Built for Pain, Esterly
Screwed up and broken
Beautifully twisted
Foolishly gifted
Like shut up and listen
Screaming like a voice inside my head
That keeps on saying do it all again
I've been hurting for it in my blood
Fighting like I just can't get enough
That destruction is just what I love
That dirty pleasure runs my veins
Maybe I was built for pain
Voldemort returned to the manor late in the night on the eleventh of July, and Cassiopeia collected them, not saying much as she led them through the halls to the usual dining room.
The Dark Lord had an empty tumbler glass in front of him, Nagini had her hand on the back of his neck, her eyes already leaking fluorescence into the air. It sat them down, Harry unwilling to control his limbs or mouth. The weird tugging had returned in his middle. He assumed belonged to the thing and not him, some leftover pull from having been part of the Dark Lord.
'He is drunk,' it said.
Harry hadn't been able to tell, his only clue was the empty glass.
'Is… That bad?'
"On the eighteenth of August, you will be tried for the murders of Kevin Entwhistle, Demelza Robins, and Ron Weasley," the Dark Lord said, watching them with narrowed eyes.
It kept them very still when Harry balked at the names. At the thought that the Weasley family probably believed it was him; that he was responsible for the death of his best friend, That the headmaster -and maybe even Hermione- would have tried to convince them of it. How that would make Ginny feel. Fear jumped in his stomach at the thought of her getting the idea that she should clear his name.
The thought that technically speaking, he was responsible -that if he hadn't taken Ron with him that night at the Ministry, he'd likely be alive- was not far behind all of it. Grief sucked the breath out of him; he kept his wide, barely seeing eyes on the table. A slight shock seeping in, as it always did, every time he was confronted with the reality of his situation.
"The trial is being held to determine whether the curse was deliberate, and an investigation into the evidence against you in the case of the Weasley. You will claim the curse was outside your control, that you have no recollection of what happened in the forest or the hall, or whether you were even there."
"It was accidental," Harry blurted.
'Shut up,' it hissed in his head when the Dark Lord smiled slowly, glaring with the top half of his face.
"…You will claim that you have no knowledge of what happened before or after the events. Do not speak," he growled when Harry's mouth opened.
"You will be tried as an adult, as you come of age in…" Voldemort paused, "Just under three weeks. Your magic?"
"It feels… Almost…" It said, and they examined it again, the phrase 'tried as an adult' suddenly making Liquida Tenebris sound not all that bad really.
They swallowed heavily.
"A time frame?" The Dark Lord pressed.
'I can't even tell how do we tell,' Harry hissed in his head, 'Should we be casting more often? Do we have time to fix this?'
It let out a long-suffering sigh, "Are we in predictable territory?"
"I don't suppose we are. Nagini, return him."
"-Insane. There's no way. I know you have a flair for the dramatic symbolic but it's batshit insanity, Tom. It would be far easier to just wait the bastard out, you said yourself it's only a matter of time," Cassiopeia had become increasingly agitated by his plans and was more and more adamant that there were better courses of action.
Most of them including killing the boy, but he had a better idea.
"You always underestimate, Cassiopeia. Tell me it is not perfect in its symmetry."
She snorted, "It would be… Spectacular, I'll grant you that, but we're talking about the same people, right? How much do you think has changed?"
"Oh, everything has changed. I have seen his mind. The pieces are all there, he only needs a nudge. Offer Hogwarts as a reward…" He twirled the Boy Who Lived's wand in his hands, examining it idly.
She watched him intensely, and he flinched.
"I still don't understand why you won't just walk into that room right now and end it. It's not that big a loss at this point, is it? The Ministry is yours; the school is a matter of time. You've lost two - And if we're being fully honest with each other you seem to want him dead more now than before. You wanna tell me why you throw a tantrum every time you need to be in a room with him or…" She looked at her fingernails with interest.
"I wanted him dead as a necessity. That is no longer the case. Now it would be a nice luxury. He is worth far more alive."
"And the part you're not telling me is…"
He shook his head. Unable to come to terms with any of it in his thoughts, let alone speak them to her.
Suddenly Harry was sitting at a small table on a quiet street, outside a cafe he didn't recognize, in bright sunlight. He blinked at a menu in front of him, though the non-words swam and scrambled, unidentifiable.
"Are we- Are we dreaming? At the same…" Someone asked, and he looked up to find Tom Riddle sitting across from him, staring at his hands then looking up at Harry. He looked no older than the Boy Who Lived, hair swept back, all ten fingers, ears, a mouth and narrowed eyes that widened slowly as he looked at Harry. Disbelief on his actual face, jarring the Boy Who Lived in place like he'd been electrocuted.
"I- is that possible? Is it really you? I mean… Am I just dreaming you?" Harry asked, a bizarre sensation coming over him as he watched Tom move. He wasn't an it. If that was him, he wasn't… He was…
"I had the… Same question," Tom reached his hand across the table as though to touch him, both of them alarmed and fascinated.
He raised his hand, slowly, and touched his fingertips to Tom's.
Harry woke with a start, heart pounding, "Was that real?"
'…Yes,' he sounded as astonished as Harry felt.
Harry could feel him examining his sudden shift in perspective, just as he was; how he could no longer refuse to acknowledge that Tom was a separate, sentient entity, that he couldn't call him 'it' and expect it to be true. He'd seen his face. He felt his hand, somehow, in his dream. Their dream. Tom didn't say anything to him as he watched his train of thought, but the Boy Who Lived felt that he was far more relieved than he could have predicted, and guilt bubbled up again.
"I'm… Sorry. I was trying- this has been…" Harry tried to articulate it then stopped. Tom could feel what he was feeling so there was no need to say any more.
'I know.'
"What were they talking about?" Harry asked after a long silence.
"Well, you. And…" He trailed off, hiding his thoughts from the Boy Who Lived, who tried to snatch them.
"If you start that, I will start that, Harry. Leave us a semblance of privacy. Let us pretend we can keep our thoughts to ourselves," there was a warning in Tom's tone and Harry decided he was right.
They were already too deep in each other's minds to be comfortable.
The next night the curse was due, and both were agitated.
He hadn't joined the Slytherins since his meeting with Voldemort, choosing instead to wallow in their room and wrestle with the reality of being tried as an adult for a triple homicide.
Nagini was sitting with them, she stared into a book instead of tearing it to shreds while Harry fought to keep his mind clear. He realized he recognized the book, the same worn copy he'd seen Voldemort reading to her in his dreams.
"Would you read aloud, Nagini?" Tom asked.
She looked up at them and smiled. It was strange on her face, a brand-new expression.
"From childhood's hour I have not been as others were. I have not seen as others saw. I could not bring my passions from a common spring; from the same source, I have not taken my sorrow. I could not awaken my heart to joy at the same tone, and all that I loved, I loved alone. Then - in my childhood - in the dawn of a most stormy life, was drawn from every depth of good and ill-"
'That's depressing,' Harry thought, though he was still listening.
'Unfortunately, it is a collection of poetry I curated,' Tom said, then he recited the poem with Nagini until she fell silent and watched him.
"- The mystery which binds me still, from the torrent, or the fountain. From the red cliff of the mountain. From the sun that round me rolled in its autumn tint of gold. From the lightning in the sky as it passed me flying by. From the thunder and the storm, and the cloud that took the form - when the rest of heaven was blue - of a demon in my view."
Harry had closed his eyes and decided that Parseltongue wasn't all bad when used to recite poetry.
Tom added mentally, cautiously, 'Cassiopeia will collect us soon.'
He let out a whoosh of breath and tried not to think about what that meant.
'It is not… In my control.'
'I know,' Harry thought, ignoring the way his heart was already thundering low in his stomach against his will.
Cassiopeia did collect them shortly after that, Nagini held their hand as they walked to the foyer where Narcissa and Draco waited. The younger Malfoy's eyes flicked to Harry and Nagini's interlocked hands several times, becoming progressively wider each time he looked. Cassiopeia led them out through the front door, while he tried not to think about where they were going.
"Does it hurt you, Nagini?" Harry asked as they walked.
She looked up at him and smiled her strange smile, then shook her head, "No, Harry."
"Okay. Okay, that's good." Then, "Wait, why doesn't it hurt you?"
She surprised them both by laughing, a squawk then a snort. She clapped her hand over her mouth and looked up at him, her wide eyes sparkling.
"Mother-" Malfoy hissed behind them.
"Draco," Narcissa hissed back.
"You are an idiot, but that's alright with me. I like you still," Nagini told him.
"Oh. Thanks. Yeah. I guess. I-" Harry frowned.
'Admit it, she is endearing. You like her,' Tom said in his head.
'She bit me twice and she just called me an idiot.'
'And you like her.'
'She's Voldemort's familiar,' he pressed, though he already knew it was true.
'Because she is excellent company,' Tom said with finality.
"I- I like you too," Harry finished, feeling awkward but also like he needed to say it in return. She nodded and squeezed his hand too tight.
They reached the clearing, the Dark Lord already present, robed and masked as usual.
'You think he's doing that because he doesn't want anyone to know he looks…' Harry asked, then, 'Wait, wasn't Bellatrix here, the first time we cast?'
The strange pull in his middle made him uncomfortable so he turned away and sat in the grass, resolutely pretending he wasn't where he was, doing what he was doing.
'Definitely. Having a young face was… Annoying, politically. Persuasion -intimidation- would be easier with his previous visage, I would imagine. She was here, yes.'
'You would imagine? You don't know?' Harry asked, swallowing as the wards began to form around him, Nagini sitting cross-legged in front of them.
'No- now, he looks like I did when- as far as I know, it was a result of trying to kill you, of the curse backfiring. His face a result of the ritual in the graveyard in your fourth year. If I had to put a timeline on it, the last we saw him with that face was when we cast Liquida Tenebris while he was standing right in front of us… As was Nagini.'
"Oh," Harry said out loud.
Nagini had taken his hands, giving him a small nod as her eyes began to glow, slowing Harry's heart rate and thoughts as they prepared to cast.
When the spell was unleashed, it was different again, the savage ink-black storm lit from within by the fluorescence of Nagini's magic; cracking through the smoke like lightning as it flayed his nerves with fire, tearing all the thoughts from his head and bringing the same agonizing pleasure that he could barely fathom, unlike anything he'd ever felt. He'd collapsed in on himself, screaming, Nagini lost in it, -he couldn't feel her anymore- though he could still see the strange green sparking in the hurricane.
When it slowed it didn't stop, reducing to a stream that connected him to Nagini by their chests, both of them howling, but more aware. She yelled at the Dark Lord to stop dismantling the wards, strangely in English; frantically telling him to wait, gasping that she was fine, that it wasn't time; while Harry fought to stay conscious, nerves frayed, shame and nausea kicking in, the curse still ripping out of his chest.
He could barely comprehend Nagini, suddenly in front of him; searching his eyes, strangely frantic as the Dark Lord tore the wards down and tried to snatch her away when the curse finally ceased, wobbling him on his knees while he lost the ability to hold himself upright.
"No. No! I remember… I remember!" She kept shouting, then she was hugging Harry tight while his eyes bugged out of his head and his focus swam.
"Tom. I remember," she tried in Parseltongue when Voldemort wouldn't let go of her arm.
"Grindelwald-" She said, bizarrely, then holding her temple with one hand as though she was in pain, "It wasn't Credence…"
His vision turned blue and his whole body shook.
"Nagini!" The Dark Lord snatched her off entirely and Disapparated.
Harry wasn't sure if he threw up as he passed out.
"Are you hurt? Did he hurt you?" He fought to keep his breathing level as he tore the mask off, and Nagini grabbed his hand, her cold seeping in.
"No," she said in English, and it dawned what she'd been shouting.
"You… You remember?" He said in Parseltongue.
Again, he was hit with the strangeness of it, while Nagini took his face in her hands.
"Yes… I remember. I was… There's so much- Credence…" She was crying, tears streaming down her cheeks, but she shook herself, "He was… I have so much to tell you- Grindelwald- he thought that Credence…"
He watched her struggle, eyes wide, "You knew Grindelwald?"
"Yes- not well- he thought Credence would be the one… Credence was an Obscurial- powerful- his magic looked almost like-" She squeezed her head with her hands, wincing.
"Do you need something? I will take you back to the manor," he asked, concerned.
He'd taken her to the overgrown graveyard, the Riddle House on the hill in the distance, -great and empty- the church and the town beyond it still as the graves within. It was where they always wound up after enduring the insufferable- Nagini readjusted her grip and her magic soothed him again, slowed his thoughts.
"Grindelwald had a vision. In it he believed he saw Credence, defeating Dumbledore, with his Obscurial magic. He believed Credence was the only one with the power and the motive to kill him- but it- it wasn't him. That magic, the Obscurial magic it looks like… When Harry-" She slowed him to a crawl when he flinched at the name, "His magic is like Credence's. I think Grindelwald… saw Harry. I think you're right. I think he'll do it."
Harry sat bolt upright. He'd been returned to his bed somehow, dark in his room.
"Tom."
'Harry.'
"Did she mean. Did she mean like- he wants us to kill…?" Harry thought about the conversation he'd seen between Cassiopeia and the Dark Lord the night before, how he'd said it would be 'Perfect symmetry'.
"He wants us to kill Dumbledore," Tom confirmed in Parseltongue.
'Well, we're not doing that, why would we do that? Why would he think we'd do that? "…matter of time," what did Cassiopeia mean when she said that?' Harry moved the conversation into his head when he found that his words were going to fail him, 'He said he'd offer Hogwarts… Does that mean if I say no that-'
'He will keep us here.'
Harry felt dread at the thought of remaining at the Malfoy Manor, ill at the cost of leaving. He also felt Tom's sick thrill at the idea, adrenaline pumping at the possibility. Under all of it, there was the cold rage that gripped him each time he thought of the headmaster. Of what he'd done. Of what those actions had cost Harry. Everything he was enduring had been preventable.
'This is not something we need to decide right now,' Tom told him, but Harry felt his stomach leap with desire.
'You… Want to, though,' Harry thought, part question part fact.
'…Yes.'
'I… I think-' Harry fought the desire, decided it wasn't his; that he couldn't make a decision like this based on that, vehemently trying to deny the part of the want that felt concretely his.
'He will… Keep us here, won't he?' Harry asked.
'Yes.'
'If… We did what he wants… That would mean-'
'That he takes the school. Yes.'
'But he's under the Vow… To not hurt them,' Harry said, trying to envision what would happen after the fact.
'Yes.'
There was a rush of shame that followed his attempt to make it morally okay with that information.
'The school would be different if we… It would be worse…' He tried to squash the desire with truth.
'We are… In a position to bargain,' Tom said, 'I can tell you with certainty that the Dark Lord would pay quite the price to have us do this.'
Tom thought of Ginny, then the Vow. Then the trial, and Harry's thoughts that she might turn herself in to clear his name of Ron's death. Or that she would become entrenched in the Order, then a free target for the Dark Lord and his Death Eaters. He thought about the school, that they could impact exactly how Voldemort controlled it, the treatment of its students, already half taken care of by the Vow.
'We can ask that we can talk freely to Ginny about the Vow. Warn her. Demand that she be protected, and immune, regardless of what she chooses. We can ask to have a say in who he places in the school, ask to be involved in the plans.'
Harry sat up and his hands shook while he drank a Calming Draught. He was still shaking afterwards and wondered why he bothered.
He could feel Tom paying close attention to his thoughts and emotions, 'Do you want this? Be honest with me. Be honest with yourself,' he asked.
'I don't want… to want… I want it to stop. I want to go home,' Harry thought.
'Will you do what it takes to get there?' He pressed while he scanned Harry's thoughts for affirmation, 'Is it so bad to want it?'
'To want to murder someone?' Harry snapped.
'Did you not want to kill the Dark Lord?'
'Bit different. Still do.'
'Has Dumbledore not wronged us enough?'
Harry shook his head and stood up to pace back and forward across the room.
"If we do that it's over. Voldemort's won. Who's going to stop him… if- when- I-"
'Voldemort won when we cast Liquida Tenebris in the Great Hall. He won when we saw the prophecy. He won when you raised your wand on Bellatrix in the Ministry Atrium, He won when you got on the back of that Thestral to save your Godfather. He won when Dumbledore fabricated the prophecy. He won when Trelawney gave the real one. He won when he made the first Horcrux, and when he made the last. When he made me. He won when you were born, Harry. He won when-'
Harry collapsed to the hardwood floor, "Stop it."
'Are you paying attention, Harry?'
'I don't want to. I hate that I want-'
'Tell me what you want.'
Harry shook his head again, violently, clasped his hands together tight, cutting off the blood flow.
'Tell me.'
"Stop."
'I already know. I want to hear you say it,' Tom let him panic, didn't take over their breathing, let him dig his fingernails into the back of his neck, bite his tongue, 'I want you to say it.'
"I want to kill- I want to kill him- I want to make it- I want it to hurt-"
'Then it will.'
(AN: Tom and Nagini recite Alone, by Edgar Allan Poe. This chapter made me delete 10,000 words. Sorrows, sorrows, prayers.)