REVIVED, Derivakat
I'm alive, I'm revived, I survived
You surprised? Gonna cry about it?
You should see the other guy
I've returned and I've waited my turn
A decade of time to make everything mine
Am I the bad guy?
I'll be the bad guy again
Just like last time
And we all know how that ends
No one came to help
So I'll help myself instead
You think I cared?
It was always a means to an end
I've got my second chance
I've got a new lease on life
It's not just circumstance
No, it was all in good time
So who cares? So what?
I'm not calming down
Screw that, keep up
Now look around
There's nothing wrong with me
I'm better now that I'm free
'Cause I've seen the other side
And now I'm back where I wanna be
As the headmaster of Hogwarts slumped dead on the table, Harry again decided he didn't want to fight Crux.
"You know your hair is all burnt, right?" Crux's hand was white-knuckled on his chair, struggling to stay standing. Wand returned to pointing at Harry.
"Yeah." He didn't say that the whole lot of him was burnt, "I don't want to fight you."
"Okay… Well, unfortunately, I've got this whole destruction thing planned. And if you're not joining me, you're against me."
"I don't want to be against you," Harry sighed, exasperated, unable to articulate.
"So… You're not going to stop me?" Confused, covered in blood and barbeque sauce.
"I can't just- I can't let you destroy everything."
"…I'm confused." Crux was incredibly expressive; bizarre to watch the Dark Lord's face morph with his emotions, utterly free in it. Like a child.
"I don't want to fight you."
His Horcrux nodded but didn't look as though he understood, "So… You don't want to fight, you wont let me destroy everything, and you won't join me."
Harry shook his head and shrugged. That sounded about right.
"Alright, I guess I get it—" he tossed a Squib snake in Harry's lap—thrown from his inner pocket, "—You're a problem."
Plenty enough to ruin his despondent apathy, watching a metal snake chew through his pants with razor jaws, adrenaline like a lightning bolt to the heart as he frantically swatted the chain-link nightmare off his legs.
Only for another one to be thrown at him.
"They're heat-seeking I'd get out if I were you Narcissa," Crux said while Harry scrambled with the second snake, standing, wand drawn. A split-second decision made to send Bed Sheet out with Narcissa.
Only to realise that his Horcrux had vanished under the cloak while he'd stomped the Squib snakes to pieces.
He could still feel Crux, assume his position.
Harry couldn't predict the spells, though, flinging from under the cloak, as randomly timed as they were—water, fire, stunners, light and dark, a kamikaze of magic. Laughing as he cast.
No choice but to duck under the table, put at a disadvantage by no clear target and a barrage of magic.
There were more Squib snakes all over the ground, six that he could see.
"Just come out and get it over with! I can't kill you? Don't be scared." Soon after, the table was blasted to chunks above his head, and bodies hit the bloodied floor, "You made me spill the drugs, Princess."
No cover left, shielding himself, he still refused to fire back. "Crux I don't want- how did you get so many snakes?" those, he did curse, darts of darkness that splintered them to rings and shards of metal.
"It's not about what you want! If I hear about what you want one more time, I'll scream. Raise your wand at me and play this how you're meant to."
"…Well you're invisible, so."
"That makes it fair!"
"And you've littered the floor with Squib snakes."
"So does that, I cant- my legs are shit, and I've never done magic before," his voice, the pull, and the continued barrage of random spells told Harry exactly where Crux stood.
"You seem to be doing fine," Harry said, time enough for sarcasm, scanning the floor for metal monstrosities and wishing himself somewhere else.
"…You're just going to ruin everything, fight me, fight back like you're supposed to."
Tom was twitching, uncast spells under his skin, and of the firm opinion that there was no other option than to do as Crux said.
Harry hesitated.
His Horcrux threw the Invisibility cloak off in frustration, glaring at him from the other side of the dining room, chest heaving. "What the fuck?" He threw a Bombarda, and Harry sidestepped it, probably too big for his half-hearted shield.
"…Crux-"
"I SAID FIGHT BACK! FIGHT—BACK-" Killing curses and the Cruciatus followed, red and green light scorching walls and thick black curtains.
'Tom I'm not fighting him,' Harry thought, more of a demand as he tossed himself out of the way.
'What should we do then? Harry, we do not have a choice.'
'I don't know-'
'There are Squib snakes everywhere.'
'I know,' Harry also knew that if he failed, said the wrong words, stepped foot in the wrong position, that the consequence might be Armageddon.
He still couldn't bring himself to do anything about it, scrambling for a solution and drawing a blank—no desire to do as Tom suggested.
Tom was unwilling to disobey Harry, so he ducked and rolled until his Horcrux screamed incomprehensibly. Skin raw and ripping with movement.
'…Harry,' Tom thought.
Light was splitting through the Dark Lord's skin, Crux on the verge of a spectacular tantrum, and Harry knew this was his mess to clean up, but cleaning it up meant doing something he thought was inexcusable.
Something Crux had attempted around thirteen times, if his count of the Squib snakes was accurate.
"…I don't want to have to do this-"
"WELL—YOU—DO! YOU DO! POINT YOUR FUCKING WAND."
'I… Can't. I can't do it.' As soon as Harry relented, Tom took over, curse blooming from his left hand, Snakewood wand in the other, stunners flying.
For all his demanding, Crux didn't see the shift coming, no shields in response, and sloppy in his escape. Tom used the gap to close half the distance and turn three snakes to ripped metal with the darkness.
"Hey- that's not fair-"
More stunners, more blackness, coating the floor and barrelling for Harry's Horcrux—who burnt holes in the wall he braced against, the curtains, the floor, little fires spreading then extinguished by the curse. He snarled like a feral cat when it swallowed his legs, firing random spells in no real direction as he slid down the wall.
"I hate you I'll kill everyone you care about you better- better make sure…" Crux whined, and the light sputtered out, swatting uselessly at Harry as Tom approached, hand in pocket.
"…Get away from me traitor- don't touch me- I said don't… Touch me- this is bullshit-"
"I didn't want to do this. I'm sorry," agony pungent, bled from his veins and overwhelmed his Horcrux—sprawled on the floor with one hand raised in a defeat that Harry was sure would be retracted if he let go.
"—Do what? Don't touch me I said… don't… What is that. Where did you get- get that? …Harry don't please don't please I just- got magic don't touch me don't touch me DON'T TOUCH—"
Sick to his stomach to watch him fail to scramble out, sicker to feel the cold metal of Sanctus in his palm. Disgusted to see him realise. Worse than all of it was witnessing his hand drop a Squib snake on Crux's chest—arms held down by darkness.
And the screaming—wild, rage-filled, lamenting—when Harry did let go, brought what was left of his dinner out onto the scarred hardwood.
Crux howled like a mindless animal for at least another ten minutes. It had felt like hours, sat there and bearing it like a punishment—though Crux didn't seem to notice Harry in those hour-long minutes, clawing at his chest, snake lost under his ribs somewhere. Invisible. Healed as though nothing had happened.
Then his Horcrux laughed for far longer, like a switch had flipped, insane, top-volume cackling.
After that, he was abruptly silent, staring at Harry so intently—without blinking—that he had to duck his head. Still staring when he glanced back up.
"We should probably… Go?" Harry said, bizarre to say.
No plan other than get rid of the bodies, get Bed Sheet and leave. What he'd do with his Horcrux after that, he had no idea.
Crux didn't answer, shoulders near his ears, nostrils flared, jaw clenched.
'I don't know what to do with him. I… Hate that we did that. I hate this.'
'I… Do not know either. He would have blown the manor to pieces. And I don't know who is here, does Cassiopeia have a safe daytime Apparition point? Narcissa? Draco? And where would it end? If we had found another way he would have remained a threat until I'd done it. But… I am sorry that it had to be this way,' Tom's thoughts weren't particularly balming when paired with the accusing hate-fuelled glare of his Horcrux.
And saying, "I'm sorry," didn't help either.
'…We can't leave him here. We can't leave him with anyone, how…?' With the thought, dozens of concerns spilled out.
Voldemort absent from his post as overlord, less than two weeks from the competition—a political nightmare—with a high-ranking spy in the mix. Harry had very little idea what Voldemort was overseeing, specifically. Private in his workings so that Crux didn't get any clue, and so neither did he.
Reed, Nagini, and Lucius still held by the Order in what was apparently a shambles.
Ginny brainwashed to hate and blame him for everything, and the Dark Lord, gone. All trace of him lost. In there somewhere, invisible, somehow broken.
And Harry understood it, but he didn't. Tom hadn't sunk into a pit of despair when he realised Harry loved him. Well, not very far into the pit. Not like this.
'…Harry. He knew you love him. He—' Tom paused, but his monologue continued, 'He realised he loves you.'
For some reason, Harry hadn't considered that, though it made more sense. The strangeness of the revelation didn't come at once. Like a slow bubbling tide that crept up the walls of his chest like tar.
His Horcrux was standing and he hadn't noticed the motion, startled to find him looming.
"What the fuck are you crying about? Huh?" Crux kicked him in the leg, "Tears in your eyes? Get the fuck up." His voice rasped from screaming.
Harry did stand, a bruise already forming on his thigh, but he didn't know what to do.
Leave the manor. His only idea. He scooped up the Invisibility cloak and supposed it was his, again. Familiar and weird in his hands. Unreality in waves. Crux breathing like a bull that might charge.
Tom needed to force no less than six Calming Draughts down Crux's throat with magic once they'd managed to get him to Gwrych. An exhausting task, kicking and screaming until he was stunned and levitated.
Narcissa had been told to meet them at the castle and to bring the Unspeakable after he found Bed Sheet roaming the halls of the manor. The bodies of Snape and Pettigrew left to her to deal with…
While they waited—Crux slumped and mumbled on the desk in the Dark Lord's office—Tom stripped Harry's robes, shirt, and pants, leaving him stood in his underwear—Bed Sheet already agitated near the ceiling—and began work on healing the split, angry burns on his chest, arms, and legs.
"…Fucking… Hate you… So much. So much." Slurred into the desk.
Both of them covered in blood and barbeque sauce.
He hadn't touched Crux—not his bare skin—didn't know what would happen if he did. Subduing and moving him with magic instead, something else that bothered him. Forcing him to do anything made him feel ill regardless of his Horcrux's intentions.
Touching him felt worse. A grave violation somehow.
While Harry wasn't truly shocked by Crux's agenda, he was… Disappointed. Worried felt like too light a term. Shell-shocked despite the predictability of it all, keenly aware it was his disaster.
Tom's mind already whirring for solutions. For a plan. Clear to him as well that there was no one they could leave him with. Aside from the fact that he was the Dark Lord, he was dangerous even without magic. Only Cassiopeia knew the full extent and she was sleeping the day away—at Malfoy Manor—as she always did. Not an ideal babysitter for his enraged Horcrux.
No one was.
His breathing shaky as he redressed—not quite healed but certainly done with it. Crux glared over the top of his arm, almost comical in intensity.
"You look awful."
Harry sighed, sat down across from him, and wondered how on Earth he would get them clean. Magic would do some of the work but he knew from experience that he would still smell iron, that there would be a faint residue. Putting Crux in a bath seemed as unlikely as anything involving his Horcrux.
And so, they were a sight to behold when Narcissa knocked and entered. The Unspeakable, Vale, followed behind her with a levitated trunk. Narcissa left them after Tom told her to wait outside. Testing the Dark Mark on Voldemort's arm with their magic was a top priority; she would be their guinea pig for the experiment.
She pulled back her blue hood, the first time Harry had seen her face. Light brown eyes, blonde hair, and a round face. Almost cherubic. She approached Crux, nodding as she went. Heavy chest slammed on the desk and startled Crux sloppily upright, flopping and glaring in his seat.
"Whataya want."
"Fused," Vale said, not a question. "Squibbed?"
"…Yes," Tom said.
"Good."
"Good. Good. Fuck you, good." Crux's eyes rolled in his head, and heat rushed up Harry's spine the closer the Unspeakable got to him.
"What are you doing? What are you going to do?"
"Run a few tests," she muttered, wand drawn, chest open; nothing inside was familiar to Tom or Harry.
"You aren't going to… Hurt him, are you?"
Crux snorted, then devolved into giggles at Harry's words. "Don't hurt me, scary lady I'm sensitive." He was staring at his hands.
She ignored them both. Mumbling while she cast over the Dark Lord's inhabited head, and scanned him with bizarre implements as Crux watched, eyes narrowed.
"Well… It was a very clean fusion. A better job than yours, I'd say. Cores combined and intact."
"Hear that, Princess, I'm clean. And better than you."
Tom ignored him, "The potions you make using the Dark Lord's blood, I am assuming they can be produced with Harry's?"
"I don't want your fucking blood who would want-"
"Yes, of course," Vale was already standing before Harry, several vials and a bowl summoned from the depth of the chest.
"I swear to fuck Leg Boy if you force one of those stupid potions… God… I'm dizzy… I'll- You don't wanna mess with me," undercutting himself by slumping in his chair. "…Fuck you."
"I'm not going to force them on you," Mumbled because he'd already forced many undesirable things on Crux. The reality was that he couldn't see a way forward without continuing to do so.
"Well, don't bother because I don't want them."
Harry let Vale slit his wrist with her wand and watched the blood pour into the bowl anyway. Crux glaring daggers over the top of the chest. Virtually no effort required to disregard the pain completely.
"Are you holding the Dark Lord down, or…" Vale asked, conversational, not looking at Harry's Horcrux.
"None—of—your—business. Bitch."
Something that Tom and Harry both wanted answers to. Invading his head felt like entirely too much after the morning they'd had, but he filed the idea away for later.
"What do you think?" Tom asked the Unspeakable, and she sighed, chewing her cheeks.
"Vastly understudied bit of magic, Horcruxes, to begin with. The only recorded living Horcrux was a cat in the sixteen-hundreds. The Records were short, and the situation… Devolved in an unsatisfactory manner."
"Oh, did everyone die? Including the cat?" Crux braced himself on the desk like he was on a roller coaster.
"Including the cat, yes."
"Aw. Poor cat?" Crux looked at Harry as if he should have done something about the cat before he corrected his sneer.
"Uh." Vale transferred the blood to vials, and Tom healed the wound, "So, there is little to go on. Uncharted territory, if you exclude the cat."
"…Shouldn't exclude the cat… It died for someone else's sins. Lady, I forgot to tell you something," Crux whispered.
She stepped toward him, and Harry might have told her not to. He knew Crux well enough to know he had nothing to tell her. True to form, still braced on the desk, Harry's Horcrux reefed himself to standing and headbutted Vale in the face on the way upright.
"Forgot to say—fuck you."
"You did say fuck you," Harry muttered, while Tom shot the Unspeakable a look that said 'Lesson learned?' while her nose bled on the carpet.
"Yeah not… To her," he shook his head and nearly took himself to the floor with the force of it, collapsing back into his seat instead.
"No, you did, you did say it to her."
"Uh, no, no I didn't."
Harry was sure he did, but it didn't really matter.
The Unspeakable healed her face and shot them both a glare, "I will let you know if I uncover information worthwhile. Do let me know if there is anything else I can be of assistance with, my Lords."
Crux laughed her out of the room, squawking like a seagull with a megaphone, head replaced on the desk in the absence of the chest. Once she was gone he abruptly stopped and said, "You're gonna wish you could kill me."