Secrets, Jay Denton & Hannah Parrott

I've got some secrets that I got to keep

There's an ocean swirling underneath

That doesn't see the daylight

Or feel the sun

I've got a history you'll never find

The pieces swept beneath the sands of time

Best to leave it where it lies

And let it go

I've got a question burning through my mind

The only one that leaves me terrified

I've asked myself about a million times

But I'll never know

Would you love me

If you knew what I've done


They didn't hear from Harry's Horcrux through Friday or Saturday. Friday morning the Voldemort begrudgingly took them to Nurmengard to feed Bed Sheet a nameless prisoner, the entire time Tom tried to grill the truth out of him, stonewalled in response.

Saturday morning Harry was left briefly alone with Nagini. She drew in her notebook with charcoal and giggled throughout, making him roll his eyes and blush into his assigned 'Homework'.

The Dark Lord wouldn't speak a word about the chamber no matter how agitated Tom grew, and by Saturday evening he was openly scowling at Voldemort. Sneering harder when the Dark Lord met his eyes.

Harry hadn't seen the ring since, though Tom was certain he was keeping it close.

He'd asked what it meant now that the Dark Lord had all three Hallows, to which Tom didn't have a cohesive theory. It was rumoured that immorality was the prize, and Harry wondered what the point of that would be, given that Voldemort had already done it. The items were powerful in their own right, so much so that possessing all three became legend. What that really meant wasn't written in any book that Tom had found, and so he assumed that the Dark Lord didn't know for certain either.

With the sunset came Crux, silent in his head for a full ten seconds before he thought, ' He's feeding me. Soon.'

Harry squinted at the desk and the books he'd long since stopped paying attention to, the Dark Lord beside him reading the Daily Prophet and scrawling a letter at the same time.

' …Okay?' He thought.

' Dream, soon, too. Not tonight I'm still… Working things out.'

'… Working things out?' Harry wondered.

His Horcrux's tone was strange, distant with no inflection. Like he was painfully bored.

' Yeah. Working things out. Planning. Digging for information in Morty's head. What else could I mean I hate your stupid questions.'

'What information?' Tom wondered.

' Horcrux creation,' Crux thought.

Harry decided that he didn't sound bored; he sounded sad.

' Oh, that's not -'

'I didn't ask for your opinion, okay, sweetheart? Spare me, I've seen enough of the ritual.'

'What did she say…?' Tom wondered, and Harry knew he wasn't asking about Lily.

Asking about Lily might cause an explosion from his Horcrux, but he figured so might asking about Merope instead.

' She said you should eat more fucking vegetables and kill yourself,' Crux sighed.

'…Did she?' Harry wondered.

'No. Why would she tell him- I don't care enough about this. Bye.'

The question of what his mother had said had been on his metaphorical tongue throughout, and he was almost relieved not to have asked when Crux vanished. Unpredictable and a liar to boot, in a bad mood and likely to answer in the same tone he'd given Tom.

'Why would he want to do the Horcrux ritual? What's the Horcrux ritual?' Harry wondered instead of thinking out loud about his mother.

' It is painful. Horrifically. Not in… A good way. Punishment, as ever, I imagine.'

'But it's just a dream, right? It wouldn't be the same?'

'Your Horcrux has a way of making the unreal feel very real.'

'How… How does it work?' Harry wondered, watching the Dark Lord's hands, motionless on both the newspaper and the quill.

' The ritual is standard. I suppose you can call it standard. A preparation. It is what the ritual does to the mind and soul throughout that earned it the reputation of being worse than death.'

The Dark Lord slowly stood, blinking straight ahead as though in a trance. Clenching and unclenching his fists he told Nagini, " Keep your eyes on him. I need to- A few hours.'

She nodded, blackening the pages of the book she was reading as she dog-eared it, her fingers covered in charcoal. When the Dark Lord Disapparated, she stood up and grinned, " Great Hall for dinner?"

"Won't the Death Eaters tell him?"

"Who cares? He said keep my eyes on you. I'll watch you in the Great Hall."

Harry only debated it for a moment, decided he was sick of Voldemort's office. He stood to follow Nagini out, deciding that anything and anyone in the Great Hall was better than sitting with his thoughts.

"You know um…" She said as they left the office, "… Never mind."

"What?" Harry asked.

"I'll talk to him about it. When he's not mad."

"When he's not mad?" He snorted. "…What are you going to talk to him about?"

"It's not too big a problem. Just uh," she returned to the serpent tongue as they passed a slow-moving group of gawking Hufflepuff third years, "Your magic… When you and he…" She bared her teeth in a grimace.

"Oh, oh. Okay. Okay, that's- I really don't mean to… When you're there- he just- and then I… I mean, sorry."

"It's just sometimes filling up the whole room. A candelabra nearly fell on me last time."

Harry pursed his lips, wide-eyed, and said nothing, his face red as a beetroot by the time they reached the hall.

"How do you think he's doing?" He asked as he sat at the very end of the Slytherin table and tunnel-visioned on the feast.

The silence that had fallen when he and Nagini entered slowly faded as murmurs picked up in waves.

Ginny, Eris, and Avalon were further down; he'd clocked them when he'd pushed the doors open, his eyes trained to find red hair in a crowd instantaneously.

Nagini was aggressively cutting a steak with two sharp knives, "I thought he would have mentioned it to me by now. That he hasn't means it…" She waved both knives in the air, and Harry sat back so as not to lose an eye, "Things he doesn't talk about are," she stopped again, searching the ceiling for words, "He doesn't talk about the really bad things. If he doesn't talk about it, it's a really bad thing."

"Oh."

"We will see, maybe it's too early. But," she gave him a pointed look and used a knife like a fork, "He's never spoken of her."

"Do you know where the ring is?" Tom asked, Parseltongue tinged with desperation as though they could pluck it from the Dark Lord's pocket.

She shook her head, chewing.


He'd shot Ginny a look that he hoped was subtle and decipherable as he and Nagini left the hall. He assumed she'd have the map on her, and so they spent the better part of twenty minutes removing themselves from any Death Eater's line of sight.

Eventually, they sequestered at the bottom of the old Divination classroom, tucked behind a tapestry obscuring a pocketed window across from the ladder. Nagini sat beside him, not hidden by the hanging rug, swinging her leg off the ledge they occupied.

The sun had set, and it was dark in the tower. A small amount of light was supplied by one wall brazier near the trap door high above them and the half-full moon.

" Do you think he'll ever let me… Have my friends back? Because I might kill him otherwise," Harry asked.

She giggled, watching the large spiral staircase underneath them, " He becomes very possessive." She paused to raise an eyebrow at him, " Of the things he cares about."

"Pff, yeah, okay." He rolled his eyes, " So no, then?"

Each time she swung her leg, her silk dress would shift and interrupt the silence.

"… He does the same thing to you, you know," Harry muttered when she didn't answer, " Surprised he leaves us alone together, to be honest."

He didn't broach the subject of the possibility of the Obscurial being Credence, but it crossed his mind repeatedly.

' Not fair, really,' he thought.

' Necessary.'

'Okay, Voldemort.'

'…Harry.'

'Yeah, yeah. He's the enemy—a Dumbledore to boot. So, we should definitely just kill him and never tell Nagini. Should work out fi-'

His thoughts were interrupted by the Dark Lord's familiar pointing down the stairs at Ginny, climbing them alone, map in hand.

Harry cleared his throat awkwardly, poking his head out from behind the tapestry, "…Hi, Gin."

It was almost weird to talk to her face. Her real face. Glancing between Nagini and Harry, clutching the map to her chest.

"Hey. I brought…" She looked down at the paper and back to the Maledictus.

"It's fine," he reached for it, and she visibly relaxed as she passed it to him, though her eyes kept flicking back to the parchment.

' …How do you think the Marauders made this map?' Harry wondered. More than one would be useful, and knowing how to produce them would make the fragile paper significantly less stress-inducing.

' We will look into it,' Tom thought.

Ginny cleared her throat, and Harry raised an eyebrow.

"It's just… Thursday night?" She looked at the map again and grimaced.

"In the chamber?" Harry asked.

He didn't think Ginny had stuck around after the group had left, and the map didn't show the chamber, not that she would have seen any indication of ghosts if it had.

"No… After?" She pressed, sucking her lips into her teeth.

He glanced at Nagini from the corner of his eye and shook his head, "When? What do you mean?"

' In his office. She might have seen…' Tom trailed off and Harry's back was suddenly ramrod straight. He stuffed the map into his robe pocket and inhaled, sharp, then looked at Nagini with what he hoped was a subtle plead. Glad for the dark of the tower, or his cheeks might have given him away.

"You and… Voldemort, it almost seemed like… And that's crazy, but-"

"They were fighting. Yelling at each other's faces after Tom saw ghosts in the chamber." Nagini lied easily, shrugging at Ginny.

"…You saw ghosts?" Ginny asked.

"No. Not me. Voldemort," Tom said.

"Fighting? It didn't look… For forty minutes?"

Harry choked on poorly swallowed spit, then coughed it back up, " Forty minutes?" He said in Parseltongue, then in English, "I don't know. Yeah?"

When Ginny continued to frown, Harry said, "He saw my mum. He won't tell me what she said, but I don't think she was friendly."

"So you were fighting," she said, nodding, relief flooding her face as she decided it was believable.

Instead of relief, Harry felt sick.

"Yeah. Always fighting," he muttered, sliding off the window-sill, "How long has it been?" He cast a green, snaking Tempus when Nagini shrugged—almost two hours since the Dark Lord had left.

"Are you doing okay?" Ginny asked, her hand frozen between them as though she'd been about to touch him, but she'd decided against it.

The hiccup that rushed out of his throat at the sight of it quickly morphed into a sob that he hadn't seen coming at all, face breaking when he tried to shake it off. "Ye-ah. Yeah, Gin. I'm fine."

She hesitated briefly, then wrapped her arms around him, making the next sob come out as a choked squawk.

"I am," he insisted, fighting the third sob and angrily swiping his face, "I'm okay, just…" He rolled his eyes closed and squeezed her in return. "It's a race to insanity," he spoke barely above a whisper.


By Sunday afternoon, Tom had given up all pretences, relentless in his questioning, and openly desperate.

" What does it matter to you if we hold the stone? Obviously, we could not keep it. You could supervise. You could watch in Harry's head? I'll put it right back in your hand…" Tom grimaced at the look on the Dark Lord's face.

Exasperated warning and a definitive 'No'.

"You're irredeemable." Tom snapped, crossing his arms and releasing them when it felt too petulant.

"And you will speak no more of it." Voldemort steepled his hands on his desk and leaned in, daring Tom to continue.

"I will find it. I will know what she said to you."

"That you are a piece of my soul frankly astonishes me. Impudent, soft, arrogant. Weak."

Tom hummed and recrossed Harry's arms, " Well surmised; one thing you missed: I am just like you."

"Oh? Irredeemable, are you?" The Dark Lord said it like he'd found a trump card, but Tom just blinked at him, "… I am nothing like you."

"I am you with regret. I am you with empathy. Je suis toi avec amour."

The Dark Lord was standing instantly, nostrils flared, furious. "So quickly you paint yourself a saint."

"No," Tom sat forward, "Not a saint. Irredeemable, impudent, soft, arrogant. Insidious, vile, so full of sin it is all you would find here," he tapped Harry's temple once, "Rendered pathetically weak." He grinned when Voldemort stepped back, "As you will be."

When he Disapparated Harry stood up, sighed, looked at Nagini—a serpent coiled on her hot rock—and said, "Library?"

They overtook a large table in the library, Nagini spreading books across the available space. Harry had brought the stack of student profiles, idly running his eyes over them in much better lighting than he had in the Dark Lord's office.

Four Death Eaters had taken it upon themselves to flank the shelves around them, and they had an hour to themselves that way.

When Harry felt the Dark Lord approach, he didn't look up; he could see in his peripherals that he was under the cloak.

" I'm staying here," he said before Voldemort did anything.

" Those profiles are strictly need to know," the Dark Lord said over Harry's shoulder.

He rolled his eyes, " Take them then; I'm still staying here."

Nagini tucked her legs up onto her chair in silent agreement.

Harry heard him sigh and felt him sit down, and he rolled his eyes a second time.

" Creeping around under the cloak is not very opposite of weak of you," he frowned at his barely thought-out insult, " Who are you hiding from? Or is it so you can be a lurker with no one seeing how you look at me?"

He hadn't taken the profiles, so Harry turned pages, muttering under his breath in Parseltongue.

" Remarkably sharp wit for such a simpering brain," the Dark Lord said.

"…You're a simpering brain."

"Mm, cutting."

"Stop it, both of you; I'm trying to read," Nagini said.

"… Yeah, me too," Harry said, shooting a look at Voldemort.

" Truly? I have yet to see proof you can read."

" Just can't keep yourself away, huh? …Vineet Sharma, from Jaadoo Seekhana, house Chandrama Ulka. We met him first. The headmistress said all the girls voted for him. Says here he's weak-willed? Who wrote these?" Harry asked.

" Good, you can read. Merely a well-kept secret." His voice had an edge of laughter, the faintest hint of true amusement.

'… What is he doing?' Harry wondered, squinting at the invisible Dark Lord.

' Being weak,' Tom thought, nearly smirking, almost glaring.

"Hello, Harry," Luna's voice made him nearly break his neck, spinning to face her faster than the rest of his body could turn.

"Hello, Nagini," she continued, sitting beside the Maledictus.

"Uhh," Harry said.

"Hello, Voldemort," Luna put a magazine on the table and didn't look up from it.

"There it is," he watched Voldemort and imagined the look on his face, " …She can see people's auras… Or something. She's harmless. Don't be fucking crazy," Harry said rapidly in Parseltongue.

Nagini was staring at Luna with wide eyes, and Harry couldn't help but do the same, curse pulsing under his skin and sweat forming on the back of his neck.

"I invited Pollux; I didn't think I'd see you here? You're very secretive nowadays," Luna said.

"… We'll go?" Harry said, though neither the Dark Lord nor his familiar moved at his Parseltongue suggestion.

"Are you studying the students from the other schools?" Luna continued as though she wasn't being ignored in favour of shock. "That's a good idea. Funny that the Djinn turned up in November."

"Uh," Harry said again, sweeping the profiles off the table and onto the floor for lack of a better solution. He then realised he might have just shrunk them down.

Pollux joined them, and the four Death Eaters around shifted nervously. Harry wondered if the Dark Lord would send out a memo to the entirety of his following. Something like 'Potter is not allowed friends,' the thought of which made him snort and frown as the hemomancer sat down wordlessly.

He knew Pollux knew the Dark Lord was there just the same as Luna had, but he was smart enough to say nothing. Not smart enough to turn tail and leave, Harry decided. The hemomancer nodded at him, then leaned across the table to slowly take Luna's magazine away. He languidly threw it over his shoulder and lit it aflame, ash before it hit the ground. He then slid an open book in front of her and said:

"…Animagraphy, not Nargles."

"I wasn't reading about Nargles; I was reading about Qilin," she grumbled, "You owe me a new copy."

Pollux shrugged, already reading.

"… This is fine, is it?" He said when yet another moment passed without creative murder.

"Should we find Ginny and the others?" Luna asked, serene.

"Absolutely not," Harry squawked, "I mean, no. Probably not, Luna."

"I haven't seen you with them in a while," she said, a question in her tone that he ignored.

" It was my idea to come to the library," Nagini said when the Dark Lord continued to sit in worrying silence.

" Do not lie to me, Nagini."

She put her legs down and narrowed her eyes at Voldemort. His tone was practically relaxed, so Harry scowled at him, too.

" You really don't care?"

"Satisfying enough to watch your pulse race from here. For now."

"…Alright. Library was a bad idea," Harry drew the Snakewood wand and shrank the profiles down to fit in his pocket, levitated back into a stack and forcefully jammed into his robes.

"…Sorry, gotta go," he muttered as he stood up, followed out of the library by the Dark Lord and his familiar.