(AN & TW: Obligatory 'I'll need to catch up after this chapter next one's a "double" too'. Secondary education has me by the balls. Sexual scene.)
Durmstrang Institute (Дурмстранг), Jotunheimen Mountains, Norway
Ymir, Danheim & Gealdýr
Ár var alda þar er Ýmir bygði
Ór Ymis holdi var jörð of sköpuð
Ór Ymis holdi var jörð of sköpuð
Ginnungagap, Niflheim, Muspelheim
Ild, is, dråber falder
Ymir, Jotun, skaber aser
He was called the small house with the wards and the thatched roof. When he entered, Voldemort stood from the desk, glaring at him and then at the chair in silent command.
Harry narrowed his eyes, less amused the second time. Neither he nor Tom had come up with any way around the chair other than working overtime during the brief moments that they weren't fighting for their lives or restrained.
He sat down, and the shackles locked him in instantly.
The Dark Lord stood in front of Harry to tie the gag in his mouth, his glare softening until he was staring right through Harry. Once the fabric was between his teeth, Voldemort held his jaw in one hand, tilting his face from side to side.
He'd been sneering at the Dark Lord, but he felt his expression melt when the warmth rushed through him. His head slumped into his palm, eyes hooded.
The Dark Lord was scanning every millimetre of his face, no emotion visible before he was violently shredding Harry's brain with Legilimency, claws ripping his thoughts to wisps. He extended far beyond his usual range, digging into memories faded and disjointed by time.
When he withdrew, he looked baffled, eyebrows twitching while he continued to scan Harry's face. "How can it be that I know it is there, yet I cannot find it?"
Tom made several exclamation points in his head. Harry bobbed his chin, pleased with the sensation of semi-resistance from the Dark Lord's hand. Like a trampoline.
Voldemort dropped his head on a downward bob, making him drive his chin into his chest.
"What are you doing?" He didn't seem to want an answer, even if Harry could provide one.
He shrugged, staring at the ceiling and blushing as logic and sense returned. 'What is it? What's wrong?'
'Fuck. He knows. Fuck. Fuck.'
'Fuck fuck fuck? Are you serious? You just swore three times? What is going on? He knows that we're trying to manipulate him?'
'Not that. It's not that. I can't tell you.' Bubbles of panic came with Tom's thoughts. He scrambled aimlessly in his head, nervous energy going nowhere.
Only Harry was soothed when the Dark Lord sat down and placed his hand on his.
He didn't know when exactly he'd fallen asleep or what time he was woken up, a sharp shove in the temple startling his eyes open. He tried to talk through the gag, aching in his mouth after hours of cutting into his cheeks. Voldemort yanked it off his head and stood up, flicking his hand to free Harry from the shackles.
He immediately cast a Tempus and found it was nearly four AM. 'Can't tell me what?' He wondered; Tom's panic was fresh in his head.
'Harry.'
'Getting sick of this.' He narrowed his eyes at the back of the Dark Lord's head and followed him out of the dimly lit house.
He was side-along Apparated to the Malfoy Manor once outside the shimmering wards. It was cold enough to cloud his breath. Voldemort had hidden his face, masked and walking too fast.
'I… Want to tell you. We need the space, or we have no advantage.'
'It's about what's hidden in my head?'
'…I believe so.' Tom was increasingly squirmy, metaphorically backing away from the question.
'So, he knows what's in there, and it's pointless to keep hiding it?'
'No, Harry, he knows a fraction of it. The space is still an incredibly valuable resource. Unfortunately, he is searching.'
'Will he find it?'
'We can hope not.'
Narcissa took Harry aside immediately to his usual room. "Your wardrobe for the weekend has been selected for you. I would not deviate. Nagini will assist you when you arrive. This morning, you will need the furs."
Harry didn't know what much of that meant, but he put on the thick, fur-trimmed, black robes that hung in the wardrobe. A house elf stole the set he'd been wearing as soon as he took it off, and he wondered how he was supposed to deviate from his predetermined wardrobe with no other options.
There was a soft knock at the door, and he knew it was Nagini. He let her in and didn't need to ask where they were going; she was already telling him.
"Durmstrang first. It's in Norway, high in the mountains. He says we could see a dragon, or a giant, but that not much lives up there. Other than uxetid and 'unfortunate' deers and moose. Do you know what an uxetid is?" She was dressed in fur like he was, grey and encircling her whole head.
Tom answered her, "We do not want to see an uxetid. If you spot something fluffy, with eyes like saucers, about the size of a big cat, melting the snow around it, it is about to shoot radioactive darts at you. For starters."
"Oh. Then India! Jaadoo Seekhana. It's built right under the city. That's just today. Tomorrow is Koldovstoretz. That's in Russia. He said it's on a plateau, with bears and wolves. We're going to camp there tonight. Then Uagadou, in Africa. He said we're guaranteed to see loads of stuff in those mountains."
A strange annoyance pinged in his head whenever she said, 'he said'.
Tom said nothing about it, the new usual regarding Harry's emotions. Where he would once announce them, analyse them, and attach reason, he now diligently swept them into the dark without a whisper.
Nagini took him to the dining room, where the Dark Lord was waiting, masked, hands steepled on the black wood.
"You will be silent unless spoken to," Voldemort stood slowly, eyes on him as he removed a carved, polished, and minuscule box from within his fur robes.
"Sure," Harry said.
He slammed the box on the table, "The Portkey will take us directly into the Durmstrang entrance courtyard. Do not trip over yourself."
"Sure." He repeated it just to see him flinch.
"Come, Nagini," the Dark Lord said, reaching for her. She took his hand and smiled at Harry.
He picked up the box he'd smacked onto the wood, opening it to reveal a tiny silver model of a sword hilt. It was engraved with symbols Harry didn't recognise. Voldemort extended the Portkey, and the three of them touched it, whipping them over mostly ocean until they reappeared in a black stone courtyard.
It was lit by black steal braziers, and the yard itself was massive, shrinking the black granite castle emerging from the snow.
A blue-green glow shrouded the yard and the staff and students within it, all of them bowed on one knee, heads low. The Northern Lights snaked above their heads as Voldemort raised his wand to the still-dark sky:
"Morsmorde!"
Tom grinned at the skull and serpent—undeniably breathtaking against the writhing Aurora—and then back at the apparently already subjugated residents of Durmstrang, now standing with their arms raised, green light beaming from each of their hands—over five hundred people.
A man with dark blonde hair and a lengthy goatee emerged from the crowd to bow again before them. "My Lord. We welcome you to the Durmstrang Institute."
The crowd split for them to enter the heavy, reinforced wooden doors, bowing low once more.
Tom was lapping it up, smirking with his shoulders back. Though Harry couldn't see his face, he could tell it was having the same effect on the Dark Lord just by how he held himself.
The staff and students followed them into the windowless castle in two straight lines. Orange light flickered from the intermittent braziers in the large, sparse entrance hall. Six engraved sets of crossed axes lined the walls. A great, ancient-looking medieval chandelier hung close to the one long, wide table that occupied the centre, drowning the stone floor in darkness. A massive coat of arms covered the far wall, depicting a double-headed eagle with Latin and Cyrillic script bordering the edges.
The students dissipated as the Dark Lord took the head seat—as though he'd always been there, and it had always been his—while the staff took chairs along the length in one nearly uniform motion, all of them dressed in the same blood-red, fur-lined robes.
Voldemort placed a small, clear crystal fish on the table and placed a finger on it. Nagini followed his lead, and when Harry didn't, the Dark Lord picked up his hand and forcefully touched it to the glowing crystal.
Harry had taken the seat to his right, Nagini to his left. She kept grinning at him in between looking around the hall.
The man who had shown them in sat beside Harry, and the blonde woman on his other side passed him a stack of parchment.
"Profiles on our chosen students, for you to peruse and approve," goatee said, passing them in front of him for Voldemort to take.
He scanned them rapidly, then returned to the third profile. "…This Animagus…?"
"Not a misprint; he is indeed a rasidian Animagus."
Harry pinned his accent as Norwegian.
"Bring him to me, Nikolai."
Nikolai pointed at the woman who'd passed him the paperwork and she shot out of her chair, scurrying out through a small door on the left side of the hall. She wasn't gone long, reappearing almost immediately with a tall blonde teenager, swaggering as he walked, eyebrows smug.
"Good morning, my Lord. Nikolai," he stopped a good distance away, his smug eyebrows giving way to a smug grin. He had an accent that Harry couldn't place, familiar but unnameable.
"How does a rasidian find this freezing environment?" Voldemort asked, leaning back. The woman who collected the blonde repeated the Dark Lord's words, and he realised that he was only hearing English; he wasn't sure who was actually speaking it.
"To be honest? Awful." He laughed and shook his head.
"…Show it to me."
The blonde dropped to all fours before they rapidly became all sixs—two sets of three heavily clawed legs jutted from a massive reptilian body that had to be over fifteen feet long—a whipping tail that ended in a barb like a scorpion, a mouth like a dinosaur with rows and rows of sharp teeth, though when he opened it to screech—somewhere between a bird of prey and a velociraptor—there was a massive beak in the back of his throat, like an octopus. A crimson streak ran down his back, almost giving the appearance that he was mortally wounded. He had no eyes and wide, thin, fleshy ears, almost like batwings on the side of his head, twitching independently. The scream became a constant stream of soft clicks.
"Wicked," Harry said.
"Thank you, Roman," Nickolai said when the Dark Lord gestured that he was done. The rasidian became human again, bowing and exiting the dining hall, still grinning.
"The spellcrafter. Edvard. His temperament?" Voldemort held up one of the profiles.
'This is not about the competition. He is recruiting,' Tom thought.
"He is obedient. Rational. Patient and considered, as one must be to craft magic. A cruel streak to him. He would be well suited to secondary command in the future if his ego is held in check."
"Bring him."
"Get Ravn," he pointed at the woman who hadn't sat back down.
She nodded sharply and returned with another tall teenager, this time thin like a whip with a shock of black curly hair. His fingers were stacked with copper rings, his dark green eyes trained on the Dark Lord as he gave a half-bow.
"I am Edvard Ravn, my Lord. I am pleased to be at your service and for the honour of attending your school in December."
Voldemort leaned forward when he said, 'Your school', and Harry could already picture the raven-haired teen with a Dark Mark and a sycophantic grin. He didn't like the spellcrafter.
Edvard was taken from the hall shortly after, and the Dark Lord focused on another student. "This one, Hasdeu, there are no strengths listed?"
"Ah. Tavian. This is because we would need quite a great deal of parchment to list them. He is exceptionally gifted; I have not witnessed him pick up a craft and fail. Incredible mind tuned to an incredible core. Reclusive, though, not… Good with people. Quietly our best student. Vicious if applied correctly."
The woman was already gone, preempting the request and collecting Hasdeu. He was muscular and pale, his head shaved close. His dark green eyes were alert and almost innocent, reminding Harry of a small child, his wildly long eyelashes added to the effect.
"Hallo," he said, bowing, and saying nothing else.
Nickolai gave the Dark Lord a look that said, 'I told you so' when Tavian left the hall prematurely, without being greeted or questioned at all.
"…Valerieva," Voldemort said, and Nickolai nodded at the still-unnamed woman, already leaving the hall.
The first thing Harry noticed about the girl who was brought into the hall was that her hands weren't human; instead, they were mercurial, swirling, nearly transparent replacements. It took him a few seconds to look at her face; she was tan, with brown eyes and brown hair, much shorter than he was, waif thin.
"I am Sasha Valerieva. I am pleased to serve, my Lord." She ducked her head.
When she was gone, the Dark Lord asked about her temperament and not her hands, much to Harry's irritation.
"Loyal, honest. Passionate. Impatient, though, and insecure. Not good with people, either. Preternatural in combat, her opponents call her a wasp."
The Dark Lord seemed to randomly pick the next profile, "Ljudmila Kochanova?"
"Naive, but honest. A bit of a pride problem, elitist. She is somewhat of a troublemaker, but her guilt leads her to confess within the hour every time. A practised duellist, she excels in self-transfiguration."
"…This says llephre blood?" He was suddenly looking at the last profile, narrowing his eyes.
"Ah, Ulrich. Yes. You appreciate the rarity; scarcely a man to ever exist could get close to a llephre, let alone… It is recent in his bloodline, as well, and so he comes with all the temper tantrums and dangers associated. Other times, he is perfectly calm, laughing and joking; he is quite funny and well-tempered. Like two people trapped in one body."
On reflex Harry and the Dark Lord locked eyes, then looked away.
"…Bring him."
Harry didn't know what a llephre was, and at first glance, the averagely built, lightly tanned teen looked perfectly regular. Silver-blonde curls framing a cherubic, grinning face with dimples on both cheeks. As he got closer, though, he saw that the blonde had no pupils in his bright, coral-pink irises.
"My name is Ulrich Raupach." He bowed low, still smiling wide as he inexplicably threw two of the heavy chairs to the ground, "And I'm fucking tired?! It's like five AM? What the fuck. Don't look at me, Lis, I'll gnaw your fucking skin off, you old bitch." Then his face was clear of the savage scowl that had formed—aimed at the woman who'd brought him in— smiling demurely again, "It was my honor to meet you, my Lord. Harry Potter."
Then he was screaming again, stomping out of the hall, "Don't touch me Lis! DON'T! I don't give a fuck!" Though no one had been attempting to touch or follow him. No one in the hall even batted an eye, let alone flinched.
"Is he capable of controlling it?" Voldemort asked once he was gone.
Nickolai gave the Dark Lord a look that Harry took to mean definitely not.
Nagini smirked at the doors after Ulrich, her eyes glittering, apparently finding it funny.
"They are acceptable for the competition. I will make considerations regarding their applications. You will also have the rest of the profiles sent through to Narcissa Malfoy before December."
"Of course, my Lord." Nickolai stood, and his twenty staff members followed instantly, like one moving piece leaving the hall, inexplicably right as a feast fit for hundreds appeared on the massive table. The crystal fish had been returned to the Dark Lord's pocket.
"Can we explore the mountain?" Nagini asked, piling a plate with eggs and not asking any questions about the food.
"Why did a feast appear when they left? Wouldn't it make more sense to be here? And eat it?" Harry asked.
"There is a spare hour," Voldemort said to Nagini, then to Harry, "…Shut up."
"Tom didn't want people," Nagini said. "They were told ahead of time what to do and when to leave the hall."
"Nagini."
"It's true?"
"Not all true things need saying."
"I can drink to that," Tom said, draining a goblet of unidentified, burning alcohol at five in the morning.
Harry spluttered and the Dark Lord smacked him in the back of the head. In turn, Nagini whacked Voldemort's hand, scowling.
"…Nagini."
"Yes?" She snapped.
Harry watched his hands clench, then relax, his fingers twitching.
"Eat." The Dark Lord jabbed the table in front of Harry.
He put some salmon and hard-boiled eggs on his plate, frowning, "…Is this raw?"
Voldemort's eyes slowly closed as he audibly exhaled. "Smoked." Idiot wasn't said; it was heavily implied.
Nagini had a full egg in her mouth, grinning while she chewed.
"Are you gonna eat?"
The Dark Lord blinked at him in response.
"Oh right, too pretty to show your face," the word 'pretty' had fallen out, and his eyes bugged with it.
Instead of exploding, he laughed humourlessly, more tired than angry. "Tell me, Harry, do you think a 'pretty' Dark Lord inspires fear? Respect? Awe?"
He balked at the sudden shift in tone before he latched onto it. "I don't see why not? I mean, the snake… Features were… Definitely something, but everyone knows who you are. Everything you've… Done." He shrugged and switched back to English, "That's just my opinion."
"I can tell you what it inspired in my followers. It was not fear, awe, nor respect."
"So, you want the snake face back? Is that even possible?"
"We would need to repeat history. What is done is done. It has put me in a ridiculous predicament. The instant the media gains a whiff of it, there will be a circus."
"Witch Weekly's most eligible bachelor," Nagini wriggled her eyebrows and snorted, mouth half full with a second egg.
"Disgusting."
Harry assumed he meant the magazine and not his familiar. "What… Effect did it have on your followers?" He whispered the question in case the Dark Lord snapped out of his suddenly marginally amicable mood.
'He is pleased with Durmstrang,' Tom supplied.
"Of fifteen witnesses, I Obliviated twelve. Their opinions and behaviours became almost instantly undesirable; that my face made me less experienced, powerful, influential, and ad infinitum—overwhelmingly prevalent beliefs. Bellatrix behaved like a bitch in heat."
"…How would your face make you less experienced? That doesn't even make sense?"
"Cassiopeia would call it a pissing contest. Now that my ranks have increased exponentially, so has the size of the issue. If I chose to reveal my face, I expect as many mutinies as marriage proposals."
"So, none, then?" Harry smirked when he said it, finding himself hilarious.
"He's too grumpy to marry," Nagini agreed.
Once Harry had eaten the eggs and left the salmon—earning him a pointed look from Voldemort—he was taken on a tour of the grounds, the Dark Lord easily slipping into his 'information spew' mode. He went quiet in the library, searching every inch of the walls.
"What are you looking for?" Harry asked when he dropped to the floor and dragged himself under a shelf, lying on his back. Voldemort's legs sticking out from underneath gave him ideas that weren't deployable in front of Nagini, or probably at all if he wanted to live.
He bugged his eyes and tore them away from the buttons of the Dark Lord's pants.
"Here. Look."
"Uh," Harry said, slowly lowering himself to the stones, "Me?"
"Yes, you," the eye roll was audible.
He lay on his back and rolled under the dark wooden shelves, following the Dark Lord's eyes to a symbol carved at the base of the wall, hidden under rows of books. A triangle with a circle in the middle, struck through vertically with a line.
"The Hallows," Tom said, and Voldemort's eyes flicked to him, wide and glittering in the light of the small, silvery Lumos he'd summoned, unmasked momentarily.
"Carved by Grindelwald, impossible to remove. Hidden instead," he whispered in Parseltongue, and Harry registered how close he was. The smell of him mixed with the scent Tom had chosen, oud and cedar intertwined with old books in the dark.
"…What is it?"
"They. They are objects of immense power. When possessing all three, the holder is considered to be the Master of Death." Voldemort was staring at him with so much intensity he swore he felt it as heat, radiating from his solar plexus. "It is said that the objects were crafted by Death himself to reward the Peverells, three brothers who believed they had outsmarted Death."
"A cloak, a ring, and a wand," Tom said.
The Dark Lord was holding Dumbledore's wand between his fingers, twirling it slowly, a smile so savage it almost couldn't be called a smile.
"…That's the Elder Wand," Tom gasped and sat up, bashing his head into the shelf and falling back to the stones.
"Ow," Harry said.
Voldemort rolled out from under the books, laughing melodically and leaving him to struggle out from beneath the shelf with a pounding skull.
By the time the sun rose—he wasn't sure when that was exactly—Tom had described at length what the Hallows were, repeatedly exclaiming about the wand and that he should have guessed, but Harry still couldn't grasp why it was a big deal, or what exactly a Master of Death was, something that Tom couldn't readily articulate either.
When they reentered the courtyard, the sky was a clear and crisp blue. The view from the top of the alarmingly high mountaintop sprawled so far that he could see the curvature of the Earth, winding rivers and lakes on one side, Norway on the other. It was still well below freezing; it felt as though the sun wasn't touching them.
The staff and students of Durmstrang had once again gathered in the large black-granite semi-walled quad, the staff sitting at a long, summoned table that the Dark Lord once again took the head of. The students whispered amongst themselves in far fewer numbers than when they'd arrived; Harry assumed he was only looking at the seventh years.
Nagini had taken three ancient-looking books from the library, and no one had said anything about it. She'd propped one open on the table, her knees tucked up to her chest as her eyes flicked back and forth rapidly. "I'm cold," she said after a moment, looking at Voldemort expectantly.
He flicked his wrist without taking his eyes off Harry, casting a non-verbal warming charm. She smiled and ducked further into her robes, only her eyes visible.
"We have arranged duels for you, so that you may witness their skills," Nikolai said. Voldemort nodded once. The Babel Fish sat glowing on the crimson tablecloth.
Harry had already touched it, assuming correctly.
"The llephre and the rasidian," the Dark Lord said, and Nickolai stood up, shouting at the excited students.
"Ulrich, Roman!"
Roman, the Animagus, looked briefly alarmed, wide eyes on the llephre. Ulrich, on the other hand, was whooping, jumping on the spot. He sprang unnaturally high with what appeared to be no effort.
Roman took his wide eyes off Ulrich and blasted the stones with a wash of fire, melting snow and turning it to thick, pouring steam.
"Lets fucking go Lizard bitch!" Then he was gone, reappearing silently right behind Roman, smacking his forehead into the back of the Animagus' skull. He vanished again before Roman could turn around—he was gritting his teeth, holding his head, then he dropped to the steaming stones and sprouted six legs.
Ulrich reappeared and vanished so rapidly it looked like there was more than one of him on several occasions.
"What is a llephre?" Harry finally asked, watching the blonde teen spring off the great lizard's back in a front flip, narrowly avoiding the barbed tail.
"They are so rare, reclusive, and violent that they are considered a cryptic race. No one has encountered one and survived it. Apparently, a minimum of one enterprising man has survived for at least a few minutes." Voldemort gestured at Ulrich, gnashing his teeth as he vanished and reappeared in a pile of snow, levitating the dripping ice above his head, then throwing the giant snowball at the lizard. "Nearly nothing is known about their reproductive habits or abilities, only that llephre are exclusively female, and so it is presumed they reproduce asexually. Obviously, there is the possibility of genetic recombination."
Harry nearly said, 'What?' before Tom thought, 'They can breed with other humanoids. Akin to attempting to fuck a dragon.'
Harry snorted and hid his mouth.
The rasidian was screeching and constantly clicking, whipping around on the spot as he tried to land a single hit on the vanishing, cackling blonde.
'Does he know that every time I ask him a question, he just answers it? Like a… Knowledge-based question? He's like an involuntary encyclopedia.'
Tom smirked at Harry's thought. 'You are right; it is almost involuntary. He is aware of it.'
The Animagus yielded the third time he was accosted with a snowbank, shivering violently when he returned to human form, legs stiff and slow, looking nauseous. The woman called Lis took him into the castle, casting warming charms over him.
"Yeah, that's right! That's right! Fucking with the BOSS MAN!" Ulrich shouted after him before he shook his head, shrugged, and wandered into the castle behind them.
"Ravn and Hasdeu," The Dark Lord said, and Nickolai repeated it louder.
The skinny, dark-haired teen came forward at the same time as the awkward, quiet one. Instead of drawing a wand like Hasdeu did, Edvard's copper rings levitated free from his fingers, hovering in front of him in formation.
Their stances were perfect, and when spells started flying, they were blurs, expert combinations of martial arts and magic.
Each of Edvard's rings acted as a wand, spitting individual spells as they encircled him. Tavian yielded after he was hit with stunners that locked three separate limbs in a black, creeping, tar-like substance. Ravn undid the curses and stalked back to the group of students. Hasdeu seemed unphased by the loss, nodding a few times and then sitting down on a snow-dusted stone.
Lis had emerged from the castle and retaken her seat next to Nickolai, muttering something in his ear.
"Kochanova and your wasp," Voldemort said.
The girl who hadn't been introduced came forward, the one that Nickolai had said was a guilty elitist. She was blonde, taller than the slip of a girl she was fighting. Blue-eyed and thin with a port-wine birthmark taking up over half of her right cheek. She bowed low, then was lower still, unnaturally bent at the legs and the hips in what seemed an impossible position.
Sasha rolled her eyes and removed her blood-red cloak despite the freezing temperatures, revealing that her replacement arms were attached somewhere above the elbow on both sides.
"What are they?" Harry asked, eyes on the mercurial limbs, far more striking in the sunlight, reflective and semi-translucent, as though she was ghost from the shoulder down.
"Limbs can be regrown if you have them to begin with. She was born without her arms," Voldemort told him in Parseltongue.
Instead of staring at the Dark Lord, the staff at the table blinked at him, dozens of eyes locked from under identical fur hats.
Kochanova was a supernaturally gifted self-transfigurer. She contorted and transformed her body, moving in wildly unpredictable ways with practised ease. Several times, she became an animal, escaping Valerieva by shrinking into a mouse or a bird, at one point sending Sasha flying by suddenly becoming huge.
During one of Ljudmila's escapes, Valerieva grabbed the small brown bird from the air by one wing, quick as a whip, and audibly popped it between two semi-physical fingers. Kochanova shifted back, screaming, her upper arm bone broken cleanly in two. It swung from a sickening angle as she yelled at it, then at the staff table. Lis took her inside.
Sasha whooped, and several of the watching students followed her lead as she crossed the quad to rejoin them.
"Can I have hands like that?" Nagini asked.
"…No?" The Dark Lord looked at her, almost imperceptibly shaking his head before standing up.
She pouted at him before she followed. No one said anything to them—all bowing low in almost eerie silence. Harry stood, following the Dark Lord out of the courtyard down a steep, winding, slippery staircase that cut through the mountainside, cold and jagged black stone on either side.
"Jotunheimen. The home of giants," Voldemort said as he took the last steps, standing on a frosted dais at the base.
Harry stopped beside him, his legs rigid as he fought to stay upright on the ice. The mountain fell away on one side, a breath-stealing view of the valley sickeningly far below, giving him vertigo.
"It's cold," Nagini said, skidding and then jumping into the snow to avoid falling. She sank up to her knees and whined.
"You wanted to see the mountains," Voldemort said.
"I didn't think about this part," she said, grabbing his outstretched arm. He pulled her back onto the slippery stones, casting another warming charm over her head as he held her up.
"Are there really giants here?" Harry took the Dark Lord shooting him an irritated look as good an invitation as any.
"Yes. Frost dragons are rumoured but never confirmed. At this point, I am of the mind that Norway just wants dragons, so they say there is. Poachers and locals have been said to smuggle bones in."
"Why?"
He shrugged, "To give the illusion of dragons."
"Can you put another one on my feet?" Nagini asked as they began to walk.
Voldemort melted the snow ahead of them with the golden-red light, vanishing his mask but not removing his hood, "Your robes are charmed. Your boots are charmed."
"Another one, please."
He stopped and cast another, forceful in the flick of his wrist, shooting Harry another look, almost as though he'd forgotten who he was in his irritation with Nagini.
The view from outside the castle grounds was breathtaking, almost making it hard to walk, the altitude making him dizzy. Bright blue ice coated the tops of lakes. The rivers resisted the freeze, still moving sluggishly far below them, shards collecting on the banks.
Very few trees stood in the snow, bare black branches weighed down with ice. Nagini was apparently warm enough to wander slightly ahead, knee-deep in snow and moving so slowly that the Dark Lord stopped, frowning after her as though lost in thought.
"What?" Harry asked, following his line of vision. Nagini was experimentally sticking her arms into a snowdrift.
"She was a serpent. A Maledictus. A Horcrux. My familiar." He fractionally flinched at every word, then he narrowed his eyes at Harry, "Then she stood up on two legs. A woman with history, family, dreams, opinions." He spat the word 'opinions' as though it wouldn't get out of his mouth, "Vastly more complex."
Harry thought it was probably extra complicated because he was suddenly capable of love, but he sure as hell didn't say it.
"This would be far less convoluted if you had died when I killed you."
Tom shocked them both by laughing, uncontrollable giggles that Harry had never heard from him. "Yes," he laughed again, his face and abdomen sore from the fit. "If we can blame anyone for this mess, it is the infant that we could not kill. The real mastermind behind all of it. I completely agree with you. Scheming chaos from the crib." He was giggling again, holding his middle.
Voldemort stepped forward and grabbed his face, stopping the oncoming cackle. He searched Harry's face extensively, his expression somewhere between baffled and furious. "Êtes-vous heureux, putain?"
Tom frowned, too, confusion spilling out, followed by a consuming, uncontrollable, raw fear. "No? I-"
The Dark Lord shoved his face and stumbled him while Nagini barrelled past them both, yelling, "It's melting the snow! It's getting bigger?!"
Voldemort's eyes widened, and he pushed Harry back the way they'd come, Nagini scrambling for the stairs just behind him.
"Move. Run!" He barked it, pulling his wand free and turning to face a large, rolling creature.
It was growing rapidly; sparse patches of white fur scattered its rotund body, falling away as it grew. Its two massive blue eyes blinked independently, blank of expression. The snow around it melted into pouring water.
Tom tried to summon the curse as Harry scrambled to his feet and found that it wasn't responding. "You fucking idiot!" He yelled it at the Dark Lord—who was busy deflecting a barrage of what appeared to be sharp shards of hot bone.
Harry realised after Tom did that something in their robes was blocking their magic.
They'd wandered a reasonable distance from the jagged stone steps, the slippery rock much harder to navigate at a frantic sprint. Harry pulled Nagini with him when she hesitated, heart thundering from Tom's sudden, inexplicable fear, and the new concerns: 'radioactive darts' and no magic.
As they struggled up the slope, Tom kept looking back, 'Burning it won't work. They run too hot.'
The rolling, fleshy, steaming creature was massive by then, holding onto the mountainside with sheer bulk, causing an avalanche as it melted rivers of water. It opened as though on a hinge, rows upon rows of spinning teeth encircling a long, reaching tongue. Bone continued to machine gun randomly from its flesh, increasing in speed and number as it grew, sizzling where they impacted.
"Keep moving, keep going. I'm sure he's fine," Harry kept pushing Nagini along, close to the bottom of the stairs and also to the uxetid.
He rushed her up the stone steps and turned to scramble up them backwards.
The Dark Lord was deflecting the darts without issue, but space was becoming a problem. It seemed resistant to magic; its thick, fleshy hide reflected most of the spells he sent between shields. There was a moment where he did nothing but react before he blasted the ground underneath the uxetid with the golden-red angry light, so intense that the black stone was instantly lava, cracking and shifting until the huge, ball-shaped animal was bouncing down the mountainside, knocking massive pieces free—boulders rolling alongside it. It let out ear-piercing squeaks as it fell, like a mouse caught in a trap, if the mouse weighed three tons.
"Oh, he's gonna be mad," Nagini said, racing back down the stairs towards Voldemort.
He did look furious, teeth bared, nostrils flaring as he spun to glare daggers at Harry, hands opening, closing, and spluttering light.
'…What did I do?' He wondered.
"I don't have time for this," Voldemort told Nagini, his eyes suddenly desperate. He grabbed at her before he fumed at Harry again. "Don't look at me."
"I know. He's not looking at you; just look at me. It's fine. Like always, okay?" She was soothing him with her magic, both of their eyes steaming green, but still, he shook with rage, groaning into his clenched teeth like it was painful.
She picked up a handful of snow, pressed it to his forehead, and he closed his eyes, rocking on his feet. When he did, she gestured Harry closer. He didn't move, entirely bewildered. She bobbed her head again with more force. She held one of the Dark Lord's hands up, clenching hers like he was falling off.
When Nagini pointed with her eyes, Harry finally understood that she wanted him to quiet his Horcrux. He felt like he was defusing a bomb, eyes flicking between his feet and Voldemort as he descended the last three steps in what he hoped was silence. As soon as he touched a single finger to the Dark Lord's hand he reacted, ripping free from her grip and yanking Harry by the front of his robes, whipping him smoothly toward the steep, jagged drop.
His heart leapt into his throat as he remembered that he had no magic; if he dropped, he would just fall—far too far to remain intact. His feet were closer to the ledge than his head, held at an angle, fighting to keep his balance and grip.
"I will ruin you for what you've done to me." His face was pure rage; free of her magic, he was rabid. He was drenched from the snow, his cheeks and forehead bright red, veins bulging in his temples. He didn't seem to be breathing.
"You drop us; we can't Apparate. We can answer the question: Would Horcrux if minced?" Tom's accent was heavy, and he squawked the words, gripping the Dark Lord's robes with white knuckles.
Tom seemed to think it was likely that the Dark Lord would drop them. In response Harry started flailing, holding his breath, trying to find a foothold as Voldemort dangled him further, jerking his robes and snarling through clenched teeth.
Nagini was behind Voldemort, pulling on his hood and yelling his name. He didn't notice her.
Harry yelped when the Dark Lord tossed him back toward the steps, spitting fury all over again, holding his temples with wild eyes—locked on the snow. "Nagini I'm losing my fucking mind."
"Let's just go. We can take a break in the middle house, or whatever you call it. It doesn't matter if we're late. Look at me, Tom." Nagini was gripping his hands again, her magic at full volume, voice shrill.
He reached into his inner robe pocket and took out a bundle of bright red, patterned fabric. He rolled his head, eyes closed, knuckles white around the fabric, and then his glowing eyes landed on Harry instead of Nagini. "Come— here."
He didn't like the crazy on Voldemort's face or how his lips were white, but he got to his feet and did as he was told, knees uncooperative, sweat pooling on his back. The Portkey was a golden bell, and he was quick to put his finger on it.
Jaadoo Seekhana (जादू सीखना ), Surat, India
Raghunandana, GowraHari (et al.)
Ari bhajana ari ari bhajana
Arimadhabhajana dashamukhakampana
Ravana padabhakruta pada pada bhakrutha
Pada bhanalakratha bahu basamarchatha
Jaya kethana jaya jaya kethana
Jayahaya prapuna jayamida dhapugane
They'd landed inside a small, dimly lit house, light spilling in through gaps in the boarded-up windows.
"Take him away from me or I will eviscerate him."
Nagini didn't need to be told twice, dragging Harry up a set of stairs to emerge on a loud, bright, and hot rooftop. He immediately stripped his fur robes off, rolling his sleeves up. She did the same, her face apologetic.
"What was that?" He asked. "Does my Horcrux do that? The light?"
She put a finger to her lips in a shushing motion, then nodded once. "He has our change of clothes. I think he'll need an hour, by the size of the light. I am sorry. I hoped it would help. I don't have enough lately," She whispered the last part. She was leaning on the railing and looking down at the chaotic streets; motorbikes, tuk-tuks, and scooters whizzed around each other like a high-stakes game of chicken with no rules.
It was swelteringly hot, a humid heat that made his shirt immediately stick to him.
"Are you alright?" Nagini asked him, still in a whisper.
"Uh. Yeah. You know, just the attempted murder for the week," he sighed, hands still shaking, and she frowned.
She didn't say anything straight away, eyes on the red dirt and old asphalt, the people zigging and zagging between each other in an impressive, terrifying flow.
"He's very stubborn."
Harry laughed, then covered the sound, "Yeah. A bit? D'you think?"
She pouted at him, and he rolled his eyes. "I know he is." He said, "Just... This is insane."
She shrugged, swinging her weight backwards off the railing, "We're all insane." She said it like it was obvious and no big deal.
When an hour had passed, Harry was drenched in sweat. Nagini was somehow glowing, skin radiant and dewy, smiling at the sun like she was in a commercial. She crept down the stairs into the silence, and he poked his head out into the room ahead of himself.
The Dark Lord lay face-down on the floor, his arms wrapped tight around his head, still in his fur robes. Though the room was dark, it was blistering, hotter than outside. Nagini tsked and descended the last two steps with one hop, yanking him onto his back. He flopped over without resistance, glaring at the ceiling as his arms fell away from his red face.
"We're late by an hour. You hate to be late."
"Tell them I'm dead."
She gave Harry a pained look and dug her foot into Voldemort's leg, "You're not dead. Harry is sweating to death in his mountain clothes. Like you are."
"Tell them he's dead too," he rolled back onto his stomach, and Nagini shook her head.
"Maybe another half hour."
They waited fifteen minutes before Harry was beyond uncomfortable and about to kick the Dark Lord in the face.
When he pulled himself off the floor, he looked exhausted, blinking slowly like he'd been sedated. His limbs matched the pace, and his eyes were unfocused as he took a tiny chest from his pocket and enlarged it. He didn't look at either of them as he wandered into a side room, forcing the old, grown-shut door open and stumbling inside, slamming it behind him—ineffectively, as it was essentially cardboard.
After Harry had changed into a finer, shorter set of black robes with cooling charms interwoven, picked by Nagini, he tried his magic again and found it predictably withheld. He ran his hands across every inch of the fabric in search of… Whatever it was, finding nothing and interrupted by Voldemort exiting the side room, also in fresh robes, masked and hooded.
After recollecting the chest, the Dark Lord led them out of the house and into the street. He'd disillusioned himself but not Harry, and so they were stared at as they walked, weaving between piles of bicycles and a multitude of haphazardly parked motorbikes. He ducked down a narrow alley behind a small white truck and a rusted, dilapidated scaffolding attached to a derelict building. The Dark Lord opened a random wrought iron door on the side of the abandoned off-white building, meandering up the concrete stairs ahead of Harry and Nagini, leaving red mud footprints on the concrete.
They were brought into a wide, long room. It was brightly lit by the rows of windows, the floor littered with debris apparently left decades earlier by a construction crew, rusted hammers and exposed wall beams.
At the end of the room, standing in front of an open, darkened double doorway, was a woman in a bright red sari. She was surrounded by four men dressed in the same tone of red, though they wore uniform-like suits. Each of them held a double-ended metal club that opened in blooming, sharp points on both ends, like opening lotus flowers.
"Welcome to Jaadoo Seekhana," she said, arms wide. She looked behind them as though she half expected an ambush. When there was none, she smiled, warm hazel eyes swallowed up by her cheeks momentarily. "I am Indu Dalavi, I am the acting headmistress."
"You will forgive our late arrival. We were held up by an… Uxetid," Voldemort said.
"In India?" She gave a shocked laugh.
"In Norway."
She blinked at him, eyebrows rising to nearly meet her curly black hair before she shook herself. "Well, it is lucky you didn't catch a bone; the children will have done all this work for nothing," she stepped backwards suddenly and fell into the blackness behind her, apparently an unobstructed drop.
"Uh," Harry said, and the Dark Lord shoved him forward.
The four men stepped aside, and he figured if the headmistress had done it, he probably wouldn't fall to critical injury. He tentatively glanced down the shaft to find only darkness and was pushed in from behind.
He fell for what he thought was far too long to avoid critical injury, actually. Panic bubbling after thirty seconds of free-fall with no end in sight. His breath was taken from him on the way down, air whipping past his face too fast to catch with his lungs.
He realised he was slowing as he saw a speck of light below him, growing rapidly despite his decrease in speed. He couldn't help but windmill his limbs as he burst through the opening into bright golden light.
He landed gently on his face onto a pile of rugs, soft giggling and music greeting him as he sat up.
Indu and a gaggle of teen girls stood watching him get to his feet. He looked up at the opening he'd just dropped through and then stepped out of the way, not keen to be landed on.
"A bit of a shock the first time, ah?" Indu said as he took in the room.
It was draped in red, the walls and carpets varying shades and depths, curtains circling the room, portraits of Indian gods with alters of lush incense and tokens spaced the walls. It was decadent and rich, but it wasn't what was holding his attention.
One wall, massive, spanning floor to ceiling, was a window overlooking the inside of the school.
A colossal, open spiral twisting deep into the earth and far above his head. An almost inconceivably huge spiral staircase stood free in the centre, attached by wing-like walkways to the outer spirals, levels upon levels of circular balconies with hundreds of doors. Students in bright red were everywhere he looked, thousands of them if he had to guess.
The screw-shaped school was decorated all the way down with gold and red streamers. Red and white birds flew in hypnotic formation, weaving through the balconies and staircases in unison. Yellow, black, orange, light and dark blue, white, gold, and green paper lanterns floated lazily around, occasionally smacked or added to by the students.
"You must be crafty to place a wizard school in India," Indu said beside Harry, startling him.
"…It's beautiful," he said, frowning at the enormity of it.
"Thank you. It was a unified and continued effort, I think you'll see." Her smile was warm, and he immediately liked her.
The Dark Lord and Nagini fell through at the same time. Voldemort landed on his feet and did not even blink at the spectacular view. His familiar, on the other hand, bounded for the window, mouth open.
"Harry!" she blurted, pushing his arm and then pulling on the fabric. "Look!?"
"I am afraid not too many of my staff and students speak English," Indu said as Nagini gasped, nose pressed to the glass.
"No matter," the Dark Lord said.
"You know, when I first heard that the Dark Lord of Europe was turning over a new leaf, I did not believe it. I must tell you I am expecting some kind of trap." She was cheerful in her words, nearly laughing.
"No trap," he said. Harry heard the unsaid 'yet' in his head.
She seemed to hear it, too, but then she just smiled, inclining her head and gesturing for them to follow. The gaggle of girls followed after her, whispering in Hindi and sniggering.
"You will see our elected champions as we pass through the school; I have decided not to disturb them much." As she pushed through an arched double set of doors, a stampede of children no older than five exploded inward, all chattering at once and grabbing at Indu. One of them was on fire, but he didn't seem bothered, and neither did anyone else.
She laughed and repeated something several times in Hindi before the cloud of children dispersed. "We take children as young as five. They learn basics in theory until their first proper year."
The doors led straight out onto one of the circular balconies into a thunderclap of sound. Rambling voices, laughter, music, and the volatile, unpredictable sounds of magic drowned out his thoughts. They gathered a crowd as they walked, both students and men in uniform, carrying the duel-ended clubs.
"We are three thousand metres below the city of Surat. We expand regularly; our fourth years collaborate to create a new room as part of their examinations. We teach a great deal of magical architecture and permanent transfiguration," she told them over the chaos.
Voldemort was staring straight ahead, and Tom hadn't said anything since the Dark Lord had dangled them off a cliff. Harry was still processing the image of him refusing to get off the floor.
'That's not really great, is it? That it makes him angry?' He wondered.
'I had suspicions.'
'Yeah, but it's not good, is it?'
'Not particularly.'
He could tell Tom was distracted, rearranging thoughts in his own walled-off section of Harry's head. 'What did he say to you?'
'What?'
'Before the radioactive thing.'
'Uxetid.'
'Whatever; what did he say?'
'No. Nothing.'
'No? What do you mean no?'
'What?'
'…Tom.'
'Yes?'
Harry frowned, filing his weirdness away for later as the headmistress shook off most of the students in a narrow hallway, shooing them.
"We have nine houses, each corresponding to a patron deity. This wing is for house Chandrama Ulka. We call them our wild cards." She laughed and stopped outside a door, knocking. "This is Vineet Sharma. We're pretty sure all the girls voted for him."
Vineet opened the door, grinning, chewing gum, and gesturing them in. He was tall and thin, with eyes so brown they were black. He held the same dual-ended club and spoke in Hindi. The Dark Lord didn't move to take the fish out of his pocket, staring wide-eyed at the plush, cream-coloured carpet.
Nagini didn't seem overly concerned, wandering around the large, heavily decorated bedroom, apparently just for the one student, a single large bed against the far wall.
Harry found Voldemort's lack of emotion eerie, more so because Tom was watching him like a hawk, apparently as uneasy as he was.
"He says he is thrilled to be chosen, even if it is for his looks," Indu translated, and the gaggle of teen girls the headmistress hadn't shaken off giggled into their hands.
"…Forgive us; it's been a long day. The monster with the big mouth was tiring," Nagini said when she noticed everyone—the three guards who'd followed them that far in particular—staring at Voldemort, who was virtually non-responsive, just blinking.
Harry realised that she hadn't changed out of the clothes with the warming charms on them; simply removed the fur robe layer, still in her fluffy boots. He nearly laughed, stopping himself and swallowing instead.
"Not to mention the… Darts," Harry added, eyes bugging when the Dark Lord whipped to look at him.
"And the darts," Nagini said, stepping in front of him and breaking Voldemort's line of sight.
"Only five to go," Indu smiled and turned to leave, saying something to Vineet in Hindu as she went. He followed them out, chattering to the headmistress.
Still, the Dark Lord didn't bother with the fish, as though he'd forgotten he had it.
Indu took them down a few levels via the massive central staircase. He was tempted to look over the edge but didn't want to goad fate or height a third time. The students were thrilled to see them, cheering and crowding around.
Harry could see Nagini getting nervous, her eyes flicking repeatedly to Voldemort. He didn't react, staring intently through all of them.
He knew, without ever being told, that the Dark Lord couldn't stand noise. If he was in a position to obtain silence, he would. He didn't seem to hear the chaos they were inspiring at all, though.
Harry met Nagini's eyes, and she grimaced.
Indu took them into another wing, losing some of their followers once more. The hall was blue, the floor almost looked to be made from sapphire, sparkling under flaming chandeliers.
"This is house Aakaash Saagar. Our artists and deep thinkers." She took them down a short set of stairs that rounded a corner and knocked on the first door on the left. "Veer Kapudia." Was all she said.
The door opened, and the deep blue room was filled with people. Over twenty students sat cross-legged around a petite teen. It took Harry a few seconds to realise he couldn't tell whether the small one was a boy or a girl. Every feature seemed to be somewhere in the middle, contradictions making it impossible to tell.
They all stood when the door opened, and the students gushed over the smallest one before they left, proclaiming love. One of them was sobbing uncontrollably as she exited, held by another girl.
"Good afternoon, Veer," Indu said, and Veer smiled before their dark brown eyes locked on Harry, and the smile vanished.
Veer was digging in a drawer then, almost frantic. "This will help some," they put a small blue rock in Harry's hand and closed his fist around it. It was cold like ice, and the sensation crept up his arm, slowing his perpetually racing heart.
"…What is it?" He asked, opening his hand to look at it.
"Calm. Just a little bit of it," Veer was looking at the Dark Lord then, wisps of short black hair stuck in their eyelashes, twitching when Veer blinked.
"I don't think I have anything for you," Veer said after a moment. Voldemort said nothing, still not reacting. He might as well have been anywhere else.
Veer said something in Hindi to Indu, and they both looked sad.
"Are you a boy or a girl?" Nagini asked, not a shred of fear or discomfort in her question, eyes wide with curiosity.
"Neither," Veer said, grinning. "It's not a concern of mine." Veer seemed drawn to Nagini, and within a few seconds, they were holding hands and grinning at each other as though someone had said something hilarious.
"Veer is a powerful empath. Our resident mind healer." Indu said, then added something in Hindi to the perpetual gaggle of girls and Vineet, who was narrowing his eyes at Veer.
"Vineet," Veer said, turning away from Nagini and saying something in Hindi. Vineet bristled and stomped out of the room, punching the door open.
"I am sorry, Indu. I can only handle so much hate at a time." Veer looked at Voldemort, and then they looked pained, ducking their heads and turning back to Nagini.
The Dark Lord was oblivious as Indu took them back out. Veer didn't follow. Harry held the blue stone inside his pocket.
She didn't take them far, into an adjacent set of hallways on the same level, also decorated in blue. It was lighter, and weapons of all kinds lined the halls, moving portraits of warriors decked in full, ornate regalia.
"Jal Yuddh. This house favours fighters with level heads. They like to call themselves 'Generals'," she laughed. "I'm taking you to see Govind. He is boastful, but with good reason; he is undefeated."
Govind was alone in his room. He was short and tan, with striking grey eyes and an unimpressed expression. He didn't invite them in; he simply looked them up and down, shot Indu a pointed look, and then closed the door again.
"He's also a bit rude." She shrugged and continued back the way they'd come.
They descended two more levels through to an orange wing; floor-to-ceiling bookshelves lined the halls. "Gyaan Saadhak. No prizes for guessing who this house favours. Vijaya is the most brilliant witch I've ever taught."
There was boisterous laughter coming from behind her door, and when Vijaya opened the room, she was bright-eyed, still giggling. She spoke in Hindi, and the three girls in the room behind her sniggered louder every time she spoke. She was taller than all of them, easily six foot.
"She says… A lot of things. Let's sum it up as: she is thrilled to have been chosen." Indu said, frowning at Vijaya, who was grinning back.
She took them deeper, another three levels down, into a large hospital wing. A multitude of students were gathered around magical devices, whirring and spitting light while they worked.
"Our medical laboratory. Where you can always find Aahana, and most of the Dava Jahur house."
The teen that Indu pointed out to be Aahana yelped when she saw them, dropping what she was working on and clapping her hands above her head. She was wearing bright green eyeliner, highlighting her nearly black eyes. She bounded over, and her house followed behind, whispering furiously.
"I'm Aahana Kapil. I'm a combat healer," she ducked her head once and smiled at them, "I'm so excited to meet you."
Nagini was increasingly anxious, her eyes exclusively on the Dark Lord. Harry slipped the small blue stone into her hand and hoped they'd leave soon.
Indu seemed to sense the unease, speeding them out of the laboratory wing and back to the stairs. "We'll need to go to the very bottom to find Shruti." She opened the centre column of the stairs with a tap of her fingers, the stone giving way to a door, and another unobstructed drop.
He wasn't pushed. Instead, the Dark Lord stepped into it as though he was just walking, almost comical if he wasn't scarily despondent. Nagini whined and looked at Harry before she clung to his arm. "I hate falling."
"I don't really like it either," Harry agreed, bringing them both closer to the edge when Indu gestured.
They'd finally lost the group of teenage girls.
Nagini had closed her eyes, so he stepped them both into the drop. They didn't fall for anywhere near as long, and he managed to land on his feet in near darkness, holding her up beside him.
Voldemort was staring at a large painting barely visible in the dark. Harry stood beside him and stared at it, too, waiting for his eyes to adjust. He then realised he was looking at a painting depicting a brutal fight to the death, more blood red than any other colour.
"This is house Mrtyu Nyaay." Indu said from behind them, startling Harry.
Four corridors split off from the room they'd dropped into, all of them dark and dressed in black fabric, sparse scone torches doing little to dispel the shadows. It was so quiet his ears rang, the din of the school above lost entirely in the dark. A door opened, and he jumped; two teen girls breezed past them silently as though it were a tomb.
The headmistress led them down the left corridor into a vast, only slightly brighter library. Around twenty students moved in quiet harmony. A large mirror stood in the centre of the room, though it was reflecting another place altogether: a golden library decorated as though for a king.
"Through there is a short-cut to house Sona Dhan. And the upper levels of Jaadoo Seekhana," Indu whispered, and every student whipped to look at her.
"Shruti?" She asked the room, and they collectively shook their heads.
Harry realised that she hadn't introduced the house or who they favoured, though he found himself more interested in them than the others. Voldemort seemed interested, too, finally removing the Babel Fish from his pocket. He held it out for Nagini, and Harry struck like a cobra, tapping the fish and earning an aggressive exhale from the Dark Lord.
Indu sighed, then shook herself, and took them back out into the corridor. They went back through the centre to the right, and she knocked on the door at the far end.
A girl with straight black hair that went past her elbows answered the door. Her hazel eyes lit immediately with mischief when she saw the headmistress and stepped aside. Two boys and a girl her age sat on black chaise lounges behind her, smirking as well.
"You've got the fucking Dark Lord at your door, Shruti," one of the boys said, Harry assumed in Hindi.
"And the Boy Who Lived," the girl said, staring at him, "Got hotter since I last saw him? Don't you think? All dark in the eyes."
"Yeah, it's the no glasses." The same boy said, nodding.
"Oh right, they are gone!" She clicked her fingers.
"Aunt Indu," Shruti said, nodding her head and ignoring her friends. "Voldemort. Harry Potter. Nagini." She said it like it was a list of inventory. "Get in then. Let me show you something."
"Oh, no. Thank you, Shruti. I will wait in the library I showed you. Meet me there," Indu said to Nagini, correctly assuming she was the temporary brains of the operation.
Harry stepped in first, curiosity moving his legs. Nagini followed after, and Shruti closed the door behind the Dark Lord.
"Generally, insects do not live this deep underground," Shruti said, and two of the teens were already laughing into their hands. But I have changed that here." As she spoke, the walls began to writhe, and he realized that it wasn't a textured black backdrop—it was millions of bugs.
Some were spiders; others were winged. Beetles fell clumsily from the ceiling overhead, their Velcro-like legs catching them on the fabric of everyone's robes. The winged insects swarmed around Shruti, a nearly mechanical hum.
Nagini was grabbing giant flying bugs from the air, and he was relieved that she wasn't afraid.
The Dark Lord stared at Shruti; then his eyes flicked to Harry, a large, black tarantula slowly walking atop his hood.
"You've got a spider on your head," he said automatically. Voldemort did nothing, and again, Harry felt like he might have laughed if the Dark Lord wasn't acting like a nuclear bomb.
"You know Indu said it was fine not to tell him your strengths and weaknesses," the girl said.
"I don't care about the competition, Chandi," Shruti was staring intently at the Dark Lord, and she once again drew his attention.
"What is it you care about," he deadpanned.
The boy and the girl who had gossiped throughout gagged on their words, and the boy who'd remained silent smirked at the both of them, then at Shruti, nearly wild-eyed. "Oho, so stupid." He said, sitting back in his seat, crossing his arms, and smiling viciously.
"…I want the right to practice the Dark Arts. We all do. If that takes us to Europe, to you… Then you have our loyalty. If you want it."
Harry could tell she was speaking in Hindi, her words not as stilted or locked in her accent.
The Dark Lord stepped forward sharply, the spider on his head startled. "Look at me."
Harry was smacked in the face by several flying bugs while Voldemort invaded her mind. She didn't flinch much, a deep frown the only outward sign.
"You will speak to Narcissa Malfoy in December." He said, taking a step back.
Shruti's eyes went wide, and so did her mouth, before she was laughing in shock. She looked at her friends, who were all standing, giggling along with her. She returned her insects to the walls as they left, and Harry heard them screaming unintelligibly when they got halfway down the corridor.
Before Voldemort opened the door to the library, he opened Nagini's hand, staring at the blue stone she held. She frowned at him, wary, ready to pull away. He met her eyes, then glanced at Harry before he said, "I'm fine." In Parseltongue and unconvincingly, "I need to feed it in Russia. Properly." He closed his eyes and dropped her hand.
She looked sad as he pushed the library open, gnawing her lips and bouncing on her heels, anxiety palpable.
Indu was waiting for them, "I hope my niece didn't scare you too much," she said when she took in the look on Nagini's face. She shook her head rapidly.
The headmistress stepped through the mirror first, leading into a golden library that mirrored Mrtyu Nyaay's, a blindingly bright carbon copy. One of the loud students was literally counting stacks of gold at a desk. They didn't linger long, and Sona Dhan's library let out onto a balcony that was almost where they'd started.
"You'll forgive us if we don't stay," Nagini said, clinging to the Dark Lord's arm and looking at him instead of Indu.
"Of course. It seems as though you've had a long… Day." The headmistress was talking to Harry, and he bobbled his head in response.
"Yeah. Something like that," he said, nearly flinching away from Voldemort when he spoke, half expecting an attack.
He didn't even look at Harry. He took a hinged gold jewellery box from his pocket and opened it to reveal an oval pendant—also gold and inlaid with a round, clear gem—that almost looked like a reptilian eye.
Harry touched it when the Dark Lord did, whipping through a whirlwind until they landed in sparse grasslands.
Voldemort pulled several items from his pockets, increasingly agitated as he set up a tent, deposited their chests, and cast wards. Nagini grimaced and followed him around, reaching for him and stopping herself repeatedly.
It looked to be around midday, and the breeze was cutting, though nowhere near as cold as the mountains. They stood on a plateau high above sea level, another steep drop in the distance. A running stream, meandering off the edge, cut through the middle of it. The clouds hung so close to their heads that Harry felt like he could touch them, threatening rain.
When he started shivering, Nagini took him inside the tent and directed him into his third set of robes, also blocking his magic.
While he was changing in the curtained-off 'room' he'd chosen, he heard them talking, hushed and in Parseltongue, but not quite quiet enough.
"Will you eat, please," Nagini asked, more of a quiet demand.
"When I'm done."
"You're never done," she sounded exasperated. Harry nearly tripped on his pants trying to listen, blessedly not stumbling through the curtain.
"I know." The Dark Lord left the tent shortly after, and Nagini silently collected Harry a few moments later.
She pulled him outside, and sat down just beyond the entrance, watching Voldemort walking toward the edge of the waterfall, tiny in the distance.
"It's been getting worse. A lot worse, the anger. I don't have the magic to calm it anymore, so he resists feeding him at all. Little scraps here and there. So, he is always angry, and the Horcrux is always hungry. It must be bad today. Don't look directly at the light. It will burn your eyes."
The Dark Lord had reached the very end of the plateau, a little dark speck. Harry did look directly at the light, but not for very long. It grew until he was certain it would level a small city, burning his skin from where he sat. It boomed repeatedly, pulsing until it broke the sound barrier with eardrum-splitting cracks. Around the blooming, colossal light, a jagged red serpent twisted, opening its sharp mouth to the sky, screaming soundlessly.
"He won't be back until much later," she whispered when it ceased, the speck of a Dark Lord collapsing to the ground and yelling so loud Harry could hear the gibberish across the expansive distance. The grass around him was singed black in an eight-hundred-metre radius.
Instead of being glad that his Horcrux had turned out to be the perfect thorn in Voldemort's head, he felt, more than anything, a kindred sympathy.
Nagini took him inside and cooked for them both. She hummed at the tiny stove-top, and Harry felt both bizarre in the situation and without magic, watching the Dark Lord's familiar tend a soup while he sat at the table.
"Thank you for this," she said, turning to him and putting the small blue stone on the table. "When he is that way, anything can happen." She looked at the tent opening momentarily and then said, "He scares himself like that."
Harry put the rock in his pocket and tried to smile at her.
She made chicken soup, somehow tasting the way lemons smelled. She chose his pyjamas out of the chest and gave him an apologetic look when it got dark, directing him to the bathroom. She was asleep when he finished showering, her skin shifting to scales and back again in waves.
Even the pyjamas blocked his magic, though they were ridiculously soft; every time he moved, he was borderline tickled by them. He couldn't fall asleep, staring at the dark tent ceiling for hours, waiting for Voldemort to return without acknowledging it.
'What did he say to you?' He wondered again.
He was met with fear, and Tom scrambled to pull it back in before he thought, '…When.'
'You're avoiding it.'
'Avoiding what?'
Harry bugged his eyes in frustration, rolling over to watch the tent entrance through the gap he'd left in his curtains. He had no way of knowing what time it was when the Dark Lord finally appeared; his internal clock scrambled by hopping around the globe.
Voldemort immediately locked eyes with him through the gap, flicking his wrist and restraining Harry's hands above his head.
"Mon joyeux Horcrux," he said, sitting beside him, face manic, hair wild. Harry didn't fight it, blinking at him while his pulse picked up.
He cast silencing wards over them, his magic visible and volatile. "I have a question for you, Tom," he leaned in close and laughed his name into Harry's ear. "Savez-vous ce qu'il cache? Le jetteriez-vous aux loups encore et encore, en le sachant?"
Tom winced as he spoke, though Harry was having a different reaction, trying not to whimper as the Dark Lord hummed French.
"Ne crois pas t'être trop éloigné de moi, Tom Riddle. Tu m'appartiens, et lui aussi." Voldemort pinned him as he whispered, both hands tight around his already restrained wrists, his knee digging in between Harry's legs, pushing into him.
He'd felt Tom's growing fury, and he felt it give way to something else when the Dark Lord touched him. Bliss and an apparently unrestrainable, undilutable desire. "Je me roulerais dans le sang de ton cadavre comme un chiot heureux," Tom said, voice husky.
Harry couldn't control his hips, and Tom didn't seem inclined to bother.
"Délicieux. Dites-m'en plus." Voldemort's mouth was on his ear and all thoughts were gone.
"Comment pouvez-vous savoir qu'il est là, mais vous ne pouvez pas le trouver? Selon votre propre logique, à qui appartenez-vous?" Tom tried to bite his earlobe, but he pulled back, sneering down at him.
Voldemort drove his knee in, the pressure making him gasp repeatedly, squirming underneath him. Harry could feel the Dark Lord's cock on his thigh, hard as he was, high definition through the soft pyjamas. Every nerve was lit, and soon he was moaning, writhing. He could feel the red light winding around his wrists, searing and more than welcome.
Voldemort's sneer became a smirk, his eyes hooded. "Quel est son niveau de maîtrise de soi?" He bit Harry's face and pulled, breaking the skin immediately. He was laughing, rumbling in his throat while Harry cried out.
'I can't-' He thought.
'It's alright,' Tom interrupted him, flooding him with affection from the inside, 'It's alright.'
"Il me tient," Tom said, then he licked the side of the Dark Lord's face, and Harry couldn't take another second of it. He was blinded with pleasure, going rigid and silent, an explosion blooming in his solar plexus. The pressure and the contact—blissed to the high heavens to start with—made it altogether different, instantly intoxicating. It rocked him in waves, yelping between them, until he was whimpering and shaking, eyes closed.
"Je vois que vous avez magnifiquement ruiné le garçon," the Dark Lord said when he let go, his mouth covered in blood as he pulled away, leaving them alone.
The first thing Harry properly registered was the brief but cutting emptiness that no contact brought. Then, that he was mortified. Followed quickly by the realisation that his face was bleeding profusely. He stripped the pillowcase and held it to his cheek. His wrists were burnt and stinging, and Tom was, for lack of a better term, brain scrambled.
'I wouldn't force you to do this,' was his first coherent thought, making Harry frown in more than just mortification.
'What?'
'If you wanted out, I would try. I wouldn't- not you. Do you believe me?'
'Tom? This was my idea? What did he say?' Harry was more forceful in his thought, and Tom was more resistant to it, a long pause in his head.
'Do you believe me?' He repeated.
'Yeah. I believe you? To be honest, I'd rather murder him than fuck him right now,' he stunned himself into silence once more and then backpedalled, 'Not what I meant, I- anyway, I'm fine. I am. I believe you.'
'…I might have goaded him. I should not have done that.'
'Might have?'
'…I did.'
(AN: Was that masturbation? Did it count as a first kiss? -9 out of 10 you missed each other's mouths. By now, some of you might be wondering, wow, when are they going to fuck? And the honest answer is, I don't even know. I keep throwing them at each other and increasing the temperature to see what happens, and they pitch fits. I have several plot plans ready based on when exactly between now and December they finally smash, because they constantly derail me (Harry especially). So we're gnawing on the bars together and nobody knows is what I'm saying. They're all terrified of each other. Apart from Harrycrux, who aint scared of shit.)