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Part Two

The black letter that appeared on his pillow yesterday wasn't much of a surprise, but Harry still shudders as he composes his mind for a "visit" with Voldemort.

A few weeks have passed, and at least he's settled into the term. Snape still snaps at him in Defense and insults his intelligence, but he hasn't committed any more full-out attacks. Ron and Hermione treat him gently. Dumbledore has given Harry a few Pensieve memories from Voldemort's past, like how his mother and father apparently met, and how the Gaunts lived.

Harry shuddered, watching that. Merope Gaunt was the worst, he supposes, if she used a love potion, but none of his relatives on that side of the family is much of a prize.

"Does that include me, my heir? I'm hurt."

Harry jumps and opens his eyes. He was just relaxing in bed with his mind open, not guarded by any of his apathy-Occlumency, but now he seems to be standing in a wide room with a huge fireplace and high shelves of books, like a more formal and nicer version of Voldemort's study in Malfoy Manor. He can feel the rug beneath his feet and the fire beating against his face.

"It is pleasant, is it not?"

"Yes, Father," Harry says, turning around. He ducks his head as Voldemort rises from a chair that had its back turned to Harry. "I hope you are well."

"Better if you dropped the formality."

Harry pauses, because that is the most informal thing Voldemort has ever said to him. He hesitantly raises his eyes to his father's face.

Voldemort is looking at him with a slight smile. It's an expression he wore sometimes during the summer, and he never tortured Harry after or while he wore it, which is—something. He has his hands clasped behind his back, and his eyes are bright.

Calm. Not angry.

Huh.

"All right," Harry says slowly. "Do you want me to—talk more like I would if you were one of my friends?" He can't imagine it. Voldemort taught him so many things during the summer that were focused on making Harry a proper little Dark Lord, it seems odd he would turn his back on them now.

"Speak to me like a son does to his father."

"I—don't know how to do that."

Voldemort studies Harry with crinkles forming in the skin around his eyes. Harry just stares back. He can't imagine that Voldemort would want wrinkles. He intends to live forever, not aging.

Then again, that means he shouldn't want an heir, either, but he seems intent on treating Harry like one.

"Perhaps it will come in time," Voldemort says, and waves a hand as though to dismiss anything related to the topic. "Come, sit down and tell me what your first month of term was like."

Harry walks over and sits down on the large white couch that Voldemort points him towards as if in a dream. This couch definitely isn't in Voldemort's study, and neither is anything like it. Voldemort sits down across from Harry and gazes at him attentively, leaning forwards as if he's about to reach out and pat Harry's shoulder or something.

"Er."

"You only need to tell me the most important and interesting things. Do not think that you need to hold your tongue for my sake, Harry."

If you knew, Harry thinks, and gives a nervous laugh in spite of himself. Voldemort just seems more keenly interested. Harry keeps an eye on his wand hand as he talks about the problem with Snape in Defense, how his bonds with Basilisk and Theo and Draco are growing, and how he got his friends to stop questioning him about his summer.

Then he pauses and swallows, as he wonders what he should say about Dumbledore's lessons in Voldemort's past. Talk about something that will destroy his "father's" good mood.

"Harry?"

Harry jumps at the switch into Parseltongue, which probably means things are about to get more dangerous. He casts a glance at Voldemort, though, and finds him focused on Harry, his nose slits slightly flared.

"Yes?"

"You are concealing something from me." At least Voldemort has switched back to English, so it might mean that he's calming down from whatever dangerous height of rage he was about to climb. "You are to tell it to me."

Harry takes a breath and braces himself. At least he's pretty sure Dumbledore suspected this might happen. It's different than if Dumbledore didn't know Harry was Voldemort's son.

I sure hope Dumbledore has a plan for this.

"Dumbledore's started showing me memories that relate to your past. He's said they'll tell me a way to defeat you."

Voldemort is silent for a long moment, staring at Harry so intently that Harry's certain he heard, but not reacting, in a way that makes Harry wonder if he didn't. Then the fireplace mantel explodes.

Harry cowers and drops, arms over his head. He might try to cast a spell to defend himself, but he doesn't know if he even can in the dream, or what Voldemort's reaction would be to him drawing a wand.

"He what?"

Yeah, now he's gone back to being furious. Great.

Harry forces himself slowly up to his feet. Voldemort hasn't made anything else explode, but he's staring at Harry with his eyes such a bright and glowing red that Harry freezes after he stands up.

"That's what he said," Harry mutters, and clears his throat. "So far, it's been—memories of your—parents."

He braces himself again, but it seems Voldemort has moved into such a deep rage that making things explode isn't a priority anymore. He continues to stare, and so Harry clears his throat again and stumbles through an explanation of how he saw memories of Merope and Tom Riddle Sr.

He doesn't call him Senior, though. He doesn't think Voldemort would appreciate that.

Voldemort leans back in his chair and stares at the mantel. It replaces itself, chunks sticking together and glowing above the fire. Then Voldemort turns back and looks at Harry, and maybe it's more frightening that he's managed to control the anger.

"You will continue attending the lessons," he says. "And you will tell me what passes in them."

"Yes, Father."

Voldemort cocks his head, and Harry holds his breath. But then Voldemort breathes out himself and waves an irritated hand. "Sit down, Harry."

Harry does, hoping that this is the end of it, or that it's passed off and left Voldemort undisturbed. That hope dies as Voldemort leans closer to him, swaying slightly back and forth like a great snake. Harry doesn't even know if he realizes he's doing it.

"Why do you think he is doing this? And does he know where you spent the summer?"

Harry draws a slow breath and then speaks. "I think he's hoping to show me how horrible you are, and how—horrible it would be for me to give in and be your son. Or listen to you, or be on your side. But the purpose he's saying the lessons serve is that he's getting me ready to defeat you."

He swallows and waits. But Voldemort only gestures with a flicker of his fingers, so Harry continues.

"And I think he does know where I was. He asked me the first week, after I lashed out at Snape, what the summer had been like. But I don't know why he—I don't know if it's because he doesn't want me to expose the secret or something."

"What did you say your summer had been like, my son?"

Harry meets his eyes. "Terrible."

Voldemort leans back in his chair and chuckles. Harry frowns. It's not the reaction he expected, and that makes him wonder if Voldemort is so angry he's just going to lash out without warning.

But Voldemort meets his eyes and smiles at him in a way that's all the creepier for how tender it is. "I know that you despise me, my son. I know that the hand I am offering, you would still slap away."

Harry's mouth dries with terror. Not for him, though, but for Theo and Draco and Basilisk and his friends.

"I didn't mean—"

"I know what you meant. And I am telling you that I have the time to win you over. I am telling you that I understand where you are coming from, and your pride and your delicate balancing act make me proud, in turn. I could not ask for a better son—at the moment."

Harry stares at him. Voldemort watches him, and seems content to wait for questions. Finally, Harry blurts one out. "So you want me to be a better son in the future?"

"When you find your way to being the kind of son I will most admire, then I will be all the prouder and more joyful for the amount of time it took to win you over. It will make you perfect. It will make you worth it."

Harry never expected to hear Voldemort talk about joy. He stares.

Voldemort stands and crosses the distance between them. He rests his hands on Harry's shoulders and stares into his eyes. Harry stares back, not even thinking of trying to raise Occlumency shields this time.

Not that he probably could raise Occlumency shields in a Legilimency dream, or whatever this is.

Voldemort squeezed his shoulders gently. "You need not fear me so much. Even if you rebel against me, I will listen to your reasons as I would not to the reasons of others. You are unique, do you understand that? And precious so."

Harry feels a little clearer, then. Steadier. He's precious to Voldemort because he's unique. He wouldn't be if he wasn't. It's not the same as Voldemort having changed to become more human.

Then Voldemort turns his new hypothesis on its ear.

"And I would feel this way about you if you were only my son and not also my Horcrux. It is fascinating to see how my soul-piece has influenced you and not influenced you. It is fascinating to watch you negotiate your path."

"But are you so sure that I'll join your side fully in the end?"

The instant he blurts that, Harry wants to slap himself, hard. Of course that's what he should say to a madman who's only recently stopped behaving like a madman. Of course.

But Voldemort again reacts unexpectedly, smiling at him and stepping back to incline his head as if to a dueling opponent.

"You will," he says. "Because the other side will never offer you a place, in the end, not when your friends know."

Harry closes his eyes in a slow blink, trying to absorb and estimate the truth of that.

What would happen if Ron and Hermione found out? Especially with the way that they asked questions about his summer but backed off when he really asked them to? Especially with the way that they might feel differently, since Dumbledore told him to keep it secret as well?

Especially when nothing would ever be the same?

Harry doesn't know. He doesn't have any idea.

Voldemort laughs softly and vanishes. The dream room vanishes at the same time, and Harry finds himself sitting up in his bed, panting, with Basilisk stirring around his neck and flooding their bond with soft flicker-flames of red and orange.

"He wishes only to protect you."

Harry doesn't believe that for a moment. Maybe Voldemort does, but he wants to do it by isolating Harry from everyone else except the friends and familiar he's chosen for Harry.

He rolls over on the side with a shudder and wraps himself around Basilisk for the rest of the night.

"Tea, Mr. Potter?"

For some reason, Professor McGonagall asked Harry to come to her office, but now that they're there, she's just asking him about tea and the like rather than getting to the point. Harry takes a deep breath and tries to force away memories of last year, when she told him to keep his head down around Umbridge. At the moment, there's nothing she knows that could make her act like that.

"Sure, Professor. Thanks."

Professor McGonagall makes the tea and offers it. Harry sips it and then cradles it in his hands a lot like he did when Professor Dumbledore first offered it to him weeks ago.

"I called you here," Professor McGonagall says, looking at him over her glasses, "because both Miss Granger and Mr. Weasley have reported to me that you are about to crack from the stress of your NEWT classes, as well as—everything that happened to you over the summer."

Her voice goes soft. Harry nods stiffly. He doesn't know if Professor McGonagall actually fights with the Order, but she knows enough to realize something of what Sirius was to him.

No one actually knows. No one else feels about him the way I do.

A soft hiss from his bag says, "I do."

Harry has to ignore Basilisk for the moment, and luckily, Professor McGonagall doesn't appear to have heard her. She's leaning forwards, eyes soft and warm and worried. "Mr. Potter, is there anything I can do to help?"

"I—I don't think so, Professor. I'm just trying to take it one day at a time and get through everything."

"It does not appear from my side of the desk that you are doing so."

Harry stifles the temptation to bow his head into his hands and scream. Yet another person whose concern and questions he has to handle. Sometimes he wishes they would all go away.

"I'm not saying I'm fine, Professor," he says, and tries to make his voice as soft and embarrassed as he can. "Just that I'm not on the brink of collapse the way Ron and Hermione probably think I am."

"Hm."

Harry doesn't know what to do with the way she's staring at him, so he ducks his head and sips his tea.

Professor McGonagall seems to be waiting for him to speak, but in the end, she sighs and says, "I would feel better if you would speak to someone, Mr. Potter. Do you think that your—no, wait, who has taken your aunt's place as your guardian?"

"I don't know." Now Harry's throat is dry in a way no tea will cure. "I never got any official notice from the Ministry about that."

"It must be done," says his Head of House with a decisive nod, and writes a few notes on a piece of parchment. "I'll speak with Professor Dumbledore about it as soon as possible."

"Thank you, professor," Harry says, because he can't share his internal screaming with her.

As soon as he gets out of her office, he starts to walk quickly up to the Room of Requirement. He can be alone there, he thinks, and he can relax his mind and call Voldemort. This might be exactly the kind of thing to enrage him, given that he tortured Hagrid just for Hagrid's small part in taking his "son and heir" from him.

"Harry! Wait!"

Harry turns around with his hand on his wand, then blinks. It's Draco, whose voice he didn't recognize because Harry doubts that Draco's ever called him by his first name before. He comes to a halt next to Harry and nods to him. "Is there something I can help you with, my lord?" he asks, as he lowers his voice. "The bond was stinging."

"I—don't know," Harry says, because on the one hand Draco can send a letter to Voldemort unobserved in the way that Harry can't, and opening his mind isn't guaranteed to work when Voldemort isn't waiting for him. But on the other, the owl might take too long to get there.

Then something comes to mind that Draco can help with. Draco brightens even before Harry smiles. He probably feels it in their bond, which for Harry is like a branch tossed by high wind.

"Can you go and speak to Professor McGonagall about—anything, Transfiguration, the NEWT, anything? I need to make sure she won't send a letter or go talk to the Headmaster about a particular subject before I can inform someone else."

Draco pales a little, probably because he knows exactly who "someone else" is, but he nods eagerly. "Yes, my lord. Gladly."

Draco takes off down the corridor in the direction of McGonagall's office, and Harry carries on to the Room of Requirement. This time, he can hardly think in words about what he needs, but the door still appears, and Harry goes in and collapses on a couch in front of the fire.

He takes a deep breath, slowly, and does his best to open his mind the way he did the other night when Voldemort was waiting. Nothing happens immediately, so he licks his lips and calls out, Father?

A void seems to open in front of him, as if he really has fallen asleep and taken a step away from Hogwarts into another of the dream rooms Voldemort has conjured. Harry steps forwards a second time.

And finds himself opening his eyes as Voldemort, the way the connection operated last year before Harry knew anything. He freezes.

For a moment, he can feel a tidal wave of fury sweeping towards him, but it stops as soon as it touches the outer limits of—what Harry has to think as himself. Then it comes to wrap protectively around him instead. Son?

Yes, Father. I'm sorry to disturb you, but—

Anything for my heir and Horcrux.

Harry swallows back illness, and instead, just shows Voldemort the memory of himself in McGonagall's office. Voldemort peels through it quickly, but more carefully than Snape did when he was "teaching" Harry Occlumency.

Severus shall pay for that.

I don't want him to die, Harry says, too weary and frightened to be anything but honest. I don't want him to be tortured. I just want him to live and never do it again.

Voldemort circles around the memory again, and then says, It shall be so. And Minerva shall soon receive some extremely confusing proof that a distant cousin exists who is too sickly to have you live with her for long periods of time, but is intent on gaining custody of you.

Will Dumbledore believe it, though? He knows—Harry stops. It's hard for him to say it even in his private thoughts.

The proof will be convincing, Voldemort repeats, patient as an iron snake. And unless he means to betray the secret, he will have no true objections to raise. Minerva herself will ensure that you are escorted to your "cousin's" house when the holidays arrive.

A glamoured Malfoy Manor?

No, as a matter of fact, I have another house.

Harry wonders if it's the Riddle house that he saw in his dreams during fourth year, but it's not something he really wants to ask. He exhales. All right. Thank you.

No, my son. Thank you for bringing it to my attention.

And Voldemort surrounds him with warmth. It's not love, Harry thinks, or affection really. It's more like fondness, with possessiveness and protectiveness and pride mingled together so strongly that Harry gasps. If it were physical, he would be surrounded with golden syrup, or maybe one of those squashy chairs that hardly let you stand up.

He—he is—

He is yanking himself backwards, leaving the impression of a bow in his mind so Voldemort doesn't get upset, and he is tucking himself into a ball, shaking.

Basilisk climbs out of his bag and wraps around him. Her bond feels more than ever like a river of comforting flame trying to burn his distress.

Harry just sits, and shakes, and tells himself that he knew he would face temptation.

He just never thought he would face temptation so tempting.