped into his hand from up his sleeve, and she was being gently but firmly forced to her feet. A second wave of his wand put shoes on her feet, and a third had a black cloak wrapped around her.

"Will you come with me, or do I need to force you?"

She snorted, but she made no move to follow him.

"As you wish."

Another flick of his wand, and it was like there was an undeniable pressure against her legs. It was strong, but oddly not painful, despite the force, and she was pushed forwards.

He led the way through the house—though she thought that it seemed more like a castle, as they walked the winding corridors—and down the stairs, to an ornate set of double doors.

He opened them, and stepped outside onto lush grounds. She looked around, curious despite herself, and as the magic pushed her forwards, she took in her surroundings.

It reminded her a little of the grounds of Hogwarts. Along one side, there was a thatch of trees that could be the forest, a pond over to the right, that could be the lake, and large oak trees dotted around, that reminded her of the ones that she, Ron and Hermione had always sat under, after finishing their exams.

Voldemort led the way, his pace slow, around the grounds.

Harried tried not to enjoy being outside, but the sun warmed her face, even as the cloak he'd conjured around her protected her from the cold breeze that blew across them.

At some point during the walk, the magic that Voldemort had used to make her walk faded away, but she continued to follow him, the numbness leaving her slightly for the first time since it had arrived.

Eventually, he stopped at a bench that was surrounded by wildflowers, and took a seat, crossing one leg over the other. He gestured for her to join him, but she ignored him, walking the few extra steps until she was beside the pond.

There, she dropped down and sat on the dew-damp grass, her legs crossed in front of her. She could see the fish swimming just below the surface, and she contented herself with watching them dart around.

They were caged too, she considered. She wasn't sure if they knew that they were, but they were in a similar position to her own. Kept in a small area, when they should be allowed to roam the sea, or at least the rivers that wound around the country.

"You could be happy here," Voldemort said, his voice carrying in the wind. "If you tried."

She ignored him again, ignored the ridiculousness of his claim. She would never be happy there with him. This had never been what her life was supposed to be like. Her life had always had two possible paths; death at the end of his wand, or, had she won, a bright future to surprise her every day.

This middle ground wasn't anything that she'd ever considered as a possibility, and she hated it. She hated feeling trapped.

They sat in silence for long moments, until eventually, Voldemort pushed himself to his feet. "I have things to do. I assume that you can find your own way back inside when you're ready?"

Nodding silently, she kept her eyes on the pond as he walked away.

…

Most days following that, Harriet spent the majority of her time on the grounds—usually by the pond—until she was forced back inside when it became too dark to see her hands in front of her face. She didn't often see Voldemort, but occasionally, she would see him watching her from one of the upper windows of the Manor.

She wasn't sure what to make of him. He'd been perfectly polite with her, on the few occasions he'd spoken to her, and he seemed to be keeping a fairly close eye on her. Nothing was the way that it should have been, and it had thrown her for a loop.

As the days slowly turned colder, Harriet was forced to spend more and more of her days inside. Had she still had her wand, she'd have been able to use warming charms, or conjure herself an umbrella as the rain became a more constant feature of the weather.

Unfortunately, she hadn't had her wand since the battle, and she wasn't dumb enough to believe that she would be allowed it back, even if she asked.

She hadn't bothered venturing from her room to look around the inside of the house. The only parts she knew were the hallways in which she walked to get to the main doors outside.

Not only did she not particularly care for what was on offer, but the thought of running into any of the Death Eaters, unarmed, wasn't a comforting one.

Sure, they'd been told not to hurt her, but she didn't think that she could bear the words that they might spit at her.

She already knew that she was a failure, she didn't need it to be jeered at her by those that she'd once fought against.

As the days passed by, and a spate of particularly bad weather hit, she gave in and left her bedroom in search of the library. As bored of books as she'd become, it was better than the nothingness of lying on the bed, staring at the ceiling.

It wasn't difficult to find the library; it was at the end of the hall, and the door had been left open. She walked inside and looked around, trying to figure out if there was a system to the way that the books were organised.

When she didn't find one, she started strolling along the shelves at random. It didn't take long for her to find a book that interested her; Wandless Magic For Beginners.

She didn't think that she'd be able to escape, no matter how adept she could become at Wandless magic, but if she could learn to cast warming charms, and perhaps how to conjure an umbrella without the aid of a wand, then she'd at least be able to resume her daily wandering of the grounds.

A cage it may be, but the grounds still made her feel a little bit less like a prisoner.

She considered going back to her bedroom with the book, but then decided to remain in the library. There were two armchairs and a fireplace, which was already lit with merrily flickering flames, and it was somewhere different for her to be for a while.

Curling up in an armchair, she rested the book on her legs, and opened it to the first page.

…

"I've been informed that you're trying to escape."

She looked up to see Voldemort taking a seat in the second armchair by the fire. She arched her eyebrow at him.

"A couple of the Death Eaters have been through the log of what you've been reading, and are concerned by your book choices. Wandless magic? You should know that no amount of wandless magic will get you past the wards around the property, Harriet."

She snorted, and looked back down at her book. She was on the fourth Wandless Magic book that she'd been able to find. So far, she'd managed summoning charms, lighting charms, and warming charms. She was now searching for wandless conjuration, but it was slow going.

"Will you tell me why you're attempting to learn Wandless Magic?"

Sighing, she looked back up at him.

"I want to be able to go out onto the grounds, but the weather is bad," she said quietly. "I've been trying to learn how to cast warming charms, and conjuration, so that I can have an umbrella."

He stared at her for a long moment. "And have you had any success?"

"A little."

"You know that you could have simply asked for an umbrella? The elves would have been happy to bring you one."

She wrinkled her nose at that. It had crossed her mind, but the thought of asking for anything was galling to her. She didn't want him to give her things; it would be too much like she was accepting her position as a prisoner.

"I'm fine," she replied eventually, a little stiffly.

"There's a conservatory, at the back of the house," he added. "If you want to be closer to the outdoors, and remain warm and dry."

She nodded, to show that she'd heard him. She heard him sigh, and a moment later, he stood up.

She looked at him. "Why am I here?"

He smiled down at her. "Good luck with the wandless conjuration, Harriet. I have every faith that you can do it."

…

She walked around the grounds, her conjured umbrella protecting her from the rain. It had taken her weeks, but eventually, she'd managed to learn enough about Wandless Magic that she could do most simple magic with it now.

Her conjuration was still quite shaky, but given her focus had been on an umbrella, she could create one with decent enough results.

It was nice to be outside again.

"Congratulations."

She didn't turn to look at him as he fell into step beside her.

"Wandless conjuration is quite impressive," he added. "Not many people can do it."

She nodded. She knew that—all of the books that she'd read over the last few weeks had started with the advice to use a wand for conjuration, but given that hadn't been an option for her, she'd continued on regardless.

"Is there a reason for the colour?" he asked, and she turned to see that he was looking at her bright yellow umbrella with unconcealed amusement.

She shook her head. "Not really. I wasn't focused on the colour."

He nodded.

"Will you tell me about what's going on in the world?" she requested, as they reached the pond.

She knew that he could lie to her—that he probably would lie to her, even—but she just wanted news of the world that she'd failed.

He was silent for a moment, and then asked, "What would you like to know about?"

"Are people still fighting?" she asked, casting a wandless drying charm on the ground, before she moved to sit down.

His hand wrapped gently around her arm to stop her, and with his other hand, he conjured a gingham blanket, before he let her go. She hesitated, and then sat down on the blanket.

Surprising her, Voldemort sat down beside her. With his wand, he created a parasol, large enough to cover both of them. Sighing in relief, she dropped the steady flow of magic that had been powering her conjured umbrella, and watched it disappear.

"There's no more fighting," he told her, as he got comfortable. "The resistance crumbed rather quickly, once you were subdued. Many of those who fought alongside you have left for other countries."

"You don't think that they'll regroup and come back?"

Voldemort shrugged carelessly. "If they do, they will not like the consequences should they try to break the peace that has been created."

"Peace? Is it really peaceful, if you're ruling the people through fear?"

He smiled at her. "Do you think that I'm ruling by having people killed daily, Harriet? If people follow the rules, then they will have nothing to fear."

"But are your rules reasonable?" she asked, arching her eyebrow at him.

"They are," he replied. "The Ministry has been recalibrated, of course. You wouldn't believe the amount of corruption that had been present."

She snorted at that, and his lips tilted up, clearly seeing the irony.

"And the Muggleborns?" she asked, almost afraid of the answer.

"Are being taken from their families earlier, and are being placed into magical homes, where they will learn to be witches and wizards."

She frowned slightly. "That's… admittedly better than I had expected, but is it really fair to take children away from their families?"

"If the Muggles were to find out about magic, it would be the end of us, Harriet," Voldemort replied quietly. "That was always my aim, you know? I believe that I… I lost my way, shall we say, when I split my soul, but now that I have it back, I can see where I went wrong."

"With the murder, and the—wait. You have your soul back?"

He laughed at her surprise. "Where did you think it would go, when you destroyed the vessels holding it?"

"I… I don't know," she admitted. "I just… I guess I thought that they… vanished? Were destroyed along with the objects?"

"And the one that was in you?" he asked. "Where did you think that that one was going to go?"

She shrugged. "I never really gave it that much thought. So… your soul is whole now?"

"Not quite. There will always be… damage," he admitted. "But it's more complete now than it's been since I was sixteen years old."

"Will you tell me why I'm here? Why did you decide to keep me in a cage, rather than killing me?"

Voldemort sighed. "Will you not just be pleased to be alive?"

She laughed humorlessly. "But I'm not. Not really. I'm… I breathe, I eat, I sleep… occasionally. But it's not living."

"And death would be better?"

Smiling sadly, she turned her head to look at the pond. "Maybe."

…

Voldemort joined her more after that. He walked the grounds with her, or, when the weather was too bad even for magic to protect them from the elements, sat in the library with her in the evenings.

She didn't know what to make of it, really. He seemed… well. He didn't seem like a normal person, it wasn't quite that. Occasionally, he would say something that, despite his new, more human appearance, made it clear that he was still very much a Dark Lord.

But he seemed… he seemed as lonely as she was.

Sure, he had the companionship of the Death Eaters whenever he wanted it, but she supposed that, with the way they pandered and crawled at his feet, it had to get tiring to deal with them sometimes.

To be surrounded by people with so little self respect really couldn't be that interesting.

Even if he were to tell them that the sky was purple, yellow and green stripes, they'd nod and agree with him, despite the evidence to the contrary, if they just looked up.

She didn't really mind his company. After a while, she even came to look forward to seeing him. He was one of the few bright spots in her otherwise boring days.

Occasionally, she would still ask him why he'd decided to keep her alive, and he'd either try and distract her with something else, or he'd give her a half-assed reason that she knew he'd made up. Sometimes, he'd just smile at her and refuse to answer.

It was still confusing to her that she was alive. Especially considering that she wasn't housing his soul. Had she still had the soul shard in her scar, then at least it would have made sense that he hadn't killed her.

She just wasn't sure what to make of any of it.

…

"Will you come with me?"

She rubbed at her eyes and then blinked at him in the darkness. He'd shaken her awake in the middle of the night. Grabbing her glasses from the bedside table, she slid them onto her face as he lit the candles in the room with an impatient wave of his hand.

"Is everything okay?"

He nodded, but there was an expression on his face that she'd never seen before, and that she couldn't quite place.

She slipped out of bed and pulled on a pair of slippers and a dressing gown that had simply appeared in her wardrobe one day, and then nodded at him to lead the way.

She followed him from the room and down the corridor, into a room that she'd never bothered going into before. It was one that he'd told her about though.

The music room.

She frowned, but stood to the side when he sat down at the piano. He raised his fingers to the keys and then paused, slipping his wand from his sleeve to conjure her a comfortable armchair, reminiscent of the ones in the library.

She sat down, pulling her knees up and leaning back against the comfortable cushion of the chair.

He played beautifully. Harriet knew absolutely nothing about music—she'd never even really listened to the radio—but the sounds that he was making seemed to settle in her chest, rising and swelling in a comfortable way.

A smile played on her lips without her even noticing, and when he was finished, he turned to look at her. She tilted her head to the side slightly.

"That was beautiful," she told him softly.

He smiled, and it was so open and honest, that she couldn't help but stare.

"I wrote it for you and… I wanted to play it for you. I'm sorry for waking you up."

She shook her head. "No. No, don't apologise for that. It was worth it. Would you… would you play it for me again?"

His eyes softened. "Of course."

…

"I need you to come with me," Lucius Malfoy said, stalking into the library.

Harry frowned. She'd made it very clear that she didn't want to interact with the Death Eaters, and beyond that, she certainly wouldn't be taking their orders.

"Miss Potter, please," Malfoy asked, his tone changing. He practically sounded like he was begging. "He's going to die."

She didn't need to ask who; the only person that any of them could possibly think she would care about dying was Voldemort.

"What's wrong with him?" she asked, as she put her book down and stood up to follow him.

"I… it's not for me to say."

"If he's going to die, then I suggest that you tell me," she pointed out, as he led her quickly through the house, and down a corridor that she'd never ventured down before.

He looked conflicted for a moment, and then sighed. "My Lord has Hanahaki Disease."

Harry blinked. "I have no idea what that is."

"Of course not, it's a rare affliction," Malfoy replied, grimacing. "When all of the pieces of his soul knitted back together, it turned out that few of them had been in your presence for a prolonged amount of time. They were…" he wrinkled his nose. "In love with you. "Specifically, the locket, and the piece that resided in your scar."

Harriet frowned. She was about to ask what that could possibly have to do with Voldemort's disease, but Lucius continued speaking.

"Hanahaki is a disease caused by unrequited love. He's quite literally being choked by flowers and vines right now, Miss Potter."

"I'm not sure what you think that I can do about that," Harriet admitted.

He opened the last door at the end of the corridor and led her inside, closing the door behind them. Harriet realised that they were in a bedroom, and it wasn't much of a stretch for her to realise that they were in Voldemort's bedroom.

He lay on his side on the bed, his skin as pale as it had been when he'd first been 'rebirthed' in the graveyard, back before most of the Horcruxes had returned to him. His breathing was laboured, and she could see the beads of sweat on his forehead.

A swooping feeling in her stomach made her feel nauseous. Part of her knew that she should be happy about this—she should be glad that he might die, that the world might see an end to him for good—but he'd been her one constant, and she… she didn't want him to be gone.

"What can I do?" she asked softly, taking a step closer to him.

"My Lord will be cured with a kiss," Malfoy replied quietly.

"That's it?" she asked. Surely there were multiple Death Eaters willing to fulfil such a simple thing.

"From the object of his affections," the blond man clarified. "If you return his affections, it will rid him of the disease."

"I…" she paused. "I don't know if I do."

"It is the only thing left for us to try," Malfoy murmured. "Please, Miss Potter. Try."

She nodded. Taking a deep breath, she crossed the room to the bedside, and crouched down in front of where Voldemort's head lay on the pillow. With gentle fingers, she brushed back the hair from his face.

"Idiot," she whispered.

Leaning forwards, she pressed her lips to his, and then pulled back.

The effect was almost immediate. A flushed of colour spread through his cheeks, and his eyelids fluttered manically, as he sucked in a deep breath.

His eyes blinked open. Red met green, and he stared at her for a long moment.

"Harriet?"

She rolled her eyes at him. "How long were you planning to lie to me?"

He chuckled, and then rolled onto his back, his eyes on the ceiling. "Until my last breath, my dear."

…

"You kissed me."

She turned to see him walking towards her, and nodded her head. He sat down beside her, on the blanket he'd left for her to sit on by the pond. Snow fell around them, but the parasol protected them, like they were in their own little bubble.

It was almost like being inside of a snowglobe.

"It's weird that Malfoy was the one to tell me the truth," she pointed out quietly. "I'd have preferred to have heard it from you."

He chuckled. "I'm not sure how you might have reacted to me telling you that two of my soul shards had infected me with love for you, Harriet."

Ignoring the way that her cheeks flushed pink, she said, "Well, if you had used the word infected, I probably would have hit you."

"Rightfully so, I apologise for my phrasing. Truly, I didn't know how you might react to it, and I didn't expect it to suddenly get so bad. A mistake on my part."

She nodded. "So… two of your soul pieces are in love with me?"

"My soul reconnected when the piece that was in you was freed. By the time you came around, I knew that there was no way I could kill you. I didn't want to kill you. So I stunned you, and I brought you here. Everyone outside of a select few of my Death Eaters believes that you're dead."

She sighed. "Of course they do. You planned to just keep me here indefinitely, never telling me the truth?"

"At first, I wasn't sure what to do. When the flowers appeared, I hoped that you would, perhaps, grow some affection for me and mitigate the effects of the Hanahaki Disease. I never thought that you could truly love me."

"If asked, I wouldn't have thought so either," she replied softly. "I didn't know, you know? When Lucius told me how to cure you. I didn't know if it would work."

He nodded, smiling slightly. Reaching into his robes, he pulled out a wand and handed it to her. She recognised it immediately as her own, and sparks flew from the end of it, when it was reunited with her hand.

She gripped it tightly, rejoicing in the feeling for a moment.

"Why now?" she asked.

"You could have let me die," he pointed out. "And you didn't."

She twirled her wand between her fingers and then smiled. "I don't suppose that you have any brooms here?"

He frowned. "I do. Why?"

"Since it seems that I'm to be allowed some freedom… fly with me?"

Slowly, his lips tilted up into that same smile he'd given her in the music room. "Anything you want, Harriet."