Power, Ethan Gander

If you had power, would you use it?
Oh, if you had control, would you abuse it?
If you had a royal flush, would you be able to fold?
For a chance to play god, would you forfeit your soul?
If you had a little money with no values to uphold
Would you sit back and watch the world burn?
Or would you fuel it?

So who holds the power over you?
Have you fooled yourself into letting someone else think for you?
Do you own your mind or has it been sold?
Who caged your spirit? Do what you're told
Repeat after me now, "Who's in control?"
So would you sit back and watch the world burn?


He was taken—shirtless, though he had Bed Sheet—through the prison, up another level. Warm despite where the castle stood and the overall lack of fires burning. Relieved to encounter no one in the side halls with his chest semi-bare.

The Dark Lord's quarters in Nurmengard were small and seemed barely used, chests and boxes covered in dust, stacks of old books piled precariously atop them. The grimy wooden walls dressed with fading, handwritten runic script. A heavy, ornately carved chair sat at a simple desk. A four-poster bed that was stripped of its bedding.

He was directed to the small but well-equipped bathroom and found that while the room seemed seldom occupied, the bathroom was stocked. A set of robes waiting, battle-ready. The mirror was small and tarnished, much to Tom's disappointment.

When he'd been told to hurry it along, Tom had asked Voldemort to join them to halve the time. Smirking while he offered and shutting the door on an unimpressed, unmoving Dark Lord.

Harry was quick about it, though Tom was torn between the tasks at hand and lingering. Thoughts of summoning the curse to make Harry yelp in the unsilenced bathroom cropped up from Tom's side, turning him red more effectively than the scalding water.

'His followers do need to see you punished for the sake of his control over them and his ego. If you offer…' Tom thought, pulling Harry out of the bath.

'Offer to let him punish me in front of his followers?' Harry examined Tom's reasoning while he dried and dressed.

While Tom wanted equality between them and the Dark Lord above most everything else, it wouldn't help their cause to undermine the power they wanted a share of. Until they were truly equal, they needed to bend. Outing the Dark Lord as an orphan in front of a room full of cameras and his minions might have delayed the Basilisks, but it also made Voldemort look as though he couldn't control one prophetically Chosen One. Which, he couldn't. The Dark Lord needed to appear as though the control was effortless until the day he admitted Harry was hardly another one of his trained monkeys.

On the other hand, offering to kneel for punishment didn't feel like equal behaviour. It felt more like it had the potential to dislodge the footing they'd worked so hard for.

'Not so much, I believe, if you offered it. He would aim to do it either way, Harry.'

'…Yeah, because he's a massive asshole.'

Throughout the morning, he was blitzed with affection—difficult to feel true anger or fear when his mind was washed clean with pure love. Seeping into every part of him, becoming him, replacing the fibres of himself. Two pieces into one. How he'd gotten there was irrelevant. That Tom Riddle was the target of his blinding, all-consuming adoration seemed somehow inescapable—the only right answer.

'Don't make me put you back in the bath,' Tom thought, making his cheeks hot.

When he exited, Voldemort pushed past him into the bathroom, muttering about wasted time.

Tom planned to slow the Dark Lord down even further once the man bathed. A monologue was being scripted on a loop in the back of his mind. He didn't apologise; probably because he'd realised Harry was fascinated by his thoughts.

Though the glow in his mind was almost all-encompassing, there were dark spots in his head. Harry hadn't touched them; could tell by the tone that they weren't simply to be picked up and discussed like the rest of his thoughts and memories. He knew Tom's thoughts on his mother would be there, but the rest—a vast stretch of darkness—he could only guess at. Sometimes educated guesses, but assumptions, nonetheless.

Harry wasn't about to start pushing his boundaries so soon after the demolition of his privacy—though he was as curious as he was concerned by the measure of it. Tom didn't comment on his observation.

Bed Sheet cooed continuously in his ears, warm and rumbling, like resting his head on a sleeping cat.

The Dark Lord wasn't too impressed to see them still existing when he exited the bathroom. Tom was nervous, debating which part of his speech to begin on before he thought: 'Offer to take the punishment first.'

Harry sighed, "We've thought about it, and you probably should punish me for publicity's sake."

Tom watched Voldemort's expression carefully—less irritated, more curious—and gestured for him to take the free chair on the other side of the desk.

"I won't apologise," he added, firm, "And I won't grovel."

The Dark Lord took a seat.

Tom liked his odds better. "You are considering what must be done to swing this in your favour." Not a question. "I am sure you have considered-"

"…Tell me how you have come to the conclusion you require punishment," a Parseltongue whisper.

'Good,' Tom thought, subconscious, 'Predictable. Come on. Let me in.' Another buzz of adrenaline at reaching for control, tying up the power vacuum—or attempting to—in the absence of Voldemort's favourite henchmen. To take that and a little more besides.

"It is not our intention to diminish your strength," Tom said, then Harry added, "You started it. I still won't apologise. Not for what I said."

"…And what is it you would apologise for?" Voldemort leaned across the desk. Dark rings under his eyes accentuated the pale. Gaze intense despite the way he barely slept.

"Harry owes you no apologies. I am sure you have considered martyring the students and harmless Ministry officials."

"Of course."

"And have you considered that now is the time to reveal your face to create a softer image for those still reluctant to endorse you?" His heart hammering like he was in freefall, impossible to tell from the outside. A pleasant mask. "You can continue doing as you please, so long as you are discrete there remains plausible deniability," Tom crooned, a sales pitch with hooded eyes and the ghost of a smirk. "'A senseless waste of magical progeny,' from the lips of a dazzling god."

Voldemort leaned in and said—with an almost faltering voice— "Look," and pointed at his eyes, lips pursed white.

Tom had been undecided about whether the Dark Lord would look in their head while being actively terrified of the contents. He'd given it fifty-fifty odds and decided if he did look, he still needed them. Tom was banking on it. He'd held Voldemort's gaze throughout the beginning of his proposition—too high risk to look away and show any weakness or hesitation—so he continued.

It was the Dark Lord who hesitated, eyes flicking to the desk before he drove his mind into Harry's skull. He observed it without commenting, startled still for an instant before rapidly examining their recent thoughts and withdrawing.

Voldemort remained silent, staring at them with eyes slightly too wide, eyebrows fighting to dance on his face.

When the quiet didn't break, Tom took a slow, deep inhale, "His blood is my blood. His soul is my soul. His bones are my bones. His heart is my heart. I would do anything, say anything, be anything he needed. I will not rest." He took another breath, heart skipping beats, "His blood is your blood. His soul is your soul-"

Interrupted by the Dark Lord's fist slammed on the desk, a flash of panic in his eyes.

Undeterred, "I am inviting you to take advantage. Our interests align. I will be relentless." Tom hoped that Voldemort would justify it—that some way or another, he would decide he could outsmart himself.

And he did. "Any instance where I take your advice is not an admission of equality. Any power afforded to you will be temporary and given solely to undo the disaster you have once again wrought."

Harry felt the Dark Lord whispered to keep his voice steady.

"Of course," Tom purred, giddy. 'We'll see, won't we?' He added mentally.


Before they'd fully descended to the entrance hall, Crux was in his head.

'That one scared him, sweetheart. He doesn't like to look at the possibility. Loathes to consider your pure devotion.' Harry's Horcrux was casual with how he pulled at the threads in his head, immovable structures overnight. '…Sturdy. He convinced himself that feeling this particular way about this soul was impossible. A matter of minutes before he realises he's dangerously obsessed with you, Harry. Once he's done with the inevitable tantrum—you think he's all up in your business now? Consciously obsessed? Like our boy Tom here? Won't be long after that. Kneeling at your feet begging you to kick him for being a nasty nasty villain.'

Tom watched Voldemort, hooded and slightly ahead of them—something they allowed purely to soothe the Dark Lord's frazzled nerves.

'…He's trying to find a way not to punish you publicly. A reason that isn't 'I don't want to shame Harry Potter in front of my cool Death Eater club', because that reason is true and uncomfortable. He'd have to examine why he doesn't want to.'

'He doesn't want to?' Tom repeated, thoughts whirring with the idea.

'He still will. I mean, unless he finds a way not to. A way that doesn't involve admitting to himself that he doesn't want to.'

Harry was indirectly wondering how the Dark Lord wasn't consciously aware that he was obsessed, until it was silent in his head, Tom and Crux observing his train of thought with no small amount of amusement.

'Denial? How could he be in denial? You're right, Harry, that's so crazy, to be in denial. To be in denial about big feelings? Wild. Weird. How could you not just know-'

'Okay, fine, point made,' Harry interrupted his Horcrux because he seemed unlikely to stop.

'Don't be daft. Anyway, Tom, You've got him thinking. He trusts that your leash is secure and that his hand won't slip, sweetheart. Three thousand unmarked because he's been too distracted fucking you, and he thinks his grip is ironclad.'

The entrance hall of Nurmengard was empty of the Dark Lord's followers. One high-backed chair placed in the middle-back of the room—almost a throne, but not quite, Harry thought—Tapestries on the wall behind it bearing Voldemort's mark. The hall was not big enough to address all his followers by a large margin. Tom estimated that the room would hold a hundred comfortably. A hundred and fifty, uncomfortably.

'You really think he's not going to punish me?' Harry wondered, watching the Dark Lord pace, masked and hooded, wand to his mark.

'Oh, that's not what I said. He probably will. He can't find a way around it. He doesn't want to,' Crux thought. 'I think he should suck your cock.'

Harry hadn't been walking—standing stock-still, in fact—but he tripped. Tom caught him before he stumbled to the stones.

'…You should bite his off. I should bite his off. Oh, my god, what if he bites yours off? I'm gonna go see what he's thinking about.'

'I still don't trust him,' Harry thought once Crux bounded out of his head.

Tom agreed without words. He was grateful that he did, half expecting him to be strangely blind to his Horcrux's dubious agenda.

'I am not blind to it. You know I have not been blind to it. He is as much a part of this as we are. I can disregard him as much as I can control him.'

Harry caught the thread of Tom's thoughts that related to his Horcrux and followed it to the source. He wasn't stopped, though his heart rate picked up.

The Dark Lord took the almost-throne and pointed at the floor beside him. Which Harry thought was cute.

"I'm not sitting at your feet," instead, he stood beside him, gnawing his tongue and examining Tom's opinions on his Horcrux.

When Tom first learned of Crux's existence, he didn't think that the Dark Lord had earned such a radical fate. Almost in unison, he and Harry had swapped opinions.

Harry no longer believed Voldemort deserved his Horcrux. Tom did. He welcomed the punishment he received as intensely as he enjoyed witnessing it carried out. Tom's change in opinion came with his feelings. The same was true for Harry, a dislike for seeing the Dark Lord suffer borne of the love he hid from himself.

While Tom was adamant that he wasn't blind to Crux's scheming, he admired it. Admired his refusal to conform or submit unless it suited him. Equal parts scared, impressed, and attracted.

"You have not asked after the Weasleys," the Dark Lord said. The doors swung inward as he spoke in the serpent tongue.

Harry noted that he'd ignored his disobedience and left him standing at his side. "I figured if you'd killed them, it would have been one of the first things you said when you found me."

The Death Eaters that flooded in were masked.

"Three members of the Hogwarts faculty were killed. One taken. Dolohov, Cooper, and Everglade are dead. The enemy is questioning Rosier as we speak, one would assume," Voldemort ignored his gathering followers.

"Or they have found him to be useless," Tom said.

"Whatever the case, four positions are vacant at a painfully inconvenient time."

Harry was thinking about what the punishment for his outburst would entail. He took a small consolation in the fact that it was daylight. If Voldemort punished him then and there, Cassiopeia wouldn't see it. Just over a hundred of them would, though, and word would spread like a virus. He didn't ask.

The only sound as the Death Eaters filed into the hall were their footsteps, not loud enough to drown out the Parseltongue.

"Was there a convenient time for this?" Tom asked. He didn't expect to be answered.

Harry spotted Har-im-hotep with Aaliyah and got the sense they hadn't been invited. He'd been about to tell the Dark Lord that he'd spotted him when the man stood to address the room.

"You are well aware by now of the events that transpired at Drumlanrig." The anger in Voldemort's voice—Harry assumed—was aimed at him, "…A senseless loss of life, and an egregious insult to take that which I hold most dear."

Harry squinted at the misplaced jealously, directed at Nagini, then almost laughed, because his followers were going to breeze right past the fact that the Dark Lord had taken some of those precious lives in a fit of blind rage.

"For too long, we have allowed the Order of the Phoenix to grow unfettered. To that end, we will begin to make amends. Retaliation."

A hiss travelled around the room, stomping feet, braying for blood.

"…Suspected Order members are to be interrogated to the fullest of your ability. Thereafter, slaughter them like pigs. Take no prisoners."

The vibration of a cheer had started, not taking hold until the Dark Lord raised a hand and allowed it. He let them rabble for no more than thirty seconds.

"Now is the time for subtlety. If you are clumsy, you will be tried for murder. Anonymity or your heads."

'Yes,' Tom thought, almost lightheaded, biting his tongue to control the smirk.

'What?'

'He is taking my directives. Trusting my advice.' Tom had an erection.

Harry stood behind Voldemort—thinking without thinking about what the Dark Lord had said, that any gift of power was temporary, that taking Tom's advice was not a mark of equality—avoiding the sea of eyes, instead watching the tops of their heads. By the end, he'd spent almost half an hour braced for a public humiliation that didn't come.

Narcissa was asked to stay behind, and the rest dismissed. Though Aaliyah and Har didn't seem to hear Voldemort say 'Go.'

At first the Dark Lord ignored the Djinn, pacing as his followers dispersed and directing the Malfoy Matriarch to fetch Cassiopeia and Lydia when night fell, to get word out about their desperate need for a larger base of operations, and start the process of summoning his unmarked Death Eaters to receive his brand.

Throughout, Har watched the Dark Lord as if he were a cute, smiling baby in a supermarket. Occasionally looking at Harry the same way, while the bitch who spoke to the dead made subtle rude gestures with her free hand, the other whipping a licorice rope. Grinning.

While Tom wanted to pay attention to Voldemort, his orders for Narcissa, and Har, Harry wanted to withdraw into his head. Far more interesting, in his opinion. A wealth of knowledge that he was allowed to touch. Emotions and reasons that he'd only been able to guess at.

"You are dismissed, Narcissa," Voldemort said.

He watched her bow and leave without his eyes tuned in. Tom bathed him in adoration while he paid enough attention for the both of them.

"I will give you two minutes to satisfy the urge you are clearly experiencing without the brat."

Harry was pulled from his thoughts by the Dark Lord's words, talking to Har, who flashed his bright white teeth, jabbed Aaliyah in the forehead, and vanished with her. He reappeared instantly with a pipe in hand—so fast it almost looked as though he'd turned her into a pipe.

"Look at this one. Blooming." Har said, gesturing at Harry. "How lovely."

He realised he was grinning like a fool when the Dark Lord hissed: "Stop grinning like a fool."

"Obligatory 'Say the word and I can undo this' speech," the Djinn said, looking bored, "All you need do is make a deal," he extended his hand as though to shake Voldemort's.

"Obligatory 'Over my dead body.'" The Dark Lord snapped.

'I can't tell if Har is flirting with him?' Harry thought.

'Har-im-hotep is flirting with everyone.'


(AN: This chapter took so long purely because Morty can't decide whether to punish Harry publicly or not. I decided to let him be undecided, but I'm rolling my eyes, shaking my fists, etc.)