(TW: Some pretty intense violence in this chapter, attempted murder/suicide.)
MORBID FASCINATION, Blood Red Shoes
So I put my hood on and sat on down
By the table right next to you
I could barely breathe when you said my name
What I heard now I can't undo
Is it true?
Silence never felt so cruel
Silence never felt so cruel
Morbid fascination
Yeah, I just can't help myself
As I sipped my wine in patience
You described me like someone else
Could it be that I'm blind to the truth that hurts
And I'm lost in my own denial
Is it me who defends 'til we hit dead ends
So afraid of my own betrayal
When he regained consciousness, there were no seconds of confusion. Tom sprung them upright immediately, stumbling, ears buzzing, to find that they'd been relocated, that they were in the Riddle Manor in Little Hangleton. His head was pounding. A concussion, for certain. The way the pain bloomed in the back of his skull was worrying. A new sensation, one that felt very incorrect, as blood poured from the wound steadily.
'…Tom,' Harry thought as the Dark Lord glared at him, unmasked. He saw Ginny, still in her red robes, under a small, solid dome, silenced and flailing, kicking at the wards with her arms locked behind her back. She saw Harry and fought harder.
"Good. You understand," Voldemort said, tone even, "Either you do as I say, or she dies."
'Tom,' he tried again, the contents of his stomach rolling up his oesophagus—mostly wine—his pulse screaming in his ears.
He was on his feet but not steady, Tom still not answering him, Voldemort closing the space in the downstairs sitting room; Ginny behind him. If he turned around, he'd see the bloodstains belonging to Tom Riddle Senior. His ears were buzzing as he fought to stay steady.
Harry couldn't find any words to say as the Dark Lord raised his wand; he didn't know if any could be said. If anyone knew what they were, it was Tom, but he seemed frozen in his head. His frazzled brain kept trying to leap to what he'd seen in Tom's mind: the sheer size of the emotions and thoughts, almost all directed at or related to him.
'Tom?! Hello?!'
'…Will you save it for when we are fucking dead, please,' he finally responded.
"Raise your arm," the Dark Lord growled, and Harry didn't, though Tom tried to obey.
'What are you doing? There has to be something we can do? We're not just going to die. There must be something-'
'I do not think you are grasping the reality.'
"Raise your arm," Voldemort repeated, backing Harry into a corner, "All I need do is squeeze her."
Harry glanced at Ginny, chest set to burst as he saw the dome was smaller, that she was frantic inside it.
"Get on your knees and raise your arm."
Tom bristled, tearing Harry's eyes from the wards and returning them to Voldemort, he straightened his back and nearly grinned, mania and rage bubbling in Harry's chest, vibrating with the adrenaline as the curse began to spit from his left hand, making him forget all about the blood pouring from his skull.
"Out—out of the night… That covers me—" Harry began, his throat unwilling to cooperate. He needed to force the words through a pinhole. They were difficult to recall, though he'd recited them several times in his head since he'd first heard them.
"…Black as the pit from pole to pole… I- I thank whatever- whatever gods may be for my unconquerable soul," he kept on though the Dark Lord was laughing, drowning him out with disbelieving, nearly insane cackling.
"In the fell clutch of circumstance… I have not winced nor cried aloud. Under the bludgeonings of chance my head is bloody, but unbowed," Tom continued, louder than Voldemort, who stopped laughing and straightened.
"…So be it. Crucio."
He didn't hold the screaming, vibrant agony long, though it brought him to his knees and forced the blood faster from his head, his vision already swimming. Tom fought back to his feet, snarling, refusing to die on the ground. Harry refused to die at all.
"Beyond this- beyond this place of wrath and tears… Looms but the horror of the shade, and- and yet the menace of the years… Finds and shall find me unafraid," Harry resumed reciting, his fists clenched tight. The hissing darkness was large on his arm, bringing clarity.
"Shut up! You are filth. Understand me? Foul, repugnant, less than worthless to me. Did you truly believe-"
"And do you believe after this you can walk back into what we made for you and still have it fit like a glove without your fucking mind?" Tom snarled, begging for the fight.
The light was bursting from the Dark Lord's hands, spheres and beams burning holes in the carpet and crumbling wallpaper, cracking and popping as the spheres imploded.
"I will find out."
"And them?! Will they find out? Cassiopeia. Nagini."
"They are none of your concern. RAISE YOUR ARM!"
"If you want me dead, you're gonna have to earn it," Harry growled.
A blinding golden burst filled the room at his words; Tom shielded them with the curse and forced it outward, both working to push the light back. As they cancelled each other out they collided in the centre of the room, Tom immediately trying to bite Voldemort's ear off, held too far from his head to make contact. He repeatedly sucker-punched Harry in the stomach, light burning from his fists, singeing his robes and the skin beneath them, making him scream into the side of the Dark Lord's face.
He rolled backwards, taking Harry with him, dislocating his right shoulder as he threw him over his head, burning the entire length of his body as he went. Tom sent a flood of darkness in return, met with the light; a thunderclap of sound disabled his ears briefly, ringing them for longer as he clawed to his feet, swaying, fighting the urge to vomit.
He knew he was in no fit state to fight. His only advantage was his combined core, but his vision was dangerously grey, only fear and pain holding him upright. Still, they held the curse from both hands, though his right arm now hung limp. He was gasping, wild-eyed as Voldemort ran at them, slammed them into the wall behind and drove his burning fists into Harry's ribs, lighting starbursts in his head as he kicked mindlessly, weakly, the darkness flooding from his arms and chest. Black spots grew in his vision, the light from the Dark Lord's hands fizzing and snapping in the dark, burning him as the curse bit his skin, both roaring at the other.
He was thrown from the wall to the floor, where he was kicked in the side repeatedly, taking his breath away as the curse fizzled to nothing.
It was there he realised that he was done. His brain was too unresponsive, his limbs too heavy to lift, and his thoughts and sensations were slowed to a crawl. Voldemort was straddling him then, lifting him limply off the carpet by the scruff of his robes and punched him twice, rapidly, right in the centre of his face, shattering his glasses. Harry gasped like he was drowning. He was spitefully glad to see that the curse had drawn a fair amount of blood from Voldemort's neck and face, the only parts of him that were visible.
"Would you say I have earned it?" He hissed in Parseltongue.
Harry's eyes were rolling back in his head, fighting unconsciousness, nothing responding, only ripping agony travelling through his nerves.
"Rennervate," Voldemort said, jerking him awake with magic, "You will do as you are told, or I will kill her."
"Fuck- you- monster."
He burned Harry's face in response, making him scream, throat hoarse, and repeated his command, "Raise. Your. Arm."
"Choke. In. Hell," he spat blood as he spoke.
There was a crack in the distance, and Voldemort stilled, then shot to his feet at the second boom.
"Raise your arm! NOW!" He was squeezing Ginny then, the dome growing smaller still, holding her tight to the ground with no more room to struggle. Harry felt the rest of the fight flood out of him as Tom did as they were bid, raising his shaking left hand.
"Stop- I will… Do it. Stop."
The Killing Curse was on his lips as the door blasted inward.
Nagini exploded into the room in a flurry of blue silk. She barrelled between Harry and the Dark Lord, her hands up, sobbing, hissing nonsense. Cassiopeia entered behind her, wand up, as she slowly took in the scene.
"Clearly, I've caught you in the middle of something drastic. I bet you didn't think I'd use the Weaslette as a little barometer. She goes missing; you're murdering Harry. Simple addition. 'Where would you take him?' I asked myself. I'm not perfect; I checked the graveyard down there first. Then I thought, 'Oh, shit, like he'd take the craziest necromancer I've ever seen to-'"
"CASSIOPEIA!" He boomed, fury radiating, before Nagini was yelling at him:
"How dare you! How dare you! I just got you back! You were lost for so long! We both were- I'm not going back. You aren't! You can't do this. I don't care if it's hard!" Nagini shouted, her eyes becoming reptilian.
"How dare I? HOW DARE I?!"
Harry's ears rang from the volume of his voice, shaking the remaining glass in the windows. He'd put his attention on Cassiopeia and Nagini, so Harry took the opportunity to shift infinitesimally away; his brain nearly melted entirely out of his ears, agony and angry pleasure mixed with the terror ripping his heart open, every rapid beat painful. The effort of moving his limbs was monumental, his right arm useless, his body so heavy.
"HOW DARE YOU?! And YOU? You knew about this? You let- and CONSPIRED with it? Do you know? Do you? How fucking sick-" He moved his ire from Nagini to Cassiopeia.
"Hey, hey, okay. I know this seems like a betrayal, but it's better this way. You don't need to say anything out loud. We can sort this out, okay?" She approached him with her hands raised. "…That Azkaban show was pretty spectacular, I've been meaning to say, don't you think…" She waggled her eyebrows while his back straightened, narrowing his eyes.
"Besides, I don't think you've really taken a minute to notice that you might enjoy his company. He's a lot like yo-"
He laughed, a loud, angry bark, before he whipped to look at Harry, still crawling hopelessly away, leaving a wide trail of blood and getting slower.
"I AM KILLING HIM. You act as though you care for him! Both of you! I cannot- this is- you do not understand," he switched from rage to pleading and then back again, "He dies here! It dies here! Tonight! ENOUGH!"
"We care about you, and we know what will happen when you do that. We've met that Dark Lord. Is that what you want? Still? Tom…" Cassiopeia took another step toward him, seemingly entirely unphased by his screamed commands, ignoring how his face was contorted with blind fury.
"You do not understand," he repeated, almost stepping back.
"Make me understand? Because as far as I can see, we need only contend with one fussy moron, right? Technically speaking, a noisy asshat baby. We can find another way. The benefits have been… I mean, you've circumvented the effects of the Horcruxes and retained immortality with it. And that magic…"
"STOP! Enough. They are… Cassiopeia- I cannot- he dies. GET Nagini out." The light shuttered from the Dark Lord's hands like a strobe, beams snaked with sharp red, biting perfectly circular singes in the rug.
"No! You get out of here!" The Maledictus stepped sharply between Harry and the Dark Lord again—though he hadn't crawled far— her chin in the air, baring her teeth, her skin transforming to scales, her chest heaving with fury.
"HE DIES. This is OVER. Step aside!" He stepped forward as though to fling her out of the way,
Harry's eyes locked on the Dark Lord's from the floor and Tom spoke:
"Vous voulez… Me blâmer? Alors faites-le. Vous veux me tuer? Déchire-moi en putain de morceaux. Je veux que tu le fasses," he snarled it, head lolling, curse sparking again from his left hand, though much weaker than they needed it to be.
"Oh! Oh, probably don't, Jesus fucking Christ," Cassiopeia said, looking between them with bugged eyes.
"…Please don't do this, Tom, please, please—" Nagini reached for him, bent at the middle, fighting her transformation.
Instead of attacking Harry again, as they'd expected, the Dark Lord screamed until he lost his breath and nearly stumbled. He was hyperventilating as he put his palms to his bloody temples.
"Oh, fuck," Cassiopeia said. Nagini leapt on him as he lit his own head up with beams of light.
She brought him under with her magic, screeching—a shrill, heart-stopping sound as he collapsed, his head smoking. As soon as he hit the ground, Ginny was released.
"Fuck! Fuck! Jesus! I'm Apparating him I'll be back for you," Cassiopeia spoke rapidly as Nagini scrambled off his back, weeping, contorting on the floor as the vampire took hold of the Dark Lord's neck and vanished.
Nagini was fully serpent, still writhing by the time Ginny had crawled to him; her arms remained bound behind her back.
"Harry! Harry, oh, Merlin, Harry…" Her blurry grey face was above him, "I can't, my arms-" He could see her struggling, though it wasn't really that bad. He was just cold. He took the chance to sleep.
When he woke, he saw he'd been moved. He was alone with Ginny in the little hut with the green wards. He was lying on top of the desk, crying, while she tried to heal him.
"Harry, it's okay, don't move, she said she'd bring the healer… But it's been-" She stopped herself, "I've nearly got the bleeding- from your head, I think- but I don't know how…" she paused again, sobbing, though Harry thought he felt pretty fine.
'Heyyy did you see how we didn't just die then, Tom? Huh?' He thought, unsure if he was laughing out loud or just in his head.
Tom ignored him and plunged into the Dark Lord's mind.
"-Plain it? What the shit is going on? Why would your Horcrux tell you to tear him to fucking pieces? Because I've left him with internal and external bleeding. I need to get the healer a go-go, please; I don't understand why you're still throwing a tantrum? You're a Horcrux? Who gives a fuck? Grow up, actually; you'd throw all this away because you're pressed by the bitch in your head? Knock off-"
"They are… Involved… With each other," he interrupted Cassiopeia's rant, rage still thrumming through him, though the fury was significantly diminished by the lack of the light, his brief, painful unconsciousness, and the way Cassiopeia had been crying, seared into his recently healed head and somehow making her betrayal smaller. She blinked at him for several seconds.
'DISGUSTING DISGUSTING JUST LIKE YOU FILTHY FUCKING MONSTERS LIKE YOUUU-'
"…What? Involved? Who is? What are you talking about?"
He frowned and waited for her to understand, resisting the urge to uppercut himself. Her mouth slowly opened, then she gasped a laugh—then another—and was lost in a cackling fit.
"…This is far from funny. I cannot…"
"You were going to kill him because- hold on-" She continued to wheeze, her eyes squeezed shut, streaming tears.
"Sorry I'm not sorry that's genuinely-" She suddenly stopped laughing, then said, "Ohh, that makes sense, actually, yeah. There were signs, you know. Every time he looked at you, his heart was doing a randy dance-"
"Cassiopeia."
"Oh, come on, who cares? You don't need to join them."
"…It is repulsive," he said, confused by her lack of appropriate reaction. His brain was rolling in his head as though still boiling.
"…Says the gay?"
"What the fuck is wrong with you?" He finally snapped.
"…Like I said, I've left him with internal bleeding and a very frightened necromancer, by the way, dickface. I hope you were smart, or Cedrum is out of your ass, buddy. Nagini is also waiting to bite your eyes, so go on. Get. Idiot. I'm so mad at you I could spit. Put your shit together. Overfucking react much? Don't you ever try to kill yourself or that bitch Horcrux in your head in front of me again."
'YOU'RE A BITCH FUCK YOU TOO!'
She stood, kicked over her chair, and Disapparated from the Ravadinovo sitting room.
"Harry! Harry! Oh, Merlin, stop scaring me—like that." Ginny wept openly and didn't seem to know where to put her hands.
"I'm- good, Gin." He tried to touch her face but was way off, raising his arm to meet nothing.
He heard the pop of Apparition that he knew was Cassiopeia's. The door opened, and a short, brown-haired woman entered the house, confusing Harry.
"…Who?" He'd meant to say more words, but it was satisfactory.
"Lydia Duke. Step aside, sweetheart. Let me see him," she said firmly, moving Ginny out of the way. She then immediately began casting diagnostic spells above him.
"…Broken ribs, major concussion, fractured skull —bounced like a boiled egg, apparently, a reasonably frightening tear in a kidney, dislocated shoulder, broken arm, serious third-degree burns, broken nose, split cornea, fractured nasolacrimal canal and orbital bone, missing too much blood and… Conscious? Not screaming?"
"…HellOo Lydia," he missed her face too, "I'm so good. Help. Me." He saw Cassiopeia behind her then, "He told you, that's such a… Bad time."
"Aw. That's cute. You're dying and concerned about that. Don't stress it, okay? I was going to figure you out anyway, literally any minute," she grimaced at him though her tone was light.
He was laughing then, unable to stop though it was agony, his muscles squeezing his broken ribs, the pressure in his head immense, his burnt skin ripping, making his cackling sound insane.
"From my bag, Calming Draughts, pain relief, whatever you can find. There might only be vodka, actually, damn it. We'll just work quickly. And Blood Replenishers, please," Lydia began casting again, this time working to fix his injuries, silver light streaming from her wand, connecting first with where he assumed his kidney was. He still fought the hysterical giggling, "Pretty sick to leave him here for forty minutes…" The healer muttered.
"I mean, pretty sick to beat the shit out of him, to begin with, but we've worked through some of our differences today!" Cassiopeia was leaning over the desk, close to Harry's face, looking far more intense than her tone indicated.
"…Bludgeoned and bloody and bowed and not dead yet, Tom," Harry said in Parseltongue, "…The inside of your head… Is pretty, can I see it again?"
Lydia put potions in his mouth, and he swallowed them.
"…Stop speaking Parseltongue. How do you think we got into this disaster," Tom said, also in Parseltongue.
"You're stupid," Harry said in English.
"He read Narcissa's mind today, obviously, and she heard you, so you are the one that is stupid," Tom said.
"Shhh," Harry told him, eyes wide, giggling again, "You're assuming."
"…Okay? How many times can someone be Obliviated before they forget their mum? I'm asking for a friend. Don't answer; I already know. For now," Lydia said, moving from his liver to his ribs and making him drink more potions, "I wonder how many I'm up to."
Cassiopeia guffawed and then corrected herself, shaking her head and looking strangely stunned, "This'll be the second Obliviate," she told the healer, still fighting a seemingly shocked grin.
"Not too many yet. Will you let me know when we approach fifty?" Lydia asked, focused on her spellwork and mostly muttering.
"…Sure," the vampire said.
His arms and legs grew warmer, and he became more aware of the pain in his body. All throughout it, skin, bone, and organs burned, ruptured, and broken, making him gasp like a fish out of water, eyes wild, fighting against her until she stilled him with magic.
"…There we go," Lydia moved to his head then, rolling him onto his side to get a look at the back of it, "…Oh, shit...! Sorry, that's not good etiquette. Ehem. You're doing fine, sweetie; stay with me. How is he not- can you- never mind."
He felt her working on his skull while he fluctuated between mania and agony, eyes darting and rolling until she moved him back, "Well, I've stopped him from actively dying, but he needs far more than what I can give him from my travel supplies. He shouldn't have been Apparated so many times with such an extensive head injury. I just used my salve on the Dark Lord; these burns need more than my wand, and he's taken all my Replenishers. I'll need to head back to the school," as she spoke, she released him from the mild stun.
'Tom, I'm so fucking horny right now are you,' Harry thought, then he cackled out loud.
'…Harry.'
'…Yeah, you are.'
"Goodnight," he told the room, the spots in his vision growing large once more.