Either must die at the hand of the other - Metalomagnetic - Harry Potter (2025)

Chapter 1

Chapter Text

They’ll never be rid of him, Harry thinks, hopelessly, as he walks beside Kingsley into the bowels of the Ministry.

Three days. They had three days of respite and most people spent them burying the dead or sleeping.

Three days in which they have been too busy grieving and trying to heal, to even have the time to be glad the Dark Lord is gone.

But he isn’t. He never will be, it seems. Harry should have chosen to move on, back when Dumbledore offered it, in the Forbidden Forest.

“We made sure he can’t use magic. Or -not effectively.” Kingsley is old. Older than he’d been three days ago. “Places like Azkaban or the holding cells here usually impede wizards or witches from using magic, but-”

“But he’s different,” Harry says, disheartened. He’s still in shock, had been since Kingsley had retrieved him from the Weasley’s, to privately tell him Voldemort is alive.

No one is clear on why; they had taken his body after the battle, so Healers and Ministry officials could confirm Voldemort’s death, beyond doubt. And then he, apparently, woke up.

“He’s good with wandless magic. Far more control than most of us. Even so, the charms dampen him sufficiently. We took him to our most secure room, in the Department of Mysteries. To tell you the truth, it’s a new room, equipped with new-contraptions that the last ministry had been working on. Ordered by Voldemort himself, it is said. It pains me to say, but they work better than any we have made before.”

Trapped by his own inventions, Harry can at least take one small comfort in that.

“And you tried to kill him?” Harry asks, even though he remembers Kingsley already confirming it. But Harry’s ears had still been ringing, reeling from the news.

“Numerous times. Multiple Aurors. The Killing Curse, Decapitation Spell, even really dark stuff that I am not proud of using, but we had to try. Nothing works.”

And that is why they came to Harry. The Chosen One.

Harry is prophesied to be the only one able to kill Voldemort, so they are bringing him to do it.

Only Harry already did it.

Not really. A voice tells him. You never cast a single offensive curse against him. Just Expeliarmus.

Voldemort had been the one to cast the killing curse, that, once again, rebounded.

The long corridor finally ends. There are eight Aurors standing guard beside a door. Wards shimmer in the air, so powerful that Harry’s skin prickles when he passes through them.

Kingsley says something, but Harry is far too nauseous to hear him. He clutches his wand, tightly.

The door opens. More wards. Another four Aurors, crammed in a short passageway. And then another door is opened and Harry walks through it, side by side with Kingsely.

A room with no windows, no furniture. A harsh, bright, unnatural light almost blinds Harry.

Two Aurors and an Unspeakable stand inside, and in the centre, in a cage, is Voldemort.

He looks like Tom Riddle, had Tom Riddle been allowed to age naturally.

Kingsley assumes Harry’s shock to be confusion or ignorance.

“His body started changing, before he woke up. We assume that is how he used to look, before all the magical transformations he made. We’re searching our records to confirm it. A name, to go with it.”

They don’t even know his name. For the first time, Harry wonders why Dumbledore never spoke it, to anyone, why he hadn’t informed at least Order members about Voldemort’s true identity.

The cage is metal, barbed with rusty looking wires; it surrounds him and immobilises his body, so tight he cannot even move an inch.

Voldemort’s wrist twitches at the sight of Harry, but he can’t do anything else.

He might look like Tom Riddle, his complexion is pale, yet natural, his nose is there, straight and long, his jaws powerful, his cheekbones high and his hair dark brown, as are his eyes-

But in those eyes, there’s nothing human, and in all that rage, Harry sees Voldemort very, very clearly.

His heart hurts. His hands are so sweaty, his wand almost slips from his grasp. Harry is getting dizzy.

It’s not just that Voldemort persists in remaining alive, though this is certainly huge. But it feels so wrong, for Harry to walk besides an adult, be backed by trained Aurors, all there for him, under the harsh glare of the light, and for Voldemort to be caged, defenceless.

This is not how their encounters go.

Harry is so mesmerises by those eyes, so pinned by the rage in them, that for a minute, he cannot look away. When he does, he realises Voldemort’s naked.

This body is as ridiculously tall as the serpentine one, but the similarities end there. His arms, held by the iron cage away from his trunk, are slim but muscular. His chest wider than his waist. Very long legs. And between them, his penis, heavy and-

Harry abruptly looks away, cheeks flaming. Wrong, so very wrong.

“Is this necessary?” he spits out to Kingsley, though he keeps his eyes trained on Voldemort’s shoulders.

“He needs to be restrained.”

“Naked,” Harry clarifies. “Why is he naked?”

Silence. No one answers. It’s so oppressive, the lack of noise, it’s all so surreal. The worst nightmare he’s been into.

Please wake up. Please wake up. But life is never kind to Harry, so he doesn’t.

“Go ahead, Harry,” Kingsley puts a hand on Harry’s shoulder, his voice suddenly much gentler. Harry flinches, frightened. He’s heating up, he’s so over sensitive, so very aware of everything. “Try.”

This is why he’s here. To kill Voldemort. This is why he’s been born, it seems, because it’s what he’s been trying to do, for a very long time, what he’s been prepared and raised to do.

Be done with it. So you can return to the Burrow, with your family. So you can hold Ginny close as she mourns Fred. So he can be there for Ron, when neither can sleep. So he can help rebuild Hogwarts. Go with Hermione to Australia, to look for her parents. So he can finally start living, so they can recover from all the grief the monster before him has caused.

Harry aims his wand. His hand is shaking. He hates him so much, so much-he knows the words.

Yet-yet to kill-to take away a life… To attack someone that is naked and chained, defenceless.

Voldemort glares at him and he doesn’t look defenceless at all, his face set in stone, radiating power only through sheer force of will.

“Avada-” Harry tries but stops, mouth dry. He shakes harder. He lowers his wand. “I’m sorry-” He turns to Kingsley. “I-”

“That’s alright, Harry,” The man frowns at him. “You never-not once, in the war?”

“Of course not!” Harry answers, surprised. Then he remembers this man was an Auror. A soldier. A grown one, that’s been through two wars.

“I didn’t think. Let’s get you out of here, I’ll show you how to-”

“Pathetic.”

That voice, low and much deeper than what Harry recalls. Only he remembers this one too, from the diary.

“Shut him up!” Kingsley says harshly, and the Unspeakable does something with his wand, the cage glows orange, hot, and it’s in contact with every bit of skin on Voldemort.

Harry can smell it, flesh burning, and the room sways around him. He fixes his eyes on Voldemort’s face, who’s jaw clenches, muscles straining in his neck, but doesn’t let out a single noise.

“Stop,” Harry says. “This-stop.”

He can’t think.

The iron returns to its natural colour again.

Kingsley can’t teach him anything. He knows the words, he knows he needs intent. He just needs to do it.

Harry raises his wand again, thinks of Fred and Colin, of Remus and Dora. His parents. Most of all, he thinks of Sirius, the only one to have been there for Harry, to make him feel safe, looked after, if only for a short while.

Their eyes meet.

“Avada Kedrava!” he says, determined.

Nothing happens.

Voldemort laughs.

(-)

“You can try again later,” Kingsley reassures Harry once they’re away from Voldemort. “Your first try-it’s no wonder.”

But he sounds disappointed.

Because nothing came out of Harry’s wand, no famed green light. Nothing. He’d failed to kill not only his enemy, but the monster that caused so much harm. Others failed too, but not for lack of wanting on their part.

Harry doesn’t understand how it can’t work. He hates Voldemort. With all his heart, but-

(-)

“You’re not a killer,” Ron says, squeezing Harry’s shoulder.

Harry’s been terrified to confess, specifically to Ron, who’s just lost a brother to a man Harry couldn’t kill.

“Kingsley shouldn’t have asked you,” Hermione is quick to agree. She looks so tired, big dark circles under her eyes.

They’re all tired. They’re skinny and scratched and bruised and Voldemort has not one mark on him, no dark circles. Nothing. And Harry couldn’t kill him.

“It’s because they-he is caged and -”

“I wouldn’t be able to do it either, Harry,” Hermione says, softly. “Perhaps, in the heat of battle, against an armed opponent, perhaps. But like that? We’re not executioners. We’re only eighteen for the love of God, we’ve been fighting our whole life, what more do they want of us?”

Her eyes tear up, full of frustration. Hers are brown too. And as intelligent as Voldemort’s.

Yet Hermione’s are warm and familiar and loving.

She deserves a life. Ron deserves one too.

Harry will try again, for them.

(-)

The next time Harry goes in, Voldemort is wearing a robe. Other than that, nothing changed.

“Can’t I be alone with him?” Harry asks. If it’s just the two of them...maybe Harry can do it. As it is, under the watchful gazes of the Aurors, it feels like a circus.

It feels sacrilegious.

“No.”

“He’s contained,” Harry tries again.

Silence.

“They don’t trust you,” Voldemort says.

“Shut him-”

“No!” Harry says, a little too loudly, holding a hand up before the Unspeakable can do that thing again. “Please, don’t.”

“This is why the don’t trust you,” Voldemort points out.

Harry is very aware. He knows how it must look. Only, Harry is naive perhaps in thinking they were the good guys. That the good guys won the war. And good guys aren’t supposed to casually torture anyone.

Not even Voldemort.

“Don’t let him get to you,” Kingsley says, firmly, when Harry fails to cast the curse again and he’s escorted to the Minister’s office.

He feels miserable. Weak. Pathetic.

“We have to change the two guards that stay with him every six hours. He has an effect on everyone. He’s contained, yes, but we can’t seem to manage to shut him up in any way and his tongue is as dangerous as his magic.”

(-)

Harry can’t sleep. The dead haunt him. The guilt. Voldemort in the graveyard, raising from a cauldron. Voldemort, in Godric’s Hollow, staring down at Harry from a window, as they barley make their escape. Voldemort in the Great Hall, furious.

Voldemort in the cage.

Kingsley obliviates the few that had found out, except a small number of Aurors that serve as guards and a few Unspeakables.

The enchantments hold and Voldemort doesn’t escape. Harry imagines they try to kill him, now and again, with different methods.

“Go on with your life,” Kingsley had said and Harry tries.

He’s failing. He’s not the only one.

Life after Voldemort isn’t all it was cracked up to be, even for those that do not know Voldemort is still around.

George starts drinking. Mrs. Weasley is a wreck. Percy can’t look at George.

Hogwarts is littered with graves.

Hermione’s parents do not want to talk to her, fear in their eyes as soon as their memories are restored.

Andromeda hates, torn apart. She doesn’t cry at Dora’s funeral, pained beyond tears, but she sobs at Bellatrix’s, rumour is.No one is sure how that rumour started, since from what Harry knows, only Narcissa and Andromeda had been present for the event.

Most Death Eaters are in Azkaban, rotting away.

The Malfoys don’t leave their house, even after Harry testifies for them, gets their name cleared.

Aurors hunt the ones that got away.

It looks like it’s not that easy to just go on, with so many people missing.

One man. It seems so impossible that just one man had this effect on thousand of people.

(-)

Hermione gets special permission to sit her N.E.W.T.s in December as soon as Hogwarts is operational again.

She had thrown herself in her studies and she gets eleven Outstanding. She’s the one to take advantage of the fame “the golden trio”, as the press dubbed them, had amassed.

Harry hides in Grimmauld place, only leaving it to go to the Burrow. The dream he’d had of becoming an Auror had soured; he doesn’t have the stomach for it and besides, his dark wizard is still alive, even after Harry gave his best.

Ron is helping George with the store.

They aren’t as strong as Hermione.

“We didn’t go through all of this for nothing. I will make sure we will change things, for the better.”

So she accepts an offer for a job in the Ministry that wouldn’t have been offered to anyone else so young. But she’s Hermione Granger, Harry Potter’s best friend, the one without whom he’d be dead, as he’d been sure to mention it, loudly and often.

(-)

The world starts to recover, slowly, by the anniversary of the first year of the Battle of Hogwarts.

Harry is just getting worse. He sleeps fitfully during the day and wanders around Grimmauld at night.

Ron and Hermione live with him. They’re all trauma bonded, and they only just recently managed not to sleep in the same room.

Ginny breaks up with him, softly, tenderly. She too is made from stronger stuff. She’s lost enough, she wants to live, and she can’t do that, surrounded by Harry, in a house of mourning and misery.

Harry makes an effort to go see Teddy as often as he can. He looks a lot like Sirius, more and more as he grows up.

“He looks like Bellatrix,” Andromeda counters Harry, when the observation slips from his mouth.

Andromeda sees her sister everywhere. Especially in the mirror.

She has another sister, and it seems the Malfoys start leaving their sanctuary, because Teddy mumbles excitedly about “Cissa” on occasion.

Harry won’t fault Andromeda for gravitating to the last family members she has.

(-)

He stills dreams of Voldemort, trapped in that cage. The graveyard Voldemort fades away, slowly, same for the other nightmares.

He’s the best man at Ron and Hermione’s wedding. Best men for both bride and groom, because Hermione refuses to get a bridesmaid, insists he’s her best friend too.

Harry’s heart soars, seeing them happy and together. They deserve it; they deserve everything in the world.

A little part of Harry feels more lonely than ever, when he insists he’s fine and they should move out of his house.

They want to stay, not because they like the decrepit old dark place, that stays dark no matter how much effort Kreacher puts into it, but because they don’t want to leave Harry alone.

Harry will not hold them back, so he kicks them out.

The world is healing-it’s not easy, it’s not fast, but it crawls towards “normal”.

Harry despairs.

(-)

“We’ve been trying to make him talk,” Kingsley tells Harry in his office, at the Ministry. “It’s not going well, suffice to say. He will not say anything.”

“About?”

“There are so many people we don’t know what happened to. That just disappeared. We’d like to know and bring closure to their families. And, Lestrange remains at large.”

Harry nods. There’s been three attacks in the two years since the Battle. Very poorly organised, but enough to install that terror back into the population. The Aurors find some Death Eaters and they confirm it’s Lestrange that’s behind them. He remains elusive.

“We offered some commodities, some comforts to him, in exchange for information,” Kingsley goes on.

But only after torture didn’t work. Harry knows.

“He is not speaking. But recently, he asked for you.”

Harry’s heart gallops in his chest, a phantom pain strikes his forehead. He almost touches his scar, but stops just in time.

“Ok,” he says, after a long break. “Ok.”

If it helps them catch Lestrange, or give some comfort to some families-Harry will do it.

He will not admit there’s another part inside him, that hides behind these excuses, that wants to see Voldemort.

(-)

There are deep dark circles under his eyes this time. There are scars on his body, that’s getting thinner and paler.

But the rage is his eyes is intact.

They’re left alone, Aurors retreating, because Kingsely said that after two years, he’s comfortable in the measures they have, and trusts they are keeping Voldemort restrained.

Besides, he will not talk with anyone else there.

It’s ...better. It feels more natural, just the two of them. Of course, Voldemort’s still caged, still naked, and Harry hates that it bothers him so much.

He comforts himself he’s not the only one. Hermione is on a campaign against the conditions in Azkaban, she’s hounding the Wizengamot to stop torturing information out of convicted Death Eaters.

Harry has been dragged along to some meetings, and he backs her up, because she’s right, but mostly because he’s thinking of Sirius.

The Ministry agrees, somewhat. Only there’s nothing to do about the Dementors, who cannot be killed or let loose.

The Aurors are unhappy with Hermione and Harry. They had been the ones to lose limbs and colleagues to apprehend the Death Eaters; they had been the most at risk and they do not care or understand some people can be bothered about how the scum of the earth is treated.

“They thought me, as a muggle born, scum of the earth. They thought me an animal, undeserving of basic rights. We must be careful, very careful, to not become them and use their sick rhetorics. They must be punished, they must be kept away from the population, but they are humans, at the end of the day, and we must remember that.”

The public doesn’t agree. It’s human nature to want revenge, especially after so many years of war.

They want the Death Eaters to suffer.

Merlin knows what they’d do or think if they knew the Ministry has Voldemort in its hands.

Voldemort says nothing, glares at Harry, who shifts on his feet, uncomfortable to behold him this way.

“Err,” he starts, when the silence is too much to bear. “Kingsley said you asked for me.”

“You came,” his voice remains as strong as his convictions, even as his body is deteriorating.

“If it will make you divulge some information-” Harry says, defensive.

“Liar.” A short break. “Look at me.”

Harry cannot. “Just a second,” he mutters and almost flees the room.

“Listen, I can’t talk to him that way. Can’t you at least clothe him?” he asks Kingsley.

“He doesn’t deserve clothes.” Another Auror says. Robards. His father had been tortured by Death Eaters and his brother killed by Voldemort himself.

“We will,” Kingsley agrees and Harry waits, on teether hooks, pacing around the corridor, before he’s told he can go back in.

It’s a huge improvement. Voldemort is wearing a robe, and he’s out of the cage, but still chained to the wall, heavy links around his hands and feet.

Like this, Harry can hate him again. “What do you want?” He asks and this time he has no problem meeting those brown eyes.

There’s adrenaline rushing in his body; he hadn’t felt so alive since the Battle of Hogwarts.

“You will tell me one thing about the outside world, Harry Potter. And I will give something back.”

Kingsley had said Voldemort is not allowed to know anything, he’s to be kept in the dark, literally and metaphorically.The only information he has, Kingsley says, is that Lestrange is still at large, because they have tortured him for clues on his whereabouts and then tried to bribe him for it.

Voldemort smirks, as if he’s reading Harry’s mind.

“It doesn’t have to be anything of relevance. A minor detail. About yourself.”

Harry draws a blank. He feels trapped, like a deer in headlights.

“I-” he starts, fishing for something, anything. “I-” he scratches his head. “I live at Grimmauld Place.”

There. Everyone knows that, anyhow. Journalists have been stationed outside the buildings for months after the war ended.

Voldemort watches him, eyes sparkling. He nods, slowly.

“Caradoc Dearborn remains are in Epping Forest, forty feet south of Nott’s vacation cabin.”

Harry has heard Sirius talk about this Caradoc long ago. He’d even seen the man in a picture, when Moody had shown him the old Order.

“Who killed him?” Harry asks, because he imagines Dearborn’s family and friends would like to know.

Voldemort raises an eyebrow.

“Ahh,” Harry stumbles, trying to come up with something to give in exchange. Nothing of relevance. About yourself. Harry doesn’t do anything. The little he does, is in Hermione’s and Ron’s company, and he doesn’t want to say those names to this man. Same goes for Teddy. “I-I’m studying Ancient Runes?” Harry offers.

It is a stretch.

He’d only started because he’s trying to do something, about Grimmauld Place, make it cleaner, livelier, and Hermione had told him a house so old, under so many enchantments will not respond to regular magic.

“Karkaroff,” Voldemort says, without missing a beat. “On your own or at Hogwarts?”

“Ah, on my own.”

“It wasn’t a fast kill, from what I’ve been told. Oh, no. He took his time. I could go into more detail, but it shall upset your weak stomach.” He smirks, vicious.

“What’s wrong with you?” Harry snaps. “What happened to you that you’re this-” Harry cannot even find a word. “Like this.”

“Nothing happened to me, Harry Potter. I was born, and this is who I am.”

A/N : For those of you that are reading Ouroboros, have no worries, that story is still my priority.

Chapter 2

Chapter Text

They find Dearborn’s bones, a day later.

There’s a funeral. His family is presented with an Order of Merlin, Third class, in his name.

“Ask him about Lestrange,” Kingsley says, enthusiastic, pacing inside Grimmauld’s kitchen. “And Dolohov, he’s missing too, though so far he seems to be lying low, hasn’t caused trouble.”

Only it doesn’t work like that.

Harry finds Voldemort dressed already, when he next goes to the Ministry, chained but no cage. Kingsley must have finally recognised Harry prefers it this way.

There’s also a chair that hadn’t been there before, but it’s clearly not meant for Voldemort; his chains wouldn’t allow him to reach it. It’s meant for Harry, but he ignores it, standing beside it.

“Tell me about Lestrange,” he says.

Voldemort tilts his head. “You tell me something first, Harry Potter. And I shall decide how important your offering is, what to trade for it. Rodolphus will cost quite a lot, I’m afraid.”

Harry tells him he’s establishing a foundation for liberating House Elves and protecting other creatures’s rights.

It wasn’t his idea, Hermione roped him and Ron into it, but he doesn’t say that.

Voldemort makes a sound that’s both derisive and amused, and tells Harry the location of a hideout he had used during the first war.

(-)

It’s empty, just some bags of galleons and a few old maps. They find the plans for a battle that had taken part twelve years before and the remains of a muggle.

Harry goes back every Wednesday.

He tells Voldemort several things, as unimportant as he can, only he receives unimportant information in return. Bits and scarps.

Harry will have to share something big; he tells this to Kingsely.

Yet Kingsely is adamant Voldemort is not to find out about anything major going on in their world.

“I’ve seen men tortured before; I’ve seen men kept captive. And they break, eventually. Now, we never- we never took it quite as far as we did with him; I’ve seen the effects Dementors have on prisoners, how they tame them.

He has been here for three years and nothing. He’s as proud as ever, as unrelenting. Unrepentant. We made the mistake, some two years ago, to bring Dementors-”

“You didn’t!” Harry groans. “Don’t you know Dementors worked for him, at some point?”

“We were desperate. We thought they wouldn’t obey a thwarted dark lord, that cannot give them anything. But the Dementors took one look at him, and they turned on us. We barley got them in hand. Luckily, it was just two of them. He’s not- he doesn’t look defeated, does he? He stands in that cage like it’s a fucking throne, looks down at everyone.

I don’t want him to get information about the outside world. I don’t- it’s safer, he doesn’t know. The scraps you gave him can’t hurt any, but Harry-”

“Than I will keep it personal,” Harry says. “But I can’t tell him anything too private, with you lot listening in. I just can’t.”

“These are trusted men, Harry. Battle hardened Aurors, loyal to boot. I trust them to keep quiet, and they did, about this whole mess, I’m sure they wouldn’t -”

“No,” Harry insists. He knows what he’ll tell Voldemort, and no one can ever hear that.

There’s a hard bargain, but Harry wins.

They’ll have their privacy, next time, the charms for listening in the room and seeing it from afar will be taken out.

(-)

“I destroyed the Elder Wand.”

Voldemort is shocked to hear this-he shows it only by taking in a sharp breath of air. He’s standing by his cage, some feet away from Harry, who still ignores the chair.

“Why?”

Harry tells him about the Deathly Hallows. It is no danger, now that the wand is gone. He also lies that he threw the Resurrection Stone into the ocean.

He gets a lot of satisfaction when Voldemort finds out he had two hallows during his life, without knowing; that he turned one into Horcrux.

“How did you find out about them?” Voldemort’s left eyes gives a twitch. It’s enough to convey his irritation.

So Harry tells him of Dumbledore’s gift, the wild goose chase, the subtle hints, the golden snitch.He talks, more and more animated, as the minutes pass; it comes pouring out of him, the frustration he still feels for the Headmaster, the game of hide and seek he’d played with Harry, instead of just telling him, from the get go.

He tells Voldemort that he’d had a choice to make, to go for the Hallows or the Horcruxes, as he had seen in his head that Voldemort was on the wand’s trail.

When he’s done, he looks at his watch to discover he’s been talking for close to forty minutes.

Harry’s paced around the chair, he’s used his hands to push his hair back from his eyes. Voldemort had not moved an inch. Doesn’t he want to? Harry wonders. He must, after spending three years in a very limited position, locked securely in his cage.

“Do you know a competent Curse Breaker?” Voldemort asks, no inflection in his tone, the first words spoken since Harry started talking.

“Why?”

Voldemort ignores him. “If they’ll allow a curse breaker to come see me, I’ll have something for them.”

(-)

Bill doesn’t know the captive man he sees is Lord Voldemort. Just a Death Eater, who’s identity had been kept secret during the war.

“I must say, that was-that was amazing spell work. Whoever cast that curse- I had never seen a curse so complicated and so long standing.” Bill says at dinner, excitedly, after working non-stop, for close to a week, in a team of four, following the instruction Voldemort had given him.

But at the end, Hogwarts is free of the curse.

“We couldn’t even detect it, at first. Took us close to a day, to find it. Amazing. Absolutely amazing! Who is this man?”

Ron goes pale beside him. Hermione is really interested to find out more about the proceedings and engages Bill for details for the rest of the dinner.

The next Defence against The Dark Arts teacher is there to stay.

(-)

“I’m so happy you’re here, Harry!” Ginny says, smiling.

They are at the Three Broomsticks; Harry hadn’t stepped foot in the village, nor in Hogwarts, since the war. It hurts too much, it makes him feel guilty, all over again, for going to the school, that fateful night, bringing Voldemort after him.

He rarely gets out of the house, except to visit Teddy, or the Burrow, or Ron and Hermione’s place.

It doesn’t help that still, when he goes in public, the press hounds him. So Harry takes Teddy to Muggle parks and muggle ice creams shops.

“Yeah, mate! It’s good to see you!” Neville agrees, the new Herbology Professor, the occasion for the celebration.

They’ve all been shocked when Harry walked through the doors. The invitations to events had never stopped coming, but he almost never answered them.

Yet lately he feels a bit more ready to face the world. He feels a bit less useless, since wringing information out from Voldemort.

The whole D.A is there; or the least, those that had survived.

They all look older than they are. Luna has lost some of her airy disposition, Dennis drinks a little too much, freshly graduated from Hogwarts. Neville has a hard look about him. Parvati looks lonely, without Lavender at her side. There’s an empty chair besides her and no one takes it.

And yet, they do their best to smile at Neville’s stories about unruly first years, to laugh when Ron shows them some of the newest inventions he and George had made, to roll their eyes and fight sleep when Hermione goes on one of her tangents, that no one can understand.

When they depart, Harry promises to see them all more often.

(-)

With his last outing in mind, Harry tells Voldemort that he knows he once wanted to be a teacher, because Dumbledore showed him the memory. He tells Voldemort that he too had seen the appeal, because he’d started a group at school in his fifth year.

Well, he hadn’t started anything, and he’s still sorry for yelling at Hermione when she did, but he had grown to enjoy it.

“For what reason?”

So Harry tells Voldemort about Dolores Umbridge, about her decrees and her quill.

He rubs the back of his hand, unconsciously, until Voldemort’s eyes trace the movement.

The scars are still there, if faded.

“She had your locket,” Harry says at the end, and Voldemort’s face is awash in disgust and revulsion. “That is why I broke into the Ministry, when you had control of it. To steal it from Umbridge.”

“How did it end up with her?”There’s a glint in his eyes, a dangerous one.

“That’s a story for another time.”

Voldemort’s jaw clenches. Harry thinks he’s about to say something unflattering, but no.

“Where is she now?”

Harry shouldn’t tell him; he’s fairly certain Kingsley wouldn’t approve, what with his strict rules. And yet, Harry cannot summon any concern over the woman, in the event Voldemort were to escape and find her.

He hates her somehow more than Voldemort. And he’s not the only one. Even after having Death Eaters invade the school, twice, those who had been under her short reign, still shudder at her memory.

“Free,” he says, bitter. “In her house, knitting cat sweaters for a living. Hermione is trying to have her prosecuted, but the toad claims that she thought she was working under a legitimate government and we can’t prove otherwise, yet. Same goes for Thicknesse.”

Hermione is determined she’d eventually find enough proof to deal with Umbridge. The ex Minister hasn’t been convicted, but they still summon him for questioning, from time to time.

“Thicknesse was under the Imperius. I cursed him myself,” Voldemort barks. “Go to Acker, from the Department of Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. He is a Death Eater. I doubt they caught him with it. He will be able to tell you more, about Umbridge.”

(-)

Acker is still working for the Ministry. The arrest is a scandal, provoking a ripple through the community.

At the trial, he testifies under Veritaserum and he has so many things to say about Umbridge. They both get a life sentence.

Thickness is offered a public apology.

(-)

Harry lives for his Wednesday visits. It sneaks up on him, how much he looks forward to them.

He gets more energy during the week, more courage to get out and confront the press. He’s sitting in a small room with Voldemort, after all; he can deal with them.

“You look livelier,” Hermione comments. “More at peace.”

“Do I?”

He supposes he does. He’s found his goal again. He always had Voldemort to keep him motivated, through his school years and the Horcrux hunt, and now he has him again.

(-)

Harry tells Voldemort about the Diary. How he came in contact with it, all their interactions.

When he gets to the part where Ron and him got to the Chamber, he mentions Lockhart was with them.

“I do not know of that man.”

So Harry has to explain Lockhart. But that leads to Lockhart vanishing the bones in his arms, so Harry has to explain Dobby; the cake exploding over Durselys important guests, the closed barrier, the cursed bludger.

Voldemort laughs for the first time in these meetings. Well, he had laughed before, that evil, mocking laugh.

This time, it seems genuine and full of mirth.

“Your friends and teachers almost got you killed more than your enemies,” he comments.

He laughs again, when Harry gets to the part of Lockhart Obliviating himself.

Harry tells him about Tom Riddle, down in the Chamber. Quotes the boy exactly.

Voldemort rolls his eyes. “I always had a dramatic flair.”

And then Harry speaks about the basilisk, the horror that it was to be chased by the king of snakes.

As he speaks, Harry can’t quite grasp he’d been through all that and survived.

“Stupid bird.” Voldemort wrinkles his nose when Harry mentions Fawkes arriving to his aid. “Stupid hat.”

It’s Harry’s turn to give a startled laugh.

“Did you like him?” Voldemort asks, tilting his head in the way Harry is learning he does, when he’s very curious. “Before you found out who he was. Did you trust him?”

Harry looks away. “Yeah.” He lost so much sleep over it for years. One of the things he’d had in common with Ginny; they both felt so guilty to be so easily deceived. “Yeah, I did.”

A long silence settles and Harry becomes aware that he’s talking to Voldemort, that he’s actually here for a reason, to gain information.

It’s hard to believe it, sometimes, because the Voldemort he’s accustomed to had always talked about himself, or tried his best to kill someone.

This Voldemort listens, is attentive, motionless.

A lot like the Diary.

“What became of Lucius?”

Harry shakes his head. “Can’t,” he shrugs. It’s one thing to ask about Lestrange, whom they need to find, and quite another to let Voldemort know one of his followers is free and cleared of all charges.

Voldemort’s jaw ticks as he stares into Harry’s eyes. “He got away, didn’t he?” He sneers. “You can’t all be stupid enough to fall for the Imperius excuse again.”

Harry stubbornly keeps his mouth shut.

A long silence falls, in which Harry allows his eyes to wander over a scar on Voldemort’s cheek, going up into his forehead, bisecting an eyebrow. It’s thin and white. Must be old by now.

“He’s not in Britain,” Voldemort says, eventually.

“What?” Harry frowns.

“Rodolphus. They’ll never find him here.”

Right. Right. Lestrange. His true goal. The whole point in these meetings. “Where?”

Voldemort just smirks.

“A hint, at least!” Harry demands. “Isn’t a story about your very soul important enough to exchange something?”

“I did say something. They are wasting their time searching around here.”

(-)

Teddy swings his legs, perched on a park bench, as he throws away crumbs of bread to the circling birds.

He observes people passing by, and Harry has to be careful to always cast Notice Me Not charms, because the boy shifts his features often, imitating anyone that strikes his fancy.

He turns to Harry, a pensive look on his face, and his eyes turn bright green.

“Are you my dad?” He asks and Harry’s heart drops.

“No, Teddy,” he says, gently. “I’m your godfather, you know that. Remus was your dad-”

“I know. But he’s not here, is he? You are.”

It hurts.

He feels like shit when he returns to his gloomy house.

He doesn’t go to see Voldemort, the following Wednesday.

Harry’s been almost enjoying himself, playing detective with Voldemort, when so many people are still suffering, will suffer for decades.

(-)

“If you want me to return, you’ll give up Dolohov,” Harry says as soon as he enters.

“You missed our last meeting. Why?” Voldemort’s eyes are full of rage, and only now it dawns on Harry that the last few times they weren’t.

“Dolohov. I want Dolohov.” Harry is determined. He’s doing this for Teddy, so at least Harry can tell him the man who killed his father is where he belongs. In Azkaban.

“I was under the impression he was apprehended already.” Voldemort frowns, a minuscule crest between his dark eyebrows.

“He isn’t, obviously.”

“The cup,” Voldemort says.

Harry breathes deeply and sits on the only chair in the room, for the first time. Only because he’s so tired, he hadn’t slept in days and he hadn’t thought the action through.

He soon realises it when he suddenly must look up at Voldemort. He jumps off it, as if burned.

Voldemort doesn’t react to any of it.

“I found out about the cup from Hokey’s memory, that Dumbledore retrieved,”Harry says, stepping away from the chair.

“Hokey?”

“Hepzibah’s elf. That you pinned the murder on.” Voldemort’s face is priceless. “We saw when that poor woman showed you the cup and the locket. We guessed you turned them into Horcruxes. But we did not know where the cup was. I found out at Malfoy Manor, when I was captured. Bellatrix seemed terrified, when she saw we had the sword of Gryffindor. She stopped Lucius from summoning you until she found out what else we took from her vault. It made me think she’s hiding something important there; I was desperate, without any other leads, so we went to Gringotts, as you know.” Harry says, fast and heavy, because he’s not in the mood. “So, about Dolohov-”

“How did you destroy it?”

“At Hogwarts, with a Basilisk fang.”

Ron and Hermione had done it. But while Harry realised, after he talked about the Diary, that Ron’s named slipped into the story, so did Hermione’s, that’s quite different from telling the man they destroyed his soul.

“I’ll speak with Robards about Dolohov.”

(-)

“The lead was legitimate. The house was recently inhabited, and we found a wand that belonged to Yaxley, at some point. However, we have Yaxley in Azkaban and he confirmed Dolohav had taken his wand, when he lost his own, at Hogwarts.”

Kingsley runs a hand over his face.

“It’s still a start,” Harry offers. “He doesn’t know where Dolohov is, so it will be tricky.”

Kingsley nods, slowly. “What are you trading for this, Harry?”

“Nothing important.”

“It must be important. He’s cooperating.”

“It isn’t. It is, to him, but it can’t help him any. Trust me.”

Kinglsey doesn’t look certain.

(-)

“They’re like a herd of agitated Hippogriffs.” Voldemort shrugs when Harry says Dolohov was not apprehended. “Auror raids are many things, but never subtle. Dolohov is fast and paranoid, and incredibly careful.”

He exchanges another possible location, after Harry tells him about the Diadem.

(-)

“Lost him again. But Robards saw Dolohov this time! He escaped by sheer luck!”

Harry lets out a frustrated swear.

(-)

“My, my. The incompetence is phenomenal.”

“Just give me another location.”

Voldemort raises an eyebrow. “Shall I remind you, Potter, that I don’t know where he is? And there are only so many places he could go. The last two hideouts he used, he almost got caught. He might take a hint and just hide in a cave, somewhere.”

“I know you don’t know. But it seems you’re good at guessing. You know him. Give me another one.”

“You? Not Robards?”

“Not Robards,” Harry says, determined.

Voldemort smirks.

“Don’t get yourself killed, Potter.”He considers Harry for a second. “Do not go alone. Dolohov will demolish you.”

Harry is tempted to say, “I beat you, didn’t I?”. Only it would be a lie; Voldemort defeated himself, in the Great Hall.

“Take that Curse Breaker along. He has a good head about him.”

He gives up the location without asking anything from Harry.

(-)

They get Dolohov.

Harry, Ron, George and Bill. It feels exhilarating, to be in battle again, however short, to flirt with that danger, the adrenaline.

He doesn’t know what to do, in times of peace. Dumbledore prepared him for war and hardship and no one ever showed him how to live in peace.

Just how to survive. Survive until it was time to sacrifice himself.

In the second they’re not paying attention, George kills a bound, wandless Dolohov.

The plan had been to bring the Death Eater to the Aurors.

“What?” George snarls, when they all stare at him, in shock.

As they burry Dolohov, in a dark forest, without talking to each other, Harry thinks the world would be in a much safer place if George were to be the Chosen One.

(-)

“The ring,” Voldemort demands.

“Dumbledore destroyed it,” Harry starts. “He went to the Gaunt shack and got it, alone. He -he tried to use the Resurrection Stone and your curse, whatever it was, took hold.”

Voldemort smiles, a terrifying sight. “So, I did kill Dumbledore.”

Harry supposes that yes, in a way, he had.

“I don’t know what he used to destroy it, I assume the sword. By the time I laid eyes on it, it had ceased to be a Horcrux.”

“Did you use the Resurrection Stone?”

Harry swallows, hard. “Yeah.”

Voldemort’s eyes spark. “Your parents? Or dear old Dumbledore?”

“My parents,” Harry spits out to their murderer.

“You never knew them,” Voldemort says. “How can you possibly be so attached to them, if you never even met them?”

Harry opens his mouth, ready to say something nasty only-

Voldemort truly doesn’t understand. Nothing Harry will say or do, nothing anyone could do-Voldemort will not get it.

“Did you never imagine your parents, growing up?” Harry asks, trying to be calm. “I know you must have, you searched desperately at Hogwarts, to find your ancestry.”

“Every young orphan fantasies about parents,” Voldemort says. “Young. I was over it by the time I was five. I knew I was alone, and I was all that was needed to move forward.”

He says it simply, without feeling. There is no place for pity, for it being something tragic. Voldemort’s tone holds no inflection, truly believes this is normal, and that is the most tragic part.

“Certainly, I wondered again, when I found out I was a wizard. It is natural to be curious. Tell me, Harry Potter, I noticed from your little stories, you are not fond of Slytherins, is it true?”

“I’m not.”

“Why?”

“Are you kidding me?” Harry snorts. “They’re all bullies, entitled, self-serving brats.”

Voldemort nods. “And how do you think these rich bullies reacted to a dirt poor orphan, with a muggle name and a Cockney accent being sorted into their House?”

Harry’s face falls. How, indeed. He thinks of Malfoy’s arrogant face.

“Err,” Harry says, unintelligently. He’d never thought about this. Voldemort had always been surrounded by sycophants. He never imagined a time when he mustn’t have been. “Not very well?”

“Not very well,” Voldemort confirms.

“But you were a bully too, so I’m sure you got along great.” This is Voldemort. Harry will not pity him.

“At the orphanage, one would need to steal, to not go hungry. It was during the depression, food was not that easy to come by. The strong stole from the weak. We were all bullies. I had my magic, to help me steal more. Be more.”

“I know.” Harry says, absentmindedly.

“You know,” Voldemort says, flatly. A bit annoyed.

“Dumbledore,” Harry explains. “Mrs. Cole told him.”

There’s a short silence. “At Hogwarts, they called me a Mudblood. I didn’t think I was one, so yes, Potter, I wanted to learn who my parents were. And I found out. I have no regard for either of them. I do not get offended, in their name. I never knew them. You never knew yours. How can you possibly be so easily prickled by their mere memory?”

Voldemort is missing something, deep inside and Harry sees this, truly sees this now, faced with a question that he cannot answer. Voldemort seeks a logical explanation, and there is none.

“You killed your father,” he says, instead. “So you had some feelings towards the man.”

“I never thought about him, after finding out it was my mother that had been magical. I assumed he was dead or perhaps had run away scared when faced with a pregnant woman. Many did, it was the reason a lot of children ended at Wool’s. I did not care.”

“You went to kill him. That implies care.”

“I didn’t.”

Harry opens his mouth to contradict the lie, but Voldemort cuts over him. “I went to see my uncle, Morfin. You know about the ring, the shack, so I am to assume you know about him as well.”

Harry nods.

“As soon as I entered, he confused me for my father. It was him, who brought Tom Riddle Senior up. He told me he was living just across the street. So I went. And yes, that big house, all that money...it enraged me. He had my face, too, and that-” Voldemort frowns, distracted, for the briefest second. “It bothered me.”

He’s telling the truth. In Morfin’s memory, he was indeed the one to bring Tom Riddle Senior up. Young Voldemort did not seem to know who he was talking about.

“He knew who I was, of course. His parents knew it too. It was hard to deny it, with our resemblance. He called me a freak. He asked me to leave. Told me he will not give me money. I admit, I have a temper. Especially back then. I got angry, and I killed them all. But were someone else to have killed him, before I even knew him, I wouldn’t have cared, not at all. After all, I killed my own mother, to be born. Should I hate myself, is that what you’re suggesting?”

“No, of course not. It’s very different. You didn’t kill your mother-”

“I did. Were it not for birthing me, she would have lived.”

“You didn’t mean to. It was not your fault. On the other hand, you decided to go kill my mother.”

“No. No, I did not. I offered her the chance to step away.”

Harry stops. He can hear it all over again.

Step away.

No, not Harry-please.

“Your father had no wand.” Voldemort shakes his head. “The stupidity. They know the most dangerous dark lord in the world is after them, and James Potter did not keep his wand close. In any case, he didn’t have one. He came at me, empty handed.” Voldemort snorts. “If he had hid or bowed down to me, I wouldn’t have killed him. But he attacked me so he died.”

Harry’s heart is hammering in his chest, wildly.

“And then I went up the stairs. Your mother was in front of your crib. Her, I gave three chances -perhaps you don’t believe me, but I did. First, I told her to-”

“Stop,” Harry says, his voice shaking. “I know. I know already. Stop.”

“How could you know? Dumbledore wasn’t there-”

“I hear it, when a Dementor is close by,” Harry says and he feels his cheeks wet. He wipes at them, furious. “I saw it in your head, when you remembered it.”

Voldemort blinks at him.

Harry leaves.

Chapter 3

Chapter Text

Would his parents understand? Would they judge Harry, for not being able to kill the man that murdered them?

Harry doesn’t know, because he doesn’t know them. He knows of them, but that is different.

“I’m sorry,” Harry begs. “I’m really sorry.”

It’s raining in Godric’s Hollow and Harry can’t help but feel his parents are sending him a message, as he stands beside their graves.

(-)

“It seems he was telling the truth; Lestrange might not be in the country. There was an attack in Ireland. We’re working with the Aurors there. We believe he makes incursions in England, but he’s not living here.”

Harry rubs his temples.

“We really need to get him. So we can put all this mess behind us,” Kingsley insists.

(-)

“You stopped inquiring about Antonin,” Voldemort remarks, after Harry tells him how Dumbledore suspected Nagini was a Horcrux and how Voldemort confirmed it by keeping the snake so close to him.

Harry stiffens. “I lost interest,” he says.

“Hmm,” Voldemort tilts his head. Harry can see a brand new scar on his neck, angry and purple. “Robards still seems greatly interested.”

Shit.

Harry hadn’t thought about it; that they will continue to interrogate him for Dolohov’s whereabouts.

“What shall I give you, today?”

“Lestrange?” Harry asks, voice small, but Voldemort just shakes his head, once. It was worth a shot. “Alright. Why do you look like this?”

Harry shouldn’t ask for this; it’s not helpful to anyone, Kingsley can’s use this information to solve anything or capture any stray Death Eaters.

“My other body, it was temporary,” Voldemort says, after a slight break. “This is how I’m meant to look.”

“But how are you alive?”

“How are you alive?” Voldemort asks, voice very low. “I saw you die, in the Forest.”

Harry's skin prickles with foreboding. “I- if you give me Lestrange, I’ll tell you.”

He doesn’t want to. He really doesn’t. It’s different, talking about the rest of the Horcruxes but -

“You shouldn’t touch your scar, when you talk about Horcruxes,” Voldemort says. “Or when you think about them. It is very telling.”

Harry freezes. “You-you know?” He splutters.

Voldemort looks at Harry, gaze searching. “As you can see, there’s not much to do around here. I had a lot of time to think, these past three years. Yes, Harry Potter. I know.”

Harry looks away, but this time he is aware his hand shoots up to his scar. He aborts the motion, mid way.

He waits, half terrified, to hear Voldemort’s input on it. To ask Harry about it, how it was to be a human recipient for his soul.

He’d never told a single soul, not even his best friends, though it’s quite possible Hermione put it together.

And if Hermione put it together, then so did Voldemort.Harry shouldn’t be surprised.

“As for why am I alive,” Voldemort says and relief washes over Harry, mixed with surprise. “I imagine it has something to do with the prophecy. I wouldn’t know, because I haven’t heard it, but here I am, alive.”

And Harry is so relieved Voldemort just let it drop, he too is eager to change the subject.

“And either must die at the hand of the other, for neither can live while the other survives.” Harry quotes. “That was what you missed.”

Voldemort’s eyes flash.

“I assume you can’t die because it wasn’t me that killed you, but that does not explain the other part. We’re both living, as you can see, so-”

“Interesting wording,” Voldemort says. “Does anyone else know?”

“Ah-well, pretty much everyone knows there was a prophecy, and while no one heard it, the guesses and speculations are surprisingly accurate.”

The press still refers to Harry as The Chosen one or The-Boy-Who-Lived. Never mind that he’s twenty.

“Hmm,” Voldemort seems displeased about it.

“The power that I have, and you know not...” Harry starts, curious. “Dumbledore said it was...love,” he says, cringing, because it sounds so lame.

That makes Voldemort laugh. “Love. That old fool. I wonder if he believed the shite he was spewing.”

Harry is taken aback; Voldemort never swears, he seems too-elegant to lower himself to such.

“What do you think it is, then?”

“It is very obvious.”

“Well, not to me. So?” he asks, impatient. “What’s my power?”

“You were the Master of Death.”

It hits Harry like a bag of rocks. Love, indeed.

“That is why I couldn’t kill you; why the curse rebounded. It wasn’t just the Elder’s Wand allegiance. It was your title, exactly as Dumbledore intended. It is good to know you are without it, now.”

Harry should not have told him he destroyed the Elder Wand.

Kingsley is right. Chained as he is, Voldemort does not look defeated.

(-)

Harry stays away. He had dropped his guard; without realising, he made a mistake.

It doesn’t matter what he knows. He will never get out.

Only Harry doesn’t believe that, not with utmost confidence.

There’s an influx of babies after the war; every year some more. Hermione’s advanced pregnancy, and her stubbornness to keep working, land her in the Daily Prophet often. People look at these children with hope- the generation after Voldemort is coming, they say.

And there Harry is, aware they are not, in fact, post Voldemort. That he is alive. Waiting.

It feels like hubris, to think they can keep him locked away forever.

When Ron asks him to be godfather to their unborn baby, Harry knows why. Of course he does. But a small part of him wonders- Ron and Hermione are among the few who know where Harry has been spending his Wednesday in the past months.

Don’t they blame him, just a little? Aren’t they afraid, especially now that they are about to be parents, that something will go terribly wrong?

(-)

His worries only grow when Kingsley tells Harry there have been some troubles with the guards. Nothing major- one Auror, that Kingsley said is amongst the very rare to protest at what she had called “inhumane treatment”, had been sneaking magazines into the cell, had been standing close to the cage, folded the pages just so, for Voldemort to read them.

All precautions had been taken from the start, to ensure they leave no one vulnerable to Voldemort- two Aurors are always in the cell with him, when Harry is not there. Five more are always at the doors leading into it.

They aren’t allowed to talk to him, unless he is being interrogated.

Despite that, somehow Voldemort hoodwinked one.

It was just a couple of Muggle newspapers and the Witch Weekly,Harry reassures himself as days pass.

The Auror only wanted to be kind.

Harry thinks about it at night. About that chair.

It makes Harry feel as if he’s at the zoo; as if Voldemort is a rare breed of exotic animal, caged and restrained and there for Harry’s amusement.

Harry is well aware of what must happen to him down there. Of what had happened in the beginning, when they were trying to kill him, by whatever method, and later on, when they were trying to get information out of him.

Of what still happens, from what Kingsley says, on the anniversary of the Battle, or on the anniversary of the death of one of the Auror’s friends or family members.

Voldemort is an easy, deserving target on which to unload the ire and frustration one feels in those terrible days.

And it must be bad, if even one of the Aurors had protested to it, made her pity Voldemort, out of all people.

A part of Harry feels bad, too. It’s hard to pity Voldemort. Firstly, because he is not a pitiful creature, even caged and kept in an underground room. Second, because he’s Voldemort.

Yet- yet he is still a human, underneath his title, underneath the massacre he’d unleashed upon the world; no matter how rotten he is inside, he is an intelligent human being, and to treat him like that leaves an unpleasant taste in Harry’s mouth.

He feels the same about Azkaban; since Sirius and the way his eyes had darkened when talk of the prison came up, Harry cannot rejoice at anyone being sent there, no matter their crimes.

But Harry doesn’t see those prisoners every Wednesday. Doesn’t see them getting thinner and paler, doesn’t see fresh scars now and then.

(-)

He stays awake in bed, imagining Voldemort in his cage, under constant guard. He imagines the silence, the boredom.

Three years of nothing.

And one Auror had tried to treat him like a human being, had been kind enough to bring him insignificant papers, gossips and muggle news, just to make it easier.

The first of his guards to show him a small mercy, lost her job and all her memories of him. Harry wonders if that doesn’t reinforce Voldemort’s beliefs that kindness is a weakness. That kindness is never repaid.

One Sunday morning, after having a little too many glasses of ancient Black wine that he finds in the cellars of Grimmauld, the question comes to Harry.

What if she was the first person ever to treat him like a human? Or the first in a very, very long time.

Who else would have? The Death Eaters had worshiped him like a god; his enemies had looked at him like a demon.

Did anyone remember he was just a man under his previous serpentine features?

Does Voldemort himself know it?

Probably not. Harry himself hadn’t seen him as anything remotely human, not as he was being chased and hunted by the man.

But he’s seeing it now; he’s forced to, as they sit and talk.

In the safety of Grimmauld Place, with sunshine breaking through the windows, Harry reassures himself that Voldemort will not free himself. That Harry is just paranoid; he still sees Voldemort as omnipotent, when he clearly isn’t.

Three years had passed since he was captured, tortured, humiliated. Voldemort cannot escape his entrapment.

(-)

He turns into a shut in again, and he’d only just started to try to get out more.

He paces throughout the house, thinking.

About the war, about the prophecy. About Dumbledore.

What would Dumbledore say, where he still alive? What would Dumbledore do?

Harry doesn’t know. The man remains an enigma to him.

Harry’s mentor. Harry’s executioner, along with Voldemort.

Harry loved-loves, still- his old Headmaster. He understands his reasons, had heard the shame and grief in his voice, in King’s Cross-

You were dead. There was no King Cross. You hallucinated the whole thing.

No, no, he hadn’t. Dumbledore must have found a way to communicate with Harry. Dumbledore had liked Harry, had truly cared for him.

Only the Professor had been a leader in a war waged against a dangerous maniac.

Dumbledore had done what was needed.

Harry only wishes he’d have told Harry about the Horcrux in his scar. About the Hallows. That he’d had trusted Harry would not pursuit them.

Harry had gone back to his grave and broken the Elder Wand, in a fit of rage, during the first few months after the Battle.

It was the responsible thing to do, he comforts himself. It was, he thinks, what Dumbledore would have wanted. To ensure it never ends up in the wrong hands.

(-)

“Harry dear, you look quite sickly,” Molly says, when she drops in to leave some of her home-cooked meals for him.

Kreacher mumbles under his breath, insulted.

“You should get out. Come visit us. Ginny sent you a ticket, for one of her games. We’re all going to see it and she’d love to have you there.”

He’s hard pressed to say no- Molly isn’t really asking, anyway, a hardness hiding in her gentle tone.

Molly is determined, after Fred, to never lose any of them again. She watches after Harry, as much as he allows her, loves him like her own son.

She’s as bossy as any mother, so Harry goes along to the match.

But he doesn’t really watch it, even if his eyes follow Ginnny through the air.

His mind is with Voldemort.

What is he doing right now?

Nothing. He never does anything. He’s trapped there.

But what is he thinking?

(-)

Unable to let go, unable to move one, five Wednesdays later, Harry returns.

They weren’t expecting him.

They Aurors seem agitated, but Harry pulls his status and his permission from Kingsely, so they let him in to see Voldemort even if they don’t want to. Luckily,Robards isn’t there, or he wouldn’t have allowed it.

Harry enters, a little tense, knowing Voldemort doesn’t like it when he misses these meetings, and he’d missed a lot.

There’s a lot of blood on the floor.

Voldemort is unconscious in his cage.

Harry rushes over, all instinct, pulls out his wand. He tries cutting hexes, with no success. One of them cuts Voldemort on the arm, and he doesn’t need any more injuries.

He moans, low and pitiful, and Harry’s stomach clenches. He starts panicking, ready to call for someone- who would you call? They did this- when one brown eye opens.

“I didn’t mean to!” Harry says, desperate. “I’m trying to get this thing to open! Relashio!” he tries. Nothing.

“Exolutus,” Voldemort says, tone low and tired.

“Exolutus!” Harry says. Still nothing.

“Focus. Calm down and focus. Intent matters more than incantations, Harry Potter.”

Harry takes a big breath, closes his eyes, and envisions the cage opening. “Exolutus!” he whispers and the cage opens, Voldemort spills out of it and onto the floor.

For a second, he just lays there, in his own blood, his eyes closed. He’s naked again, Harry notes. He’s gotten very thin.

And then he’s trying to get up, but he slips on the wet floor, in his own blood.Instinctively, Harry moves to help.

“Don’t touch me!” Voldemort snarls, all menace, and Harry draws back, raises his wand because that hiss reminds him of who this is.

Voldemort doesn’t try to get up again. He simply moves a few inches to the right, supports his back on the wall and raises his very long legs to his chest.

Harry lowers his wand when nothing happens. He gets his robe off and tosses it over at Voldemort’s feet.

Voldemort ignores it, staring at Harry, all rage.

“What happened?” Harry asks.

He doesn’t answer.

Harry should leave. He should leave and yell at Kingsley. This is unacceptable, Voldemort or not.

He doesn’t. Slowly, he sits on the floor, as far from Voldemort as the room allows, gripping his wand tightly, because for the first time, Voldemort is not chained, though he is wearing heavy-looking bracelets on both his wrists. Harry had assumed it was part of the chains, but clearly not.

“What are those?” he nods at the contraptions.

“Magic inhibitors,” Voldemort gives a derisive snort. “Invented them myself.”

“Serves you right,” Harry says, mad, because he knows just for who those were meant. For Hermione. For Muggle-borns.

Voldemort closes his eyes, eventually leans his head against the wall. He looks tired. With his eyes closed, he looks very human indeed. His hair is long, though when Harry first saw him in this cell it was short. It’s past his shoulders, now.

He has the beginning of a beard too, and that is just -wrong. Very wrong. It looks nothing like Voldemort.

“Tell me something, Harry Potter.”

“What?” Harry asks, mesmerised and horrified.

“Something pleasant.”

It hurts.

It’s hard to think of anything pleasant. His life hasn’t been very pleasant. And with him, here, with the smell of blood in the air-

“This happened in my third year,” Harry starts.

He describes the weather, first. The anxiety from the locker room. The wind in his hair as he lifted from the ground.

He describes the match, goal by goal, fault by fault. How he zigzagged into the sky, dogged bludgers. How he spotted the golden snitch. The dive for it. The moment he closed his fist around it.

“We won the Cup. For the first time, since I was at Hogwarts.” Such simpler times. “You weren’t there, that year, to terrorise me.”

Voldemort hums. “I apologise. I believe I was held up in Albania, still reeling after the effects of unicorn blood and possessing Quirrell. I assure you, if I’d have been well enough, I would have been there.”

Harry laughs, startled. A joke. Voldemort, joking.

“That’s alright. There was Sirius that year to keep me busy.”

Voldemort opens his eyes, turns his head to look at Harry. “You killed Pettigrew. We found him strangled to death, down in the cellars of Malfoy Manor.”

Harrys’ heart almost stops, remembering that awful, awful day.

“Odd, that you could kill him and not me.”

“I didn’t. He-he was considering allowing me to escape. His hand, the silver one, just wrapped itself around his throat and-there was nothing I could do! I tried to pull it off, Ron tried-it just wouldn’t let go.”

“Ah,” Voldemort says, disappointed. “Me, again.”

“Yes,” Harry agrees. “It was you.”

“He had as much of a part in your parents’ death as I did. One would say, even more reprehensible. I was their enemy. They were fighting against me. He was a trusted friend. And yet you saved his life, when Black wanted to kill him and you tried to save his life, once more, at Malfoy Manor.”

“Killing is wrong,” Harry says because he does believe it. He always did.

“How in the world did you survive?” Voldemort looks at him and he really is very tired, because his face is much more expressive than usual. “You’re mediocre at best, in magic. You’re selfless, ready to sacrifice yourself for anyone, unwilling to injure even wizards that are coming after you, the first to speak up against injustices committed against your biggest enemies, naive beyond stupidity. And there you are. And here I am.”

Harry has no idea what to say to this.

“Dumbledore,” he shrugs, in the end. “He orchestrated all this. The Hallows. All the clues. And my friends; I’d have died loads of time, without them.”

“No honourable mentions to my Horcrux, I see.”

“What?”

“Did you ever bother to read something about Horcruxes or did you leave it all in charge of that walking encyclopaedia that is Granger?”

“Weasley,” Harry corrects, distracted.

“No, definitely Granger. I am told Weasley is at best as ignorant as you are.”

“I meant, she’s Weasley now. She and Ron married.”

“My best wishes,” Voldemort quips, sarcastic. “Did you read about the very thing Dumbledore sent you to hunt?”

“No,” Harry admits, embarrassed.

“No,” Voldemort repeats, incredulous. “Destroyed my Horcruxes, never even read a line about them. Incredible.”

“I-she told me what I needed to know. How to destroy them.”

“She should have told you about the protective properties a Horcrux has. How resistant to damage they are.”

“I do know about that. I had to carry your stupid locket around my neck for close to a year, because I had no means to destroy it-”

“You were a Horcrux! You were a vessel. The Horcrux protected its vessel, in order to protect itself. Nothing could have killed you, save for basilisk venom, Fyendfire or myself, the one who made the Horcrux.”

It leaves Harry speechless.

“It was the Horcrux, that helped you survive, in your first year, that killed Quirrell. Your eyes flashed red at me and I was too out of my mind to understand what that meant. I thought it was “a power I know not” or that you truly were a remarkable wizard. I could touch you just fine, after I got my body, not becauseyour mother’s love was in my new body, but because the Horcrux in your head recognised me, when it hadn’t recognised me when I was possessing Quirrell. I should have seen it.” Voldemort looks pissed off, and for a second, he falls silent.

“And either must die at the hand of the other. Because I was the only one that could kill you and you were the only one able to kill me-not by any merit of your own, but of course, my curse would have rebounded, because you became the Master of Death.”

Harry just stares at him, shocked.It certainly makes more sense than “love.” Belatedly he too wonders if Dumbledore knew the reason why Voldemort hadn’t been able to kill Harry, but had to come up with something else, as he wasn’t willing to let Harry know he was a Horcrux.

“I am a great wizard, Harry Potter. No one is as great as I. Not only am I a genius, an effortless one, unlike your Miss Granger-Weasley that needs to swallow dictionaries, but truly effortlessly genial. That is one part. The other, is my magic. Ask your friends, about their control of magic, before they got a wand. Some barley manifest. Mudbloods would have ended up killed by Muggles if they had that much power and used it. I alone could use it at my will, with perfect control. That is what got Dumbledore so worried. Not just that I was cruel and a thief, but because I could control magic, even without not knowing what it was.”

Harry knows most people do not have advanced feats of magic before eleven. He asked Hermione, Ron and many of his classmates. As eleven-year-olds, they all talked about it. It was only accidental and very minor things. Except-

“I was good too. Not like you, I couldn’t control it, but I used magic many times. I even Apparated, once, when my cousin and his friends were chasing me. Straight on a roof top.”

“Yes,” Voldemort says very slowly, as if Harry is too stupid to understand. “My Horcrux was keeping you alive. Protecting you. Try to Apparate without a wand now, Harry Potter. See what happens. Your wand didn’t choose you. It chose the horcrux in you.

Without me, you’d be a little brat, no better than Draco, spoiled and entitled.”

“I’d have had parents!”

“For how long? Your parents were fighting in a war. They were twenty-one, young and foolish and fighting against me. Do you know how many people I killed? Have you seen the duel at the Ministry? I held Dumbledore off -and he was an extraordinary wizard, wielding the Elder Wand.

I would have killed your parents eventually, Harry Potter, the way I killed so many others. Frank and Alice Longbottom were older, were skilled Aurors, unlike your parents that had no jobs or actual life experience, and they fell to Bella and Rodolphus. You’d have been an orphan anyway, even without the prophecy, and you’d be a no one. My Horcrux made you great. Without it, you’re just a boy that breaks apart when he sees the blood of his greatest enemy on the floor.”

Chapter 4

Chapter Text

Hermione comes with Harry to see Kingsely, that very afternoon.

She more waddles than walks from her Department to the Minister’s office, but somehow that makes her even more terrifying.

He lets her do the talking; she is far more eloquent.

“I will not stand for torture. This must end, Minister. With all due respect, we did not win the war so we can turn into our suppressors.”

“He killed Robards,” Kingsley says. He sounds exhausted.

“What?” Harry splutters. “How?”

“He didn’t kill him, kill him. But Robards was the one to stay with him, in that room, the longest. To guard him. He killed himself, two weeks ago.”

“That is highly regrettable,” Hermione says, after a brief break. “I am sure Voldemort would drive many men to suicide, but it is not exactly his doing. Even if Voldemort killed him with his own hands, torture is still not a solution. It will not bring Robards back. It just creates more monsters- do you think torturing Voldemort will have no effect on the men that did it? Do you not worry that it will turn them-”

“You’re not there with him, Hermione. He is such a pice of- he’s nasty. Incorrigible. He toned it down, while you were coming to talk to him,” He looks at Harry. “But when you stopped, he was back at it again, antagonising every living thing that went near him.”

Harry feels guilty, which is silly. He’s not responsible for Robards. He certainly isn’t responsible for Voldemort’s words and actions.

“Minister, if I ever hear he’s being treated inhumanly, I will go to the press.” Hermione is very good at blackmailing. She has experience. “Naked and caged and unfed also constitutes as torment, in my book. In any human rights book. Have you read the Geneva Convention? I shall send it to you.”

They bicker back and forth. Kingsley isn’t happy with the Aurors’ behaviour either, but he doesn’t think it’s that big of a deal, and he doesn’t understand why Hermione and Harry make it into one.

Hermione wins, as she’s prone to do, when arguments are involved.

“Thanks,” Harry says, back in Grimmauld Place.

“I suppose it was the right thing to do,” She says, still inflamed. She gives Harry a glance. “But- Harry, why are you going there?”

“You know why. For Lestrange and all the others.”

It looks to him that she’d like to say more, but she doesn’t, clenching her jaws.

“Hermione?”He asks, hesitant.

“Yes?” She waits patiently as Harry gathers his words.

“Did you know? About the Horcrux? About me?”

“Oh, Harry!” She sits beside him on the couch, eyes getting wet.

She’s pregnant. She shouldn’t be upset. He shouldn’t drag her across the Ministry to fight on Voldemort’s behalf, either.

“I suspected- the parseltongue, the visions- but I didn’t want it to be true!”

“He said his horcrux, inside me, was protecting me. That I couldn’t die, because only he could kill me, besides basilisk venom or Fyendfire. Is that true?”

She sighs, wiping at her eyes. “In theory. You know those are the only things to destroy a Horcrux- or amongst the extremely few. But that is for objects. No one wrote about a human or animal vessel, so I cannot be sure. Living organisms- I don’t know. No one knows.”

“How did I not read about it?” Harry asks, bothered. “I made you do all the research-”

“Harry-”

“You know it’s true. All our school years, you did everything. I was so aware this overpowered psychopath was coming after me, and what did I do? Did I bother to study, to learn as much magic as I could? No. I played Quidditch and slacked off, barely did my homework. No wonder he’s fucking pissed he lost to me, of all people.”

“You’re a great wizard, Harry!” Hermione says, fiercely. “Don’t let him get to you.”

(-)

Because he truly is a weak, pathetic fool, he returns. He can’t help himself.

Voldemort looks better. He’s shaved and properly dressed, with trousers and shirt and robe. The cage is nowhere in sight, though the magical inhibitors remain, and he’s chained to the wall by his leg.

There are two chairs now, in the room, and a cot with a mattress and a particularly uncomfortable-looking pillow.

I shared a soul with this man. For seventeen years. That’s why I can’t let go. Only he can’t be sure if it’s only just that.

“I feel like I should have died, in the Forest. Since I came back, I don’t feel like I belong.” Harry says what he cannot say to anyone else. “I feel distanced, from everyone else, like a wall is separating me from the world. It’s when I lost the Horcrux.”

Voldemort watches him intensely, a strange glint in his eyes. “I don’t think it has anything to do with it.” He says, surprising Harry. “Dying is a transforming experience. No one returns unchanged.”

“No?”

“I should know, I died plenty of times.”

“So you feel this too. Like you don’t belong.”

“I’ve always felt that way, since I was born.”

Said so simply, so matter of fact. As if it means nothing.

“But after Albania, it was like you say; food tasted like ash. Drinks did not quench my thirst.”

“And now?”

“I wouldn’t know. I’m yet to be fed.”

“They should, I requested they do-”

“Oh, I‘ve been told about your demands. But apparently, food is not a necessity for an immortal being. I do not mind. I am not hungry.”

Harry rarely is, himself.

“What did you do to Robards?”

“Not worse than what he did to me.” Voldemort answers, brow raised. “Such weaklings the Ministry holds in their employment, these days. I would have never gotten to Moody. It is a sad day, Harry Potter, when you miss your old foes, because the new ones are just so pathetic.”

“I bet you wish it was Dumbledore here, instead of me.”

Voldemort tilts his head. “No. I do not. You were never my enemy, I realise. You are just a very passive recipient of an unrelenting obsession. Did he tell you, about your scar, or let you figure it out on your own, as he was prone to do? Did he have the courage to look you in the eyes and tell you he raised you like a pig to slaughter?”

Harry waits a long time before answering. “It won’t work.”

Voldemort gives him a searching look.

“You won’t be able to turn me against him.”

“Undoubtedly. He sent you to your death, and you obeyed, like a good little dog; there’s nothing I can do to change your mind about him, if that didn’t do it. Can you imagine him, Harry Potter, as he sat in that office of his, for months, years, and he plotted on when and how to have you sacrificed?”

Harry does, occasionally. On really dreadful nights.

“He did what he had to,” he says with conviction.

Voldemort regards him carefully. “And after all that scheming, arranging all his puppets in the ideal position,” he smirks. “Here I am. I won.”

Harry blinks at him. “I would hardly call this winning.”

“I’m alive,” Voldemort says softly, almost in a whisper. “It is all it takes.”

Harry suppresses a shiver. It’s complicated with Voldemort. His grandiose sense of self, his delusions- Harry isn’t always sure what’s just empty brags or -more.

They stay in silence for a while.

“There is one last left.” Voldemort breaks it. “We’ve discussed all the Horcruxes, except one.”

And after it’s done? Harry wonders. What is there left to say?

Harry tells him about the locket. About Regulus Black. Kreacher. Grimmauld Place, having held it in his hands with everyone present when they first found it during the cleaning. About Mundungus stealing it. Umbridge taking it from him. The plans to go to the ministry. Ron, splinching; the tent, the months on end of starving; the locket affecting them all, but especially Harry; the fight with Ron. Going to Godric’s Hallow, his wand breaking when Nagini trashed it.

The despair.

Voldemort listens without interrupting as Harry pours his soul out. He needs a break when recalling those very dark days, without his wand, without Ron.

“Did you dream about me?” Voldemort finally speaks, some two hours after Harry first started.

“Yeah. I had glimpses of your whereabouts, you were tracing Grindelwald, sometimes you got mad or -”

“No. Did you dream about the Horcrux in the locket?”

Harry looks away. No one knows this. He told no one.

Tom Riddle had been twenty-something, young and handsome and so much more than Tom Riddle at sixteen.

Harry was older too, wiser. He didn’t let the Horcrux speak, he didn’t trust a single word he was saying. So Tom stopped speaking.

And started acting.

“I see,” Voldemort says, deliberately, when Harry fails to answer, and he feels his cheeks redden.

“I’m certain the others dreamt about him too.” He says, defensive.

“Indeed. It made Weasley abandon you, played on his insecurities. That is what it does. Finds your weakness, your worst fear and use it again you. Or, of course, finds your desires.”

Harry wishes the floor would open up and swallow him. “Anyway, Ron returned. Just in time. Because Snape found us, through the portrait. He put the sword in a lake and I was dumb enough to dive in, with the locket on. I would have died, if not for Ron.”

“You wouldn’t have died.”

Right. The Horcrux. “Well, still.”

“So, you finally had the sword. And the locket. Together.”

“Yes. I destroyed it.”

“Did you, now?” Voldemort leans back into his chair. “Harry Potter, haven’t you learned lies do not work with Lord Voldemort?”

Harry panics, because he always made it seem like he destroyed them all. He and Dumbledore, because he doesn’t want-

“I don’t care. You were all children, sent on a suicide mission by an old, meddling goat. He’s responsible. I cannot possible hate Weasley and Granger more than I already do. I don’t even care who did it. But I know it wasn’t you. You couldn’t, could you? You got attached.”

“They were affected too-”

“Affected, yes. But not attached. How could they be? The Horcrux in you recognised the one in the locket. Yearned for it.”

“Yes” Harry says, fast to latch on to that. Yes, it was the Horcrux’ desire to be joined by the locket Horcrux, not Harry’s.

Voldemort smiles, and it is a significantly different smile than the other ones Harry had witnessed so far.

It is predatory.

“How are you now? I mean-” Harry bites his lip. “When I died, so did the Horcrux. It was-it was dead, too.”

And in so much distress.

“Are you just the piece of you that was left, in the Great Hall?”

“No. I am whole, once more.”

“But all the Horcruxes died-”

“So did I. And yet here I am.”

“I don’t understand it.”

“Magic is not terribly concerned with logic. And I always was an exception. Extraordinary.”

“Extraordinarily full of yourself-” Harry mutters.

“The fact that I owned the Resurrection Stone,” Voldemort pretends Harry hadn’t interrupted him. “Even more, turned it into a Horcrux, certainly had some effects. I cannot be sure what, since I never studied the Hallows.”

“I can bring you the Beetle and the Bard.” Harry offers, even though it will be impossible to give it to Voldemort; it will be confiscated immediately. But perhaps he can read it while Harry sits there for the visit.

And what will you do, stare at him as he reads a children’s book?

“I would like that. But, at the end of the day, it is only a fairytale. There must be proper studies, out there. Genuine History.”

Harry never researched it. Once again, he only did the bare minimum.

It’s only when he leaves that he realises he hadn’t asked Voldemort for anything in return.

(-)

Voldemort starts the next meeting by telling Harry he’d given the current Head Auror, Robards’ replacement, the counter-curse to a spell he invented himself. People are still suffering from it, in St. Mungo, with Healers unable to fix them, years after they have been cursed by Death Eaters.

“That’s good.” Harry says, stupidly.

“We have a deal, do we not?” Voldemort asks and Harry suspects he’s being mocked, but he can’t prove it.

Silence falls. Harry is out of things to say. The Horcruxes are done with, the Deathly Hallows out of the way- there’s nothing else.

His life hadn’t got any more interesting. The most exciting thing to have happened recently was the discovery of a cabinet filled with what looks like old pictures in Grimmauld’s attic. But Harry can’t open it, and neither can Kreacher, and while it will surely amuse Voldemort to hear how a piece of furniture is defeating Harry on a daily basis, it’s not exactly anything worthy.

The silence stretches on. To get it out of the way, Harry speaks.

“I heard you caused problems, with some Auror.”

Voldemort smiles, entertained.

“Did you notice all my guards are male now?”

“Ah-”

“Of course you didn’t. Typical Gryffindor. No eye for detail.” Voldemort sits as still as he used to stand. He truly makes the dingy chair look like a throne.

“You should have seen them, Harry Potter, in the beginning; how careful everyone was; how tense. But time erodes caution. Routine slows the mind. They got complacent. Some forgot who I am- they have problems connecting this human face with the monster from before. Others remember all too well, but they too got comfortable, confident I cannot fight back.”

Which one am I? He thinks. Do I see him as a bit of both? But no. Harry isn’t comfortable; not at all.

“Robards took that girl away from me. But he fired the other two women in the small band of moronic guards. And they had nothing but contempt for me, but they were guilty of sharing the offender’s sex. And they call me a bigot.”

“You are a bigot.” Harry is quick to remind him, though he shudders to imagine what Hermione would have to say about this snippet of information.

“I am.” Voldemort allows, nonchalantly. “And I am also set on proving to these idiots that men are not impervious to my charms. Already got my eyes on one. Looks promising.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“I’ll alert Kingsely-”

“Go ahead. He’ll fire everyone, Obliviate them, bring others. As long as he brings me people, there will always, always, be one to take the bait.”

Harry sighs, pushes a hand through his hair. “You’re just boasting.” He says. “It’s nothing. What’s the big deal, anyway. A bunch of papers-really, just a kindness.”

“While I can’t claim I’ve ever read Witch Weekly before, that was certainly my mistake. Knowledge can be found in the most curious of places. Between recipes for pumpkin pie and the best way to clean the carpet, I learned quite a lot about you. Miss Skeeter truly seems to adore you.”

Harry groans. “It’s all lies. She’s impossible.”

“I’ll admit I cannot help but like the woman. Wormtail used to read me the articles she wrote about you during the Triwizard Tournament, waxing poetically about your bright green eyes.”

Harry shakes his head, groaning.

“And then,” Voldemort goes on, gratified to embarrass Harry, “she switched. You know what they say, nothing like a scorned woman’s wrath. She’s as vicious with that quill as I was with a wand.”

“Made my life a living hell.” Harry mutters. “Worse than you, really.” Harry’s fifth years at Hogwarts had been dominated by Skeeter and Umbridge, the terrible duo.

“I do wonder, what you had on her, to make her give that surprisingly honest and accurate interview about that night in the cemetery.”

“She was an unregistered Animagus. Well, she’s registered now, but she wasn’t back then.”

Voldemort laughs. “And here I was, thinking you above such things, forcing people-”

“It wasn’t me. I would have never figured it out.”

“Ah. Yes, of course.”

“After the Battle, she had the nerve to come around and argue that she alone gave me the chance to tell people the truth about your return, in that Quibbler interview.” Harry spits, still furious about it. “That she was the only journalist to tell the truth and alert the community.”

“Such a Slytherin. During my short-lived reign, there was pressure put on her, to publish propaganda. But she would not, claiming she was busy writing a book that will discredit Dumbledore.”

“She sure was.” Harry growls.

“Quite a gift it was. It’s through her book, that I learned Grindelwald had the Elder Wand-”

“I know.” Harry says and when Voldemort’s eyebrow raises, Harry just points at his scar.

Harry remembers seeing it in Voldemort’s head, finding the book in Godric’s Hallow, just as Harry had escaped him once more.

“And now I got to read her articles about the saviour, the hero Harry Potter.”

"Don’t believe a word of it.”

“But I find there’s always some truth to her stories. Poor Harry Potter, raised by Muggles that despised him.”

And wasn’t that a scandal when Rita had gotten hold of the Dursleys. It painted Harry as a victim and the Dursleys as monsters, far more than they really were, which Harry would have said was impossible to do, but she found a way.

Hermione insisted it did a lot of harm, having wizards learn that Muggles treat magical children that way, especially someone like Harry, whom they love.

“Not all Muggles are like that.” Harry says what he’d told in the only interview he gave, after the Battle, forced to reassure everyone that there is no need to hate Muggles. That Dursleys were exceptions, and even so, they weren’t as terrible as Rita had portrayed them.

Voldemort just shakes his head, slowly, as if astounded by Harry’s insistence that the world isn’t black and white.

(-)

The Dark Mark shines sombrely over the house. Four dead, parents and children, Muggle-borns and half-bloods.

The outrage is tremendous. The panic makes people mad.

Trust in Ministry is at an all-time low, ever since the fiasco with Fudge and then Thicknesse, allowing Voldemort to gain control of their world.

This just is the final nail in the coffin.

“He has to tell us about Lestrange.”Kingsley demands after the press starts questioning the Ministry’s ability to keep them safe.

Voldemort refuses.

“I’ll stop coming.” Harry threatens.

Voldemort gives him a death glare. For a second, Harry can almost see a spark of red in them.

“You can not blackmail Lord Voldemort, Harry Potter.”

(-)

Harry stays aways to prove that he can, in fact, blackmail Voldemort.

He is almost tempted to join the Aurors, to become a dark wizard catcher, this time under the law. He too is outraged by the last attack. They’re growing in daring and frequency.

Harry hates seeing people frightened again, shops closing on Diagon, just in case, wizards and witches walking hurriedly on the street.

(-)

Hermione gives birth and Harry becomes a godfather for the second time. Rose is the youngest, tiniest baby he had ever held in his arms, and it makes his knees weak.

Ron is the same, shaking with happiness.

There’s a brief moment, when they are alone in the room, as Weasley family members keep coming and going; just the three of them and Rose.

Hermione’s laid on the bed, her daughter snuggled at her chest, Harry and Ron on either side of her.

Their eyes meet in turn, and a powerful feeling that settles over them.

We made it, Harry thinks. Somehow we made it out alive, against all odds, and now Rose is here.

Eventually Harry goes home, and he decides to walk, instead of going by Floor network.

Ron and Hermione have a family, a proper one and it’s what they deserve, what Harry wished for them to have.

And what do you have?

I have them, he scolds himself. I have Teddy.

(-)

Two more attacks happen, all in under three months. Only one victim dies, but several others are severely injured.

Harry returns to the Ministry, determined to make Voldemort talk. Somehow.

He finds him back in the cage, naked again and full of blood.

“That’s it, that’s fucking it!” Harry snaps.

He pulls out his wand and breaks the cage open. Voldemort is conscious this time, and he steps out of it on with more grace than the last time.

Harry pulls off his robe and throws it to him, but Voldemort doesn’t take it, staring at Harry.

“Why are you so damn proud?” Does Voldemort hate him so much as to not even wear his clothes, preferring to stay naked instead?

“Why haven’t you learned to transfigure a pice of anything into a robe? You’re in your twenties!”Voldemort snarls back.

“Because I am stupid, that’s why.” And speaking of stupid…”Can you make an Unbreakable Vow with those on?”He nods to the bracelets around his wrists.

“No.” Voldemort looks at him. “But I can make a magical oath.”

“What is that?”

“Same principle. I would swear on my magic. I cannot use it, with these inhibitors, not much.” He gives a very soft smile. “But I can certainly swear on it.”

“If I get you out of here, will you swear to not leave my house? To not try to escape?”

Voldemort spends a long time thinking. “They will never let you take me.”

“I know you have a very low opinion of me. I can’t even blame you. But I am Harry fucking Potter, and I did far more impossible feats. I broke and stolen not only from the Ministry but from Gringotts.”

(-)

Kingsley remembers it.

“I will tell them. Everyone. I will, I swear I will. I’ll go to Skeeter, If I have to.”

“You’re asking me to release him!” Kingsley is shocked.

“We will take all precautions, he will keep the cuffs, he will take an oath, and he will help us with Lestrange. You said the inhibitors work; and they do. If they hadn’t, he’d be out already. Because it’s not the seven Aurors that stop him, I assure you!”

“It will end very badly.”

“If he is to escape, he’ll escape from here too.” Harry points out. “Eventually, he will. Now or in a year or seven or one hundred. He is Lord Voldemort.” Something in Kingsley’ tired face tells Harry he knows this too.

“You are having problems with the Aurors. One day, someone will slip up. The more people you expose to him, the more options you are giving him. I am the only one that was ever able to stop him, albeit temporarily. Grimmauld is safe. I know him, I’ve known him all my life, it’s not like he can fool me.” Kingsley's skeptical expression raises Harry’s blood pressure. “I will take him, Kingsley. Unless you plan to kill me, I will take him.”

For a second, Kingsley seems to consider it.

(-)

“I swear on my magic I will not leave Harry Potter’s house, without his company or permission. I swear on my magic I will not try to escape. I swear on my magic, I shall not kill him.”

Or hurt him. Harry waits for Voldemort to say it, because they wrote it down as a demand. Kingsley waits too.

Voldemort stares at them.

Harry sighs. Oh, well.

“That’s good enough for me,” he says.

The Unspeakable casts a spell at Voldemort. “The oath took hold.”

Finally. They’ve spent hours on it, with Voldemort refusing several different formulations.

“How do you expect me to say I will not hurt any living being? The oath could take that to mean a mosquito.”

“People, then,” Kingsley countered. “You will not hurt any people-”

“I could hurt someone’s delicate feelings.” Voldemort gives Harry a mocking glance. “And the oath might interpret that as hurting, as well.”

Through it all, Kingsley kept looking at Harry, as if hoping Voldemort being impossible would change Harry’s mind.

It hadn’t.

“On your head be it, Potter,” Kingsley says and leaves the room without another word.

“My, my. “Potter”. That was positively frosty.”

“We have to wait here a bit longer, as they secure the house.” Harry says, rubbing a hand over his eyes.

Aurors are blocking his fireplace, sending Kreacher to Hogwarts, emptying the house of any potion ingredients, because Voldemort might not be able to do magic, but he has just little enough to manage a potion.

Voldemort had put on a robe- not Harry’s, it’s still lying on the floor- but one that the Unspeakable had provided. He stands as still as always, no expression on his face.

“Aren’t you happy?” Harry asks. “To get out of here?”

“Do you think me a fool, to be grateful that I am leaving a cage only to get trapped in another, albeit bigger one?”

“You should. You won’t be treated badly there,” Harry says.

“Comfort doesn’t matter to me. Only freedom and magic. And I can’t have those.” Voldemort clenches his jaws. “Yet.”

“Why are you so antagonistic?” Harry doesn’t understand it.

“That is who I am, Harry Potter. Would you rather I pretend to be something else? You should be honoured that I do not.”

“Oh, yeah. I’m very honoured.”

It’s dawning on him, what he’s actually doing, now that he has time to think.

He’s taking Voldemort home. In Sirius’ house!

Sirius hated that place. Besides, Sirius would understand. The Ministry wouldn’t be able to contain him for much longer. But now he made an oath, and that’s for life.

He is desperate to get out of here, surely. If he took such drastic measures, he must be desperate to get out.

Voldemort might be able to find a way out of the cuffs, eventually, but for as long as Harry lives, for as long as Voldemort lives, he will not be able to break the oath without losing his magic.

That is the only reason Kingsley hadn’t actually killed Harry, and went ahead with this lunacy.

“Five minutes,” an Auror says, opening the door briefly, to let them know.

“Is that the one?” Harry asks, adrenaline making him dizzy. “The one that you said looked promising to fall for your tricks?"

Voldemort looks at Harry, tilts his head in disbelief.

“No, Harry Potter. That was you.”

Chapter 5

Chapter Text

“This is appalling,” Voldemort says as soon as they enter Grimmauld Place.

Harry can’t argue with him. Despite all his attempts, while at least it’s clean, Grimmauld remains old and shabby, bleak and cold.

Wallpaper is missing in places and Harry cannot replace it, by Muggle or magical means; the furniture is chipped, but it will not move, not more than a few inches.

Kreacher was of no help, suggesting Harry get along with the house, think of it as home.

“Yeah, I bet Malfoy Manor was much more to your taste.”

“Indeed.”

An eery silence surrounds them. Part of Harry’s brain hadn’t caught up with the rest, and it’s still in disbelief that he’d brought Voldemort to his house.

That Voldemort is really there, standing in the foyer, as still and stiff as he’d been in the cell.

“Lestrange,” Harry reminds him, choosing to cling to the notion that this is what spurred the decision that had brought a dark lord in his house.

“One of you should have considered to include Rodolphus in the oath,” Voldemort gives him a smirk and Harry’s blood chills.

“You said you would-”

“My word means nothing, if it’s not in a magical binding oath. I’m a habitual liar, I would say anything, Harry Potter, to get what I want. Besides, I never said I will give you Rodolphus. You assumed.”

“I can take you back,”Harry says through gritted teeth.

“I am aware. I was simply pointing out how foolish you are, how rash. Think before you act. I shall need an owl.”

“An owl,” Harry repeats with distrust.

“Yes. I have no idea were Rodolphus is. I’ve been locked up since the Battle. Now, of course, we can go the Antonim route, trying to find him, from place to place, but surely Rodolphus must have caught on there is a traitor speaking about our old hideouts when they kept getting raided.”

Merlin.

“But you made it seem like you knew where he was. You said that he isn’t here-”

“What did I just tell you, about me and lies?” Voldemort sighs, as if personally offended by Harry’s credulity. “I suspect he is in France, at some of his relatives, but he could be anywhere. So- an owl.”

France? Not Ireland?

“I want to see what you write,” Harry tells him sternly, leading him down the hallway.

Just casually strolling with Voldemort.

He has a flashback of his fifteen-year-old self, of Order Members coming and going, making plans on how to defeat the very man that is now calmly entering the kitchen where dozens of people used to eat.

He remembers being seventeen, huddled with Ron and Hermione around the very table he shows to Voldemort, as they made plans on how to steal the Horcrux from Umbridge.

“Very well,” Voldemort concedes.

Harry gestures for him to sit, brings him pen and paper, stashed in one of the cupboards.

It’s a muggle pen, but Voldemort doesn’t seem bothered, holds it with a confidence and ease that comes from practice.

Rodolphus,

He starts, and the writing is remarkably familiar to Harry, the same one from the Diary, neat and elegant, that Harry has nightmares of, on occasion.

I am alive, though a prisoner.

Let me first command you, for your efforts and extend my condolences, for Bella.

I am grateful to have had you as my loyal man.

To secure my release, I expect you to give yourself in. Your services, while deeply appreciated, are no longer required.

D’s whereabouts are needed.

Lord Voldemort.

“No way he’ll believe that!” Harry insists. “No way. Anyone could have written it. Even if he knows your handwriting, it could be copied-what’s D?”

Voldemort rolls the parchment.

“It is how he will know no one is impersonating me.”

“But what is it?”

“Nothing, Potter! A code. For him to know it is I that is addressing him.”

Harry takes the scrolls, unrolls it and reads it attentively a few times. He’s determined not to be tricked, again. He points his wand at it, casting several spells meant to detect any foul play.

He finds none.

He gets Voldemort to follow him-Harry had expected Voldemort will be difficult about it, and he was just starting to panic- how am I supposed to get him to move if he doesn’t want it?- but, for once, Voldemort complies, with no witty remarks.

Harry’s new owl, Midas, is slumbering in the living room. He blinks at Voldemort with his big yellow eyes.

“Go, boy! Be careful!” Harry whispers as he ties the roll to his leg.

Midas flies away once he opens the window, and that is that.

It seems too easy. It seems mad that Lestrange will believe, despite the code, or that he’d actually just hand himself in following the orders of a captive, fallen master.

Harry shows the house to Voldemort, room by room, except his own; Harry still sleeps in his godfather’s old bedroom.

He makes a shitty host -

“this is the dining room, but it’s never used.”

“this is a guest bedroom. And um, so is this one- and the next.”

“I don’t know what this is, really, but ahm, yeah- here’s an old piano-”

The house is huge and looks even worse, outside of the few rooms Harry actually spends time in.

Voldemort looks around, emotionless, right beside Harry.

He’s tall. Harry never truly appreciated it, had never stood so close to him, so it was never as evident, the difference in height.

Harry barely reaches his shoulder, and he hates it.

He gives him Sirius’s mother’s rooms.

It’s as decrepit as the rest of the house. An old poster bed, though at least it’s huge, with dusty sheets; a massive wooden desk that must have looked impressive some fifty years before, and a generous, empty armoire.

It has its own bathroom, but Harry doesn’t even want to look inside to see the state of it.

“I’ll-uhm- bring some clean sheets. And towels. And -ah-” He scratches his head. He really hadn’t thought this through, at all. “And I suppose you need clothes. There’s some in the attic. They’re old but-”

Sirius’s been tall too, so Harry hopes some of his male relatives had shared that trait and Voldemort can find something.

Until I can buy him some.

Buying Lord Voldemort clothes-

Harry frowns. He’ll have to leave the house for that.

I so didn’t think this through.

Voldemort is not pleased, but Harry knows he must be ecstatic to be out of the ministry’s cell, no matter how much he protests about dust and moth eaten drapes. And then he slams the door to his room in Harry’s face.

Harry stands there, unsettled.

What will you do, stay glued to his side for- for however long this will take?

Forever, Harry thinks, a little hysterically. This is forever.

But he refuses to think about it. Focus on the present.

Harry can’t realistically just stay around him all day. The man made an oath.

I will not harm Harry Potter. He hadn’t said it. He only promised not to kill him.

Harry spends minutes standing like a fool, until he hears the water running.

With a shudder, he goes back to the kitchen, but he doesn’t know what to do with himself, sits there quietly, trying to process it.

(-)

It’s dark when he finally feels ready to move.

He finds Voldemort in the library, buried between books. He has this expression on his face, raw and happy, like a child in a chocolate factory. He hadn’t had it as they left the Ministry where he was tortured and beaten, but he has it now, surrounded by ancient tomes.

He’s also apparently been to the attic where he’d managed to procure a robe that fits him perfectly. It’s a little old-fashioned, but in surprisingly good condition.

Of course, it has green accents around the collar.

He ignores Harry when he enters, but scolds his expression back into nothingness.

Harry sits on a couch and watches him.

He tries to read, picking a random book, but after his eyes go over the same sentence some twenty times, he gives up.

The tall grandfather clock, adorned with snakes, ticks the hours away.

Harry struggles to keep his eyes open, after an especially stressful day, once the adrenaline had left his system.

Incredibly, when time drags on and nothing happens, he falls into a fitful sleep. When he wakes, the sun is high in the sky and Voldemort is still reading, unconcerned.

(-)

Heavy pounding on the front door brings Harry down from the library, at the crack of dawn. Walburga starts shrieking.

“Oh, shut up!” Harry snaps at her as he runs past.

When he opens the door, both Ron and Hermione are standing there, wands drawn. Harry hurries out of the house and closes the door behind him.

“What are you doing?” He whispers.

“Tell me it’s a sick joke!” Ron yells.

“Kingsley said-”

Harry grabs their hands and moves them off the stairs, to the corner, away from any windows Voldemort might watch them from.

“Listen, I couldn’t leave him there. They would have slipped, at some point, and then he’d have escaped-”

“Harry, you brought You-know-Who in your house-”

“Oh, seriously!” Hermione makes a face. “It’s Voldemort, Ron! But yes, how could you think this is a good idea?”

Her hair is frizzier than ever, complexion deathly pale.

Ron, on the other side, is bright red.

“I just had to,” Harry will never be able to explain it to their satisfaction. Mostly because he doesn’t really understand himself. “Listen, Hermione, you know what they were doing to him and I just- it’s better this way, anyhow. He’ll give us Lestrange, he made an oath-”

“It’s insane!” Ron shakes his head. “Mate, come on! I know you have unresolved issues but-”

“What?” Harry snaps. “What issues?”

“Ron!” Hermione hisses. She pushes a strand of hair out of her eyes.

Some passersby are giving them strange looks, but neither hide their wands.

“I have to go back inside,” Harry says, after a few seconds.

“When were you gonna tell us?” Ron demands.

“When my owl was back!” Harry answers, a bit coldly. “I wasn’t hiding anything. There was simply no time. I’ll write, when Midas returns. Or if you want to hear from me, you send your owl. But don’t come around.”

“Why?” Hermione looks sick with apprehension.

“What do you mean, why?” Harry and Ron ask at the same time. “Voldemort is in the house!”

“But you said it’s safe, that he made an oath.”

Harry rubs a hand over his face. “Yes. He made an oath not to escape and not to kill me. Me. Not anyone else.”

“He’s wearing the inhibitors-”

“I have to go back,” Harry repeats, anxious to go in and make sure Voldemort didn’t sneak out the chimney or something, keen to get away from the worried looks his best friends are giving him. “I’ll be ok,” he says, trying to smile as he retreats.

It’s clear neither believe him, watching after him with something very much like horror.

(-)

Walburga is still shouting her head off when Harry locks the door behind him.

“FILTHY HALF-BLOOD!”

“Will you knock it out? Or at least try to come up with something more creative?” Harry barks at her. “This half-blood thing is getting old.”

“She wasn’t talking to you.”

Harry jumps, turning to see Voldemort beside the staircase.

“HOW DARE YOU DEFILE MY HOUSE-”

“You’ve aged terribly, I must say.” Voldemort replies, serenely.

Heart beating a mile a minute, Harry frowns. “You know each other?”

“MY ANCESTORS-”

“Went to school with her.”

Merlin, but he’s old! Though one wouldn’t be able to tell, looking at him. Seventy something means nothing for an immortal wizard. With the exceptions of a few very fine wrinkles at the corner of his eyes, and a small crease between his eyebrows, Voldemort doesn't look a day over thirty.

“But didn’t she like you? I mean she goes on all the time about dark shit and-”

“TRAVESTY, SHELTER FOR POOR, DIRTY ORPHANS-”

“Does she seem to like me?” Voldemort asks, one eyebrow raised.

Harry sighs. “Don’t mind her, batty old hag.” He goes towards the portrait. “Just help me drag the curtains over her.”

Harry takes hold on one side, but Voldemort only starts walking up the stairs.

“OY!” Harry yells after him.

“You have a wand, Potter. Learn to use it.”

“Why, thank you!” Harry spits.

“TAKE YOUR HANDS OF ME!”

“It doesn’t work. Don’t you think someone would have dealt with her, otherwise?”

Granted, Kreacher was very experienced in shutting her up, when she went off, with patient whispers, but Kreacher is not here, and nothing else works.

“Incompetent fools,” Voldemort sneers, peering at Harry over his shoulder.

“Yeah, right.” Harry snorts. “The whole Order came by-”

“Yes, the embodiment of competence,” he drawls, full of contempt.

“Dumbledore!" Even Voldemort wouldn't call the old Headmaster incompetent.

“He probably left her up to have a laugh at whatever wretched souls were living here at the time.”

“She’ll scream for hours if we don’t cover her!” Harry has to yell himself to cover her.

“I’ve suffered through worse torments during my life than some measly screams.”

(-)

A day passes, then two, then three, and nothing happens. Voldemort is virtually always in the library and Harry can’t be sure if he sleeps at all.

What a nerd, he thinks, with a hysterical laughter.

Harry spends his days mostly spying on him, or resting in his room, answering two letters a day from Ron and Hermione, assuring them that yes, he’s still alive and no, he won’t be returning Voldemort to his cell.

He’d imagined living with a dark lord, especially with their history, would be…dramatic, to say the least. As it is, it is very, very quiet.

Quieter than it’s been before. Grimmauld always groaned and shifted around him, creaks and bangs into the walls that used to wake him up.

It’s quiet now. Still.

It’s waiting, as Harry, for Voldemort to do something.

When Harry wakes on the fourth day, he finds Voldemort in the kitchen.

“Err-” he says, shocked by the sight, frozen in the doorway.

“How do you feed yourself?” Voldemort asks, looking through cupboards.He’s found another well fitting robe, it seems, black with strands of silver.

“My house-elf deals with it, usually.”

“It’s not here.”

“Well, no. Of course not. You have a bad track record with elves.” With everything, really. No one is safe to be around Voldemort.

Except Harry.

Are you, though? Are you really safe?

Voldemort refused to say he won’t hurt him; and Harry’s been so angry, so eager to get him out of that cell, that he’d dismissed it. But it’s bothering him more and more, every time he thinks about it.

What can he do, smash my head with a frying pan?

“If you have no elf, and you refuse to leave the house, how will you eat?”

Harry hadn’t thought about that. Hadn’t thought about many things, really.

Something whistles and Harry jumps, startled, clutching his wand.

Voldemort gives him an amused look, before turning to take the kettle off the flame.

Just a kettle. He stills his heart and puts his wand back in his pants.

And then Voldemort makes himself tea.

“You have no milk,” he says, displeased

Harry gawks at him. His shock turns into suspicion when he fills two cups.

He leaves one on the table and then passes by Harry, leaving the room.

Harry isn’t stupid enough to drink it.

(-)

Sweating profusely, Harry dashes over the street.

Won’t take more than ten minutes, he thinks as he runs so fast, he has trouble stopping, barging into the Tesco located right at the corner of his house.

Some people give him suspicious looks.

Harry quickly fills a basket, with whatever he can find the fastest, head filled with awful scenarios of what might he find when he returns.

You know he can’t leave. He made an oath. He can’t leave without Harry or his permission.

Still, it’s an exercise in paranoia, until he walks back through his front door; quietly, as to not wake Walburga again.

As Harry fills the pantry, it strikes him that he hadn’t asked Voldemort what he eats, usually. Harry’s rather convinced he won’t enjoy the crisps or the bags of sweets he had bought.

“Oh, well,” he tells himself. At least he got some milk and plenty of tea. Maybe he should have gotten cookies.

Yeah, right, dark lords and cookies.

Harry puts the rest of the groceries away before opening a chocolate bar and quickly shoving it in his mouth, starved.

(-)

Midas comes back with a note nine days after he’d left.

Harry scrambles out of his chair, heart wild.

He takes the note off Midas’ leg, with trembling fingers, tries to open it and is promptly cursed.

He yells in pain, dropping it, fumbling for his wand-

“So stupid,” Voldemort manifests beside him, though Harry hadn’t heard him approach. “Aren’t you in trouble? I’d go to St. Mungo’s, in your stead. That’s a quick acting curse. It will reach your heart in minutes.”

“I want to read it,” Harry says, jaw locked. His fingers are already turning a deep shade of purple.

Voldemort sighs, bends and picks the piece of paper with no troubles. He opens it in Harrys’s sight.

Al Europe whelm.

That’s all it is.

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Harry asks, his hand burning, reaching up his arm-

“I have not a single clue,” Voldemort says, glowering at the note, indeed looking perplexed. “I’ve no doubt I’ll figure it out.”

He folds it and puts it in his robe. “Hospital, Harry Potter.”

(-)

He’s amazed when he returns, exhausted, to find Voldemort in the library. He knows he can’t escape; nevertheless, he’d been concerned for the three hours he’d spent in St. Mungo’s.

He only got away without Aurors getting called, because he’s Harry Potter.

“This is really dark magic, dear.” A kindly, elderly Healer had told him gently, but agreed to not make a big deal out of it.

“What is ‘Al Europe Whelm?’” Harry demands, crashing on the couch. His arm still tingles, as he was told it will for some time.

“I will find out,” Voldemort replays, unbothered, not even looking at Harry.

“Where do you find all these robes?” Harry asks, because he’s certain there can’t be that many, in such excellent condition-

Another owl comes flying through the window, Daily Prophet tied to its legs.

Harry groans, getting up, woozy.

Rodolphus Lestrange had entered the Ministry Atrium, three hours before and had promptly killed himself.

Your services are no longer required.

“What kind of influence did you have on these people?” Harry wonders, gobsmacked. “To kill himself, over a few words-”

He clutches the newspaper, staring at Voldemort, who calmly turns the page of the book he is reading.

Pure Lineage of the nineteen century.

“He was a loyal soldier.”

There’s no inflection in his tone, no sign of any feeling towards the death of a man that had given his life to him.

Of course there is no feeling; remember who he is.

“It’s madness.”Harry whispers, shaking his head.

Voldemort finally looks up, fixes Harry with a glare.

“Says the boy who marched to his death because Dumbledore’s memory told him he must.”

(-)

I want to know how we can get rid of Dementors.

Harry puts away the letter from Kingsley, in which he’d thanked Harry, cordially, for Lestrange.

There’s a cup of tea at the table, had been waiting for Harry, still hot, when he’d entered the kitchen.

Harry ignores it.

He writes back that he’ll inquire about the Dementors and tells Kingsley about the letters exchanged between Voldemort and Lestrange, about “D” and “Al Europe Whelm.”

When he arrives in the doorway of the library, he sees Voldemort standing by the window.

There’s clear longing on his face, as he watches the outside world and Harry is forcefully reminded of the summer spent with bars at his windows, back at the Dursleys.

He thinks to retreat, he’ll come back later-

“What do you want, Potter?”

“Err,” Harry leans on the doorframe. “Kingsley would like to know how to get rid of Dementors.”

Voldemort makes a disdainful sound.

“What gives him the impression I will ever tell him anything else?”

Harry doesn’t answer.

“I got what I wanted. I am out of his clutches. He can spend three decades studying Dementors, in obscure libraries across the world, and he shall have his answers, then.”

Today he’s clad in a dark green robe, with silver cufflinks at the sleeves. He looks…better. He’s still pale, but after spending so many hours by the window, every day, it’s not as ghastly as how it’s been in the cell. The dark circles under his eyes are receding, though Harry can’t guess how, since he’s always in the library, reading.

“Well?” He turns to look at Harry. “Aren’t you going to threaten to take me back, unless I cooperate?”

Harry swallows. “No,” he says, simply.

Voldemort offers him an ominous smile.

Chapter 6

Chapter Text

Hermione doesn’t know what “Al Europe Whelm” means, either.

“A surge of all Europe? All Europe engulfed? All Europe buried?” she tries. “Perhaps it’s a sick slogan, for their stupid ‘revolution’.”

“Sounds like it,” Ron makes a disgusted face.

“He seemed honestly confused, when he read it,” Harry says, gently extracting his hair from Rose’s fist.

She giggles and tries to stand on his knee, her little face, with more freckles than ever, splitting into a grin.

She’s got another tooth since Harry last saw her.

“He is a good actor, let’s not forget,” Ron points out.

“Besides, it could be just a thing Rodolphus came up with. Merlin knows he wasn’t the sanest man,” Hermione sighs, and bends to wipe some drool from her daughter’s chin.

Harry knows it means something. Something that has to do with “D” and “D’s” whereabouts.

Hermione can’t think what “D” stands for, either.

Harry would like to stay more, but as the minutes trickle by, he gets that uneasy feeling again, so he hurries back to Grimmauld.

As always, Voldemort is in the library.

“Is that spit?” he asks, a curl to his mouth as he regards Harry.

Harry looks down and rubs at a wet spot on his shoulder. “Ahm,” he shrugs. “I saw a baby.” He explains.

Voldemort’s disgust increases.

The next morning, or rather mid day, as Harry is prone to fall asleep hours after he gets to bed and has a hard time waking in the morning, he not only finds the usual cup of tea waiting for him on the kitchen table, but buttered toast.

He frowns, suspicious. They look hot. Voldemort must have just made them. Harry leaves it untouched, making an omelette.

He should toss the toast in the bin and wash the dishes, only something inside him protests at throwing food.

It is no matter; as always, by the time he comes back to get dinner, the kitchen is sparkling clean.

(-)

“I missed you!” Teddy says, hugging Harry tight, ignoring the toys Harry just got him, preferring to stay tucked in his arms.

“I missed you, too,” Harry whispers back. “I’m sorry, I’ve been a bit busy.”

Andromeda watches him with hawk eyes. Harry hadn’t known her before the war, so he can’t be sure if she’d always been so intimidating and unsmiling.

They see each other rather frequently, but the woman keeps her comments short and almost all about Teddy.

“I found a cupboard, in Grimmauld,” Harry tells her, to cover the silence, when Teddy finally settles on the floor to unwrap his gifts. “I think it has pictures in it; I tried to open it, with Kreacher but it won’t.”

“In the drawing room, up on the third floor?” she asks.

“Yeah.”

Andromeda nods. “You won’t be able to open it. Unless you have Black blood or know Dark Magic.”

“What’s dark magic?” Teddy asks, looking up.

Harry pales a little-

“A branch of magic,” Andromeda answers, nonchalant. “If you’d like, I can give you a drop of blood-”

Harry shakes his head, stomach in knots. “No, no, that’s-” Blood magic is dark magic. “It’s fine, thanks.”

He gives Teddy a pointed look, trying to signal to Andromeda that maybe he shouldn’t hear or understand is normal to use blood for anything, but she just dismisses him and returns to her knitting magazine.

When he goes back to his house, he climbs on the third floor, peering through the dirty glass. He’s positive he can see Sirius, on the top picture in a stack of photographs. Maybe it’s Regulus, he can’t be sure.

Kreacher had said they had looked identical, at that young age, and there is no way to determine unless he gets a better glimpse.

They’ve spent hours trying to open it; or rather, Harry did as Kreacher laughed every time Harry would fail, telling him it will not work.

Harry goes to the library, ignoring Voldemort’s surprised expression as he starts looking through the shelves.

“Err,” Harry stops between the rows of books after some minutes. He can’t say he’s been in the library often, before Voldemort, but he’s pretty sure it had been a mess, thousands of books everywhere. Hermione used to complain; she’d tried to deal with it, but half of the books would scream at her or try to eat her face, cursed against muggleborns.

Now it’s all organised. Alphabetically, by function and language.

There’s no dust on the shelves.

“My, my. You’re looking for a book, Potter?” Voldemort drawls. “Have you hit your head?”

“Shut it!” Harry barks, walking among the rows, peering at the titles. After five minutes, he sighs. “Something with locking charms and their counterspells?” he asks, uncertain.

Voldemort stands; his robe, another dark green one, makes him look even taller than he is. Harry thinks he might have gained a bit of weight. Or it’s just the cut, putting emphasis on his broad shoulders.

“For what, exactly?”

“I’m trying to open a cupboard,” Harry says, refusing to feel embarrassed by how easy it sounds.

“You tried Alohoromora?” Voldemort asks, mocking.

Harry just rolls his eyes.

Voldemort walks right past him, so close their robes touch. Harry backtracks, right into a shelf, his hand reaching for his wand, but Voldemort just moves past, without incident.

Blinking fast, he tries to calm himself. Granted, he isn’t expecting any sort of physical attack from Voldemort, he doesn’t look like the kind to brawl like muggles, but still.

Having him so close, even for a second, had made his heart beat faster, his skin grow hot.

“There you go.” Voldemort is back beside Harry, some seconds later, though he keeps more of a distance as he extends three volumes.

Harry takes them, mouth dry.

“If these fail you, you have others, on the right side.” Voldemort nods towards the last shelves. “But I doubt you’d approve of that kind of magic.”

Harry nods; he wouldn’t. “Someone told me I can only open it with Dark Magic, but I’m determined there are other ways.”

There always are other ways. It might mean more hard work, but it’s out there.

Harry goes to his room and opens the first book.

(-)

“What were you thinking?” Voldemort demands, pushing a newspaper in his face, as soon as Harry steps into the kitchen.

As usual, tea and toast wait for him. But for once Voldemort is there as well, looking displeased.

Lucius Malfoy has been photographed outside his house for the first time in years. The article reminds the public of all the man’s crimes and of his trial, in which he was acquitted, on Harry’s word.

“I understand Narcissa. Maybe even that stupid boy. But Lucius?”

“Don’t you start as well!” Harry says, defensive. He’s gotten enough grief over it, form everyone.

He tried to have me killed! Ginny had pointed out before the trial.

Hermione had nodded, because she had been petrified by the basilisk that very same year, curtsy of the same diary Lucius snuck into Hogwarts.

“I require an explanation,” Voldemort goes on, when Harry tosses the paper aside and starts making his own tea.

“I don’t see why you’re so surprised!” He snaps. “After all, here I am, with you, of all people. Compared to that, letting Malfoy go free is nothing.”

“You and I, are different.”

Oh, how Harry knows.

“He was punished enough. He did time in Azkaban when he was caught in the Ministry, you terrorised him, sized his house, tortured his family. He learned his lesson.”

Voldemort shakes his head. “No, he didn’t. Idiotic child.”

Truth is, Harry doesn’t care. He did it for Draco, for Narcissa. Both of them had saved his life-Draco at Malfoy Manor and Narcissa in the Forest. They helped put Voldemort away. Instrumental, really, what with Draco having had ownership of the Elder Wand.

Harry giving them a father, respectively a husband back, had seemed like fair repayment.

“You are all naive, dithering idiots.”

“You’re just bitter because he abandoned you.” Harry shrugs, looking around for sugar, opening cabinets at random.

“He abandoned me back in the first war, too. I always expected him to do it again. Slytherins do not remain loyal, without something in it for themselves.”

“Bellatrix and Rodolphus remained loyal.” Fanatical, actually.

“They were special.” A brief break. “It’s on the top shelf, where sugar ought to stay.”

Indeed, Harry reaches up, and he finds it in a white jar, labeled in Voldemort’s elegant scrawl, right besides other jars that supposedly contain salt and pepper.

Harry remembers buying condiments at Tesco, but he doesn’t remember owning jars, nor had he ever needed them, when salts and sugar came in their own cans. But they are muggle cans and, apparently, not good or classy enough for the dark lord.

It’s weird. Voldemort turns out to be rather domestic.

“Look, the man is basically a prisoner anyhow. This is the first time he leaves his house, he was too ashamed to show his mug-”

Voldemort laughs. “Ashamed. Malfoy, ashamed. He testified against so many still free Death eaters at the time. He didn’t get out of his house because they’d have murdered him. The Manor is impenetrable. He was safe, there. And now Rodolphus is gone so he can walk around unconcerned.”

“It doesn’t matter, yeah? If we can save a life, one family then so be it.”

Voldemort stares at him, hard.

Harry finds his tea bags on another shelf. “You went to school with his dad, no?”

“Same year,” Voldemort confirms after a few seconds.

Merlin, he’s old. It always shocks Harry when he remembers it.

“To give him credit, Lucius is far more willing to get his hands dirty than his father was. Abraxas was all good about shoving money at me and introducing me to people that would become my followers, but he nerver took the Mark. And when he found out his son did-he threw a fit.”

Harry snorts. “I’m surprised he survived the first war.”He has a vague recollection of Abraxas dying sometime in his sixth year.

“You know, Harry, I do not kill everyone that I encounter, no matter how tempting it is.”

Harry’s thrown off, because this is the first time in years the man uses just his given name. No Potter, no full name. Just Harry. His heart beats faster, suddenly.

“If I would, there would be so few of us left.”

(-)

“Bombarda!” Harry yells, incredibly frustrated, after reading for days and trying all the spells in the books. Nothing worked.

Harry knows it was a bad idea as soon as the spell leaves his wand.

Indeed, it rebounds, leaving the cupboard intact. He barely has the time to shield himself. The spell doesn’t shatter him to pieces, because of it, but it throws him on his back.

“Fuck!” he swears, rubbing his head.

“Pathetic.”

Harry jumps to his feet and turns, sharply, to see Voldemort leaning on the doorframe.

Cheeks flaming, Harry gives him a nasty look. “You were defeated by a baby, so maybe you shouldn’t talk.” He says through gritted teeth.

Voldemort ignores it, moving past Harry to inspect the cupboard.

“At least five spells come to mind that would open it,” he says, contemptuous.

“I’m not using Dark Magic,” Harry shoots back.

“I wasn’t talking about Dark Magic.”

Harry sighs. He should give up. But the promise of seeing something new with Sirius is too tempting.

“Fine, I’ll bite. Tell me.”

Voldemort raises an eyebrow. “I think not. You clearly lack the intellect to understand such spells, if you go around castingexploding charms at an indestructible object.”

“Go fu-”

“However,” Voldemort says sharply. “I can open it for you.”

“Yeah, right. I’m not giving you my wand. I’m not that stupid.”

Kingsley had warned him to never allow Voldemort close to his wand; the small amount of magic that the suppressors didn’t completely block is insignificant, but could become more stable with a conduit.

In normal folks, a wand makes no difference, but he isn’t normal. In normal folk, the inhibitors suppress all magic, but some lingers around him, anyway.

“Oh, you are that stupid,” Voldemort says with a ferocious smile. “As it is, I don’t need a wand to open it.”

Harry goes to stand at his side. “No? So how exactly-”

Voldemort hisses.

At first, Harry thinks it’s out of frustration or anger but then, with a pang, he understands.

The clasps on the cupboard are made of silver snakes. They move, coming out of the loops with a soft noise.

Parseltongue. Harry looks at Voldemort, shocked.

Is this how I used to sound? No wonder Justin and half the school thought me evil.

It sounds threatening. Ominous.

Inexplicably, Harry feels pain, deep in his chest, at having lost the ability, along with the Horcrux.

Voldemort smirks, a smug expression on his face. His long fingers close around the handle, also made in the shape of a snake, and the dusty glass door opens.

Harry grabs the stacks of photographs at the top.

A four, five-year-old boy smiles and winks mischievously at him, on top of a child broom. Harry knows it’s Sirius, just by his expression.

Teddy could be his son, really, they resemble each other to an incredible degree.

He gathers all the many albums stacked in the shelves with shaking hands.

“Thanks,” he stays, stopping briefly, before he leaves the room.

(-)

Harry doesn’t understand what had happened with the Black family- Sirius looks so happy, as a child, in all his pictures at that age. It’s Regulus that is shyer, less likely to smile.

Dozen upon dozens of pictures with them, along with generations of Blacks. Harry shoves those aside, fast, looking for his godfather, so full of emotions he doesn’t even care Voldemort is seated on the other side of the table.

Once Sirius had started Hogwarts, the pictures with him are rarer. His smiles more vicious smirks than genuine merriment.

The last he finds, Sirius must have been around sixteen, tall and broad shouldered, looking striking in his expensive robes. He isn’t smiling, a blank expression on his face and fire in his eyes.

He looks very handsome and Harry blushes, ashamed. He was your godfather! Get it together!

Harry had long before realised he has an appreciation for tall, dark men.

He realised it in the tent, with the locket dangling around his throat as he slept-

Harry shakes his head and looks up at Voldemort, who had been strangely quiet, no mocking words for Harry and how much he evidently treasures this pictures of the only family he had had, of the only adult in Harry’s life he had felt he could depend on.

But Voldemort isn’t even looking at him; he’s glancing down at some of the pictures Harry had discarded.

Harry peeks over, leaning in.

Bellatrix Black had been gorgeous, no matter how much it pains him to recognise it. She looks as proud as she had been in life, long, thick shiny hair falling in her very dark, alluring eyes.

There are dozens of pictures with her as well; Harry recognises Andromeda and Narcissa in some of them.

Strangely, the one that Voldemort is staring at, held loosely between his fingers, is with Bellatrix as a very young child, Kreacher running after her, in and out of the frame, trying to take away a wand she must have stolen from her parents.

“Where is she buried?” Voldemort asks, voice low.

That always means danger with him. When he’s most angry, Voldemort’s voice drops instead of rising. “Or did they burn her?”

The Ministry burned most of the Death Eaters bodies, when no family came forward to claim them.

They hadn’t wanted to release Bellatrix to Narcissa, Harry knows. Narcissa had been a pariah, son and husband awaiting trial, in Azkaban.

But Andromeda, mother of a heroine, could not be denied. People had whispered, confused about her request, claiming the body of the woman that had killed her daughter, but no one dared say no to her.

“Why do you care?” Harry asks in a whisper.

“How insensitive,” Voldemort says, glaring at Harry. “And you called me callous, for not caring about your dead parents.”

“But you didn’t care about her,” Harry insists. “You don’t care about anyone.”

“Is that so? How do you know?” Voldemort’s face is blank, but his eyes flash. For a second, Harry imagines he can see a spark of red in them. “Oh, wait, let me guess: Dumbledore told you.”

Well, yes. But Harry’s seen it for himself, the way he treated his Death Eaters and-

“He must be right; after all, he was omniscient.” It would be hard to miss the fury in Voldemort’s voice.

“He was,” Harry defends Dumbledore, though he has his issues with him, still. “You never showed-”

“Where is she? What have they done to her?” Voldemort hisses.

Harry bites his cheek, eyes falling on the young Bellatrix, laughing as she sets the curtains on fire.

“She’s buried at Malfoy Manor.”

Voldemort’s face twists into a snarl.

(-)

Harry is melting. It’s one of those days, when Grimmauld’s weather charms just decide not to work.

Harry tried to alter them, had read more books than he’d ever wanted, including Ancient Runes, but nothing works in the damned house.

It is hot. August at its worst.

When Harry goes down to the kitchen, the coolest room in the house, he finds a cold tea waiting for him, instead of the usual hot ones.

It’s starting to bug Harry, the whole breakfast thing. What is Voldemort playing at?

At noon, it’s almost unbearable to be in the house; Harry’s sweating, just in T-shit and jeans, and he thinks to go to Ron’s, to cool down.

But then he thinks of Voldemort, trapped here, in this heat.

Harry goes looking for him, guessing correctly he’ll find him in the damned library.

It’s even worse there, the only room with tall, wide windows, the sun shining through them. And Voldemort is clad in the black robe, the one with silver accents. It looks very thick.

Harry doesn’t know how the man isn’t sweating; he’s possibly too elegant for it, or something, but he does look irritated, giving Harry a hateful glare as soon as he enters.

“Why don’t you go down in the kitchen?” Harry asks. “It’s cooler down there.”

“I don’t read in the kitchen,” Voldemort says.

“Why not?” Harry frowns.

“Because the kitchen is for eating; it is no place for books.”

It’s such a Hermione thing to say; he wouldn’t have thought she’d have anything in common with Voldemort, but they share an unhealthy respect for books.

“That’s nonsense,” he says.

“You lack discipline.”

“Well, guess I didn’t have parents to teach me these things!” Harry barks.

Voldemort is not impressed. “Neither did I,” he reminds Harry. “And yet, I still posses manners.”

“Oh, yes. What a gentleman, killing and torturing your way around the country.”

“Suit yourself. If you’d have a routine, if you’d discipline yourself, you wouldn’t struggle so much, mentally.”

Harry can feel his eyebrows shooting up into his hairline. “What?”

Voldemort is done talking, plainly, because he turns back to his book and ignores Harry.

But Harry can’t let it go. The nerve on this man-

“If anyone here has mental issues, that would be you,” He tells him. “You’re monstrous and psychotic!” Harry says, pacing around. His T-shirt is stuck to his back, wet. “And this?” He gestures around the library, with all the books arranged, scrolls of parchment carefully stacked besides ink-pots and quills. “This isn’t discipline! This is- I don’t even know what it is, but it’s strange! I can’t find one damn thing in the pantry!”

It’s all so clean and organised. It freaks Harry out, trying to imagine Voldemort cleaning cabinets or making breakfast, sorting tea bags by flavour. Ridiculous.

“You’ll get used to it.” Voldemort drawls, slowly turning the page.

“It’s my house!” Harry points out. “You should get used to how I do things.”

“You don’t do anything.” Voldemort says, still calm. “You’ve been rotting in this house, in chaos and misery.”

Voldemort is too calm. Harry’s lingering on the edge, waiting for something terrible to happen.

His stillness makes Harry think of a snake, patiently stalking its prey, waiting for the perfect chance to strike.

“And what’s the deal with the tea, huh? Why are you making me toast?”

“It’s the polite thing to do, after you so graciously received me in your house.”

“Spare me!” Harry says, voice embarrassingly high. “You’re trying to poison me!”

Voldemort sighs, as if he’s dealing with a particularly unreasonable child. As if he hadn’t tried to kill Harry for the best part of a decade. He looks up.

“Aren’t you paranoid?” he asks. “Poison you with what, exactly?”

“I don’t know! You can clearly open stuff that the Aurors, Kreacher and myself hadn’t been able to. Who knows what’s hidden in this shithole!”

That’s how he gets his robes, Harry thinks. He found armoires with snakes on them and commanded them to open.

“Are you quite done?” Voldemort demands. “My patience is not without limits, Harry Potter.”

Back to Harry Potter.

Good. That’s good. You don’t want him calling you Harry, as if you are friends. He doesn’t deserve to call you Harry.

“You’ll just have to suffer it,” He says, spiteful.

A muscles jumps in Voldemort’s jaw. “I thought you said I wouldn’t be tortured here. Throwing a tantrum is not only embarrassing, but it is quite torturous.”

Harry takes in a big breath, shuts his mouth and leaves, before he can continue to act foolish.

It’s the heat, he thinks. It’s getting to him.

He goes to Ron.

Voldemort can go ahead and melt, for all Harry cares.

(-)

The next day is just as bad.

After a cold shower, he goes down to the kitchen, to find Voldemort already there, sitting at the table, drinking water from a tall goblet, engraved with the Black crest. Harry has no idea where that came from either, had asked Kreacher to use a nice, normal muggle set Hermione had bought when she used to live with him.

Harry’s tea and toast are waiting. He groans.

“You’re persistent, I’ll give you that,” he says, defeated.

“I am,” Voldemort confirms. “So you might as well just eat. We both know you will, eventually. You always do what I want you to, even if it might take a while.”

“You’re delusional, sometimes.” Harry says, getting a jug of pumpkin juice from the pantry, that he’d bought just days prior. “Most of the time.”

“We shall see.”

Harry could just go back to his room, or to the living room or to Ron’s. He could visit Teddy.

He sits across Voldemort.

“You’re sitting in Sirius’ chair,” he says, mildly. “I’d rather you not.”

“I rather not be here at all, I assure you,” Voldemort replies.

Harry sighs.

You can’t let him get to you. He’s just doing and saying these things to rile you up. Just don’t react.

“I’ll get you some clothes,” he says. “I know you must be hot.”

Voldemort is in his care, as absurd as that sounds, and Harry should remember that. He gets no pleasure thinking the man is uncomfortable.

“It was hot, back at the orphanage.” Voldemort responds. “There were no cooling charms there, either. I trained my mind to ignore it. The heat, the cold, the hunger. Nothing bothers Lord Voldemort.”

It’s so fascinating when he starts referring to himself in the third person. When Harry had told Hermione about it, she’d said it’s most likely a way for him to dissociate himself from certain parts of his past.

“The incessant wailing of children, the sirens in the war. If you think this is hot, you haven’t been locked in a bunker, with fifty other people, for hours on end.”

Harry winces. He can’t imagine it. The war. He doesn’t know anyone else that had lived through that. Tom Riddle had; he’d lived through the World War as a muggle, every summer, starting his second year at Hogwarts and all the way until his last.

He looks at the man in front of him, made of pride and spite, and he can’t see the child he once was.

And yet he’d seen that child in Dumbledore’s memory.

“You were creepy back then, too,” Harry says. “Violent. You killed animals.”

This is Voldemort. Harry can’t forget that, can’t let his empathy blind him.

“I beg your pardon?” Voldemort raises an eyebrow.

“Billy’s rabbit. Mrs. Cole said so, to Dumbledore.”

“Ah. The stupid rabbit,” Voldemort says, but he smiles, slightly. “No wonder Dumbledore hated me; I never knew that woman had already filled his head with her tale of woe before he even met me.” A brief pause. “Did he tell you he set my belongings on fire?”

Harry smirks. “Yeah. Because they weren’t your belongings, were they?”

Voldemort rolls his eyes. “We were all thieves there. We were poor. We stole from the streets and from each other. Food, toys, books. Whoever was too weak to do so, died, carried away by the pox, bodies too malnourished to survive. So we did what we had to do. The older ones stole from the youngest. The smart from the stupid. It’s not my fault I had magic and was far more intelligent than the rest. We were all vicious. I stole Billy’s breakfast, so he threw away my book. I pushed him down the stairs and his older friends broke my nose. I killed his rabbit, and they left me alone.”

Harry suppresses a shiver. He remembers Vernon threatening Harry with orphanages, when he misbehaved. And even Harry had known orphanages were terrible, even if he’d never seen one, even if he’d been only six years old.

But everyone seemed to know, a consensus of sorts, that those places were terrible. Hermione says they did away with them, that they have another system in place now, for orphans.

“I only had Dudley to steal my food,” Harry says. “Granted, they didn’t give me much, anyway.”

“You never fought back?” Voldemort looks at Harry, curious.

“No.” It would have only landed him in worse trouble.

Voldemort had chosen to have the others notice him, see him as stronger than them. He had used his magic to punish.

Harry had chosen to become unobtrusive, did his best to be invisible to the Dursleys. He used his magic to help him run and hide, when Dudley wanted to harm him.

“You wouldn’t have survived at Wool’s,” comes Voldemort’s verdict after a few seconds. “We’d have eaten you alive.”

“I’m sorry you had to grow up like that,” Harry says, honestly.

Harry can acknowledge the terrible person Voldemort is, but he can be sorry for the boy he once was.

Voldemort doesn’t appreciate pity or sympathy.

“Don’t get sentimental, Potter,” He spits. “Weren’t you raised in a cupboard?”

Rita had gotten hold of that gem when she’d talked to the Dursleys and now everyone and their mothers knew it.

Harry takes a big gulp of pumpkin juice.

“You called me monstrous, the other day. Weren’t the Dursley monstrous? I only tried to kill you, fast and clean. But who starves a child? What kind of people shove a baby in a closet, hmm?” he asks, cruel. “And speaking of sadistic bastards, didn’t Dumbledore send you back to them every summer, the same way he sent me back to a war torn London?”

Harry stands and leaves.

(-)

This isn’t such a big deal, get a grip! Harry tells himself when he enters the forth muggle clothing store. Just pick something and get out!

Only, Voldemort will hate the clothes anyway, what with them being muggle.

Harry refuses to go to Madam Malkin and be seen buying summer robes for a tall man. He’ll never hear the end of it, and Rita Skeeter will write about his mysterious lover for at least two years.

So at least he should buy something fancy, to satisfy the snob in Voldemort. Something tells Harry, Voldemort would rather melt than wear jeans and T-shirts, or Merlin forbid, shorts.

“How may I help you?” A young man about his age asks Harry, smiling large. “Would you like a glass of water, or a coffee, while you decide?”

Right, it’s that kind of store. Certainly not a treatment he’d receive at Primark.

“Err,” Harry feels very out of place in his jeans and sneakers. The floor is cleaner than his shoes. “I’m looking for a-present. For a man.” He clarifies dumbly, since he’s already in the men’s section.

“Of course. A certain article or-?”

“Ahm, yeah. I mean, no. That is to say, a whole thing. Outfit. More than one.”

“I see,” the man agrees, pleasantly.

“I don’t have measurements,” Harry says, more and more uncomfortable. “He’s tall.” He adds. “And- yeah. He’s tall. About -like this.” He raises his hand some dozen inches over his head.

Charles, as his name-tag suggests, blinks at him.

“I’m afraid we need a bit more than that, sir.”

Harry looks around, wildly. There are plenty of posters hanging around the place, men modelling various outfits.

“He looks like that one.” Harry points to an attractive brunette. It’s not like that’s his criteria for Voldemort. All the models are attractive, that one just happens to be tall and slender, but with broad shoulders.

Charles looks at the poster. “Oh, lucky you.” He whispers and Harry’s cheeks burn.

He’s unsure what to comment. Vernon had hated “homosexuals” more than magic, and Harry remembers many muggles shared his opinions. Maybe times have changed.

“He’s not-ahm- no, I mean- Yeah. He’s about that size. It’s fine if he isn’t. I can-ah- tweak them.”

“We have our own tailors, sir. If they don’t fit, you may return them for adjustments.”

“Sure.” Harry nods, but he’ll use his wand if it comes to it.

Though he can’t see how that conversation between him and Voldemort would go.

His cheeks burn again.

It’s torturous. In the end, Harry stops Charles from showing him various shirts and trousers. “Look, just pick whatever you want. I trust you. Just make it fancy and nice.”

Charles is thrilled with Harry. No wonder, judging by the prices. Harry will have to confound them into accepting cash, because he doesn’t have one of those card thingies muggle store seem to request, after a certain threshold.

“Are you interested in underwear?” Charles asks, conspiratorially, just as Harry thought they were done.

Oh, fuck.

No, Harry isn’t interested. He can’t. Surely, Voldemort would murder him, somehow, if Harry presents him with underwear.

But he must need it, right?

“Ok,” Harry whispers, faint. “No, no. No!” He adds, when Charles shows him some ridiculously over the top underpants. “Just -normal. Don’t you have normal stuff? Please?”

“Are you sure? These are very nice,” Charles winks, holding some red boxers made of silk.

Harry’s knees go weak. “I’m very sure. He hates red. He’s a green kind of guy,” he rambles.

“We have them in a nice, dark forest green-”

“No- please!”

He must look tortured because Charles leaves him alone after that.

(-)

He leaves the many bags at Voldemort’s door, swiftly, and then hides in his room for the rest of the day.

Why are you acting like a child? You’ve done nothing shameful. It’s a necessity.

He dreams of the locket Horcrux, of Tom, wearing the silk red boxers, in the tent of horrors.

He wakes up drenched, and it has little to do with the persisting stifling heat.

(-)

Voldemort is wearing a light white shirt and black trousers. They fit him perfectly. Criminally, really.

Don’t stare. Ignore it.

Especially ignore the smirk on his face.

Harry’s so distracted, trying to do anything to ignore the awkwardness, that he only realises he has a piece of the suspicious toast - waiting for him, as always- in his hand when it touches his lips.

He hastily drops it back onto the plate, as if burned.

Voldemort’s suddenly very close to him.

Harry reaches for his wand under the table.

But Voldemort just grabs the toast.

Harry looks up, just in time to see Voldemort take a bite out of it. He chews it, slowly.

“You’re a fool, Harry Potter.” He says, after he swallows, sounding more amused than ever, and very, very pleased.

Chapter 7

Chapter Text

“You really should do something with yourself. Find a career. You are young and you are wasting away in this house. All your friends work, do they not?”

Voldemort is standing between two bookshelves, examining the titles.

Harry’s been pretending to read, for lack of anything else to do.

Voldemort really loves books, Harry thinks. He should have been a librarian.

He stifles the laugh that tries to rise at the image his mind provides.

Well, he’d be better to look upon than Mrs. Pince, that’s for sure.

“I’m keeping an eye on you,” Harry says, ignoring the twisted ideas that come to him, on occasion.

“A poor excuse. I’ve been living here for two months. You’ve been out of work for years. Is there nothing you’d like to do?”

“I always wanted to be an Auror,” Harry answers, after a moment.

“A terrible choice.”Voldemort glances at him, entertained.

Harry nods. An Auror that cannot kill the Dark Lord, chooses instead to take him home and buy him designer clothes…

“It was Crouch, you know?” Harry says. “That made me want to be one. The Death Eater, I mean, not the dad.”

“Barty always had a way with children,” Voldemort says, switching two books between themselves.

“What were you thinking, with that ridiculous plan?” Harry asks him, remembering the disaster. “There were so many easier ways to snatch me or get my blood-”

“It worked, didn’t it?” Voldemort raises an eyebrow, turning to face Harry, fully.

“Maybe. But it was so convoluted.”

“You shouldn’t complain. I made you the winner of a prestigious international competition; you’d have never passed the first task, on your own. Yet another thing you would have never accomplished without me. Amusing, how they keep adding up.”

“Yeah, yeah. Whatever.” Harry waves it away, desensitised already to being put down at any chance Voldemort gets.

It’s also true; “Moody” was the one that made it easy for Harry to go through the tasks; without him, he’d have faced a dragon, with no prior knowledge; without him, he’d have drowned.

That brings him too close to the third task, to Cedric, and Voldemort rising from the cauldron, so Harry changes the subject, before the ache in his chest starts spreading.

“I hate the Ministry, so getting a job with them is out of the question. They must hate me back, now, what with …ahm, the circumstances.”

He never gets along with Ministers, it seems. It’s his destiny to fight with the magical leaders over Voldemort.

“Yes. Blackmailing people leads to hard feelings, Harry,” Voldemort says, condescending.

Harry opens his mouth, but before he can answer back with some choice words, Voldemort goes on.“What else? There must be something you enjoy, besides moping around the kitchen or staring at me all day long.”

Harry looks away, mortified. “I’m keeping an eye on you,” he repeats. “I don’t enjoy it.”

Voldemort hums and turns to his books, adjusting them until they are perfectly aligned.

“I guess I’d like to play Quidditch. Maybe,” Harry speaks into the silence, just to say something.

“Then go and chase balls, if that is what you desire.”

“Well, I can’t because-”

“I can’t escape. If I could, I’d have been out already. Merlin knows, you give me plenty of opportunities.”

(-)

“It went great, Harry! You were brilliant!” Ginny hugs him when Harry gets out of the locker room, back in his street clothes.

She’s been flying with Puddlemere United for over a year, since she’d left the Holyhead Harpies; between her and Oliver Wood, their Captain had been happy to meet with Harry.

His reflexes are just as good as they used to be, even if he hadn’t played in a very long time, outside the rare friendly matches at the Burrow.

“I’m so excited!” she says, throwing her long hair over her shoulder.

“Me too,” Harry grins.

He’d missed flying. He’s been worried, as he always is when he has to meet new people that gawk at his scar, with worship in their eyes; it always makes him angry and uncomfortable.

But the team was more impressed by Harry’s flying than anything Voldemort related, and Harry is alright with that.

It’s different to be appreciated for his talent, unlike for the lie that he saved everyone from the dark lord.

The dark lord who’s waiting for him back at the house.

“It went alright,” Harry announces, though Voldemort doesn’t ask. “I’ve made the team.”

“Shocking,” he drawls, turning the page of a journal he’d been scribbling furiously in.

“I’m a great flyer!” Harry says through gritted teeth.

One of the many reasons he hadn’t gotten a job was precisely because everyone would just assume he got it because of his name.

“I’m not a Quidditch fan, so I shall take your word for it.”

“Shocking,” Harry spits back at him. But he’s too happy, for once, to be bitter. “It will be nice to play again,” he says, though he doesn’t know why he insists on sharing these emotions with Voldemort.

He can just wait for Ron to finish his shift at Weaslys’ Wizard Wheezes and say it to him. Ron will actually be happy to hear it.

“What team?” Voldemort asks, sighing, when Harry doesn’t shut up, looking up from his journal and putting the quill down.

“Puddlemere United.”

“Ah,” Voldemort gets a glint in his eyes. “Ginevra is with them, no?”

“How in the world would you even-”

“Witch Weekly.”

“Perhaps I should get you a subscription,” Harry mocks. “You seemed to have enjoyed it. They also share recipes, maybe you’ll learn to make more than toast, for breakfast.”

Voldemort’s smile only grows more predatory. “If you’d like something else, you only need to say so, Harry. But I happen to know you enjoy toast, slightly burned and with far too much butter.”

“How-”

“I have eyes. Unlike others,” he gives Harry a pointed glare, “I actually use them to observe what is happening around me.”

Harry’s skin flushes, imagining Voldemort watching Harry.

He’s only doing it to find your weak spots.

Maybe that’s what he’s writing down, a list of all the ways he can use to destroy Harry.

“I won’t let you upset me today,” Harry declares.

“Is that a challenge?”

“Merlin, no,” Harry runs a hand through his hair, more messy than usual, from flying. “Just drop it.”

“You are unusually cheery,” Voldemort leans back into the chair. “Is it Quidditch or is it Ginevra? I did read she is quite a heartless young woman, abandoning the poor national hero, leaving him broken and refusing to leave his house-”

“I hate Skeeter,” Harry mumbles, remembering the articles.

Good thing Ginny is made of tough stuff and she ignored all the hate filled letters from Harry’s fans, every glare she received in public, for months after the breakup.

Harry had offered they go out together, from time to time, so the idiots could see he has no hard feelings towards her.

But she had refused, so close after the separation, had said it would mess her up.

Not that it would have been nice for Harry.

It took almost a year for him to be able to see her at the Burrow, without his heart aching.

He’d tried to stop going, but Molly wouldn’t hear of it.

“I’ll tell her to stay away while you’re here.” She had said, patting Harry’s back.

“She’s your daughter,” Harry had said, flabbergasted.

“I love her to bits, but she was the one to break your heart. Besides, I see her every day.”

Harry is very happy all that awkwardness and heart ache had went away, though Ginny still doesn’t bring her boyfriend over, in the Sundays he visits the Weasleys.

“I’m going out,” Harry announces. “So you can return to your ramblings or whatever it is you’re writing.”

“Thank you for your permission, Harry,” Voldemort's smile gets a tenser line to it and Harry retreats before it grows worse.

He takes a quick shower, grinning to himself the whole time, imagining Ron’s reaction.

He’ll just surprise him at the store. Better that way; if he waits until Ron is home, Hermione will be there and she’ll have much the same reaction as Voldemort.

Oh, she’d try to smile and congratulate him. Maybe she’d even be pleased that Harry is finally doing something, but deep down she’ll think he can do better, as she still thinks of Ron’s job.

He checks the pantry, before he leaves, to make sure Voldemort has something to eat. It’s been almost a week since he’s gone shopping.

Perhaps I’ll get something from Diagon, he thinks, so cheerful, he feels generous. Something magical, that he’ll like more.

Though Voldemort seems to enjoy muggle food well enough. In the first two weeks he’d only eaten a little- toast and fruits; presumably because he hadn’t eaten anything in years and his stomach couldn’t handle more, but recently, every day the pantry is emptying at an alarming speed.

Especially the meat.

A true carnivore, this one.

“My, my. You showered.”

Harry jumps, hitting his head on the low pantry ceiling.

“Can you make some noise, when you move?” He asks, sharply.

“No. I relish in seeing your alarmed face.”

Harry rolls his eyes, stepping back into the kitchen. “What do you mean, I showered? I shower daily.”

It’s not exactly true, Harry’s skipped some days, mostly in the beginning of their cohabitation, because really, who wants to be naked and vulnerable with Voldemort around?

He’s placed strong locking charms on his door, and he keeps his wand in his teeth as he showers, but even so, he always tries to be done as fast as possible.

“Perhaps,” Voldemort tilts his head. “But you never attempt to tame that messy mop you call hair; not that you’d succeeded now, but you tried.” He smirks. “Are you going on a romantic outing?”

“Oh, God. You just-agh!” Harry waves a hand. “I’m leaving.”

“I thought you wouldn’t let me upset you today, Harry.”

Voldemort’s amused voice floats after Harry, as he climbs the stairs to the foyer.

(-)

Training is hard; harder than it’s been at Hogwarts. Harry’s a bit out of shape, but he always sleeps better afterwards, so tired his nightly terrors and worries melt away, as he goes out like a light.

Of course, there are articles about him as soon as word gets out; not just the Witch Weekly, but even the Daily Prophet.

Apparently there is already a love triangle happening between him, Ginny and her boyfriend, Yannis, one of the Beaters. Either that, or they’re fighting over her affection.

It makes Voldemort laugh when Harry glances at these articles. He’s gotten into the habit of reading them out loud, just to piss Harry off.

He retaliates by not buying some of the things Voldemort writes down on The List.

Because he’s leaving Harry lists now; every few days, when Harry goes down for breakfast, beside the ever present tea and toast, Harry finds a groceries list.

He’s never even heard of some of the things on it; for an orphan raised in poverty, Voldemort has expensive taste. Harry has to go further than the Tesco at the corner to get some of the specific kind of foodstuffs.

There’s no ‘thank you’ afterward, not even an acknowledgment at first.

And then Harry starts finding dinner waiting for him; it’s always something extravagant that smells heavenly.

“Stop it,” Harry barges into the library, after the third time it happenes. “You’re wasteful. I don’t like throwing food away.”

“Than you are being wasteful,” Voldemort replies, uninterested.

Fine, Harry thinks. Fine. Two can play this game.

(-)

“I’ve made dinner,” Harry announces one evening.

“Good for you.”

“I meant for you, too,” Harry spits and marches back to the kitchen.

Part of him doesn’t expect Voldemort to join him, but he does minutes later.

He’s wearing the clothes Harry bought for him, but with an open robe over them, unclasped.

It’s getting chilly outside, as October rolls around.

Voldemort sits and only then it strikes Harry, that he had left Sirius’s chair, at the head of the table, free for his guest.

Why did I do that?

“I believe it is you that is trying to poison me,” Voldemort looks down at his plate. “Not intentionally, of course, not with your delicate nature, but surely this has the potential to make me sick.”

Harry squeezes his knife harder, ignores the desire to shove it between Voldemort’s eyes, and cuts his steak.

“I know how to cook,” he says, with his mouth full, because he just knows it will upset Voldemort’s sense of propriety. “The Dursleys expected everything to taste good.”

“Ah, so you can add House-Elf on your very short resume,” Voldemort smirks.

“Right under ‘Defeater of Voldemort’,” Harry responds with a smirk of his own.

“That would be a lie,” Voldemort takes a bite and Harry expects him to make a face or say something unflattering, but surprisingly he just chews and swallows. “Now, why didn’t you poison them?”

“You know why,” Harry answers.

“Yes, killing is wrong.” Voldemort does make a face at that. “I’m not saying murder, but just some food poisoning.”

Harry sighs and ignores him.

“Tell me you at least spat in it.”

Harry chokes with his beans.

It takes him minutes to recover and two glasses of water.

Eating with Voldemort is bad for his health, even if Harry’s the one cooking.

(-)

“Thank you,” Andromeda says, taking the pictures Harry had brought over.

She’s as stoic as ever, no expression on her face as she looks at them, but there’s something unusually soft in her eyes.

“You’re welcome.”

Teddy is terribly excited. “That’s Cissa!” He asserts, and Harry makes sure his face betrays nothing. He knows “Cissa” visits occasionally.

“And that’s you, Nana.”

“This is -was-Sirius.” Harry points him out. “And his brother, Regulus. You look a lot like them.”

Not at the moment; Teddy’s hair is blue, and his eyes bright green, as they tend to be, whenever he sees Harry.

“And who is this?” He asks, pointing at Bellatrix and Harry’s heart skips a bit. “She’s pretty.”

Silence falls. Harry thinks to distract Teddy, with talk of Quidditch-

“Is she Bella, nana? You always say she looked like you the most.”

Surely not, Harry thinks. Surely Andromeda isn’t telling Teddy anything about Bella.

“Yes, that’s her.”

Andromeda sounds tortured.

What a fucked up position to be in, Harry thinks, with sympathy, even if he doesn’t understand at all.

“Don’t be sad, nana. Don’t be! Look!”

Teddy’s short blue hair turns black and glossy, grows long, down to his waist; his eyes turn dark with long eyelashes.

Thing is, Teddy looks like Sirius and he supposes Bellatrix, without having to shift. He favours Sirius more, with steely grey eyes, but the Black features are dominant, no trace of Remus or Ted Tonks in him.

Andromeda puts herself together, incredibly fast, a vestige of her upbringing, Harry imagines, of her Slytherin House and how they all know to hide their feelings when needed.

“I’m not sad,” she lies convincingly enough for a five-year-old. “And hair that long is for girls.”

“Nah!” Teddy smiles. “I’ve seen some rock singers on the telly, at Johnny’s house and they have long hair.”

“Those are Muggles, love.”

“Lucius isn’t a muggle! He has long hair.”

“What?” Harry splutters.

“Not that long.” Andromeda sends Harry a glare.

“Lucius?”

“Oh,” Teddy looks up, hair shorter, blond, eyes green. “Cissa’s husband.”

“He knows who Lucius is. Go draw Harry a golden snitch, yes?”

Harry paces around the room until Teddy is persuaded to leave.

“Malfoy?” He hisses in a low voice. “I get your sister, but Malfoy? He hates half-bloods and werewolves, and he fought against Teddy’s parents-”

“He is all that, but he loves Narcissa. If it makes her happy to have me and Teddy visit, then he’ll allow it, and allow it with a polite smile.”

“You’re going to the Manor?” Harry forgets to keep his voice low. “People were killed in that cellar-

“You’ll be happy to know they don’t receive us in the cellar,” she says, contemptuous.

“Well, they torture Hermione is a living room-”

“I’ll make sure to ask witch one, so we can avoid it,” Andromeda drawls.

Harry blinks at her, trying to keep his temper. He gives her a derisive laugh.

“And you won’t let me take Teddy to the Burrow? Why, have you changed your views? Aren’t they posh enough? Too poor for your-”

“She killed my sister,” the venom in her voice takes Harry by surprise.

He’d forgotten it; Molly is the most caring, kind woman he ever had the fortune to meet. It’s hard to remember she took down one of the most evil beings in the world.

“Your sister was about to kill her daughter,” Harry spits. “Your sister killed-” Harry shuts his mouth, but his eyes go to Dora’s pictures. They are everywhere, all over the house, a veritable shrine.

“I understand,” Andromeda says, stiffly. “I do. But she killed my sister.”

“I don’t get you.” Harry looks at her, dumbfounded. “I truly don’t. She was a murderer, rotten to the core and-”

“You’ve no business to ‘get me’. I’ve known Bella since before you were born! I’ve known her long before that monster turned her into- into what she became. Do you think it’s easy for me? I could strangle her myself if she were to stand before me today; but I have years upon years of memories with a beautiful girl, that took care of me, that solved all my problems and protected me from the world. I’m mourning that girl, and you have no right to judge me!

We were fine in the first war! Death Eaters were killing blood traitors, right and left. And I was the biggest traitor of all, a Black married to a Muggleborn. I wasn’t touched. Ted wasn’t touched. He never understood why, but I knew she was keeping them away from us.

And then the second war came, and I begged Dora to keep her head down, to stay away, but she had to follow Dumbledore and his little band of rebels! Once she was in it, Ted and I had to come with her. And still she wasn’t hurt; at the Ministry, when you were stupid enough to get tricked by Voldemort, Bella went right past Dora-”

“Yeah!” Harry yells. “To kill Sirius! He was family too-”

“And then Dorra had to marry him. I begged on my knees for her not to do it; but she was as stubborn as any Black; when she fell in love, it wouldn’t matter that the man she loved was not worthy. Just like Bella.

So Dora married that cowardly werewolf that left her as soon as she got pregnant, and of course no one could ignore such a slight to House Black. A mudblood is one thing- a beast is quite another.”

“Cowardly werewolf! Beast?” Harry screams. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

“That is what he was!” She screams back, and she looks like her dear sister indeed, deranged. “You ruined my family! Voldemort corrupted it, took my sister from me and turned her into a lunatic, and then you and Dumbledore finished it! You three took everything from me! Everything!”

“You’re insane-”

But a whimper stops him; he turns and sees Teddy in the doorway, tears flowing down his cheeks. He is wearing his own face and his Black aristocratic features scream at the world, lets everyone know whom he comes from.

But Harry’s never in his life seen a Black as devastated.

He’d seen anger in them, he’d seen madness and coldness. But he’d never seen this vulnerability, not in Sirius or Lestrange or Narcissa.

Fuck.

“Hey!” Harry whispers, hurrying over, kneeling beside him. “Hey, it’s ok, don’t cry. I’m sorry.”

Teddy flings himself into his arms and weeps.

(-)

“You look like you’d benefit from a tea,” Voldemort says, entering the never used room with the piano in which Harry had attempted to hide, still rattled by his “talk” with Andromeda. “But you’d only throw it away if I offered.”

“I need something far stronger than tea.,” Harry mumbles.

“Really?” Voldemort makes a gesture with his head towards Harry’s butterbeer. “That’s stronger than tea? Are you twelve? You have a cellar filled with liquor.”

“I’m not getting drunk around you.”

How Harry would wish to go to the cellar, lock himself in, and make his way through ancient, priceless wine and firewhiskey.

A sinister smile. “Do you think I’ll take advantage of your inebriated state?”

Harry’s cheeks flush at the innuendo. And there is no mistake that is what it is, not with the way Voldemort smirks.

“What am I going to do, Harry? Hit you in the back of the head with the umbrella stand?”

The way in which he just goes on makes Harry think he’d imagined the innuendo, after all.

He wonders if Voldemort is aware how he sounds sometimes.

Of course he’s aware. He’s doing it to rile you up.

But- maybe it’s one of those things, the simple, day-to-day things that Voldemort is clueless about. After all, he couldn’t have possibly flirted much, before.

“I can do that even when you’re sober.”

Harry just ignores him, staring at the wall.

“As it is, I think this is the first intelligent decision you’ve made since you entered the cell they were holding me in.”

Harry shudders, inwardly.

(-)

His foot slips in the middle of the steps and he very ungracefully stumbles on them, still somehow keeping his footing, trying to cling to the rail. But the rail will be gone soon and Harry already flinches as what is sure to come-

A strong grip on his shoulder stops his momentum, righting him.

“Um-thanks,” Harry says, dismayed.

“It would take too much effort to clean the bloodstains,” Voldemort says, as impassive as ever.

He clings on to Harry for another second, before releasing him. “Grown men that respect themselves shouldn’t run. It’s undignified.”

Harry rolls his eyes. “I am late for training-

“Or are you eager to carve your forehead again? Perhaps if you’d wake in time, you wouldn’t be late.”

“Whatever,” Harry arranges his T-shirt, grabs his broom, waiting for him by the door. “What do you mean ‘to carve my forehead, again’? Because I never did. You carved my forehead.”

“You’re late, Harry Potter.” Voldemort says and departs.

Harry rolls his eyes again. Smooth, he thinks.

(-)

“I’d like to tell her that the entire world is watching,” Bertina Nettles says, when asked how she feels about the recent news. “We all love that young, handsome boy, so this Weasley better not break his heart again!”

“Can you please, stop?” Harry says for the third time. “I’m trying to eat.”

Voldemort puts the Daily Prophet away. He’d already finished his meal, cooked by Harry again.

“No one would have dared write articles like that about me. You only have to torture one journalist, in public, and they will back off.”

Harry’s tempted from time to time. “Chances are Ginny will, soon, if they keep going.”

“Fierce little thing, isn’t she?”

Voldemort has no fears about drinking around Harry, because he’d pilfered a bottle of wine.

He’s as measured with it as with anything else. Harry doesn’t know how one makes drinking from a glass look graceful and sophisticated, but there it is.

He was born and raised in the gutter, he’s the biggest nerd there ever was, he probably spent his Hogwarts years studying non stop and manipulating people and when did he find the time to learn manners such as these?

Harry would really like to know.

“Lucius told me she was the one to get possessed by my diary.”

Harry bites into his chicken, so he can have an excuse not to talk.

“She must have been quite taken with my sixteen-year-old self if she ended up drained and controlled, so fast.”

Harry does his best to ignore him. But that never ends as he plans.

“So it shouldn’t be surprising that she fell for another one of my Horcruxes, after. Nor that she dumped you, when you ceased to be one.”

Harry clenches his jaws, hard. He could tell Voldemort that Ginny liked Harry before the Diary, but then Voldemort would just say Harry’s been a Horcrux before the Diary. There’s just no point.

Voldemort isn’t pleased when Harry doesn’t give him a reaction. “I though you’d marry her. You had experiences with me in common and of course, she looks quite like your mother, all tall and freckled and with that atrocious red hair. And you do have mummy issues, aplenty.”

Don’t react, don’t react, don’t react.

“Of course, I am yet to determine if your daddy issues run quite as strongly.”

“Shut up!” Harry snarls and Voldemort smirks, satisfied.

But if Harry doesn’t react at all, it seems he’d just keep going, nastier and nastier until Harry does react. There’s no winning with this man.

“Why didn’t you find yourself another airhead darling?” Voldemort asks. “You’re not much to look at, granted, but with your name and wealth, surely there are enough girls to throw themselves at your feet.”

He’s right; it’s exactly why Harry doesn’t date. Because they only see Harry Potter, the Chosen One. They don’t want him, they want a lie.

Not that he’s been terribly concerned with dating, but he’d felt the need from time to time.

Hermione must have guessed his issues with the witches, so she had made Ron take Harry out on a “boys’ night out” in the muggle world, from time to time.

And eventually, Harry did find a girl- or rather she found him. She’s been daring, tall, with tattoos and a bike. And quite bold.

She’d taken Harry home, and they spent a lovely night together, but then she’d asked for his phone number, and Harry couldn’t give her one. She must have thought he was being a jerk.

And that’s how Harry realised he can’t date a muggle, either.

Harry can’t keep up with their rapidly expanding technology- year after year he becomes almost as clueless as Ron. Even Hermione is stumped by some new inventions.

Harry would never fit in, and no matter the faults of the Magical side, it’s Harry’s true home, even if he can’t go out in public without being hounded by journalists.

“Perhaps you’d prefer a man,” Voldemort carries on and Harry groans. He must blush, too, because Voldemort isn’t done. “Yes, I think you’d like that more. You need a firm hand.”

“Do you enjoy hearing yourself talk?” Harry barks.

“Yes, I quite do,” Voldemort doesn’t miss a beat. “You’re tired of leading, of people looking up to you, to tell them what to do. You’re done solving problems. You want a leader, not a follower that’s in awe with you.”

“Just-”

“That’s not to say women can’t lead,” Voldemort cuts over Harry. “I’ve met some that would eat you for breakfast. But there’s something alluring about testosterone and that specific kind of aggression, isn’t it?”

Harry’s definitely blushing. He can feel his neck and face getting hotter.

“You shouldn’t hide it. It’s acceptable in the wizarding world, unlike the muggle world.”

“I’m not-”

Harry is not hiding anything. He’s just- men would pose the same issues as women, both in magical and muggle world. A hero, a false ideal for ones and a misfit for others.

“Though I understand is hard to discard these notions. It was hard for me as well, you know.”

“What?” Harry asks, instantly distracted.

“The muggles were even worse, back in the thirties and forties. It was a crime, to enjoy the same sex. They’ve tried to make me feel wrong, as they tried to make me feel wrong in anything else. They failed, of course, but then I have a stronger character than you do.”

Harry blinks at him. Is he saying what I think he’s saying? He likes men?

It’s Voldemort, he doesn’t like anyone! Get a grip.

“Did you get along with Lestrange?” Harry blurts. “Bellatrix, I mean.”

Voldemort sighs. “As subtle as a brick to the head, Harry. I’d say you need to learn more skilful ways to interrogate someone, less obvious, but you are a lost cause so I shan’t even bother.”

“So?” Harry persists, so very much used to the daily insults and jabs that he isn’t fazed anymore.

“Did I get along with one of my Generals?” Voldemort raises an eyebrow as elegant as the rest of him. “Why, yes, Harry, amusingly enough, I did.”

“I meant-” Harry bites his lips. Voldemort knows very well what Harry asked, but he won’t answer until Harry words it in such a way it can’t be misconstrued. “You seem,” He bites his lip again. “You sound as if you might have possibly liked her.”

Voldemort waits patiently, taking another sip of his wine. But Harry can’t say anymore, can’t ask “were you involved romantically” or even worse “did you have sex with her.”

He always knew she loved him, was obsessed with him, and Voldemort had always talked well of her, even as soon as that night in the grave yard, and then he’d lost his marbles at Hogwarts, when she died.

Voldemort must take some kind of pity on him, because he speaks.

“She was magnetic, passionate, and incredibly compelling. She was powerful and loyal. And dark lord I might be, but I’m not blind.” A tiny soft smile, that’s gone so fast, Harry wonders if he’d imagined it. “You should have seen her, back when she was young. Not in pictures; even magical photographs can’t capture her essence and beauty.”

Damn, Harry thinks, a bit puzzled. Voldemort shouldn’t talk like that; it’s unnatural. Harry knows people that truly love each other, he knows Ron that would gladly peel off his skin, layer by layer, to make Hermione happy, but never had he heard something so…well, romantic, almost.

It’s because he’s so eloquent, Harry thinks. And because he always spits venom, so it sounds weird when he doesn’t and speaks nicely of someone instead.

And of course, that someone could only be a deranged psychopath.

“Yes, Harry Potter. We got along.”

(-)

“I wish he’d be like you,” Harry tells Tom in the tent.

Tom is so awfully charismatic, he’s never cruel, always knows what to say, how to make Harry feel better.

Tom holds Harry close, rests his chin on Harry’s head.

“You’re his jailer, darling. Would you be nice to someone that killed you and then kept you captive?”

Harry draws away. “I didn’t kill him,” He protests.

He looks up and Tom has red eyes. Harry steps back. “Tom?”

“You did kill me.” He hisses, eyes flashing. “Every piece of my soul you hunted and destroyed; you killed me. And now you’re keeping me as a pet, to amuse you.”

Harry wakes, mouth dry, heart thumping in his chest, wand already in hand.

He’s always a little surprised when he doesn’t find Voldemort there, bent over him with a knife.

Your door is warded.

Harry made sure there are no snakes on it.

And yet he has his doubts about the insignificant amount of magic Voldemort might or might not have access too.

He’d have used it, if he could do anything important with it.

Despite what Voldemort says, Harry is really good at Defence. His room is properly, powerfully warded.

He wished there was a spell to keep Voldemort out of his head, too.

Harry had never stopped dreaming of the Locket since wearing it, those long nights.

Once, while drunk, Ron had confessed he has nightmares about it too.

Of course, Ron’s nightmares include torture, include dark whispers about Harry and Hermione going behind Ron’s back.

Harry’s nightmares are-different. For him, the locket had always been seduction, since the very first night he went to sleep with it around his neck.

Only lately, Tom keeps shifting into Voldemort mid-dream.

(-)

“Good morning,” Harry mumbles, stumbling into the kitchen, heading to the stove, to put the kettle on, even though his tea is waiting beside Voldemort’s own.

“It’s mid afternoon,” Voldemort says, in lieu of greeting. “And it won’t be good for long. Not for you, at least.”

A shiver goes down Harry’s spine. “Why? What did you do?”

“So quick to blame me,” Voldemort answers. “Sit, Harry.”

Harry does, and Voldemort pushes the Daily Prophet toward him.

The Dark Mark floats over the ruins of a house.

Pius Thicknesse and his wife and daughter found dead.

Harry looks up, horrified.

Voldemort shrugs and takes a sip of his tea.

Chapter 8

Chapter Text

The Aurors walk in; two follow Harry up the stairs, while another remains with the Minister, in the foyer.

Kingsley looks ticked by this- he was a soldier himself. He doesn’t like the idea of others going in first, to make sure it’s safe for him to come in, but such is protocol.

Voldemort is tense when they enter the library. Harry isn’t sure how he knows this- there are no outwards signs to indicate it, he looks as unconcerned as ever, but Harry can tell, either way.

He’s been tense since they received the letter announcing the “visit”, shortly after news of Thickness’ death made the rounds.

“Stand!” Williamson barks, approaching Voldemort.

For a second, Harry is sure he won’t.

But he does, he stands as if he’d meant to do it all along, as if it has been his idea.

The other Auror, a younger one that Harry doesn’t recognise, grabs Voldemort’s arms, shoves the sleeves aside, checking the cuffs.

Harry winces at the rough treatment, mostly because it’s unnecessary. If Voldemort didn’t have the cuffs, these two would be dead already.

Voldemort gives no reaction, but the rage in his eyes strikes something in Harry.

It’s been absent since he’d come to live at Grimmauld’s.

“Human Revelio!” Williamson says, and they wait for the spell to show them they are alone.

Harry is a bit insulted, truth be told, but he tells himself these are typical, sane precaution. Voldemort might have placed him under the Imperius, or who knows what else. Harry hopes that is why they don’t seem to trust his word that Voldemort is cuffed and no, there’s no one else in the house.

“You may come, Minister,” Williamson calls loudly, and Harry shares a quick, involuntary smirk with Voldemort, as Walburga goes off in the foyer.

“I told you to keep your voice down! Now you’ve started her!” Kingsley’s voice floats up the stairs. “Savage, take hold of the curtains, help me close them.”

“FILTHY BLODD TRAITORS TRASPPASING!”

“Harder!” Kingsley orders.

“ANIMALS! PIGS WALKING UPRIGHT!”

It takes them a minute or two to deal with the portrait.

Kingsley is already pissed and a little out of breath when he enters the library.

Voldemort sits.

“Stand!” Williamson snarls.

“No,” Harry intervenes. “This is my house,” he reminds them. “Everyone that wishes to sit, is free to do so.”

No one else does it.

How does Voldemort do it? Harry wonders yet again.

He is a prisoner, he’s wearing heavy inhibitors, has no wand, and yet he sits behind the desk, looking at ease, when everyone else is standing, wands in their hands.

Well, Harry’s wand is in his pocket.

“Who killed Thickness?” Kingsley cuts right to it.

“I don’t have prophetic abilities,” Voldemort drawls. “If I had, I wouldn’t be here.”

“Cut the crap. Tell me!”

Kingsley looks half out of his mind; it’s bad out there, Harry knows. Not two months after the Ministry held a very public burning of Lestrange’s body and assured people they will be safe, this happened.

Harry himself had received a dozen of letters, asking him what he thinks about it all.

“Listen, you worthless excuse of a wizard, if you want people to give you information, you should ask nicely.”

“My house!” Harry says, loudly. “No insults!”

Everyone ignores him, glaring at each other.

Kingsley doesn’t seem fazed, he’s probably received a lot worse, from Voldemort.

“I rather drop dead that speak nicely to you.”

“That could be arranged,” Voldemort leans back into his chair and even that small movement makes the youngest Auror flinch, halfway raise his wand.

“He doesn’t know,” Harry says, what he’d said before, in the letter.

Or at least Voldemort claims he doesn’t. For some reason, Harry thinks it’s the truth. Even if it weren’t, Voldemort will never say anything to the Aurors. If he does know something, he’ll tell Harry, once they negotiate a price, as always.

The Aurors barging in will not solve anything.

“You’re -naive, if you believe him,” Kingsley snaps.

“The boy said no insults,” Voldemort speaks before Harry can open his mouth. “Don’t take it personally, Potter. The Minister likes to talk, but he isn’t good at listening.”

“It must be Dolohov,” Kingsley says, jaws tense. “So you’ll give us leads on how to-”

“It wasn’t Dolohov,” Voldemort says, as Harry struggles not to squirm.

Fuck, he thinks. Fuck. Now the Ministry will go on a wild goose chase searching for a dead man.

“There aren’t so many free Death Eaters left; he’s our prime suspect.”

Fuck.

Harry can confess, take the blame on himself. He prepares to speak, but Voldemort cuts over him.

“He’s deceased.”

What?

“Is that so?” Kingsley narrows his eyes. “And how would you know?”

Voldemort doesn’t even look at Harry, keeps his eyes fixed on Kingsley. They crinkle at the corners as he gives a disdainful snort.

“You should check your Aurors more throughly. Little psychopaths, some of them. You knew Robards had a sadistic streak. I told him where to find Dolohov, repeatedly, and he decided his colleagues are failures, since they’ve allowed Dolohov to escape the previous times. So he went alone. He bragged to me about how he made Antonim suffer, before he died, or something alike, I admit I wasn’t paying close attention to his ramblings.”

Harry’s heart is thumping so loudly in his chest, he’s surprised no one else can hear it.

Why is he doing this?

It speaks volumes about Robarts, when Kingsley’s and Savage’ faces show that they think this version of events had been quite likely to happen.

“Fine. But Lestrange is dead, and he was the one behind previous attacks-”

“He wasn’t,” Voldemort drawls, bored. “I distinctly recall telling you this, at the very beginning.”

“You lied. All the Death Eaters we caught testified it was Lestrange.”

“I happen to know personally how you people conduct interrogations. Let me throw a guess-”

Kingsley opens his mouth, but Voldemort just goes on.

“You arrested them, you asked them who was behind the raids. They told you they didn’t know. You refused to believe it. You set Robards on them. Some cracked. Robards asked leading questions, as he was prone to do ‘It was Lestrange, wasn’t it?’ Because he wanted Rodolphus to be the culprit, because it made sense to him; because it was easy. Tired and sick of it, they said ‘yes’, to be left alone.” Voldemort smiles, though it looks- disturbing. “Am I wrong?”

He doesn’t seem to need an answer.

“And then you were all set on Rodolphus, so desperate to get your paws on him that you allowed Potter to come to me, in the hopes I will give him up. And I did. I gave him up. I held my end of the bargain. But he was not behind any attacks. Hence why they continue, and will continue to happen, even if he’s dead.”

By the look on Kingsley’s face, he’s as terrified as Harry.

They all got played. Only this time, they practically played themselves.

“I told you to stop torturing people,” Harry hisses, incensed. “I told you to just stick to Veritaserum.”

“He trained many of them to resist it,” Kingsley refuses to back down.

“I did.” Voldemort admits. “But not all. And I only trained three in the mind arts. So you could have used a Legilimens- Oh, wait. You probably don’t have one in your employment. After all, very few wizards are talented enough for it, and those people know better than to work for the Ministry.”

“So who is doing this? Who is behind-”

“I. Don’t. Know.” Voldemort enunciates every word, clearly. “Perhaps you will believe me this time. If not, why don’t you go to Azkaban and torture a handful of Death Eaters until they give you another name? That would be amusing, to watch you chase the wrong person, again.”

“You know something. You always do.” Kingsley says. “And you will tell us.”

“Haven’t we played this game before? You know I won’t. There is nothing you can offer me, this time. Unless, of course, you want to take the cuffs off. If you do, I promise that right after I kill you, I’ll find whoever is behind the attack and kill them too.”

“There’s nothing I can offer,” Kingsley says. “But there are more things to take from you now. Things you didn’t have, before. You look quite comfortable and well fed. How would you like that to go away? To return to your little cell?”

Voldemort’s face twists into a snarl.

“You have thirty seconds to say something, to start cooperating or you’re coming back with me.”

The clock ticks the seconds away. Harry pulls out his wand.

When Kingsley gives a sharp nod and the Aurors move towards Voldemort, Harry steps in, faces them.

“He stays here,” Harry says, and his voice isn’t shaking, neither is his hand, though inside he feels like jelly.

It’s not lost on him, the irony. The fact that he has his back to Voldemort, staring down three Aurors and the Minister for Magic, to defend him.

Kingsley looks aghast. The Aurors look pissed.

Three wands are pointed at him. Harry keeps his own trained on Savage, the biggest threat.

What the fuck are you doing?

“He kept his word; all the information he gave us, was accurate. We wanted Rodolphus, and he served him to you,” Harry tries to reason with them. “You know, even if you take him back, even if you torture him, he won’t tell you anything. You know. So what’s the point? What could his suffering help you with?

Kingsley doesn’t answer. They’re in a deadlock.

And then all the Aurors move a step back, choreographed, closing the gaps between them, covering Kingsley completely.

And Harry knows it’s not him or his wand that made them go into a defensive formation.

No, it’s Voldemort, that is standing now. Harry can feel him at his back, very close.

“I wouldn’t upset Potter, Minister.” His voice is extremely soft, somewhere above’s Harry’s head. “Word is, he’s quite fierce. Defeater of dark lords, and all that.”

“Can you sit? Just -please.” Harry says, because the tension is so thick, Harry can feel it suffocating him.

Everyone is trigger happy, and it would take one more move from Voldemort, one more provocation, and then disaster would happen.

If Harry wins, which is highly unlikely, against three Aurors and ex Auror, then what? He goes on the run with Voldemort? Because Kingsley would definitively return with reinforcements.

And if Harry loses, perhaps Harry could share a cell with Voldemort.

Kingsley seems to be thinking about the complete mess that would bring with the press. Harry Potter, arrested. And they won’t even be able to say why.

Hermione and Ron would know, though. And Kingsley isn’t fooling himself that they will let him take Harry, quietly.

“We’re leaving,” Kingsley orders his men.

Voldemort is still standing behind Harry.

“I want you in my office, tomorrow at nine, Potter.”

“I’ll be there,” Harry promises, lowering his wand as the Aurors retreat.

He waits in tense silence.

Someone, probably Kingsley, smashes something in the hallway, just to spite Harry.

“ABOMINATIONS! TRAITORS-”

The front door slams shut.

Harry’s shoulders slump; he turns and finds himself facing Voldemort’s green robe, up close.

His nose is touching it kind of close.

Harry steps back. He stares up at Voldemort.

“ANCIENT PURE BLOOD-”

“Why did you lie about Dolohov?” It’s the first thing he asks. “How do you know he’s dead?”

“You looked so guilty, last I brought him up. I know you would never ‘lose interest’ once you set your eyes on something. Who killed him? The curse breaker?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Hary says. “Why did you lie for me?”

“I enjoy lying to them,” Voldemort says, after a second. “It fills me with satisfaction.”

He closes the distance between them again. Harry has to force his neck to bend backwards, to be able to continue to hold his gaze.

“Look at us; accomplices in a murder. How far we’ve come, don’t you think?”

“It’s not like that-”

“It’s precisely like that.”

“MY ANCESTORS BUILT THIS HOUSE WITH-”

“My little hero,” Voldemort drawls. “Touching, truly, the way you stand up for me. But I do not require it. I don’t need your help or your pity.” His fury is back, though subdued. “Lord Voldemort needs no one, Harry Potter.”

“-SHAME TO HAVE THESE CREATURES DEFILE IT,”

“Will you help me close the curtains?” Harry asks, deciding that things are getting quite uncomfortable. Too close, far too close.

And just like that the fury is banished, and Voldemort resumes his blank expression.

“I refuse to try to contain a magical portrait, quite a powerful one at that, with muggle means. It is an exercise in futility, as you should have surmised, after so many years.”

“AND NOW ANOTHER FILTHY HALF-BLOOD HAS TAKEN RESIDENCE-”

“How terrible are your transfiguration skills?” Voldemort asks, and he steps away, towards the stairs.

Harry can breathe a little easier, he can think again, with some distance between them.

“I got an Exceeded Expectations, for my O.W.L,” he says, walking behind him.

“No N.E.W.T?”

“No. I was busy being hunted by a murderous lunatic, so I didn’t attend my seventh year, nor did I return to finish it once it was over-”

Voldemort makes a noise that could be anger, could be amusement.

“Than it seems I owe you some lessons, to fill the gaps in your education.”

“Yeah, right, no thanks.”

“Suit yourself.” Voldemort stops in front of Walburga’s portrait, who gets a second wind, faced with him and Harry.

“MAY MERLIN CURSE YOUR POLLUTED BLOOD, STRIKE YOU DEAD WHERE YOU STAND-”

“This is O.W.L level, so even you should manage it. Turn the curtain rails into snakes.”

Harry blinks and then -of course.

He grins, excited.

He points his wand, delighted, says the incantation, clearly.

The rails swirl, and after a second, two distinct snakes replace them on either side.

“Deplorable,” Voldemort sighs, no doubt commenting on the flowery pattern still imprinted on the snakes.

“I did it on purpose,” Harry smirks. “They look prettier this way.”

Voldemort hisses and instantly the snakes coil, slither around until they lock their heads around each other, forcing the curtain shut.

“You’re at best average, so don’t expect them to last long,” Voldemort says, but Harry’s happy to get rid of Walburga, even if temporarily.

“It’s ok, we’ll do it again, when they revert back to rails.”

“I suppose we shall.”

(-)

Harry’s a bit drunk. Perhaps more than a bit. Neville and Ron kept pouring him drinks.

And Dennis keeps shouting, “It’s my birthday, you can’t say no!” as he brings Harry shots.

Of course, he was still mostly fine, until he made the mistake of drinking one of Luna’s personal concoctions.

Everyone is a little drunk, except Hermione, who watches them with clear judgement, as they get rowdier and rowdier.

Neville is whispering animatedly, slurring his words in Hanna’s year.

Ginny’s exchanging fluids with Yannis, draped all over him, at the furthers end of the table, Ron and George sending them nasty looks.

Harry tries to say no, when Parvati offers to an eager audience to re-enact how awful of a dancer Harry’s been at the Yule Ball, how she had to lead, because he had no clue what to do with his hands.

He tries to refuse, but he fails. He finds himself dancing and the way Parvati spins him, doesn’t help at all in that state.

Even Hermione laughs.

Parvati stumbles and he catches her, though it’s a wonder they don’t both topple down.

“You know, Harry, I sometime wonder what could have been, if we’d taken a walk in those charmed bushes, that night.”

“Not much,” Harry says.

How had they ended up outside now?

He vaguely remembers her saying she needed some fresh air.

“Oh, right! You were busy staring at Cho.”

It’s as if it had happened in another life.

“What became of her, do you know?” he asks, curious.

“She married a muggle. Can you believe it?”

“Good for her,” Harry mutters, supporting his back against the Three Broomsticks’ outer wall.

Hogwarts looms in the distance. Harry has yet to step foot in it. He thinks he never will.

He won’t have to. It’s not like I’ll ever have kids or anything. Not with Voldemort in his house.

I’ll never have a family, he thinks, and it crushes him.

When Parvati hugs him, her darker skin looking lovely and smelling even lovelier, Harry clings to her.

It’s nice. He needs it, needs some comfort, needs something nice and human and warm.

She kisses him, and Harry kisses back, though he knows he shouldn’t, that he should push her away.

Parvati is a nice girl; she doesn’t deserve to be tainted by him.

Besides, he doesn’t want her.

He closes his eyes, and he imagines bigger, stronger hands wrapped around his waist.

“OY!” Ginny saves Harry from the mistake he’s making. “What you doing, Patil? Taking advantage of my man?”

“Do you think I’d take advantage of your inebriated state?”

Harry shivers.

“Piss off, Weasley! Your man is inside!”

“And we’re going inside, too.” Ginny comes closer. “I think I saw Rita hiding behind Zonko’s,” she whispers.

They all groan, simultaneously.

(-)

“Can I come with you? I don’t wanna go home. I promise I won’t wake Rosie-”

“Why don’t you want to go home, Harry?”

Hermione’s soft, worried voice.

“Would you want to be pissed out of your mind with You-Know-Who hanging around?” Ron, whom Harry is leaning on.

“I really don’t want that,” he says. “I really, really shouldn’t.”

“Of course you can come with us. You’ll share the couch with Ron.”

“Come on!” Ron complains.

“You stink of firewhisky!”

(-)

Harry wakes with a massive headache and only bits and pieces of recollections from the night before.

“Stay for coffee? Ron won’t be up for another few hours, I’m afraid.” Hermione says, bouncing Rose on her hip.

She looks fresh and chipper, clearly having been awake for a while, since she retrieved her daughter from Bill’s place.

“I should head back,” Harry says, wiping his glasses on his shirt to clear them. “I can’t believe I’ve left him alone for a whole night.”

“The cuffs work, Harry. They really do. I imagine he tries to intimidate you, I can’t even think how terrible it must be, but he’s only human. He can’t break out of them.”

Problem is, it’s not so terrible. Not by a long shot, compared to what he’d imagined.

(-)

They are out of tea-

That is to say, the only tea left is the one waiting for Harry. Besides that, the tin is empty.

Harry’s mouth is dry, the taste is downright awful and fuck it.

He drinks it.

It’s hot, but not too hot, sweet, but not too sweet.The milk just enough that Harry can’t actually detect it.

It’s perfect.

“You should drop dead in about thirty seconds,” Voldemort’s voice makes Harry flinch. “You also should never indulge in liquor to the extent it makes you sick, the next morning,” Voldemort says, loudly, spiking up Harry’s headache.

“Have thirty seconds passed? I kinda wish I’d die.”

He takes another sip of tea and it soothes his sore throat, chases away the various tastes in his mouth.

“I’m sure we’ll get to that goal, eventually.” A smirk. “You’ll look dashing in a coffin. But not today,” Voldemort sits in his chair.

It’s not his, it’s Sirius’!

“Poison is a woman’s weapon,”he continues.

“That’s not true. You poisoned Hepzibah-”

“No, the elf did.”

“No, you did.”

“I was there, Harry,” Voldemort says, amused. “I Imperiused the pathetic creature, to kill its Mistress in whatever way it saw fit.”

“Ah.”

He’s a murderer. Why are you getting comfortable? Why are you so desensitised to hear him speak of his victims?

“Omniscient Dumbledore wasn’t so omniscient.”

“Whatever,” Harry warms his hands over the cup. “Malfoy!”

“What?” Voldemort looks confused, and it’s a satisfying sight.

“Draco, he tried to poison Dumbledore, but he ended up poisoning Ron, by mistake. It’s not a woman’s weapon!”

“I know they were both originally red heads and had those tall lanky bodies, but even Draco couldn’t possibly confuse Dumbledore with Weasley.”

Harry tells him of the mead and of Slughorn; the love potion, the way Slughorn had frozen and Harry had to act fast.

“My, my. People were trying to give you love potions? No wonder you’re suspicious of my drinks and meals.”

“Yeah, I’m not worried you’ll give me a love potion.”

Voldemort nods. “Indeed. I wouldn’t need to rely on that, would I, Harry?”

A light tapping noise comes from afar.

“That should be the paper,” Voldemort stands. “Eat your toast.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“You look like a teenager. I don’t like it.”

Harry blinks; does that mean he’d like Harry if he gained a few pounds?

Surely, that wasn’t what he implied. For the hundred of times, he wonders if Voldemort realises what he’s saying.

Harry’s so distracted, he only puts it together when Voldemort’s been gone from the room for minutes.

Oh, shit.

Harry sprints up to the library, where the Prophet owl usually comes and-

Voldemort’s face is hidden by the newspaper, held open.

On the front cover, Harry’s leaning on the wall, Parvati in his arms.

The kiss looks far more passionate than he remembers.

Oh, shit.

Voldemort lowers the paper and Harry runs to his room.

Why?

(-)

For once, he takes Teddy to Diagon Alley; Harry decided he won’t hide from the press anymore. They always find him, anyway.

People still stare at him, but Voldemort says the more he stays indoors, the more people will gawk at him when he emerges; that if he gets out more often, they’d get used to him, he’ll lose his God like status, if they see him shopping and simply living like any other normal wizard.

So Harry bears it, allows Teddy to drag him to every store he wants.

Businesses don’t want to take his money- please, it will be my honour, Mr. Potter! For all you did in the war- and Harry’s in the middle of a fight with a cashier when he notices an unmistakable blond head outside the window.

People stare at Malfoy, too, but with much less friendly eyes.

Draco tries to pretend he’s unaffected, but he was never very good at pretending. He looks nervous. Harry remembers Luna saying Draco had married, months before, in a private ceremony and is now expecting a child.

Jealousy blooms in his heart. Even Malfoy gets a kid, and Harry won’t. The ferret has it all.

He has a father, too, and Harry watches Lucius Malfoy walk towards his son.

He doesn’t look uncomfortable at all. And people are quick to stop their gawking.

A few whispered “criminal” and “Death Eater” can be heard, but they hold more fear than contempt.

Draco relaxes when his father reaches him and Harry grits his teeth and tries to turn back to his conversation, shoving a few gallons towards the girl-

“Harry, look! It’s Lucius!” Teddy shouts, and he’s off like a Firebolt, before Harry can grab his hand, out the open doors. “LUCIUS!”

This is what I get for listening to Voldemort. I should have just went to Charring Cross, Harry thinks as he has no choice but follow Teddy.

Two identical sets of gray eyes land on him; Draco immediately lowers his, can never hold Harry’s gaze.

At his trial he’d never looked up from the floor, as Harry testified for him.

But the elder Malfoy has no issue. Harry stares right back.

“Hello, Edward,” he drawls, in that aggravating way of his.

“Hy!” Teddy beams up at him. It irritates Harry, because Teddy throws a fit usually when someone calls him ‘Edward’.

People are pausing to watch, so intrigued even fear of the evil Death Eater won’t stop them. Not when Harry Potter is there, at least.

Great, now they’ll think I’m friends with him or something.

“Come Teddy, let’s go.”

“But-” Teddy pouts, and his hair is already turning blond, growing longer. Harry hates it. “I want to talk to Lucius-”

“Go with your godfather,” Malfoy says, as if he has any fucking input in what Teddy does or doesn’t do. “The street is no place for conversations. Not for civilised wizards, at least.”

The nerve on this man. Civilised!

Harry grits his teeth, very aware he shouldn’t get into a fight with a child around.

“Good day, Edward.” Malfoy barely spares Teddy a glance. “Potter,” he nods, a short jerk of his head and he strolls away, his grown son following quietly after him as Teddy does after Harry.

(-)

Voldemort finds it hilarious. “You have the worst kind of luck,” he says, gleeful. “Of course, that’s only fair, to compensate for the dumb luck you had when escaping me.”

“He’s so- it pisses me off, how he walks like he owns the street. Civilised!”

“Lucius is civilised, whatever else might be said about him.”

Harry glares at him. “Calling Teddy ‘Edward,’” he goes on.

“Isn’t Edward the boy’s name? Nicknames are undignified.”

“Who’s si-” Harry shuts his mouth.

He’d almost asked ‘who’s side are you on’ which is something he’d ask of Hermione or Ron and most defiantly not something he should ever, ever ask Voldemort.

“I thought you hated Malfoy,” he says, instead. “You were annoyed he was set free.”

“I am,” Voldemort says, a slight smile at the corners of his lips. “I do not hold him in any regard and it is frustrating he gets to walk around and keep his wand when I can’t. When I shall be free, I will pay him a visit.”

Voldemort says he’ll be free almost every day. It’s been three months since he’s living at Grimmauld. Over four years since he’d been a captive.

Harry doesn’t know if it just makes life easier for Voldemort to believe he will escape, if he says it just to mess with Harry or if it could be a possibility.

But, as with many other things Voldemort says, Harry’s gotten so used to hearing it that it had lost all meaning; his heart doesn’t threaten to jump out of his chest, as it used to, in the beginning.

Just to show him that he can’t scare Harry with it anymore, can’t cause sleepless nights, he declares, “I’d like to see that. To watch his face when you stroll into his living room. Bet he won’t have that superior stupid smirk then.”

Voldemort smiles. “Oh, he will not. He begs so politely, Harry. You should hear it. We can arrange it.”

Harry sighs, anger draining out of him. “How can you enjoy that, people kneeling, begging, crying at your feet?”

“I don’t always enjoy it. It gets awfully repetitive after a while.”

Voldemort always has his answers ready, no time needed before them, no hesitation. He’s used to rapid fire conversation, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t think before his mouth opens.

He uses his words like a weapon, the only one he’s got left; he’s quick and undeterred and has a counter for everything at any time.

Hermione is like that- or can be like that. At least in certain subjects, more academically inclined.

When it’s personal, Hermione takes time to consider what she’s saying, perceiving she can come across as insensitive and trying to avoid it.

They’re both frighteningly smart and yet Harry has the sudden, surprising realisation that Voldemort posses emotional intelligence that Hermione lacks.

Which isn’t fair- she’s a good, empathic person, but, like Harry, she fumbles sometimes in social situations. Even worse than Harry.

Voldemort feels northing but loathing and condescension for everyone around him and yet he knows what to say to hurt his victim the most, or to compliment them the best. He is very aware of what impact each and every single word has.

“I’d enjoy seeing you on your knees, however” he says, voice shifting to something darker.

Harry swallows thickly. “Dream on!”

Voldemort stands and gives Harry an ominous smile, one that makes Harry’s stomach flop.

“I hold no illusions you would ever bow to me, Harry,” he says, head tilted to the side. “I wasn’t taking about a lord and a disciple, nor about two adversaries.”

He walks away and Harry wonders ‘then what did you mean?’, has a burning curiosity to know-

Voldemort looks over his shoulder. “Just as two men, living together.”

Harry can feel his eyes widening as he looks at Voldemort, like a deer trapped in the headlights, heart rate wild.

“You’d enjoy it as well,” Voldemort says, and then he leaves.

Harry stares after him long after he’s gone, mouth dry.

(-)

He is not Tom Riddle, Harry tells himself, over and over again.

He is.

Well, ok, but he’s not Tom Riddle from the locket. Actually, even the locket hadn’t been Tom Riddle, had only been a corruption, a trap designed to lure people in or scare them away.

Voldemort must have inferred Harry had a weakness for the locket, and now he’s playing up to it.

Harry will just have to ignore it, will just have to pretend it doesn’t bother him.

Only Harry’s never been good at controlling his face. Ginny had told him he’s very expressive, that he wears his feeling on his face.

They’ve been a couple at the time so she said things lovers say, how his determination shined through his eyes, when he was focused on something, how his anger showed in the tight line of his lips, when someone insults someone he loves.

How cute he was, when he was shy, and a blush would rise to his cheeks.

Harry wonders if there’s a book on how to control that stuff. There mustn’t be, because then Hermione would have read it and she clearly hadn’t, since she’s as easy to read as Harry is.

Voldemort mounts his attack. It escalates constantly since that day after Diagon Alley.

Sometimes it’s just the way he looks at Harry, when he knows Harry will notice.

Other days it’s small brushes, as he walks past Harry, startling him, because the man makes no noise, he’s suddenly there, his arms knocking into Harry’s.

Then there was the thing in the kitchen, when Harry was cooking and Voldemort claimed he was making tea. He’d moved so close, his chest almost touching Harry’s back as he reached to grab the sugar- almost touching, but not quite. Harry had tensed up, part of him terrified about having an enemy at his back, the other-

Well, the other not so terrified, but nervous nonetheless. He’d stayed frozen, spatula in hand, minutes after Voldemort had left the kitchen.

The bacon had burned, and he’d had to start all over again.

Through it all, Harry says nothing, does his best to ignore it.

What else can he do?

(-)

There’s constant pressure- it’s smothering. Harry’s so paranoid, every single word out of Voldemort’s mouth sounds like a sinister pass at Harry. And there’s that provoking smile playing on his lips, constantly.

Voldemort is everywhere- in the kitchen, in the library, in rooms Harry goes to hide from him.

It’s like an elastic band being pulled and pulled, expanded to its limit, and Harry fears it will snap, soon.

It has to.

(-)

It’s chilly when he wakes up.

Harry looks out the window where a downcast sky greets him.

They’ll have to start lighting the fireplaces soon.

After he showers, he pulls on a thick Weasley jumper over his regular clothes and he heads down for breakfast.

He frowns when there is no tea and toast waiting for him.

Harry puts the kettle on, trying to dismiss it.

It’s nothing. He just didn’t make tea.

Only everything Voldemort does or doesn’t do usually has a point to it.

He didn’t escape during the night, stop with the paranoia. You sound like Moody.

Harry snorts, because for a second he imagines Moody living with Voldemort and that would have been horrifying and hilarious-

He remembers just then that Voldemort killed Moody. That sobers him up, fast.

When his tea is ready - not as good as Voldemort’s, his traitorous mind whispers- he takes it to the library, even if Voldemort prohibited food or beverages in his sanctuary.

Harry doesn’t give a crap about that. It is my house, damn it!

He almost reconsiders when he recalls the exchange two days prior.

He’d have gone in the library with a sandwich and a butterbeer, flopped onto the couch and raised an eyebrow at Voldemort, daring him to say something.

“You want to be punished, Harry?” Voldemort had asked.

Fuck him! Harry thinks, shaking his head.

Poor choice of words.

“Stop!” he groans to himself, holding on to his tea so tightly, he’s afraid the cup will break.

Voldemort is not in the library.

Harry’s unease grows. It’s past ten o’clock and Voldemort, without any exceptions, is always in the library at this time of day.

I should check on him, he thinks. Maybe he escaped, after all. Maybe he’s ill or something.

But a part of Harry really doesn’t want to go to Voldemort’s bedroom, in which he hadn’t set foot since the very first day.

He’ll have to, though, and he will. He’ll just wait a couple more minutes, drink some tea. Maybe he’ll show up on his own.

Harry sits at the desk where Voldemort usually reads and he instantly understands what’s off.

The date on the Daily Prophet is 31 October 2002.

Voldemort doesn’t come down the whole day, and Harry doesn’t go to check on him.

Does he want me to think him considerate? Does he want me to forget he attacked my family twenty-one years ago? What is he trying to achieve?

Harry touches his scar, before quickly snatching his hand away. He has to stop doing that.

(-)

The next morning his tea and toast await, as if nothing had happened. Voldemort lights a fire in the library.

“How did you do that?” Harry asks, voice strangled, staring into the merry flames.

“Same way I make breakfast,” Voldemort says, and he circles around the desk to stand next to Harry. “With matches.”

“Ah, right.” Harry uses matches for the stove- he supposes the habit is ingrained, since the Dursleys, but always his wand for fireplaces.

“Too hot for you, perhaps? Your cheeks are reddening.”

The space between the desk and the fireplace is narrow and Voldemort is taking it all up- Harry almost ends up in the fire, trying to avoid touching.

“Why don’t you take off that horrid jumper, that should relieve you. Did that moronic woman think it likely anyone would forget your name, or did she sew your initial on it just so she can pretend you belong to her flock?”

Harry employs a Quidditch manoeuvre to get around Voldemort, hastily. He immediately feels better when he’s no longer trapped between a hot place and a hot man-

What now?

Harry forgets to ask how he knows Mrs. Weasley knitted his jumper.

(-)

Harry wins the first match of his career. He loves it; he feels free up in the air, the snitch the only thing on his mind.

For a second, he is young and carefree, drunk with success. For a second, he can be like anyone else.

But then he’s back on the ground, back in reality, and he only accepts to drink one butterbeer with the team, at a fancy pub, before heading to his dreary home, where he belongs.

(-)

“Do you know anything?” Harry asks, as softly as he can, as nicely as he can, when they are both looking down at the Prophet where the Dark Mark floats above another house. “Anything at all, any insight, something helpful? What do you think?”

An elderly couple, with no involvement in either war. Tortured and killed. She, a pureblood witch; he, a muggle-born.

This time “blood traitor” is written in blood on the front door.

Voldemort looks at Harry. “I think you should tell Andromeda to ward her house.”

(-)

“It’s been done already,” Andromeda says, stiffly.

Since their fight, they hadn’t exchanged more than “hello” when Harry comes to pick up Teddy.

“Someone capable?” Harry asks, having just returned from Ron’s and Hermione’s place, where Bill and his colleagues had helped them protect their flat.

Many people are doing it and Harry can’t believe they’re back to this, after everything.

“Yes, specialists. I had someone come from the Charms Institute in Egypt-”

Harry whistles. “Wow, I know they’re almost impossible to get.” Not to mention expensive, but they just don’t offer their services outside their country.

“Narcissa and Lucius have some friends there,” Andromeda says, chin held high, daring Harry to say something.

“Listen, don’t get mad but- do you think Malfoy knows somethi-”

“Ask your friend, Shacklebolt,” she shrugs. “He dragged Lucius to the Ministry to interrogate him at least ten times now.”

“Kingsley’s a good man,” Harry says, though he winces to remember the fight in the Minister’s office, after Harry refused to give up Voldemort.

“I know. He used to come for dinner, when Dora was alive,” her face softens, just a little. “He sends Teddy gifts, for Christmas.”

Somehow, this insignificant bit of information almost brings tears to Harry’s eyes.

Maybe because he remembers Dora, joking around with Kingsley, in Grimmauld Place. Maybe because he remembers Kingsley, big and tough, breaking down at her funeral.

“I know you’re not- that we’re not-” Harry falters. “But I’m here for you. Not just Teddy, but for you. You’re not alone.”

Harry is gutted to think of this woman, alone with a child, in times such as these.

“Thank you. But I’m not alone. I have family.”

“Ok. Just- in case they- I’m here. Just wanted to say it.”

She nods and silence falls. Harry sighs and prepares to go-

She catches his hand, soft fingers curling around his wrist, holding him back.

“You’re not alone either. You seem to forget it. You look like a lost puppy. Just remember, when it’s hard, when you stay in that cursed house, that you have friends that are willing to die for you.”

“I don’t want anyone to die for me,” Harry whispers. He meets her eyes and the tears he’d suppressed before, wet his eyes. “I never did. I never wanted Dora to-”

He shuts up, a knot in his throat.

(-)

Kingsley doesn’t contact Harry, doesn’t even come to check on Voldemort.

“Strange, don’t you think?” Harry asks, when he finishes the last bite of his beef- something.

Voldemort cooked it.

It turned out delicious, even though Harry can’t really enjoy it, haunted by the attack.

“I expected them to come and ask you stuff, or at least for Kingsley to send me a letter, but it’s been almost a week and ...nothing.”

Voldemort doesn’t answer, cutting his meat with precision.

“They’re questioning Malfoy, Andromeda says.”

“If Lucius knows something than rest assured he will talk.” Voldemort’s jaw twitches. “In any case, he doesn’t know anything. No one would trust a traitor like him again, not after he sold everyone to the Ministry.”

(-)

Days drag by. The press is worse than ever, trying to talk to Harry about “events” as they call the attacks.

They’re running long articles, reviving old wounds.

The atmosphere of fear settles heavily around them.

“I’m sorry,” Harry tells Ron and Hermione, when he goes to see them. “I’m so sorry.”

Ron gives him a steady look. “It’s not your fault. Not everything is your fault, stop doing that, taking on responsibility that isn’t yours.”

“I have Voldemort in my house, the man who started all this-”

“He didn’t start it,” Hermione says. “Don’t give him that much credit. Blood purists had always hated Muggle-borns, since the Inquisition. There were many dark lords since, there was Grindelwald- Voldemort is just the last, in a long line. Not everyone will suddenly get along just because he is no longer there to stoke the flames. This is a deeply ingrained hatred, fed by continuing prejudice. It’s not just in Britain, it was never just in Britain. But this sort of people never last long. They’ll catch whoever is doing it. It always ends like that.” She looks at Rose, crawling on the floor. “We’ll be fine,” Hermione says, but her eyes don’t look as confident as her words.

(-)

Voldemort’s leaning on the doorframe, watching Harry.

Still, silent and waiting.

Harry tries to ignore it for minutes, keeping his gaze on the broom catalog, trying to pick a new model.

It’s impossible to ignore Voldemort.

Harry’s been aware of this man, had been thinking of him, since the first time he’d heard his name, back when he was eleven. Most of Harry’s life had been dominated by first a shadow, than a handsome boy in a diary, and then the serpentine monster.

And now yet another version is staring at him.

Harry stands; he’s exhausted, he can’t sleep, guilt gnawing at him, fear of whatever is going on outside the walls of his house keeping him on edge, the way people had taken to writing him letters, asking for their hero to come forward, to do what the Ministry cannot, slowly driving him mad.

He’ll go to his room and spend another restless night, shifting in his bed, mind refusing to shut down.

Harry walks towards the exist and Voldemort moves, blocking it. He does it successfully, his body as large as his personality.

Harry breaths in, deeply. The tension in the air grows, stretches, reached its limit.

Harry doesn’t stop walking, hoping Voldemort will just step aside if Harry shows him he’s not going to be intimidated.

Voldemort remains where he is.

Harry has to stop, inches away from him. He looks up.

Move, Harry means to say to but the intensity in those dark, brown eyes shuts him up.

Voldemort’s been tenser too, since the last attack. But he looks more alive than ever, even in his stillness.

“Kneel,” he says, voice deep and low, reaching straight into Harry’s soul and twisting it.

The tension shatters.

And so does Harry.

Chapter 9

Chapter Text

“Are you off your rocker?” Harry asks, but his voice comes out squeaky.

Voldemort steps closer, and it forces Harry to bend his head significantly to keep eye contact.

He’s very aware how close they are. It makes him dizzy. It makes his skin hot and flushed.

“Kneel,” the command comes again, low and harsh, and Harry’s abdomen fills with excitement.

What’s wrong with me?

He looks down at his trainers, trying to remember how to breathe.

“I-what-”

Voldemort says nothing. He just stands there, tall and imposing and it messes Harry up, fills him with agitation.

He has no power, Harry reminds himself. I’m in charge.

Harry doesn’t feel in charge; he looks at Voldemort and sees power made flesh, cuffs or no cuffs.

Harry hates it. Harry likes it.

His mind is all wrong, he’s living with this guilt, with this terrible man and Harry wants him, deep down, somehow he wants Voldemort.

He’s tired of fighting. He fought Voldemort his entire life, to no success, and Harry cannot fight anymore.

He feels empty, robbed of everything, since the Forest, and isn’t it ironic that he only feels alive around the man that killed him?

He kneels. Only because he thinks this has to be sexual, doesn’t it? Kneeling for that, it’s fine. It’s not like he’s kneeling for Voldemort’s ideas-

As soon as his knees hit the floor, a weight lifts of his shoulders.

The agitation increases, he’s shaking all over, but he feels lighter.

The only thing that’s hard about him is his cock, twitching in his jeans.

“Good boy,” Voldemort voice wrecks Harry, fills him with so much emotion he almost cries.

There’s a lick of humiliation, of outrage in the rapidly dying rational part of his brain, but it’s just so hard to think. Which is the whole point; he doesn’t want to think. He just wants to feel something other than guilt.

He must have closed his eyes for a second, without realising; he snaps them open when he hears a fly being lowered.

What am I doing, what am I doing? Dread and excitement battle for domination inside Harry.

It’s not the first time he sees Voldemort exposed. There had been those glances in the Ministry’s holding cell.

And there had been the dreams, in the tent.

“I-” Harry speaks, though his tongue feels like lead. “I never-”

Harry has only ever been with Ginny and that muggle girl, and both were feminine and soft.

There is nothing soft about Voldemort. His cock is as big as the rest of him, though Harry supposes any cock must seem huge when it's in someone’s face.

“That’s alright,” Voldemort fingers lock behind Harry’s neck. The touch burns Harry, excites him. “We have established you are a very passive partner. I shall do all the work, as per usual. Open your mouth.”

And Harry, Merlin forgive him, does.

He opens his mouth and stays still; Voldemort pushes in.

There’s nothing hesitant about it, nothing gentle or careful.

It’s rough and a bit painful. The tent dreams hadn’t been so, at all. That Tom was seductive, focused on Harry’s pleasure.

But this is not Tom anymore.

Yet the world quiets down. The guilt ebbs away as Harry struggles to breathe, as he’s certain he’ll choke to death.

In those seconds, before Voldemort draws back to allow him a few gulps of air, Harry feels relief that he’s still alive, actually enjoys the air filling his lungs, instead of resenting it, as he had since the Forbidden Forest.

Harry feels small and without choice, without any power, and he is not expected to make any decisions. All Harry needs to do is hold on, survive. And he’s always been good at that.

There’s a small moment, about halfway through, when he panics, when it becomes too much and he raises one of his hands, that had been laying uselessly in his lap-

He rests it on Voldemort’s leg. Not pushing, not hard- just touches his leg, briefly, mindlessly.

Voldemort draws back, and Harry breathes hard, big gulps of air. Voldemort does nothing, returns to that stillness of his, and Harry had fought him all his life and Voldemort fought back, snarling, hissing, refusing to back down- and yet now, all it takes is a light touch and he’s stopped.

It reassures something inside Harry that he can end this anytime he wants to.

He doesn’t want to. He lets his hand drop back on his lap.

“Good boy,” Voldemort repeats and goes back to it.

Harry wonders if it’s possible to come just from hearing a couple of words- demeaning words, at that, and yet they still manage to please a very weird side of Harry’s brain.

He doesn’t come, only because he’s so focused on keeping his mouth open, focused on trying to breathe through it, allowing all thoughts to just flee from his head, chased away by Voldemort’s taste on his tongue, how hot and hard he is, at the back of Harry’s throat.

When it’s done, when Voldemort zips his trousers back up and leaves without a word, Harry collapses on the floor, coughing and struggling to breathe, shaking all over. Even so, the world stays quiet, just a white noise in his head, replaying on a loop.

(-)

It all comes back with a vengeance, some hours later.

Even more guilt, even more shame, topped with self-disgust.

Harry leaves, sneaking out of his own house, like a thief.

He goes camping in their old, trusty tent.

He lays in his bunk bed, staring up at the canvas, motionless. He really should have died in the Forest.

But he hadn’t, and not eating, not drinking, just laying in his bed for two days straight doesn’t kill him.

Is this what Voldemort had meant by it? Had he foreseen Harry will not be able to face him, would run away like the coward he is? Giving Voldemort time to plot or escape or Merlin knows what else.

He has to return. There’s just no going around it. Harry is responsible for Voldemort and he can’t just run away.

He snorts with bitter laughter. Responsible for Voldemort. What a joke. Harry is no match for him-never has been. Not in skill, not in strength, not in brains.

Harry should just take him back to the Ministry and leave him there to rot in more capable hands.

He pictures it for a second-would Voldemort go quietly? Would he try to fight it? Would his face express anything? Would he feel betrayed?

Harry just knows he won’t ever do it- return him, like a broken toy.

Voldemort means a lot to Harry. He always did, in one form or another-always there, always a constant. Always inside Harry, souls intertwined. And now that Voldemort is incapable to do magic, and he can’t fight-

Well, Harry likes him.

Or likes Tom Riddle, that shines strongly through the Voldemort persona.

He makes Harry feel alive, which is all sorts of crazy.

(-)

Voldemort is still inside Grimmauld when Harry returns.

Harry gets the briefest glimpse of him, in the library, before he runs up the stairs to his room.

The Marauders gaze at him, from the wall, alongside the mostly naked muggle girls, and Harry covers the picture of the four friends with a cloth, so they won’t have to see him like this.

(-)

“Look at me,” Voldemort demands, catching Harry in the morning.

Harry had been so close to freedom, just a few inches from the front door.

“Harry,” he says when Harry just stares at the floor, gripping his broom tightly.

With a monumental effort, he raises his eyes.

Voldemort looks like he always does.

There’s no mocking expression on his face, no evil laugh, no smug satisfaction. Well, no smugger than usual.

“What would you like for dinner?”

Harry expected a lot, but did not expect that. “Mhm,” he mumbles. “Whatever is fine.”

“We’re out of bread and tea.”

What sort of universe is this? Am I still sleeping?

“Yeah, ok. I’ll get some.”

Voldemort nods, and Harry shoots out of the door, heading for practice.

It is easier, tough, to face Voldemort at dinner.

Harry’s quieter than usual, waiting to be ridiculed, shoulders tense.

Voldemort merely complains about a new law the Wizengamot had passed earlier that day, insulting the members of the Council in so many creative ways, Harry’s lips eventually jerk into a smile.

(-)

He can’t face anyone outside his Quidditch team. People lost parents, siblings, children to Voldemort and Harry’s went ahead and-

No, he can’t meet anyone’s eyes.

He avoids everyone but Teddy. Not that it’s easy to look at Teddy, who has been wronged more than others, but he’s just a child and it would hurt him to have Harry suddenly disappear.

Teddy is a bit disappointed when they go back to Muggle Places, avoiding anything wizard, but Harry makes it as fun as he can for him, taking him to ice rinks and autumn fairs, to several zoos and to Madame Tussauds, where Teddy accidentally makes one of the wax figurines melt.

“Listen Teddy, I know you didn’t mean to, but you have to try to be careful; we can end up arrested by their police.”

Not that it would come to that, Harry has a wand, after all, but Teddy needs to understand precaution.

He shrugs. “It’s just muggles. They’re dumb and easily tricked.”

Harry blinks. “Who told you that?” he asks, quite sure he knows the answer.

Teddy looks away. “No one,” he says, quietly, guiltily.

“Lucius?”

Teddy doesn’t answer.

Harry tries to keep calm. “Muggles aren’t dumb. They’re just like us, only they can’t do magic.”

Teddy frowns. “Well, then they aren’t like us, are they?”

“We’d get arrested by Aurors, you know?” Harry says, because he doesn’t know how to best explain all people are equal, regardless of magic. “For breaking the Statute. You can ask Malfoy; he got in trouble for acting like certain people were beneath him.”

(-)

Harry wakes up hard, in the middle of the night. He tries to ignore it, but it’s not happening.

Unbidden, the memory from the living room comes to mind and he gets even harder. He doesn’t understand why- it should cause him nightmares, it does cause him so much shame when it’s daylight outside, but now he keeps replaying it in his head and his cock twitches and throbs until Harry moves a hand under the blankets, touching himself.

He comes after two strokes, head full of Voldemort.

(-)

“You’ve been so busy lately.” Hermione corners him after training, Ron flanking her, Rose in his arms.

It’s been a month since he’d seen them.

“Arm, yes. Quidditch -”

“Thank Merlin we caught you here, then,” Ron says, no nonsense. “You’re coming over, for dinner.”

It’s not exactly an invitation.

“So, what’s going on?” Hermione demands, once they’re in the Weasley’s flat.

“Noth-”

“Don’t say nothing!” Ron warns. “We’re worried about you. You’re there, cooped up with him and you suddenly avoid us, no one can get hold of you. What’s he doing to you?”

Thing is, Harry is too embarrassed to face them, since The Thing That Shall Not Be Mentioned happened.

“He’s not doing anything. He sits there and reads and reads, and he cooks dinner.”

Ron blinks at him. “He cooks -what?”

“He must be doing something. You’re clearly troubled.”

Harry’s troubled alright, but not in the way Hermione would imagine.

“I’m fine, really. Nothing is going on. I’m just tired, with practice and I mean, I want to stay home more, keep an eye on him. He’s not doing anything evil or suspicious-”

“He cooks. That’s suspicious!” Ron intervenes.

“Fine,” Hermione says, after a few seconds.

“Great,” Harry smiles, relived.

Too soon. Far too soon.

“Than we’re coming over, to see for ourselves.”

Ron’s face falls.

“No,” she snaps, when Harry tries to speak. “If he’s no danger to you, then he’s no danger to us, either. So what will it be, Harry? Is he or is he not a danger?

Hermione should have been a Slytherin.

(-)

“Please, be polite,” Harry says for the tenth time.

“I’m not a child,” Voldemort looks at him from his chair. “I believe I am far more apt to behave in society than you are.”

“Fine, not polite -polite. I know you are. Just-don’t be creepy.”

“Creepy?”

“You have to know what I’m talking about.”

“No idea.”

The doorbell rings.

Harry will not live through the night. Ron looks just as nervous as he feels when Harry opens the door.

Hermione walks inside as if she’s marching off to war, head high and shoulders stiff.

There’s an awfully heavy silence as the three of them head into the kitchen.

Voldemort remains seated at the head of the table. He looks at them, bored and unimpressed.

“Hello,” Hermione barks and Harry can hear the shakiness under it, knows her well enough to recognise she’s scared.

“Good evening,” Voldemort responds.

Nothing happens. They all stare at each other. And then Hermione marches on and Ron tries to grab her arm but misses at the last second.

“Hermione Weasley,” she says, stopping right in front of Voldemort, hand extended forward. “We’ve never been introduced.”

Voldemort stands and Ron hurries to Hermione’s side.

But Voldemort extends his own hand and then surprises everyone by turning Hermione’s and rising it to his lips, instead of shaking.

Hermione’s face explodes into shock.

Voldemort used to be so predictable, once upon a time. Now he thrives in doing the exact opposite of what people expect, enjoys throwing everyone off.

“Have a seat,” Voldemort says into the silence.

Ron doesn’t offer to shake his hand. He leads Hermione to the other end of the long table.

Harry sits beside Voldemort.

“Tea? Coffee?” Voldemort asks.

“Right. Right,” Harry forgot about that. He stands back up and serves Hermione’s coffee, one sugar, Ron’s tea, two drops of milk and Voldemort’s tea, black.

Another long stretch of silence. Ron keeps one hand under the table, more than likely holding his wand.

“So, Harry, how’s practice going?” Hermione breaks the silence eventually, voice a little high.

Harry tries his best to speak about it, repeats the same sentence twice in the span of five minutes, but that’s alright, because no one notices. Voldemort does, but he doesn’t count.

“What about you, Hermione? How’s work?” Harry asks, desperate after another silence.

Hermione goes off. Harry can never keep up with her, but now she doesn’t even try to filter her words, nervous as she is.

“I’ve been reading this incredible book though, hard to put it down, and it keeps me up at night,”she ends a ten minute long monologue.

“Nice, that’s nice,” Harry says, absentmindedly.

“Yes and -”

“What book?” Voldemort asks.

Dear God, please, please make it stop.

“It’s Muggle,” Hermione bites.

“I was more interested in the title or a brief summary.”

“It’s Muggle-” Hermione repeats and Harry just shakes his head at her, begging her to just say the damn title.

“Girl, I’ve been reading Shakespeare before your parents were even born, let alone come up with that silly name of yours. Will you name your daughter Perdita?”

Ron frowns, looking at Harry. Harry looks back, just as confused.

“I’ll have you know The Winter’s tale is considered one of the most-”

“I didn’t say it wasn’t good. I was merely wondering who would name their child after such a tragic character.”

“Well,” Hermione says, leaning back in her chair. “Well, then.” She narrows her eyes. “How about Tolstoy?”

“Boring.”

A very surprised look on Hermione’s face. She covers it, fast. “Bet Dostoevsky was right up your alley.”

Voldemort smiles. “Quite.”

They exchange more names between them that leave Harry and Ron completely lost. It goes on for quite a while.

“I am reading The Lord of the Rings,” Hermione says, finally. “It’s wonderfully refreshing, written by Tolkien, classed as one of the greatest writers of the century, and I see why. They just adapted the first book into a movie.”

“What year was it published in?” Voldemort frowns.

“In ‘54-”

“Ah. I’m afraid my knowledge of muggle literature mainly stops after ‘45.”

It’s Hermione’s turn to frown. “Wait, you mean to tell me you read all that before you finished Hogwarts? All of Dostoevsky?”

“I was done with him by the time I started Hogwarts.”

Hermione makes an indignant noise. “No wonder you turned up this way! It is not meant for children!”

“I’m fairly sure most children wouldn’t understand it, in any way.”

“Of course not. You didn’t understand it!”

“I assure you-”

“Agh! Read it again, you will see it quite differently! This explains so much, so much-”

“Now, now, calm down. I will give them another go, you might have a point that I’ll see them differently. Of course, that is, if Mr. Potter will buy them for me, since I am not allowed to leave the premise.”

Mr. Porter-that’s new.

“I’ll send them over,” Hermione says.

Harry has never seen her so animated. Actually, he had; only it usually goes away fast, when her audience loses interest. He’d never seen someone actually keep up with her.

They delve into arithmancy and runes after that, and they speak so fast about complicated theories, it serves to lull both Harry and Ron into a more relaxed state.

They don’t agree on a single thing, that is all Harry is able to surmise from the conversation.

An hour later, Ron and Hermione leave quite bewildered, as if not quite sure of what had happened.

Harry is not so surprised. “You really are a charmer when you want, aren’t you?”

“There was a time in my life when I was a no one. My charisma got me though seven years of Hogwarts and gained me a lot of followers. Satisfied of our little get together, Harry? Did I play nice?”

“Aha. Yeah. Ah-thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

(-)

“How do I make the goblins like me?” Harry asks, coming back from the bank, sweaty and with a headache.

Voldemort looks up from one of the Muggle books Hermione had sent him.

“Why do you want to be liked and accepted?” he asks. “It is an unhealthy attitude to have, trying to please those around you.”

Harry rolls his eyes. “It’s just so awkward, every time I have to go to the bank. I’ve inherited the Black family vault ages ago, and I’ve never seen it; I doubt I would return alive, If I go down so deep into Gringotts.”

Hermione and Ron are not even allowed to keep their money there; they have them in muggle banks.

Since Harry is The Hero and owner of the Black and Potter Vaults, the goblins didn’t shut down his accounts, but it’s always unpleasant to go there.

“You did steal from them,” Voldemort shrugs. “And then I murdered at least a dozen goblins once I found out my cup was gone. These creatures carry a grudge like no one else. During my last reign, I put them in their proper place.”

Harry remembers it. It was the reason Griphook was on the run.

“Yeah; you’d think they’d be a little more grateful that I-” Harry hesitates. “That I - I mean- because-”

“Because you defeated me thus giving them their freedom?” Voldemort asks, returning his attention to his book. “In my experience, Harry, no good deed goes unpunished.”

That is such a bleak outlook to have. Harry wants to say something, even if he knows it’s useless to try to teach a seventy-year-old dark lord that kindness has its merits; he’s thinking how to phrase it-

“Do not trouble yourself; once I get my powers back, I will eliminate them and you may visit your vaults in peace, then.”

Harry ignores the “powers back” bit, like he always does.

What he can’t ignore is that in Voldemort’s fantasies, where he’s returned to his full power, Harry would apparently still be alive and free to visit Gringotts. In peace, no less.

His heart skips a bit and he retreats from the library.

(-)

Ron and Hermione- though it’s really Hermione, Ron is clearly not happy about it- insist to spend Christmas with him, at Grimmauld, instead of going to the Burrow.

They would rather miss their second Christmas with their daughter, just so Harry won’t be left to spend the day alone with Voldemort. Neither point out that Harry doesn’t need to stay at Grimmauld, that he could go to the Burrow. Harry constantly leaves the house for hours at a time and nothing has happened.

And yet, Harry chooses to stay home, even if Christmas at the Burrow is one of his favourite things in the world, hadn’t missed a single one since the war ended.

Harry feels like they’re pushing their luck; last time went well, but that was surely just a fluke. Ron kept his temper, Voldemort kept his, and it just doesn’t seem wise to tempt fate.

“I’m not cooking for a mudblood and a blood traitor,” Voldemort says, when Harry lets him know of the impending visit. “I don’t mind, otherwise.”

“Don’t call them that,” Harry says, but he’s ignored, as usual.

He’s the one cooking and even with the anxiety of the visit hanging over him, it feels kind of nice to make his first Christmas dinner.

Voldemort hangs around the kitchen, saying disparaging things about Muggle traditions and how they’re supposed to celebrate Yule, how Harry should serve wizard traditional food and beverages.

“Three of us are very familiar with Muggle Christmas,” Harry reminds him. “And by now, so is Ron, really.”

“Oh, yes, Potter,” His tone doesn’t change, but Harry knows that when it’s ‘Potter,’ instead of Harry, Voldemort’s ticked off. “Of course I am very familiar with Muggle Christmas. After all, we must have had grand dinners at the orphanages, fat turkeys and expensive cakes, on top of the multitude of presents lying around,” Voldemort says, voice dripping with sarcasm. “If you want me to have a familiar Christmas, why don’t you serve me a dry turkey sandwich and give me a pair of socks as a present?”

“I’m sorry,” Harry says, quietly. He didn’t think what Christmas must have been like at the Orphanage.

Voldemort only gets angry, because Harry dares have pity for him.

“I also got old, used socks for Christmas, at the Dursleys. Or a broken toy,” Harry says, to stave off Voldemort’s fury. “They only gave me their leftovers to eat, but at least they were good leftovers.” He shrugs. “That’s why I want to have a proper Christmas. How it was supposed to be. This is my first Christmas in this house, after the one in my fifth year.”

Voldemort narrows his eyes. “How it’s supposed to be? I thought it was a celebration to spend with family, not with your mortal enemy.”

“I would spend it with my family, but I don’t have one,” Harry reminds him.

Silence. They stare at each other for a couple of minutes, before Harry sighs and returns to the oven, to check on the turkey.

“Ron and Hermione will be here, anyway,” Harry goes on. “They are my family.”

Only that night, as he goes over their fight, turning in his bed, Harry focuses a lot on the fact that Voldemort didn’t receive presents as a child.

He knows from experience how terrible that feels. But since Harry arrived at Hogwarts, he always got a mountain of presents.

Did anyone ever give Voldemort a Christmas gift?

Should I get him something?

Do you hear yourself? Really? A gift?

Well, he has one for Ron and Hermione and they surely got Harry something- it would be weird, wouldn’t it, Voldemort being the only one with nothing?

What the fuck does one buy for a dark lord?

The next morning, at the crack of dawn, Harry goes to Diagon Alley; only most stores haven’t even opened, if they’ll open at all, on such an important day.

Knockturn Alley doesn’t do celebrations so Harry reluctantly heads there, just knowing somehow, someone will photograph him.

Journalists have no day off.

He spends more than an hour walking around the stores- some things he sees, Harry knows Voldemort might enjoy, but they’re all dangerous to give to him.

Eventually he finds a beautiful quill, elegant, with dark green feathers and an intricate silver nib, small emeralds caved into it.

It looks very fancy, it costs a small fortune, it has a bit of dodgy magic, promising to make anyone but the owner’s arm erupt in boils, if used without permission.

It will have to do.

“Look,” Harry says, adding four extra galleons to the payment. “I’d really appreciate if the gossip magazines won’t learn of what I bought here-”

“Beg your pardon, Mr. Potter,” the cashier says, pocketing the money. “But you’re not in Diagon Alley anymore. We know our clients value privacy, in these parts. You won’t see those pesky journalists setting foot in Knockturn. And if they somehow make it to my store, they won’t get a word out of me.”

Harry nods, a little relived. “Great. Thanks!”

“We appreciate your business.”

(-)

Dinner goes well. A little tense, for Ron and Harry, who mostly stay silent. But Voldemort is civil, and he engages Hermione in conversation; she quickly loses her stiff posture, as it always happens when books are brought up.

They don’t shut up through the whole thing, not even when they retire to the living room, for a cup of hot chocolate spiked with brandy. Voldemort refuses it with a sneer, preferring a glass of wine.

“This is for you,” Hermione says, using her wand to send a small package towards Voldemort, after they have exchanged presents between themselves.

Ron shakes his head beside her, gives Harry a look that clearly says “can you believe this?”

Oh, Harry can.

“Thank you,” Voldemort says, after he opens it, to reveal a book.

Something about the Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire.

Harry waits until they are gone; Voldemort might know how to act with people, too well, actually, but he’ll never let his guard down around anyone.

He won’t do that with you, either.

He might. He does sometimes. He is more himself with Harry, different from the cold mask he has when Aurors are there, or Harry’s friends.

Harry gives him the quill, watching his face carefully, hoping he’ll like it, that he will feel some joy, something positive.

Voldemort’s life had been awful, no matter what he might think- and it’s awful now, cut away from magic, a prisoner. Harry just wants him to have something nice, even if he doesn’t deserve it.

“How thoughtful of you, Harry,” he drawls.

Harry squirms, trying not to blush.

“My gift to you was not strangling your ginger at the table, when he kept shovelling food in his mouth like an animal.”

Harry gives a little laugh. “He eats more, when he’s nervous.”

“And not stabbing the mudblood, when she dared contradict me on the uses of dragon blood,” Voldemort continues, running his fingers down the green feathers.

Voldemort wouldn’t have done either of those things. He knows Harry would truly kill him, if he ever hurts his friends. He must suspect that’s Harry’s limit.

“So really, I gave you two gifts,” Voldemort smiles. “And you only gave me one. Care to compensate?”

And there’s something in his tone that lets Harry know exactly what he’s talking about.

It’s the first time Voldemort gets even close to acknowledging the Event.

Harry’s blood instantly travels south.

“Goodnight!” he says hastily and retreats before he does something stupid.

(-)

“Does he always act that... civil?” Ron asks.

“Pretty much,” Harry confirms. “Well, he has some nasty answers here and there, but yeah.”

“I don’t like it,” Ron says, frowning.

“You’d rather he makes Harry’s life a living hell?” Hermione scoffs.

“He already did that,” Ron shoots back. “And I didn’t mean-”

“I know what you meant,” Harry says, to stave off a fight. “It’s odd. But I got used to it.”

Ron nods, letting it drop, changing the subject until his wife leaves to feed Rosie.

“You shouldn’t get used to him, in any way. It’s-” Ron whispers.

“Wrong, I know,” Harry looks away, apologetic. Fred died because of-

“No!” Ron snaps. “It’s dangerous. For you. I don’t like it.”

“I can protect myself!”

Ron bites his lip. “You’re a great duellist; you’re -Harry, you are many things, but you are ... You always want to save everyone, even people that are beyond saving. It was always your weak spot.”

(-)

“There was another attack,” Harry tells Voldemort. “You won’t see it in the Prophet, because they’re hiding it.”

Typical, really. All forms of Government are the same, even when good people end up in charge. It must be a curse or something.

Voldemort raises an eyebrow. “And how would they hide that?”

“It was in Ireland. But Kingsley called me to his office and-” Harry sighs, runs a hand through his hair. He’s been out of sorts all day.

“Ah, I see.” Voldemort gets that annoyed glint in his eyes. “You’re to ask me, again, if I know something, or they’re to come and threaten -”

“No,” Harry looks at him. “He wants me to join the Aurors.”

“It would make people feel more comfortable, if you were working with the Ministry. Restore their trust in us, when inevitably we’ll have another attack here.”

“Are you serious?” Harry yells. “Who are you? Fudge? Scrimgeour? They also wanted to use me-”

“They wanted you to shake their hands publicly and be seen coming at the Ministry. I want you to work on this Harry, to put your talents to good use and help us solve this, besides the benefit it would bring to the Ministry’s reputation.”

Voldemort blinks at him, once, twice-

“You refused,” he says, a hint of anger in his voice, more a question, even if he phrases it as a statement.

“I said I’ll think about it,” Harry shrugs.

“It takes five Outstanding NEWTS to become an Auror and three years of training,” Voldemort points out.

“Yeah, but I’m- they’d make an exception, for me.”

“Of course,” Voldemort snarls. “You’d get preferential treatment, Saint Potter and his lucky scar-”

Harry stands. “You sound like Malfoy! The lamer one, at that!”

Voldemort stands as well. Somehow Harry always forgets how tall he is, even if he sees him every day.

“And you sound like an idiot. What will you do, when you’ll have to get out there and duel Dark Wizards? Are you hoping they will all wield wands that secretly belong to you and a simple Disarming Spell will work against them?”

“I know how to duel!” Harry growls. “Stop that! Stop pretending I can’t do anything! I faced many of your Death Eaters and-”

“They all had clear instructions not to kill you-”

“I was the best in my year at Defence-”

“Oh yes, what a threat you are to grown men that actually finished their education and studied the dark arts! Harry Potter, best in his year at Hogwarts, under the most incompetent Defence teachers the world has ever seen! No doubt you’ll scare them to death.”

“I know more spells than ‘Expeliarmus’!”

“It’s all I’ve seen you use in a duel, spanning seven years. That and running around like a headless chicken, taking cover behind gravestones.”

“Fuck you!” Harry screams, getting in his face, drawing his wand.

Voldemort doesn’t even look at it, chooses instead to step towards Harry, until they’re chest to chest.

Harry makes a frustrated sound. He can’t curse an unarmed wizard- he wants to, but then he’d be no better than Voldemort.

You can punch him, though.

For a second, he’s awfully tempted.

He’s two heads taller than you are, the rational part of his brain reminds him.

He yells some more, instead.

“I was a child! I was fourteen years old!” He sounds chocked up, remembering that night. He can’t associate the man in front of him with the horror that came out of the cauldron. Every day, it’s harder and harder to remember they are the same man. But they are. The polite, civil, sarcastic prisoner in his house had committed heinous sins. “How could you do that -why? Why kill Cedric? Just a boy-”

“He was an adult, and I didn’t kill him.” Voldemort says, voice low.

“You ordered it!”

“He wasn’t supposed to be there. It’s not my fault someone decided to bring him along.”

“Are you crazy?” Harry raises his voice even more. “Of course it was your fault! You ordered his death!”

“Why do you focus on the past? The boy is dead and you can’t go back and collect the cup alone, no more than I can go back and not give the order. It’s done with. Let it go, Potter.”

“You think it’s easy?” Harry asks, shaking with rage and guilt. “You think- let it go? You fucking tortured me!”

Harry’s suffered a lot of injuries, since the Cruciatus placed on him in that graveyard, but none came close to the level of pain he’d endured that night.

“You were my enemy,” Voldemort says.

“I was fourteen! I never did anything to you! I-”

“I wasn’t thinking straight!”

For a second, Voldemort has real emotions on his face, something other than anger. For a second, his voice gets higher.

For a second, he sounds frustrated.

The Horcruxes, Harry thinks. He’d thought it before, ever since he’d started visiting Voldemort in jail. The Horcruxes must have messed him up, -how could they not?- and now he has all of his soul.

He’s still unrepentant, he’s still a scheming emotionless machine with no empathy, but he’s saner.

Harry doesn’t know if that makes him less of a threat, or if it makes him more dangerous.

The second passes and Voldemort resumes his composure. Silence falls around them. Harry stands back, because his anger is dwindling, and he shouldn’t be this close.

“You don’t want to go around looking for Death Eaters,” Voldemort says, after a few moments. “You know that. I know that. So why even consider it?”

“Because people need me-”

“No one needs you,” Voldemort says, matter-of-factly, but to Harry is a knife to the heart.

No one needs him. Not him. They need his name, like they always did. They need a Hero, a Chosen one.

“They need a martyr,” Voldemort says it at the exact same time Harry thinks it. “Stop serving others, for once. Play your Quidditch, waste your time with your mudblood and your godson. Do what you want, not what someone else wants.”

Harry steps even further away, pockets his wand. He deflates like a balloon.

“You won’t make a difference. Perhaps you’re not the worst wizard, fine. Perhaps you are a decent duellist.”

It is the first -not compliment, but something resembling an once of respect that he gets from Voldemort.

“But you’re not unique. They have fully trained, experienced Aurors, that have been hunting dark wizards for decades. Compared to that, Harry, you really won’t make any difference. You only managed with me because-”

“I know,” Harry whispers. “I know.”

“The world turned on its axis before you were born. Dark wizards rose and fell for millennia, without your assistance. Stop involving yourself in matters that don’t concern you. Do you want to make yourself a target? Do you want to make your loved one targets? Have you learned nothing?”

“Why do you care?” Harry asks. “You don’t care about my loved ones, that’s for sure-”

“I’m tied to you,” Voldemort says, simply.

He needs me, Harry thinks. Voldemort needs Harry, because Harry’s the one standing between Voldemort and a terrible fate.

From all the people left alive, Voldemort is the only one that truly needs Harry.

And he’s the only person Harry can actually protect, keeping him safe in Grimmauld.

(-)

“You were my enemy.”

Were.

Harry stays awake, looking out the window, perched on an ancient armchair.

“You were my enemy,” he whispers to the air.

(-)

Voldemort orders him to kneel again. It’s not verbal, this time.

Harry’s been getting more and more apprehensive, Kingsley hounding him daily with his offer.

To top it off, Ginny announced her engagement to Yannis, which propels the press into another frenzy.

For a week straight he has to wake up and read his story all over the Prophet. As usual, most of it is false.

The gossip magazines are curious about his love life. Ask if Harry has been left too broken to love.

And that hurts the most to read, because Harry is broken. Everyone around him is getting married, settling down, and Harry-

He’s washing the dishes, furiously, going by hand because he needs to do something to distract himself from all the anger and frustration in his head.

He feels Voldemort a second before his hand lands on Harry’s shoulder.

He freezes, dropping a goblet in the sink. Voldemort turns him around, slowly. Harry’s face reaches up to his chest, so he stares at the crisp white shirt.

And then Voldemort’s hand starts applying some gentle pressure on Harry’s shoulder-it’s not enough to actually force Harry down. Just an invitation of sorts, though Harry isn’t really sure if it’s not an order.

Say no.

But why? Harry’s fucked up, he’s fucked up everything, he refuses to help with the Death Eaters, he’s playing Quidditch and playing house with Voldemort. He deserves to be punished. He was supposed to be a hero, and he did not rise to the occasion.

He never wanted to be a hero. He’d wanted to be a famous Quidditch player, he’d have liked to win the Triwizard Tournament, to get the pretty girl and be well liked.

He never wanted fame for something that left him disfigured, something he had no merit in.

Harry allows himself to be pushed to his keens.

It’s the same as the last time, just as brutal and humiliating. Harry keeps his eyes closed, tears running down his cheeks, caused by his gag reflex getting activated over and over again, but also because he feels like crying.

He’s also rock hard during the whole thing, and that only cements his belief that he should be punished, because he’s not supposed to like this. Not with Voldemort.

The world disappears, narrows down to every breath he’s allowed to take, to the fingers that hold his neck.

(-)

He wanks off that very night, throat still very sore, his jaw still hurting. He comes as fast as the last time, writhing in his bed.

And then, he cries some more.

He doesn’t run again, sits down for breakfast the next morning as if nothing happened and eats the buttered toast that is waiting for him, as always.

(-)

Not a week after, Harry is preparing to leave the library, after he carefully places the book he was reading back in its ‘proper place’, less someone throws a fit.

“Stay,” Voldemort asks, from his armchair near the fireplace. It is a new armchair. Harry doesn’t remember owning it or buying it.

“What?” Harry asks, stretching.

Voldemort watches him in a way that instantly makes Harry self-conscious. His hands lie on the armrests and there is no book in sight. How long had he stayed there, just watching Harry read?

“Take off your clothes.”

Harry worries he’s being hypnotised or something similar, because just like that something switches inside him-his heart beats faster, his palms are sweaty and he has this need to do as he’s told.

But no, no. This has to stop, really. It’s absurd and uncomfortable, on many levels, and Harry doesn’t know where it’s going, but knows it will end badly.

“I don’t want to,” he says, squaring off his shoulders and meets his eyes.

Voldemort leans further inside the armchair, getting more comfortable. He’s been off the whole day-tenser. A muscle in his jaw kept pulsing.

“I didn’t ask if you want to. I asked you to take your clothes off. And I’m not in the habit of repeating myself, so don’t make me say it again.”

“But why?” Harry asks to stall time.

Voldemort raises an eyebrow, rests an ankle on the opposite knee. And it’s sinful, really, for anyone to look that good, but especially a 70 something years old evil dark lord. Yet here they are.

“Because I want to see you without them,” he drawls, deliberately.

Harry doesn’t want that. It would make him feel vulnerable.

You saw him naked, beaten and bloodied, he reminds himself. Only Voldemort hadn’t lookedvulnerable.

Harry already feels vulnerable, even clothed.

Back in the tent, a younger Tom Riddle would pull Harry’s shirt himself, would bend to kiss Harry’s shoulder-

Harry pulls off his t-shirt in one swift motion. The jeans are tighter than he wants, because they’re new, they haven’t settled yet. Also because he bought them in his usual size that seems to have changed a little, since Voldemort keeps feeding him at least two full meals a day.

He must look ridiculous and he feels so, as he wrestles with the jeans, that do not seem to want to part with him.

Eventually, he’s only in his boxers. His hands tremble on the waist band.

Voldemort watches, quietly. He hadn’t taken his eyes off Harry’s own.

In the tent, Tom Riddle would let his dark eyes trail all over. But Tom Riddle had been a liar, Tom Riddle was only trying to protect himself.

And Voldemort isn’t?

“Why are you doing this?” Harry asks, voice so wretched he can hear it himself, the desperation inside.

Voldemort doesn’t answer.

Harry pulls the boxers off and he can’t look at Voldemort anymore. He focuses on the carpet. The luscious, clean carpet that has none of the holes in it that it used to have.

But as interesting as that is, it can’t distract him from what’s going on. He was right. He feels all sorts of vulnerable and self-conscious, and he has to make a huge effort not to cover himself with his hands.

Harry had shared a room with four other boys at Hogwarts. He’d been in a full locker room a few times. He knows he’s at best average in size and it never bothered him with Ginny or that muggle girl, but it bothers him now, being watched by Voldemort, whom Harry knows is much bigger than ‘average’.

Just another way in which Harry comes up short, compared to the dark lord.

When he looks back up, Voldemort’s walking towards him. Harry flinches slightly, but very soon Voldemort passes by him and Harry can feel him at his back. He touches Harry’s shoulder and his fingers are so hot, so long- Harry shudders under them.

Voldemort guides Harry a little to the left, and he’s suddenly facing a full-length mirror that had most defiantly never been there before.

The image shocks him.

Harry looks even smaller, in every aspect, with Voldemort looming at his back, at least two heads taller, almost twice as wide, in shoulder span.

It’s unbearable. He closes his eyes-

“No. Look.”

Harry shakes his head. The fingers grab his throat, suddenly. Harry’s eyes snap open instinctively and his own hands grab at Voldemort’s forearm.

Voldemort is barley squeezing, really. There’s almost no pressure at all, but it’s such a visceral thing to have the fingers of the man that tried to kill him so many times, curled around his throat.

The image in the mirror stops Harry. He looks wild, skin pale, every scar standing out, his green eyes making a startling contrast with the rest of him.

“Let go,” Voldemort demands, and Harry allows his arms to fall beside his body.

Voldemort's other hand grabs Harry’s right wrist, his finger press against the scar Pettigrew left with the knife, back in the graveyard.

Harry flinches, but Voldemort’s hand is already moving away. This time, it stops on Harry’s chest, on the oval burn the locket had left behind, when he’d submerged himself in water, trying to strangle Harry.

The touch feels good over the scared skin. This is so sick, Harry thinks and this time, Voldemort moves his fingers very, very slowly and Harry just knows where they will end up.

They both watch those fingers in the mirror, as they push away Harry’s hair and rest on the lightning scar.

Harry swallows so hard he almost covers the sharp intake of breath Voldemort takes. Almost.

Their eyes meet, in the mirror, and it just melts Harry inside, instantly lifts his temperature, the intensity in Voldemort’s gaze.

He’s looking at Harry the same way he’d looked at the locket, in Hokey’s memory. Full of possession.

And why shouldn’t he? He’s already claimed Harry so many times. Harry has marks all over his body, left by this man, in some form or another.

The fingers leave the scar and go straight to Harry’s cock.

So many emotions are strangling him, more effective than Voldemort’s fingers, but none are sexual.

Still, his body responds, and does it fast.

Harry struggles a little, so very sensitive. Voldemort’s fingers start squeezing his throat harder, as the ones around his cock move faster.

Every time Harry closes his eyes, Voldemort demands he opens them, strangles him a little harder.

It’s far worse than having his face fucked. Far worse, because Harry is enjoying this now, properly enjoying it, even if a part of him doesn’t want to. The heat pools in his lower abdomen, and his hips move upwards, against his will, to meet Voldemort’s hand.

When the fingers are so tight against his neck that Harry cannot breathe anymore, he comes, ropes of white splashing on his chest and on Voldemort’s hand.

It must have lasted less than five minutes, from start to finish, and not once did Harry try to fight it, his arms remained motionless at his sides the whole time.

As soon as he’s let go, Harry lunges for his boxers, shaking all over. He won’t even bother with his jeans. He turns to flee the room, he’s almost at the door-

“Forgot something?” Voldemort asks, and there’s such glee and derision in his tone, it rips Harry’s heart.

Furious, on top of deeply humiliated, he turns to say something -

His wand, his holly wand, is between Voldemort’s fingers. There’s a terrifying smile on his face.

Harry freezes. He sees Voldemort, truly, for the first time since he came to Grimmauld Place.

Harry is all confused, frightened and mostly naked. Defenceless.

And Voldemort is in his black robe, wand in hand.

Do not let him get your wand under any circumstances, Kingsley’s voice rings in his head.

Voldemort points the wand at Harry, casually, as he walked closer and Harry can do nothing but watch, in a mixture of horror and fascination, trapped between being fourteen in a graveyard, and twenty two in the library.

Voldemort’s wrists flicks and Harry dodges to the right, because Voldemort seemed to be casting to the left- it was a feint and it hits him, anyway.

Harry feels it touching his stomach, and he looks down, expecting blood and guts-

There’s nothing. Not a thing. The skin is uncut and clean-

Too clean. His semen had just been all over it, Harry had seen himself come in the mirror, across his stomach and Voldemort’s fingers.

“So easily spooked, Harry. You disappoint me.” The wand is pointed at him once more, when he looks up, but this time Voldemort is holding it by the wrong end, offering the handle to Harry.

Harry grabs it, points it at Voldemort’s heart.

“Go and sleep. You’re tired.”

“You can do magic,” Harry growls. He looks at the armchair again. At the mirror. The repaired carpet.

“You always knew I could. I told you since before you got me out.” Voldemort smiles, that charming smile of his. “It’s not much but-useful for a few tricks.”

He runs his hand over a paper on the desk and a rose takes its place. Voldemort takes it and extends it to Harry.

“That’s a lot more than a few tricks. It’s advanced transfiguration.”

“I could do this as a child, Harry. Might be it’s a lot for you, but it’s nothing to me.”

Voldemort comes closer, walks right into Harry’s wand, gently pushes it away and shoves the rose under Harry’s waist band. “Goodnight.”

Minutes later, when Harry pulls off his boxers to jump in the shower, the rose falls off, along with a drop of blood.

It was a thorny one.

Chapter 10

Chapter Text

“He can do magic, Hermione.”

Harry paces in her office, running a hand through his hair. He hadn’t slept all night.

He didn’t even get to process the sexual part of the evening, because the magic part is far more critical.

Terrifying, really.

The image with them in the mirror flashes behind his eyelids, but before Harry can feel anything more than a thrill and a desperate shame, it is replaced with the image of Voldemort pointing the wand at him.

Why did he hand it back? Harry wonders. Did Voldemort touch Harry only because he wanted to distract him and steal his wand?

But then why give it back?

“Nonsense. Those cuffs are brilliantly made. I tested them myself, they’ve been tested on so many others-”

“He made them! He knows how they function!” Harry snaps at her.

Hermione sights. “Alright. What magic did he do?”

“He transfigure something into an armchair, he fixed the holes in the carpet and he transfigured a pen into a rose.”

It’s not what someone expects to hear, when thinking about dark Lord Voldemort doing magic again. Still, Hermione takes it at face value.

“Did you see him doing that?”

“Just the rose bit,”Harry admits.

Hermione looks relived. “Well, that’s not so bad. Small things like that, if he puts in a lot of effort, a man like him-it’s feasible. But an armchair-Harry, he couldn’t have. You have so much furniture, stacked in all those rooms, I’m sure he just moved it around.”

Nothing moves in Grimmauld, ever.

He used my wand, Harry almost says, but doesn’t. “What if he gets my wand-”

“You’re not stupid, to let it lying around,” Hermione says, playing with some documents she was working on, before Harry barged into her office.

Harry cringes. “But what if?”

“He shouldn’t be able to do much more than turn a pen into a rose. I know he’s intimidating and I can only image what he’s been saying to you, but the cuffs work, Harry. They do.”

Harry knows the cuffs work, otherwise Voldemort wouldn’t be a prisoner in his house.

But Harry is certain they don’t work as efficiently as everyone else seems to think.

(-)

“I don’t want to do this anymore,” Harry says, when he returns from the Ministry.

“Do what?”

Voldemort sits behind his office- it’s not his! He gives Harry a searching look.

“Stuff,” Harry says with emphasis.

He desperately hopes his face does not look as hot as he feels it.

“You’re a twenty-two-year-old man. ‘Stuff’? Really?”

“I don’t want it. Stop it.”

Voldemort takes a sip of his tea, no expression on his face. “Why?”

“I don’t like it,” Harry forces himself to hold Voldemort’s gaze, though he’d like nothing better than to look away.

“Do not lie to Lord Voldemort.”

“Stop talking about yourself in the third person!” Harry snaps, irritated and on edge.

A muscle jerks in Voldemort’s jaw. “Very well. Do not lie to me.”

“I’m not lying. I don’t like it. It makes me uncomfortable.”

“That doesn’t mean you’re not getting enjoyment out of it. Pleasure is a complicated emotion. It sometimes comes with discomfort.”

Harry closes his eyes, briefly.

“I don’t want it,” he repeats.

“And I don’t want to be cut away from most of my magic and be captive in your house, Harry Potter. What are we going to do about that?”

Harry can hear the rage simmering behind the words. It makes him shiver, but he doesn’t back away.

“You should have considered it before you went ahead and theorised the whole country,” Harry spits.

“And you should have put some thought into it, before taking me to your house, like an oversized pet,” Voldemort says, voice getting lower.

Harry yells when he’s angry.

Voldemort’s tone lowers. “Stop lying to yourself, first and foremost, if you insist in lying to me.”

(-)

Surprisingly, Voldemort stops staring at Harry. There are no more touches, no more innuendos.

Harry expects him to turn nasty, but Voldemort doesn’t.

He continues making Harry’s breakfast, and more often than not, dinner.

They still talk, as if nothing had happened; Voldemort is his usual self, and except for calling people ‘mudbloods’ or occasionally describing in vivid detail how he’d like to torture some Ministry Official that had done one thing or another, Harry enjoys these conversations.

He can’t help it; Voldemort’s caustic remarks make Harry smile; his observations concerning the news coming from the papers, ranging from trivial matters to more important ones, are enlightening. After many years, through Voldemort, Harry finally understands something about politics.

Because that’s the thing- Voldemort can carry conversations with Hermione that go right past Harry’s head, but he also knows how to talk to capture whatever audience he chooses.

On the Weasley’s third visit, Voldemort somehow manages to insert himself into a conversation Harry was having with Ron about muggle vehicles.

Ron had never said one word to Voldemort, watched him suspiciously, but when Harry fails to describe how planes fly and Voldemort explains it, Ron finds himself asking a question or two.

By the end, Ron gets it; Hermione looks a little frustrated, she’d tried many times to educate Ron on the topic, in an attempt to convince him to board a plane to China, but she’d never gotten through to him.

“She doesn’t know how to dumb it down,” Voldemort tells Harry, when they’re alone.

“Ron isn’t dumb- and neither am I,” Harry says, but without any ire.

“Perhaps neither of you are stupid, but you certainly seem stupid compared to the mudblood. She operates under the illusion that all people are capable to understand matters as she does, if only she gives them the information she holds. And that’s not the case. I have significant experience speaking to idiots; have you met some of my Death Eaters?”

“How do you know about planes, anyway?”

“When I was a young boy, long before Hogwarts, I wished to be a pilot, so I could travel the world. Commercial flights were still new and fascinating at the time.”

Harry’s heart gives a little tug. He can imagine that boy, smart and poor and trapped in an orphanage, wanting to just get away.

There’s something so human about it, so mundane. Voldemort had once been a child with dreams that did not involve mass murder.

Voldemort listens patiently when Harry comes home after a match and excitedly tells Voldemort all about it. Harry knows he doesn’t care, but somehow it’s not evident on his face.

When Dudley’s letter comes, the second since Harry left the Dursley household, Voldemort reads it first.

He has no shame in reading Harry’s mail, when Harry isn’t home.

The first letter, about a year after the war ended, was long, filled with awkward apologies. Something about Dudley starting therapy, forced into a program after he got into too many troubles involving alcohol and street fights.

Harry had tossed it in the bin, at the height of his dark period. Ginny had recently broken up with him, everyone was building their lives anew and the knowledge that even Dudley was doing so had angered him.

The new letter contains even more apologies. Dudley has a young son, and he writes how terribly sorry he feels for the way Harry was treated. He hopes Harry is doing well.

Harry sighs, buries his jealousy and spite, and responds.

Congratulations for the baby, assurances that Harry forgives him and at the very end, Harry can’t help himself and throws a line how he hopes Dudley keeps his child away from his parents.

“Why would you write him?” Voldemort asks, something like frustration flashing in his eyes.

Harry shrugs. “So he can put it behind him. It wasn’t his fault, anyway. Like Dumbledore once said, as much as the Dursleys neglected me and failed to provide me with anything, they did damage to Dudley as well, by overindulging him. Besides, it’s good that he’s trying to be a better man. That’s - that should be encouraged.”

“You’re an idiot,” Voldemort sneers.

“Whatever,” Harry waves it away and seals his letter. He could send it by Muggle Post, the way it had arrived, but that is more effort that Harry is willing to spend on his cousin.

If Dudley has a problem with owls, then he hadn’t changed much. So Harry sends Midas and as he watches the bird take flight, he feels just a bit lighter.

As winter turns to spring, Voldemort casually uses magic around Harry.

It’s jarring. Nothing big, but it sends Harry into panic attacks, watching the dishes float away to the sink with a casual flick of Voldemort’s cuffed wrist.

Voldemort seems to get a sick pleasure every time he does it, watching Harry’s face, daring him to say something.

Harry doesn’t. He ignores it, as he ignored all the signs that had always been there.

He just holds on to his wand, guards it carefully and looks the other way when things get fixed or float away, when candles roar to life around him.

And when he catches Voldemort trying to transfigure one of the cabinets and he fails, Harry hastily retreats.

The look of pure misery on Voldemort’s face as his magic doesn’t listen to him is… it makes Harry feels sorry for him.

He deserves it, he should never use magic again.

But Harry is still sorry.

It’s a testament to Voldemort’s ambition, to his character, when two weeks later Harry comes down for breakfast only to see the cabinet enlarged, sturdier and far more elegant than it’s been.

Such a useless thing- Harry has cabinets all over the hose. There was no need. Insignificant.

Just goes to show Voldemort won’t concede defeat in any matter, no matter how trivial.

(-)

March starts with two attacks, back to back, just as people were appearing to relax.

Harry just stares numbly at the paper, for minutes on end, as Voldemort makes tea, unconcerned.

“I’m pissed off,” Harry says, when Voldemort sits at the head of the table.

“Are you?” he asks, giving Harry a quizzical look. “All I see is desperate.”

Harry opens his mouth-

“Don’t do anything stupid,” Voldemort carries on, taking the paper from Harry and folding it until he finds the International Affairs column.

(-)

Kingsley stares at Voldemort.

He only brought Savage with him this time.

The silence stretches on, Kingsley had not said a word since he’d entered, looking at Voldemort as if he could find answers in his face.

He can’t.

Voldemort is seated, seemingly very comfortable, no expression on his features.

“It’s not Death Eaters behind the attacks,” Kingsley finally barks.

Harry turns his head towards him, shocked.

“It only took you four years to notice,” Voldemort drawls and Harry turns to him again.

You tosser, he thinks, but stops just short of saying it.

Not in company.

“I thought you didn’t know who is responsible,” Harry says, voice strangled.

“I don’t,” Voldemort says, but how can anyone believe him?

Kingsley doesn’t; never did. Because Kingsley is smart, unlike Harry.

“But you knew it wasn’t a Death Eater,” Savage says. “How?”

Voldemort reaches over, and Savage draws his wand, Kingsley's hand goes for his own.

Harry feels a little vindicated, seeing them still react this way.

I don’t flinch away any time he moves, he thinks, almost arrogant.

Which is bad. He is dangerous.

Voldemort only takes the Daily Prophet, laid on the desk, depicting scenes from the latest attack.

He taps one of his long fingers on the Dark Mark, floating in the moving picture.

“It’s not mine,” he says.

Kingsley frowns. “It’s identical.”

Harry bends a little, squints his eyes, and yeah, it is identical.

“To outsiders, yes. Not to me. The Mark can only be successfully reproduced by someone that bears it on their arm.”

Kingsley seems to consider it.

“I can tell by every mark, exactly which of my Death Eaters cast it.”

They all stare at him.

“It’s a Protean Charm,” Savage says, in disbelief. “Granted it’s tweaked, so it can be ingrained in flesh, but there’s no way it would work like-”

“I’m a Parselmouth, you moron. Every single serpent on my Death Eaters knows who it belongs to. It hisses the name, once in the air.”

Harry’s jaw drops.

A brief silence. They all glare at Voldemort, who looks very smug about it.

“You can’t hear it through a newspaper,” Kingsley points out, the first to recover.

“No. Nevertheless, I can still tell it doesn’t belong to either of my men.”

More silence. Harry’s head is spinning. Not Death Eaters. Than who? Why? Why didn’t Voldemort tell him?

Stupidly, he feels betrayed.

He’s not your friend!

“Was it Lucius that finally convinced you to look elsewhere?”Voldemort asks.

Kingsley’s eye twitches, which is answer enough.

“Since he’s the only one of my free Death Eaters willing to talk to you, to have seen these atrocities of marks, I would assume so.”

“He has some ideas, who it might be,” Kingsley says, after exchanging a look with Savage. “Gave us a few names.”

“Did he?” Voldemort looks surprised and also at the same time conveys he’s not surprised at all. “That Lucius, always so helpful, always full of information.”

“And since he has some hypotheses, you might have them too.”

“I wouldn’t presume. Lucius is far more well connected than I,” Voldemort smirks.

“Cut the crap!” Savage demands. “Malfoy told us, in that insufferable way of his ‘the Dark Lord would have been the only one to know for sure, alas he’s dead’.”

“Lucius’ faith in me is flattering; especially after he betrayed me.”

“Who is it?” Harry asks, very upset. “Who’s doing this?”

Stop feeling betrayed.

I don’t feel betrayed, Harry argues with himself.

He only feels idiotic for believing the scheming, emotionless liar when he’d said he doesn’t know.

Voldemort doesn’t look at him, and that only upsets Harry more.

“Tell us,” Kingsley orders.

Voldemort has no issues looking at him, it seems. “I fail to see what benefit that would bring me.”

“What do you want?” Kingsley spits through gritted teeth.

“That’s just the thing; you have nothing to give me.”

Of course; Harry already gives him everything he wants.

So stupid. You never learn.

Kingsley glowers at him. “We already caught someone, otherwise we wouldn’t have believed Malfoy’s word, just on its own.”

“Good luck, then!” Voldemort says. “It appears to me you have all you need, in this case. Unless, of course, your prisoner is equally unwilling to share informations with you?”

“He’s clearly a lackey,” Kingsley answers, viciously. “I must say he’s much more loyal to whoever he’s protecting than any of your Death Eaters have been to you, once incarcerated.”

Voldemort doesn’t react.

The conversation seems over, as far as Harry can see, but no one makes a move to leave.

“What about this snake,” Savage asks, after a few seconds, nodding to the prophet. “If you were there, and you saw it, could it tell you something?”

Kingsley gives Savage a look- “you don’t mean to take him to the next they leave for us, surely.”

“Perhaps,” Voldemort shrugs. “It is not an organic serpent; not exactly cognitive. But maybe it can tell me something.”

“Something you already know, no doubt.” Kingsley snaps. “Why would we take him?” he asks Savage. “He won’t tell us anything, either way.”

“He might,” Savage gives Voldemort a searching look. “I’m sure you’re desperate to get out of the house, even for an hour. Isn’t that a nice bargain?”

This irritates Voldemort, his face expresses anger for just a second.

“Lord Voldemort is not desperate,” he hisses. But then he looks like he might agree and-

Harry thinks this is an awful idea.

“Well, I won’t allow it. No,” Harry cuts over him. “He’s not - seriously?” He looks at Kingsley. “Out? No way.”

“It’s not your decision,” Savage says.

“I think it is. The oath states he can get out with my permission or in my presence. Not going to happen.”

They don’t know that Voldemort can use a wand more efficiently than they suspect. Harry can see this outing going poorly, very quickly.

They don’t know because you haven’t told them.

Harry should tell them. But he can’t. How is he supposed to tell Kingsley Voldemort got his wand?

They’ll take Voldemort away from Harry.

“It’s useless, anyway. He won’t help you,” Harry says, and he’s the one that refuses to look at Voldemort this time, though he can practically feel the rage emanating from him.

“I agree with Harry,” Kingsley says, after a brief break.

Without much fanfare, they leave.

A very tense silence settles over them. Harry is angry with Voldemort for the whole mess and yet he is aware Voldemort is furious with Harry.

Seconds stretch, endlessly-

Harry could never stay silent for long; apprehensive, he turns to Voldemort, ready to face him.

He is not imagining the red accents marring the brown eyes burning holes into Harry.

“Get out,” Voldemort hisses.

Harry squares his shoulders. “This is my house-”

Voldemort stands, inhumanly fast.

Harry grabs his wand, but Voldemort doesn’t seem concerned about it.

“Get out or I shall give you another scar when I break your skull open.”

He’s actually reaching for a tall, solid gold candle holder.

Harry decides it’s best he leaves before things escalate.

(-)

There’s no more breakfast waiting for him. The door to the library stays shut- not magically, Harry could open it, but it is a clear sign that Voldemort wants nothing to do with him.

Harry tells himself Voldemort has no reason to be upset; in fact, Harry is the one that has all the reasons. But then-

‘My permission.’ ‘I won’t allow it.’ Harry cringes when he remembers the words, when he’d talked as if Voldemort is property.

It’s even worse, because Voldemort is, in a way, property. He has no say in what happens to him, he’s at the mercy of either Harry or Kingsley and Harry can’t even imagine how that feels, especially for a creature so proud.

I did the right thing, Harry reassures himself, pushes away the guilt. Voldemort is too dangerous to be out, even with Aurors. And it’s not like he’d solve anything for the Ministry; he never does.

Harry casts Human Revelio a few times a day, just to make sure Voldemort is still inside the house, but does nothing else.

He worries, because the food in the pantry doesn’t decline and that means the man isn’t eating and-

Stop. It’s not your business if he decided to go on a hunger strike.

It’s very lonely; Harry’s forgotten how that feels, how empty his chest is, in that cold, dreadful house.

How the food taste like ash, when he’s alone in the kitchen. He keeps glancing at Voldemort’s chair.

He can’t stand it. He goes out as much as he can, and he realises that he’d looked forward to coming back to Grimmauld, when he knew Voldemort was waiting for him, with a meal, with the promise of fascinating, if sometimes a little morbid, conversation.

But no more; it’s like before, when nothing and no one waits for Harry.

Hermione is pregnant again, and that makes him smile, for the first time in a week, as he hugs everyone at the Burrow, Molly crying with joy, Arthur laughing loudly.

Such a nice family, Harry thinks, looking at the many people gathered around the room.

His heart twists, painfully.

They’re your family too, he tells himself sternly.

And yes, but Harry will never gingerly hold a hand over his wife’s stomach, the way Ron is doing.

Harry will never hold two of his grandchildren on his lap, as Arthur does with Victoire and Rose.

“Everything alright, mate?” Ron asks him, trailing after him when Harry offers to deal with the garden gnomes, just so he can get away and not spoil anyone’s joy with his mood.

“Yeah-”

“Harry, I’ve known you for over ten years. What’s wrong?”

What can Harry tell him? That he’s happy for Ron, but so jealous? That he feels guilty for not allowing Voldemort a possible chance to escape?

That he misses Voldemort’s company? Or about the dreams he has, remembering the thing in front of the mirror?

Should he tell Ron how gutted Harry is when he thinks that Voldemort had no desire to touch Harry, had only done it to get his wand?

“Is it…him?” Ron lowers his voice, even if there’s no one around. “It must be.”

“It’s nothing. We’re in a fight, that’s all.”

Ron blinks at him. “You’re in a fight?” he asks, incredulous, and Harry remembers all the times Ron came to complain to Harry that he’s in a fight with Hermione, asking for advice on how to apologise for whatever he did Hermione took issue with.

Harry panics. “Yeah, he threatened to smash my head with a candlestick,” he says, to let Ron know it’s nothing like those innocent fights between spouses. “So it’s just a little awkward, is all.”

“That git!” Ron says, enraged.

“Yeah,” Harry agrees, looking over to the house; he can see Fleur dancing with Bill through the open window. “Yeah, he is a git.”

“He can’t do it, though,” Ron goes on. “Smash your head, I mean. He can threaten all he wants, but you’ve got a wand and he doesn’t. He can’t hurt you.”

Harry’s hurt, either way, but he just nods and forces a smile on his face, agreeing to return to the house.

(-)

Harry finds himself in a silent war with Lucius Malfoy, over who can buy Teddy the most expensive toys.

It’s silly; more than silly, actually, but it’s not like Harry has anything else to do and he wants to win something.

Andromeda says nothing, when Harry gives Teddy a fantastic toy broom, that he’d asked Yannis to bring from Greece, just two days after Malfoy had bought Teddy the top of the line model available in England.

She just shakes her head, silently.

Teddy speaks of how cool it is to ride the winged horses as the Manor, so Harry takes him to see some baby dragons, pulls some strings to be allowed to see them before they are shipped off to a reserve.

He tells Teddy how he once rode a dragon, and as the boy’s eyes grow wide with awe, Harry thinks “top that, Malfoy!”

“This is getting a little out of hand,” Andromeda takes Harry aside when he comes with the second toy broom, just because Malfoy heard about Harry’s first one and gave Teddy another.

“Why do you even let him buy stuff for Teddy?” Harry asks, childish.

Andromeda raises an eyebrow. “Why do I allow for my grandson to receive gifts that make him happy?”

Harry looks away in shame. “Why does Malfoy even want to- I mean he’s…agh, why is he involved all of a sudden?”

Andromeda sighs. “Draco’s son was born.”

“I know,” Harry hisses. He’d read it in the paper, without Voldemort there to say something scathing about it, to distract Harry from the pang of bitterness.

No distractions; just pain and a cold kitchen.

“So why doesn’t he spoil that one?”

“Because Astoria doesn’t want to have Lucius too involved with her son, Narcissa tells me.”

Harry looks up. “Really?" Smart girl.

“Draco is trying to mediate but- well, I suppose Lucius transfers some of the attention he can’t give Scorpius onto Teddy.”

Why can’t you be smart like Astoria and not let him? Harry thinks but thankfully doesn’t ask.

“He’s been telling Teddy that Muggles are worthless-”

“You’ve told me already, and I had a talk with Lucius; he won’t, anymore.”

Yeah, right.

“In any case, stop with this nonsense,” Andromeda says, though she looks amused. “It’s childish and more than that, it’s a fight you can’t win. The Malfoy Vaults are bottomless.”

She smiles, as kindly as she’s able. “Teddy loves you, Harry. You don’t need to compete with anyone for his affection, nor buy it. You’re his hero.”

Harry’s never put much weight on the word hero; in fact, he resented it. But Andromeda’s words stay with him, stuck in his brain, an insistent whisper he can’t get rid of.

(-)

Two weeks and four days after their fight, Harry finds his tea and toast in the kitchen.

His face splits into a grin, a weight off his shoulders as he takes the tea in his hands.

He eats alone, trying to beat that grin into submission, before he goes up the stairs, walks tentatively into the library.

“Morning,” Harry says.

Voldemort doesn’t look up from the Daily Prophet.

“It’s ten o’clock,” he replies, and Harry’s back to grinning.

He can’t sit still on the couch, though he tries to read one of the comic books he buys for Teddy, in an attempt to make him like Muggles.

He can’t focus. He keeps peering over at Voldemort.

He’s suddenly filled with energy; everything looks promising. He’ll go to practice in an hour and then he’ll come home and he’ll have dinner and the house won’t feel like a tomb.

“Nice day, isn’t it?” Harry asks, because he wants to make sure everything’s alright.

Voldemort folds the Prophet, spares a glance at the window.

Harry looks too; rain pours against the glass.

A loud thunder rumbles.

Harry promises himself he’ll check the weather before declaring a day nice into the future.

Voldemort pinches the bridge of his nose.

“You’re pathetic,” he says, but that only makes Harry’s day better.

Everything is normal, indeed.

(-)

Harry gives himself a week to enjoy it. The company, the meals, the way Voldemort’s shirt strains over his shoulders.

He hadn’t realised how much he’d missed talking; he’d never been very talkative, but now he finds himself blabbering non stop, about everything.

Voldemort listens, as he always does; even when he pretends he’s ignoring Harry, nose buried in a book, Harry knows he’s still listening to every word.

When the week is over, Harry goes at a muggle pub with Ron.

“I’ll join the Aurors,” Harry says, after they had a pint.

Ron sighs, unsurprised. “I was wondering when Kingsley will get to you.”

Harry shakes his head. “It’s not Kingsley. It’s not!” he insists, when Ron gives him a doubtful look. “It’s Teddy.”

Teddy thinks him a hero. And for him, Harry has to fight, even if he doesn’t want to, even if he’d love to play Quidditch and stay home with Voldemort.

“Teddy?” Ron makes a face. “I don’t know mate, I think Teddy would rather you alive and well, Merlin forbid, maybe even happy. Joining the Aurors won’t make you happy. Might make you dead, though.”

“I have to make sure he’s alright, Ron. That he grows up in peace; that’s why everyone died for.”

“So you’ll quit the team?” Ron asks, knowing better than to talk Harry out of it.

“Yeah, first thing tomorrow. I just wanted to tell you, first. Before I tell anyone else.”

“Good,” Ron nods. “I’ll let George know to find someone else to help him.”

“What?” Harry demands. “No, no. Ron-”

“Mate, we keep having the same conversation since you didn’t want us to come with you down the trapdoor, in our first year. And I keep telling you, that we’re in this together.”

Harry doesn’t know what to say. He never knew what to say, what he did to deserve Ron and Hermione.

Speaking of-

“Hermione won’t be happy.”

Ron snorts, orders another round of drinks. “Not in the beginning. But she’ll come around; we have Rosie and this new bugger coming and you’re right. Gotta make sure they grow up in peace. I certainly don’t want to receive the sort of letters mum did, while we were at Hogwarts. I don’t want to have McGonagall tell me every year how my kids almost died, fighting dark wizards.”

“Remember those Howlers your mum used to send you?” Harry asks, smiling.

Whatever is coming, Ron’s with him.

He refuses to think of what Voldemort will say.

“If I remember? I still can’t hear with one ear.”

(-)

They’re totally hammered when they leave the pub some hours later.

Ron’s reminiscing, loudly, about Hagrid and his Blast-Ended Screwts, as they head down a deserted alley to Apparate home. To Ron and Hermione’s home, that is, because Harry keeps his rule about not being drunk around Voldemort.

He’s only saved because of some long buried instinct, from the times he’d been regularly attacked by Voldemort and his Death Eaters.

Harry ducks, just as a curse rashes past him.

It crashes into a bin, shattering it to pieces.

He spins around, wand in hand, to find Ron in an equally defensive posture.

They only have time to exchange a surprised, confused glance before there’s no more room for thinking.

Three masked men are attacking them.

It’s chaotic, which is the only way Harry has ever duelled, really. Just instinct and luck and, as always, no concern over his own well-being, but terrified over Ron’s.

One of the masked men- and Harry takes a second to register the masks are very alike the ones Death Eaters used to wear, but not quite right- is down on the ground, seemingly unconscious, and Harry has no idea if it was him, Ron or just an accident, as spells rebound from the walls of the narrow alley.

"Expeliarmus!” he says, at some point and he can almost hear Voldemort’s voice in his head, calling him an idiot.

But it works, and a wand is flying into the air. “Stupefy!” he yells next, at the same time Ron screams “Petrificus Totalus".

Both spells hit another of the masked men and he goes down.

But the remaining attacker’s spell connects with Ron’s side- he collapses on the floor, convulsing.

“No!” Harry screams, rushing towards him, but he’s forced to backtrack when a red spell almost hits him.

Harry turns to engage him, furious.

No more disarming spells, then.

Harry gives it all he’s got.

His opponent is competent, avoids most of Harry’s spells and gives back just as good.

Harry’s distantly aware he’s in pain and that he’s bleeding profusely from a cutting curse, but those are less important, as he jumps out of the path of yet another unknown curse.

He’d lost count of how many of those were cast his way in the last ten or so minutes.

“Oppugno!” Harry sends two telephone poles at his enemy and vaguely realises some Muggle onlookers have gathered on the main street, gawking.

“RUN!” he screams at them but then he looks at Ron, who’s stopped moving and Harry’s heart in plummeting in his stomach, as he tries to go to his side.

But the masked man had gotten rid of the poles, and he’s preparing to cast again-

“Sectusempra!” Harry yells, desperate. He needs to get to Ron.

Blood gushes out the man’s ripped robe and Harry stares in horror, having flashbacks with Malfoy.

The man Apparates away.

Harry drops to his knees, besides Ron.

His glasses must have been damaged in the duel, because he can’t see well with one eye.

“Ron,” Harry begs, grabbing his hand. “Ron, come on!”

Police sirens wail in the distance.

Harry’s dizzy, he feels weak, his vision darkens.

“RON!”

Ron’s hand jerks, feebly, between Harry’s own.

Thank God, he thinks, and then he blacks out.

(-)

He wakes up with Kingsley at his side.

“Ron,” Hary says instantly, mouth dry, limbs heavy.

He tries to stand up.

“He’ll recover. Hermione is with him. Lay down, Harry, you’ve been through a lot-”

He’s at St Mungo’s, Harry realises after a brief glance around the room.

He struggles to his feet, by sheer force of will.He has to see Ron, because the image with his best friend laid down on the pavement is ravaging Harry.

“Where is he?”

Kingsley and a couple of Healers try to get him to lie down, but Harry will not, and eventually they put him in a chair and wheel him to another ward.

Aurors are patrolling the hallway; Harry recognises Proudfoot and Savage among them. Sunlight shines through the windows and he judges it’s at least midday.

“Did you get them?” Harry asks, looking up at Kingsley.

“The two you left for us, but the Muggles said there was a third, before we Obliviated them,” Kingsely gives Harry a brief smile. “You and Ron did a great job. We’ll talk more when you feel better.”

He shuts up, because they are going through a door-

“Oh, Harry!” Hermione’s face is tear-stained. She jumps off Ron’s bed and comes to Harry.

He stands on shaky legs and he’d had fallen if not for her hug.

“How is he-”

“He’s sleeping. He’ll pull through.”

Harry collapses beside Ron, who’s so pale all his freckles are standing out.

“He was brilliant,” Harry whispers. “You should have seen him.”

Though he’s glad she didn’t. Hermione shouldn’t be anywhere near danger, ever again.

Neither should Ron, for that matter.

What was I thinking?

“I sent him a letter,” Hermione whispers in Harry’s ear. “As soon as I was convinced you’d both pull through, I sent him a letter.”

Harry looks at her, kisses her cheek. He knows who “him” is.

She has one of those expressions she gets when she figured something out. It’s mixed with pity. The way she’s biting her cheek means that she’s trying hard not to say something that she’s sure will upset Harry.

“I’d figured you’d want me to,” she settles on.

“Thank you,” he whispers back.

It’s the first time when he’s injured and there’s someone out there to be notified.

The first time a letter can be sent to Harry’s house and have someone there to receive it.

He settles by Ron’s side for some time, reassured by the steady falling and rising of his chest.

“I want to go home,” he tells the Healers, who do not want him to go anywhere, speaking of injuries and potions and rest.

But they can’t truly stop him.

“Send word when he wakes up,” Harry asks Hermione. “Or- for anything you need.”

She nods, tucking some hair beneath her ear.

“Perhaps I should stay-” Harry reconsiders.

“You should stay.” Hermione says with a small smile. “To recover. But not for me; I’m good, Harry. Go home.”

“I’ll return after I-” Harry starts. After he sees Voldemort. He just wants to see him for a few seconds.

Harry gives her his wand, though it’s hard to part with it, after what had happened.

Hermione frowns.

“I’m in no state to protect it,” Harry shrugs.

“Then perhaps you shouldn’t go there, if you feel unsafe.”

Hermione searches his eyes, but Harry doesn’t linger, heading for the door on shaky legs.

He locates Savage in the hallway and asks him to Apparate Harry on the doorsteps of Grimmauld’s Place.

(-)

Harry enters his house, but he only manages to close the door behind him, before he sways dangerously on his feet and falls two steps in.

The Apparition really didn’t agree with me, he thinks, and for the second time in twenty-four hours he faints.

(-)

He wakes slowly, a gradual returning of the senses. He feels pleasantly warm, comfortable even. But as soon as he thinks it, his head gives a dull throb, and it’s as if that sends a signal to the rest of his body to start aching.

He opens his eyes, but everything is blurry.

“Here,” a hand comes close enough to his face that he can see it clearly. It’s holding his glasses.

Harry takes them, the muscles in his shoulder protesting as he puts them on. He sits, gingerly.

He’s on the couch in the library.

Voldemort is holding out a glass of water.

Harry drinks it fast, his mouth parched. He looks at Voldemort and it feels- well, it feels good.

Voldemort is unchanged, though Harry can see a tendon in his neck standing out and he understands Voldemort is angry.

“How is it possible you still need glasses?” he asks.

“Body modification is frowned upon, as you know. It’s Dark. How long was I out for?”

Voldemort doesn’t answer, but the only light from the room comes from candles, so Harry knows it’s been some time.

“I have to go-” he says, wiping his mouth and settling the glass on the end table beside him.

“The mudblood wrote, again. It seems even in a crisis, she cannot keep a letter short. The ginger woke up; he’ll be discharged tomorrow. She’ll drop over later.” A short break, in which Harry breathes in relief. Ron will be just fine. “I hope, for your sake, that she’s dropping by to give you your wand. It is not on your person and I shall be cross to learn you lost it.”

“Why?” Harry asks, narrowing his eyes. “You hate my wand. Gave you loads of trouble-”

“I hate you, not the wand.”

Harry’s heart gives a brief pang.

Why? You know he hates you. He always did and always will.This is nothing new.

“Yeah, she has my wand,”Harry says, trying to keep his voice cool.

“There’s more than air floating around between your ears, it seems,”Voldemort drawls, condescending.

“Go fuck yourself,” Harry mutters, rubbing his neck. It’s very stiff.

He’d forgotten how an intense duel can affect the body. He’s forgotten how much curses hurt, especially without Madam Pomfrey there to shove pain relief potion down his throat.

“I’d have been able to help you better, with a wand,” Voldemort says. “As it is, with these on, I couldn’t do much.”

Harry doesn’t know what to say to that. He tried to help me?

“Though I assume they took care of the worst of it at St Mungo’s.”

Harry nods. He sits in silence for a while, rolling his shoulders to alleviate the soreness.

Voldemort paces around the room.

It’s the first time Harry sees him restless and once more he’s reminded of an animal at the zoo, of a fierce predator, trapped but still lethal.

He looks at Voldemort, fascinated, as always.

There, he thinks, with a boost of adrenaline. That’s more like Voldemort. More natural than the stillness he’d displayed in the eight months they’ve been living together.

Voldemort turns to face Harry.

Their eyes meet.

“Let me go after him,”he hisses.

Harry blinks.Before he can comprehend it, Voldemort keeps going.

“You can come along, to make sure I don’t escape or to assuage whatever misgivings you harbour.”

“You know who he is?” Harry stands, despite the protest of his body, sending spikes of pain everywhere.

“I have some potential candidates in mind. If you’d let me use your owl, I can find out for sure. And then I’ll kill him.”

“How?” Harry nods at the cuffs.

Voldemort gives him a pointed look. “Don’t play dumb; if I have your wand, the cuffs will still hold me back, but I am positive I can bring down some second-rate pretender.”

“I’ll never give you my wand,” Harry tells him. “Even you can’t possibly think I would.”

Voldemort snarls, and there, he looks like that Voldemort again. The one from before.

Harry steps back, instinctively.

“I’d make an oath to give it back, directly after it is done,”Voldemort says and he tries to sound reasonable, but he’s far too angry to be able to keep it out of his voice.

Harry knew- he knows- that all Voldemort’s been doing- the cooking, the stillness, the flirting and the sex- it’s all to seduce Harry, make him become attached and lower his guards.

And Harry might be attached, he realises with a pang, with a clarity it’s hard to deny, but he’d never give Voldemort his wand.

Voldemort is severely overestimating his charm and underestimating Harry’s intelligence.

He doesn’t understand that Harry mostly allows Voldemort to manipulate him.

“No,” he says.

“He’s killing people. Surely, you’re upset about that. Weasley almost died. I’d put an end to it- we both know the Ministry will stumble blindly, for years, meanwhile this fool will only grow stronger, bolder-”

“No matter how dangerous, no matter the destruction, he is nothing compared to you, back out there. I know you’d find a way to free yourself, or at least create a stepping stone for it, if I let you leave this house with my wand. Even if I come with you, I am smart enough to know you can outwit me. I know you’re not offering to end this man, just to save people-”

“He’s using my Mark!” Voldemort almost shouts. Almost.

Lightening fast, he’s in Harry’s face. “How dare you stand there and not allow me to do things? You frown at killing and torturing, but how does slavery sit with your morals, Potter?”

“You’re not my slave,” Harry says, lightly.

Voldemort grabs him by the throat. Hard.

Harry twists, hits him in the side, but Voldemort’s fingers are relentless, his body unusually resistant to pain, after so much torture.

They wrestle, briefly but intensely, and Harry is so tired, still injured, he’s two heads shorter than Voldemort and at least forty pounds lighter.

His back slams against the wall, knocking the breath out of him, rattling his teeth. And he doesn’t have much breath left, what with Voldemort’s grip around his throat.

Harry’s vision is darkening, he’s pulling at Voldemort’s arm, desperate-

The grip loosens and Harry breaths in, sputtering and coughing.

“You thought yourself so smart, leaving your wand behind, didn’t you?” Voldemort says, looming over Harry. “After all, I can’t get it if you don’t have it. But Harry, you forgot, if you don’t have your wand, there’s nothing you can do to protect yourself from me.”

Harry barely hears him, his ears ringing.

“I can break every single bone in your body, slowly, agonisingly. I could watch you try to crawl towards the door, only to stop you, when you think you’re so close to freedom. And maybe then, Harry Potter, maybe then you’ll know how I feel.”

“It’s not my fault,” Harry whizzes, looking up, Voldemort’s fingers still around his neck, but just resting there. “It’s not my fault you’re here! Why don’t you fucking admit it! It’s all you! Everything you did, every single mistake, every single poor decision led you here!”

Voldemort’s eyes flash, mouth curled into a snarl.

But when Harry pushes him away, Voldemort steps back.

Harry doesn’t move, needing the wall at his back to support him. “Do you think I want this? It gives me no pleasure, having any power over another human being! I’m not you! I fucking hate it, alright? Why are you like this?” Harry hurts, a sharp ache in his chest. “Why can’t you- why do you insist on saying these awful things?”

“Wouldn’t it be just grand if I didn’t? So you can live in your fairytale, with no shame? If I’d play along and pretend I don’t want to go out there and conquer the world, so you can enjoy me, guilt free? I don’t think so, Potter. If I’m forced to be miserable and a captive, then you shall suffer with me!”

“Can you even tell how wrong you are?” Harry asks him, willing himself not to cry. “Can you understand that I’m trying so hard to be kind, to give you something, when you never gave me anything but pain?”

“I don’t want your kindness! I don’t need it! I want my freedom!”

“It’s my kindness that keeps you alive!” Harry shouts, though his voice is rough. “Do you get that? Do you get that if I’d be like you, you’d be dead?”

Clearly, he doesn’t. Voldemort knows this as a fact, but he doesn’t get it. For him, it’s not Harry’s kindness keeping him alive; it’s what he sees as Harry’s stupidity.

“If you’d be anything like me, Potter, you’d have a much easier life.”

And sadly, that is a fact as well. Harry would have been able to kill Voldemort, he wouldn’t have fallen into a dark depression, knowing he is letting a monster live on, he’d have married Ginny, had a nice enormous family, with beautiful weekends at the Burrow, surrounded by Weasleys. He would have become an Auror, and he’d sleep easy at night, without worrying the next day the Dark Lord would be free once more.

“If I’d have any genuine power over you,” Harry says, feeling defeated. “I’d force you to not kill anyone ever again. I’d let you out, so you could be the great wizard that you are, so you can accomplish feats of magic unprecedented, so you can shine in the light, not live in the shadows. You don’t need to hurt people to be extraordinary. You already are! I wish you’d see it! You are extraordinary even like this, with those on.”

“One more word, Potter,” Voldemort growls. “And I’ll break your neck! I might live as a muggle for the rest of my life, but it will be worth it!” Voldemort steps towards Harry again.

“My God,” Harry sighs. “Even a drop of truth, of kindness hurts you.”

Voldemort leans in. “Nothing hurts Lord Voldemort!” he says. “Nothing! You presumptuous little shit!”

“You’re not just Lord Voldemort,” Harry tells him. “You’re To-”

The fingers grab his throat again.

Harry doesn’t fight it, just stares back into those furious brown eyes.

Seconds later, he’s released.

Voldemort leaves the room.

Harry slides down the wall, all the way to the floor.

He knows he’s spoken the truth. He knows somewhere behind all that nastiness, all the menace, Tom Riddle still survives.

Harry knows it, because that’s the man he wants; the man that sometimes comes towards the surface, with bits of witty sarcasm, with the love he has for books, with the way he secretly enjoys Hermione’s company.The man that knows how to cook and had once wanted to be a pilot.

That’s the man Harry is falling in love with.

Chapter 11

Chapter Text

Harry writes to Hermione that he’ll retrieve his wand personally, there’s no need for her to come over.

He goes to his room, and he’d have thought it would be hard to find sleep, after everything, but he’s so exhausted, physically and mentally, that he falls into a coma like slumber.

He’s still sore when he wakes up and to his horror, when he brushes his teeth, he can see purple bruise marks around his throat in the shape of Voldemort’s fingers.

Now how in the world will he explain it to Hermione?

He doesn’t even own a scarf beside the old Gryffindor one he’d had at Hogwarts; even so, it’s early April in London- wearing a scarf would be suspicious. Especially indoors.

Maybe I’ll tell her I got mugged on the way to her place?

Yeah, even Teddy wouldn’t believe it.

What the fuck am I supposed to do?

Maybe Andromeda would heal it for him, before he sees Hermione?

She’s less likely to ask questions or care about what Harry gets up to.

Andromeda it is.

He puts on the Gryffindor scarf, anyway, because he doesn’t want people staring at him on the bus.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Voldemort’s voice startles Harry, just as he’s about to open the front door.

He turns, surprised, because he’d expected Voldemort will go back to ignoring Harry, at least for a while.

He looks angry.

Shocking.

“Ah-to get my wand,” Harry’s voice comes out hoarse. It makes him cough a little.

You fucking arsehole, Harry thinks.

“To get your wand,” Voldemort gets even angrier. “You will walk out of that door, wandless, when you know someone is trying to kill you?”

Ah. Right.

Harry -Harry hadn’t thought of that.

In truth, being attacked is not such a big deal. He is worried for Ron, he got scared because of Ron, but Ron isn’t with him at the moment so …yeah, Harry had no reason to think about it.

“I’m used to having people trying to kill me, no big deal, really,” Harry shrugs. “Besides, they won’t try again so soon.”

Voldemort closes his eyes for a second, as if praying for patience.

“And why wouldn’t they do that?” he asks, opening them again, fixing Harry with a stare.

“I- look, I don’t know. It doesn’t work like that, ok? You took a year off, between attacks, so-’

“Because you spent ten months a year at Hogwarts and the other two inside blood protected wards around your filthy muggles. Not exactly easy to reach.”

“Whatever, I’ll be alright,” Harry just knows he won’t get attacked again. Not that day, at least.

“I won’t do anything to your precious mudblood,” Voldemort sneers. “I’m not stupid. Have her bring you the wand.”

“I know you wouldn’t hurt her,” Harry says.

Voldemort really isn’t stupid, he knows the second Hermione or Ron are hurt, all bets are off.

He never insults them like he does the Aurors, he’s actually perfectly polite and agreeable when they visit, at his most charismatic.

“Then?”

Harry pulls at his scarf. “She can’t see this or I’ll never hear the end of it. I’m going to Andromeda to get rid of it.”

If Harry had been stupid enough to expect some measure of regret from Voldemort, when faced with proof he’d strangled him, then Harry would have been disappointed.

Voldemort just rolls his eyes. “I can heal that. You’re not going anywhere.”

Harry should tell him to go fuck himself, that he’s in no position to tell Harry what to do, and he should also ask “how dare you?” because it is all deserved.

Instead, Harry follows him to the kitchen. He just doesn’t want another fight.

He strangled you!

He was upset.

Do you hear yourself? He was upset?

Harry dismisses the smarter part of his brain.

It’s the consequence of Voldemort having killed him, tortured him with the Cruciatus once upon a time.

After that, some little strangling in the heat of the moment is nothing Harry can’t get over.

He sits and takes off the scarf.

Voldemort drags a chair to sit directly in front of Harry.

He doesn’t flinch when the same fingers that caused the bruises lay on them again.

It’s a feather light touch and Harry swallows, trying not to think of anything, of how wrong this is, to still want Voldemort to touch him-

And then he fells the magic.

Harry breathes out;

It feels very- intimate. More intimate than what Harry’s done with anyone, including Voldemort.

To feel magic on one’s skin is rare, outside of curses, and those definitely don’t feel nice.

Even when non-combative spells were directed at him, by Hermione or Madame Pomfrey- it came through a wand, no touching involved.

He’d never experienced this, the touch of a hand, magic coming directly from it.

It feels…well; it feels magical.

Voldemort is focused, a little frown between his eyebrows, like Harry saw him displaying when he’s forcing magic through the cuffs.

If he’d have a wand, it would probably take no time at all.

If he’d have a wand, he’d probably be torturing you, not healing you.

As it is, it takes minutes.

Harry squirms, because it’s almost unbearable, the emotion it awakens in him.

Finally, Voldemort takes his hand away. He looks a little paler, like it’s been an effort for him.

“There you go,” he says and then- a smirk. “A pity; I rather liked to see you bearing my marks.”

Merlin.

Why does that send a shiver in Harry’s lower abdomen, when by all rights it should send him in an outrage?

And then, before Harry can regain his bearings, Voldemort lifts his hand once more, and Harry does flinch, when he moves Harry’s hair out of the way, and touches his scar.

Harry’s about to stand, to just leave the room. This isn’t- it shouldn’t-

“Could you feel it?” Voldemort asks, and he looks so curious, head tilted slightly to one side. “I know you didn’t when you had it, obviously, but could you tell you were missing something, once it was gone?”

Yes, Harry thinks, though he always refused to think about it, only allows himself a pang of loss every time he sees a snake and remembers he can’t talk with it, remembers he used to.

Harry doesn’t answer, sits there, frozen.

Voldemort keeps looking at the scar, tracing his fingers over its shape.

Harry can’t wrap his mind around the fact that he’d had Voldemort’s soul inside him. He’d had contact with the other Horcrux and they influenced him so much, they were so real and how was it the one inside him did nothing?

“Why-” Harry starts, voice cracking and not because of his injuries, already healed. But he can’t speak further.

Voldemort is so very close and this time, seated as they are, their faces are mere inches from each other.

“Yes?” Voldemort probes, his fingers stopping, but still there.

His eyes are so dark- it’s not the colour; it’s something else that makes them hard and magnetising, like a vacuum pulling Harry in.

“The locket,” he says, swallowing, not sure how to put it. “The diary- different but they were- they-” he just can’t concentrate but apparently Voldemort can piece the jumbled words together.

“It is not the soul that has autonomy, but the charms on the vessels, once the binding ritual is done. I did not finish the ritual for the one inside you. I gave no direction to the vessel.”

His eyes leave the scar to look into Harry’s.

“It was just there,” he says. “How extraordinary.”

He takes his hand away.

“I saw it,” Harry whispers, almost in a trance.

“You saw it?” Voldemort frowns. “Ho-

“When I died. When it died. We were both at King’s Cross.”

“King’s Cross?” Voldemort asks, sharply. Harry can’t make sense of the look that crosses over his face.

“Not the actual Kings Cross,” he clarifies. “I don’t know why I was there. I- it-” Harry closes his eyes.

“What?”

Harry says nothing for a few seconds.

“What did you see?” Voldemort insists.

“I-”

A small creature, deformed, crying. Hiding under a bench.

Harry shakes his head.

“I tried to help it, but Dumbledore said I couldn’t.”

It’s terrible. The image is imprinted in his brain and it won’t dislodge, no matter how much he shakes his head.

Harry can’t bare it, can’t bare remembering it-

“Even dead and you were still obeying Dumbledore,” Voldemort says, and his voice is harsh and mocking again, nothing like the soft tone from before.

It pulls Harry right out of the memory.

He opens his eyes, grateful.

He stands, though his knees feel weak.

“I’m going to write to Hermione to bring me my wand, when she’s able.”

Voldemort is standing too, but heading towards the pantry.

“You do that,” he says.

(-)

“It’s like we jinxed it,” Ron agrees when Harry tells him they best forget about joining the Aurors.

Ron is still on bedrest, still a little pale, half a dozen potion vials on his nightstand.

“Dada!” Rose says, climbing on the bed. She looks very much like Ron, all freckled and red-haired, but with Hermione’s busy hair and her eyes.

She calls Harry “Ary” and smiles toothily at him, because she knows he always gives her chocolate frogs, when Hermione isn’t looking.

Ron hauls her over. “Let’s not mention to anyone we even thought about it, yeah?” he asks, over a fit of giggles from Rose.

“That would be the best,” Harry nods

He still would join, if it were just him. But seeing Ron on the pavement, looking lifeless, had reminded Harry of all the times he’d placed his friends in danger.

He can’t believe he almost did it again.

Molly comes into the bedroom, a tray laden with food on her hip, looking at both of them with a panicked expression she hadn’t lost since she heard of the attack.

She basically moved in to look after Ron, driving Hermione up a wall, though of course she doesn’t say anything, very understanding.

Voldemort is not so understanding, and he throws away all the food that Molly sends by owl, burns all her letters before Harry even has the time to read them.

He supposes he doesn’t need to read them to imagine what was written, he just writes back that yes, he’s doing well, thanks her for her food and no, he doesn’t need her to come and look after him.

(-)

The Daily Prophet has a field day with the attack. They only mention Ron once, as a footnote, and as the days go by Harry reads how he singled handedly brought down first six, then nine, then twelve Death Eaters.

“Well, there it goes again, any hope of me going out in public,” Harry exclaims, exasperated.

And people had just stopped bowing when he passes by; now all that progress, after all of Harry’s attempts to show he’s just a normal man, is lost.

“How terrible that must be for you,” Voldemort drawls, without sympathy.

Harry remembers he is talking to a man that can’t get out at all.

He never complains about it again.

Not like Harry has anywhere to go; Andromeda, rightly so, refuses to let Teddy out with Harry, even in their backyard.

“This is not safe enough,” she grunts, when Harry Apparates outside her superior standard wards, under his Invisibility Cloak, and walks very quietly to her front door. “If someone is trailing you, there are spells to see through Invisibility clocks.”

Not through this one, Harry thinks, but of course he’s not about to tell her about the Deathly Hallows.

He can’t tell her why he declines to connect Grimmauld’s fireplace to her own, either.

She doesn’t understand why he won’t do it, and he has no good excuse for it besides “because Voldemort might come strolling in your living room”.

So they fight about it every time Harry visits Teddy.

“The best way to deal with Black women when their temper flares is to completely ignore them,” Voldemort advises when Harry returns with a headache. “That, or curse them, but I assume that is not a solution you are willing to consider.”

“Of course not!”

Voldemort nods. “Might be for the best. Quite possibly she will send you home in a matchbox, if you draw your wand at her.”

"You forget I expertly, superbly dealt with twelve “Death Eaters,” Harry reminds him, quoting from the Prophet. “I can hold my own.”

“You’re behind; it’s thirteen now.”

Harry snorts, throwing himself on the couch, massaging his temples.

“Did Lestrange yell at you, then?” he asks.

Voldemort laughs. “No one dares to rise their voice in my presence. No one but you,” he gives Harry a pointed glare. “But Bella yelled at everyone else. Some of my Death Eaters were occasionally less terrified of me, than of her.”

He says it admiringly, a gentle smile playing at the corner of his lips.

How could anyone have liked that psychotic, deranged woman is beyond Harry.

You like Voldemort, a masochistic part of his brain reminds him. So perhaps you shouldn’t judge.

(-)

Kingsley is alone; which really, by itself, should have been a red flag.

Also, because he showed up unannounced.

He doesn’t look at Voldemort, but at Harry.

“I have reason to believe we have been compromised,” Kingsley says, and can Harry’s week go worse?

As it turns out, it can.

“These new terrorists might be aware this one,” he jerks his head in Voldemort’s direction, “is alive. And that he’s staying here.”

“What?” Harry demands, his skin prickling. “How would that happen?”

Kingsley doesn’t answer.

Voldemort does.

“Perhaps one of his Aurors, that was displeased I am alive, talked.”

“No,” Kingsley denies it too vehemently. “We don’t know for sure, anyway, but-”

“Williamson, maybe?” Voldemort intervenes, and a vein pulses on Kingsley’s forehead.

“How would you- that’s an oddly specific guess?”

Harry is used to Voldemort knowing everything. The way his mind works is beyond Harry’s comprehension. Beyond most everyone’s, really.

Voldemort points to the window. “For ten months, you have them rotate in the area. Williamson was replaced, recently.”

“What?” Harry asks. “You’re spying on me?”

“Oh, come on!” Kingsley gives Harry a look. “We’re keeping an eye on him. Of course we do. In any case, they are under Invisibility Cloaks or camouflaged-”

“Yes, yes. They were good at first, careful. But I suppose it gets boring, staring at a house without anything happening. Williamson’s camouflage slipped a few times. Didn’t help that he always bought a Costa-

“A what now?” Kingsley asks, bemused.

“It’s a coffee, they sell it at the corner shop-” Harry explains.

“Suffice to say, Muggles might ignore a cup of coffee moving on its own once in a while, but I don’t. And there was no Costa for about two weeks now.”

Silence. Harry rubs his forehead. “So it was Williamson?”

“Not like he insinuates. He was captured. We don’t know if he is alive or where or who took him- he is a loyal, strong man. But just in case they cracked him, it is no longer safe for him,” again with the head jerking at Voldemort, “to stay here.”

Harry automatically moves in front of Voldemort.

“He’s staying,” Harry says.

“Do you realise what would happen if they get him? Maybe they’ll set him free or- in any scenario, it is a terrible thing. So he has to return to the Ministry.”

“We’re already under guard,” Harry says, through his teeth. “What, don’t trust your loyal, strong men to defend this house?”

“Quite frankly, no. There are four Aurors alive, five with Williamson that know of his continual survival. They take shifts in two. Two men are not enough.”

“Then place more. Tell them you’re just guarding me, after the attack last month-”

“Harry, be reasonable. He needs to be at the Ministry.”

“Oh, yes, because no one ever broke into the Ministry,” Harry spits. “Oh, wait! I did, twice! Once when I was fifteen. Voldemort did. Dumbledore. Oh, you did! Safe, my ass.”

“Don’t compare me with Fudge or an Imperiused Thickness,” Kingsley says sharply, and Harry can’t argue with that. Kingsley is a much better Minister. More efficient. An ex Auror that had once served with Moody. He takes safety seriously.

“Look, he’s not going anywhere,” Harry says simply, out of arguments.

Rational arguments. He has plenty of irrational ones, but Kingsley won’t care much that Harry just can’t imagine having Voldemort gone, will he?

“He won’t be tortured, I give you my word. We’ll get him a bed and books and food and whatever. He will be treated humanely. You have to give him back.”

“No!” Harry says, more and more upset.

He’s very aware Voldemort had gone very silent, and he’s very aware of how Kingsley and Harry are talking about him, in his hearing, like he’s an object to be passed between them.

“Why not? Merlin’s beard! Give me one good reason!” Kingsley finally snaps.

In a distant part of his brain, Harry understands the Minister perfectly.

“He’s not going,” Harry repeats. “You’re taking him out of this house only over my dead body.”

Kingsley’s mouth twists in disgust.

“He’s letting you fuck him or something?” he spits. “Surely you can find someone else to spread their legs for you, beside the man that murdered your paren-”

Several things happen at once.

Harry lunges for Kingsley, who quickly draws his wand; fingers that can only belong to Voldemort grab Harry by the back of his t-shirt, stopping his momentum, and he yanks him out of the way of the stunner Kingsley is already casting at Harry.

It misses Harry’s hair by an inch, making his face tingle.

And then Harry is pushed, hard, on the floor.

He jumps back to his feet, reaching for his wand in the back pocket of his jeans-

It’s not there.

“Harry, run!” Kingsley says, blocking a spell.

Voldemort uses Harry’s wand to raise a shield around him; Kingsley’s curse smashes into it with an awful noise.

Harry can only stare, dumb with horror.

“RUN!” Kingsley yells, using a chair to stop a sinister white spell.

Harry doesn’t run; he’s not the one in danger. Kingsley is.

He tries to get between them, but Kingsley wastes a moment to send a repelling charm at Harry, who cannot advance anymore.

“Stop!” Harry yells.

No one listens to him.

They can’t come back from this, he realises with dread. The best-case scenario, Kingsley survives, but then that’s it for Voldemort. They’ll drag him out to the ministry, Harry be damned.

Or Kingsley dies and Harry can’t think of that either, agitation and fear rising-

Only that might not happen. Voldemort is evidently struggling.

He’s fast, but he uses that quickness more to duck than actually use the wand, a remarkably focused look on his face, that’s getting paler and paler by the second.

One of Kingsley’s spells hits him in the side and Harry’s heart twists-

A snake shoots out of Harry’s wand- a huge cobra, angry and Voldemort hisses something. It lunges for Kingsley, who has to whip his wand very fast to get rid of it, and misses the smaller snake that came right behind it.

It leaps on Kingsley’s wand hand, squeezing his wrist, trashing-

Harry can’t do anything.

Kingsley tries to fight with the snake that’s obviously cutting off circulation, his spells come slower, Voldemort just dodging out of their path-

And then he raises Harry’s wand and a yellow curse hits Kingsley, who freezes on the spot.

The repelling charm ends with the caster seemingly unconscious.

Kingsley’s wand drops from his hand, at the same time the snake lets him go, disappearing into thin air. Harry grabs the wand.

Voldemort’s next spells hits Kingsley a second before Harry moves to shield him.

“Expelliarmus!”

But Voldemort had already let go of his wand, even before Harry summons it back.

Voldemort stumbles into the desk, supporting himself on it.

“Are you just doing that to piss me off?” he growls and even his perfect posh accent drops to something less refined. “Is that fucking spell the only one you know?”

“What did you do to him?” Harry demands. “Is he alright-”

Voldemort more falls than sits in the chair.

“Are you alright?” Harry doesn’t know whom to check on first.

Kingsley is staring ahead, unseeing but clearly alive, even if seemingly petrified.

Harry steps towards Voldemort.

“Repair the chair and the shelves that were hit,” Voldemort says, moving his own chair to the right, until he’s hid by the desk.

“Now!” he barks and Harry just does it.

“Put his wand back in his robe- no, you idiot, he’s left-handed, so it goes in his right pocket. Good, now drag him to where he was-”

“I-”

“Just drag him, Potter!”

“Here?” Harry asks, breathing hard, because Kingsley is heavy.

“A few inches to the right-no-more-there. Come back here, face him, put your wand back- perhaps this taught you not to keep it in the back pocket of these denim contraptions you call trousers and then turn your back to anyone who can grab it.”

Harry does what he’s asked, getting the idea.

“Get rid of him, quickly.” And before Harry can regain his bearings- “Finite.”

“He’s letting you fuck him or something? Surely you can find someone else to spread their legs for you, beside the man that murdered your parents!”

Harry just stares at Kingsley, shaking when he thinks what Harry’s stupidity almost cost them.

A brief silence.

“I shouldn’t have said that,” Kingsley says, a second later, deflating. “I apologise, Harry.”

“That’s aright,” Harry says. It is. Kingsley is alive, he won’t drag Voldemort away.

Everything’s alright.

“I better go, this isn’t helping anyone.”

“Yeah, yeah. Better go, for now.”

“And you,” he spits at Voldemort. “You nasty piece of shit, I hope you see all the effort Potter is investing in you, all the chances he gives you that you do not deserve.”

Kingsley despises Voldemort so much, he doesn’t even glance his way as he turns and leaves.

Which is a good thing, because when Harry turns, Voldemort doesn’t look so well.

He’s gone as white as he used to be, before, he’s barley holding his eyes open and as soon as the front door slams, he closes them and slumps into his chair.

Walburga starts screaming for the first time in months and Harry’s blood runs cold.

“Hey!” Harry shoves the desk aside, bending over Voldemort. “Hey!”

Nothing.

“Voldemort!”

Forcing the little magic he has through a wand might just as well kill him, Hermione had said when Harry asked her for the hundred times what could happen if Voldemort gets his hands on one.

“No, no, no!” Harry touches Voldemort’s neck, searching for a pulse. He doesn’t find any.

He can’t be dead!

“Voldemort!” Harry screams.

No one can kill him, but me. He can’t be dead!

“You can’t die, remember!” Harry shakes him. “You can’t die!”

A pit opens at the centre of his chest, threatening to pull Harry under.

“You can’t leave me,” he says stupidly, and he thinks he might be crying.

He puts his hand on Voldemort’s cheek, on the face of the monster that destroyed their world.

The face of the man Harry had wanted dead throughout his Hogwarts years.

It’s not the same face.

But is it the same man?

“Please,” he begs, but he’s not sure who he is begging.

He’s light headed, shaky. This can’t be the end-

Voldemort opens his eyes, drawing in a sharp breath.

Thank you, thank you.

Their eyes lock. They’re both surprised to find themselves in that position, so close, Harry’s hand still on his face.

Voldemort recovers first, and he pushes Harry away from him.

“Why are you weeping?” he demands, belittling. “Your dear Minister is alive, just short of a few memories.”

Harry doesn’t tell him he was crying for him, because it’s stupid. Pathetic. He wipes at his eyes, furious.

Voldemort stands, still white as marble-

“You should rest,” Harry says, going close again, in case Voldemort topples over.

“I will. In my bed.” Voldemort starts walking; too deliberately, too careful to look like his usual self. “When I return, I expect all the books to be in in their proper place; some fell behind the shelves.”

Harry trails after him.

Voldemort stops in the hallway when he hears Walburga, but doesn’t comment on it, heading to the stairs, after only a second.

“I though you died,” Harry says softly and Voldemort stiffens.

“What gave you that idea?” he asks, tense, grabbing the rail as they begin their climb.

“Walburga is screaming again and you- you just-you didn’t have a pulse.”

“Someone should have taught you about consent and such, Potter. You don’t touch people if they aren’t conscious.”

“I’m sorry,” Harry stops, because really? That’s ridiculous. “It was only to help you!”

“Oh, and how did you help me? You have a wand and you help by searching for a pulse? I bet you didn’t cast a single Renervate, did you? I know you didn’t cast a wound closing spell either, seeing that I’m still bleeding. But thank you, Potter, truly, for touching my neck and crying over me. That put me to rights. You should have been a Healer.”

They’re in front of Voldemort’s room. He looks like he’ll drop at any second-

“If you want to help, leave me alone.”

Harry can only watch as the door slams in his face.

It’s the first time Harry stands in front of it, since he gave the room to Voldemort.

He can’t be certain if wooden, solid dragons were carved on it before.

But he’s sure it’s never been so clean, he’s certain the door handle, even if it might have used to be a snake from the beginning, hadn’t been made out of silver, with green eyes.

“Just call if you need anything, alright?” Harry says, loudly.

No answer.

Harry waits around for a bit, checks the other doors on the hallway and none have snake decorations.

Voldemort made them. And that would explain why he occasionally looks so tired, why he grows paler on some days, for no apparent reason.

He’s exhausting himself, doing stupid shit.

It’s not stupid for him. It’s magic. The only thing he ever had in his life.

(-)

Over the next day, Voldemort doesn’t eat, a shadow in his eyes; he’s strangely silent as well. Harry hates it.

He hates that he feels like Voldemort somehow fixed Harry’s mistakes.

He didn’t kill Kingsley because Aurors are watching the house and they’ve seen Kingsley come into it, that is all. It wasn’t because he didn’t want to kill.

And he only got into the duel, not to protect you, because if you’d attacked Kingsley, then Voldemort would have been taken away.

Still, Harry feels guilty, like it is his fault Voldemort is …unwell.

He feels guilty because he feels relived that Voldemort struggled immensely during the short duel.

Even if he does get Harry’s wand, Harry’s done for, but a couple of Aurors can still put Voldemort down.

(-)

“You died, didn’t you?” Harry asks, in the library, watching Voldemort rearranging books, because apparently Harry didn’t do a good job with it.

He doesn’t answer, shoulders tensing.

“You really died, like in the Great Hall, but you came back, because I didn’t kill you.”

Nothing.

Harry’s heart hurts. He remembers how terrible, how jarring it was, to come back- he hadn’t the time to process it, just then, what with Voldemort and the Death Eaters around.

But he remembers the coldness, the wrongness, lasting weeks.

Nature says that the dead must stay dead, and Harry’s mind and body did not enjoy going against that.

For months, he’d felt as if a shroud was separating him from the world, a dark, cold veil. It hadn’t went away, not fully, even after almost five years, but it had become easier to bear.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I know how it is and- I’m sorry.”

He’s the reason why you know how it is. He killed you! a dying whisper reminds Harry.

But that had been a red-eyed monster, with no nose and only hatred, venom and anger keeping him glued together

“I’m used to it,” Voldemort answers after a few seconds.

This man is different. He must be. He makes Harry tea, for Merlin’s sake! He frowns when he reads, or smiles, in turn, upon stumbling on an interesting paragraph. He has a dimple in his left cheek and fine lines around his brown eyes.

Harry frowns. “It’s not the thing to get used to,” he says, softly. “Just because you experienced once-”

A derisive laugh. “Once? I’ve lost count, but I feel confident it’s been more than a hundred.”

We tried everything. He faints and just comes back, Kingsley had said, at the very beginning of Voldemort’s captivity.

“You died? All those times?”

“Yes.”

Harry’s stomach twists, a weight settling on his chest. It’s making it hard to breathe.

“Fuck,” Harry whispers. “Fuck.”

And Voldemort fears death so much…how awful.

“I don’t wish to speak of it,” Voldemort spits, guarded.

He only knows to defend himself with anger. He has no other coping mechanism. No one had ever taught him.

It’s what he chose, the whisper says, begging Harry to be reasonable. To not lose sight of who exactly he’s pitying.

Perhaps. But can Harry truly blame an orphan child for making those choices, even when Harry himself had chosen differently?

“I wish you’d have made difference choices,” Harry says.

Voldemort looks at him.

“I wish that too.”

But Harry has a suspicion they’re talking of entirely distinct things.

(-)

Harry,

I dearly hope you will join us this year, although, of course, everyone understands if you won’t.

Sincerely,

Minerva.

The short note is attached to the formal invitation to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts, approaching fast.

Harry doesn’t bother to read it- he hadn’t, after the first one.

He doesn’t just avoid Hogwarts; Harry has been avoiding McGonagall since the Battle, too.

Minerva, she signs and Harry doesn’t like it, because if he thinks of her as Minerva, then he is forced to acknowledge everything that happened that day in May, that turned him from Potter, her student, into Harry, hers and everyone’s else saviour.

Because if he sees her, he’ll meet the Hogwarts Headmistress and Dumbledore won’t be the last Headmaster he met. Harry will lose him, just a little more, just another piece of Dumbledore.

Celebrate. What is there to celebrate? he thinks, filled with a sudden fury that fights with the loss, with the sorrow.

All those deaths… How does one celebrate one of the deadliest days in their history? Children died that day.

Voldemort died that day; and Harry knows that is what they are celebrating.

No one knows, besides Hermione, Ron and Hagrid, that Harry had died that day, too.

(-)

“This is the second time you’ve missed Quidditch practice,” Voldemort observes.

Harry shrugs, putting together a gift for Teddy, and one for Rose.

“I’m busy,” he says, like a moron, like Voldemort isn’t living with him, watching Harry do nothing all day, just hanging around the library.

“You shouldn’t miss it; one must take their work seriously, even if it is an incredibly useless type of work.”

Harry rolls his eyes.

“No one is coming for me,” Voldemort says, amused. “And even if they were, you certainly won’t make much of a difference.”

“If Williamson told them about this house-”

“Grimmauld is a veritable magical fortress. Its wards are almost as ancient as Hogwarts, even more potent because generations upon generations of Blacks had reinforced them with their blood. Not to mention, unlike Hogwarts, Dark Magic was used to consolidate it.”

“Yeah but-”

“There is no ‘but’. I knew you were hiding here, after I took over the Ministry. I had people waiting for you outside. I came myself, on a few occasions.”

Harry shivers. He had no idea that as he was sleeping beside Ron and Hermione, Voldemort was just outside.

“And the wards are strong, freshly powered by your godfather’s blood, not so very long ago. You’d have to walk everyone inside this house that wishes to enter.”

“I don’t trust the wards,” Harry says.

“Of course, since you refuse to read anything. If you would, you’d trust. Dark Magic, specifically blood magic, does not fail.”

“It failed you,” Harry says.

“No. I made mistakes. Magic has no fault.”

Harry says nothing, focusing on his gift boxes, making sure no sweets have ended up in Rose’s. Harry will have to give those to Ron separately, so Hermione doesn’t go on about teeth and cavities again.

“I need you to get out, once in a while. To practice, to wherever else. You’re suffocating me.”

Harry tries not to be upset when hearing this.

Voldemort sighs. “Even if you don’t understand Grimmauld is impenetrable, fine, they find me. So what? I’m Immortal.”

It is embarrassing how easily Voldemort can tell that Harry, unlike Kingsley, is not worried those people would set Voldemort free; he’s just worried they’ll hurt him.

“A Killing Curse, I’d drop to the floor, they’ll assume I’m dead and move on.”

“If Williams talked, then they know you can’t die-”

“Williamson doesn’t know that. Just Kingsley, Proudfoot and Savage. Well, Robards knew, but he’s dead.”

Harry just shakes his head. “What if they ‘kill’ you and then I don’t know- burn your body?”

“It’s not like that hadn’t happened before.”

Harry’s head snaps to look at him, horrified.

“Robards tried everything. I just burn, die and then heal and come back.”

Harry feels like throwing up. “That’s-” he says through clenched teeth. “That’s barbaric.”

Voldemort shrugs. “They would have been stupid not to try. I personally seldomly burn people to death; I find the smell distasteful.”

“Just-” Harry raises a hand.

“In any case, I’m perfectly fine and I find it rather insulting that you think some second rate dark wizards can actually trouble me.”

Harry has nightmares for days, thick orange flames consuming a tall shaped man- it turns into the diadem, twisting in Fiendfyre, in the Room of Requirement.

Harry doesn’t leave the house, writes to his Captain that he is still recovering after the attack.

(-)

On the Weasley’s next visit, Voldemort asks Ron for a game of chess.

Hermione convinces Ron to do it, looking at him pointedly.

Voldemort wins the first time, though it is clear it takes much longer than he expected.

“I was nervous,” Ron bemoans. “I started off badly. A rematch!”

And Ron wins, the second time, after a two-hour show off.

Ron is extremely pleased with himself. He’s been starting to look a little jealous, of the way Hermione can speak with Voldemort and actually be understood, he’d had this twitch in his eye when Hermione called Voldemort highly intelligent.

Harry doesn’t blame him. He’s a little jealous himself, because Voldemort also said Hermione is unusually competent and Hermione can keep up with him when Harry-Harry can’t have those sort of discussions.

“Did you lose on purpose?” Harry ask, when they’re alone, later in the evening.”

“Of course. He’s good, but not as good as to beat Lord Voldemort at strategy.”

“You’re doing the third person thing again,” Harry says and Voldemort just gives him a dirty look. “So? Why did you lose?”

“She might be intelligent, your little mudblood, but Ronald is a far better judge of character.”

“Don’t call her a mudblood,” Harry says, but not as hotly as he did in the beginning. It happens four times a day, so by this point he’s just wasting his breath.

Of course, to their faces, he always calls her Mrs. Weasley.

“He’s harder to win over. She is still that little girl that struggles to be accepted by her peers; she doesn’t know when to shut up. Far to passionate. She’s disliked and comes across as snobbish and arrogant, traits people shy away from. If I pay some attention to her, engage her in topics she cares about, for however long she needs, she’ll forget who it is she’s really talking to.

Ronald was the youngest brother, the least remarkable. And then he’s been Harry Potter’s best friend. He is stupider than his wife. Everywhere he goes, he’s surrounded by people better than he is. Beating the dark lord at anything will make him feel worthy and confident. He’ll get that feeling whenever he is in my presence and it will make him lower his guard.”

He’s very spot on, but Harry knows Voldemort reads people very well. Like his Horcruxes, he immediately gauges where to hit or where to stroke.

“What about me?”

“I don’t need to be anything than I am not, around you. You are predisposed to give people second chances, you have a tremendous saviour complex and you sympathise too much, with everyone, but especially with someone that grew up an orphan. I don’t even need to pretend.”

“You do like Hermione,” Harry says, because he thinks he’s getting to know Voldemort better. “If only a little.”

“I tolerate some of our conversations. It’s been quite some time since I found anyone to discuss certain topics with. Though she gets grating, eventually. What can I tell you, Harry? My world has become very small, if the prospect of arguing about potions with a socially inept mudblood is the high point of my week.”

Harry looks down, because Voldemort is the high point of his day, every day.

(-)

“Don’t call me Teddy,” Teddy says, haughty. “My name is Edward.”

Just like that, Harry feels his blood pressure rise.

Andromeda, who doesn’t leave them alone anymore, lest men show up to attack Harry in her kitchen, sighs, clearly showing this is not the first time Teddy made the request.

“I called my husband Ted,” she says. “So-”

“He was just a Muggleborn,” Teddy scoffs and Harry has half a mind to pay Malfoy Manor a visit.

“Teddy!” Andromada says, sternly.

“My name is Edward!” he screams at her. “I don’t want a muggle name.”

“Oh, yes, because Edward is such a wizarding name,” Harry says, barely holding his composure.

“Why didn’t you name me something nice?” Teddy demands of Andromeda. “All your family has cool names!”

“I didn’t name you,” Andromeda says and looks devastated for a second. “Nymphodora did.”

Teddy often dismisses his parents, or any involvement they had in his life. Which is confusing to Harry, who glorified his own.

Then again, Harry had no one. For Teddy, Andromeda is his mother.

“Lucius’s grandson is called Scorpius,” Teddy goes on. “That’s a wicked name-”

“It’s stupid, is what it is,” Harry mutters.

“Harry,” Andromeda says. “You’re talking about a few months old baby. It’s hardly the boy’s fault.”

“It’s not stupid!” Teddy kicks a toy car. It goes flying through the living room. “This is stupid! I don’t want muggle toys. I’m a wizard. I want a wand! Lucius says he gave Draco a wand long before he went to Hogwarts-”

“Pick up that cursed toy and go to your room!” Andromeda says, sharply.

“I don’t want to!” Teddy screams and he was always such a well-tempered boy, never one to throw a tantrum.

“Hey, don’t yell at her,” Harry intervenes.

“Don’t tell me what to do!” Teddy’s so indignant, his eyes are watering from pure frustration.

“To your room. Now. Don’t make me get up.”

Teddy marches out of the room and a few seconds later they hear the door to his room slamming shut.

“I told you Malfoy is a bad influence!” Harry sneers. “You shouldn’t let him go there-”

“I won’t be lectured on parenting by a twenty-two-year-old boy. And this is hardly Malfoy’s doing. Merlin knows the pillock would never encourage a child to throw a tantrum. No, this is his Black blood. It’s Sirius, reincarnate.I used to laugh when he’d bring Aunt Walburga to despair with his behaviour, but I’m not laughing now, am I?”

“Sirius wasn’t like this!” Harry says, insulted on behalf of his grandfather. “Maybe he was a prankster-”

“He was a bloody menace. A nightmare of a child. I’m profoundly sorry if that doesn’t fit the pretty view you’ve built in your head about him.”

“I’m not talking about temper! I’m talking about all this muggle stuff-”

Andromeda snorts. “You should have heard Sirius laughing at that Snape boy, saying how low the Slytherin House had fallen, to allow a ‘filthy little half-blood’ in our midst.”

“He was best friends with Remus! And my mum-”

“And? I married a Muggleborn, what of it? We were good, Sirius and I, with learning to respect individuals that did not quite fit with the worldview we grew up; but only people that were close to us. You won’t see me being Muggleborn Champion either.”

“Great!” Harry stands. “So it isn’t just Malfoy that’s the problem, then. It’s you!”

“I’m not telling Teddy anything bad about Muggles or Muggleborns, I never will. We can all live in this world, peacefully, regardless of blood status or wealth, and that is what I am trying to teach him. But yes, I hold on to my traditions, Harry. I like Yule and Samhain the way I celebrated them as a child, not these warped versions that are trendy now and imported from the muggles. And I want the same for Teddy-”

“Again with the Yule shit! You sound like Voldemort!” Harry snaps without thinking.

“I beg your pardon?” Andromeda asks, and she doesn’t look insulted, she looks confused.

“I mean,” Harry hurries to add. “The sort of thing he said, I imagine. Pureblood culture, muggleborns ruining it, and all that rubbish.”

He well remembers the lectures from Christmas.

Andromeda blinks. “Voldemort certainly didn’t say any of that.”

Harry bites his lip, restrains from yelling “yes, he did. he does”

“This ‘pureblood culture’ is what actual purebloods go on about, the sane ones, at least. Old families and old members in the Wizengamot. We don’t want to hurt or oppress Muggleborns. Voldemort was all about terror. He didn’t care about our culture; he cared about nothing but power and not mixing pureblood with “impure” blood.” She snorts. “You don’t even know anything about your nemesis-”

“I do!”

“So forgive me if I don’t take your advice about how to live as a witch and raise my grandson as a wizard, in a world I was born into and lived here for fifty bloody years!”

(-)

“And before I left she said ‘he has no need to know about muggle technology and transport, so I don’t see why you insist in showing him these things.’ God, she’s so annoying”.

“That’s foolish,” Voldemort declares when Harry is done ranting about Andromeda.

“Thank you!” Harry exclaims. “Wow, even you agree-”

“Of course he should have some sort of education and awareness about Muggles.”

“Yes, exactly-”

“He should know his enemies.”

Harry groans.

“I can’t believe that for a second it seemed you were…you know, sane.”

Voldemort smiles.

“Here I was, worried about Malfoy and there Andromeda is, poisoning his mind. She might be even worse than Malfoy. I can refute him, I can show Teddy muggles aren’t filthy and stupid and whatever else Malfoy says, but Andromeda is the polite sort of bigot, she would just rather ignore them like they’re some sort of irrelevant bugs.”

“I don’t understand your insistence in having the boy approve of Muggles.”

“Of course you don’t-”

“No,” Voldemort raises a hand. “Shut up for a moment.”

Harry sputters, indignant, but Voldemort goes on.

“Does Ronald interact with Muggles? What about his horde of siblings? For that matter, what about his father?”

He won’t even mention Molly, Harry thinks but then he frowns, reflecting on the question.

“Well, no but-”

“Do they hate Muggles?”

“Of course not!”

Voldemort nods. “How about Longbottom. Is he well acquainted with Muggle culture?”

“I don’t think so-”

“They were all magical children, raised by magical people in a magical society. There was no point for them to have any interactions with Muggles or familiarity with their culture. Their families were not anti muggles or mudbloods. It simply never came up; there was no reason. There is no need or reason for your godson either.”

Harry is rendered without arguments, for a second.

“Well, Teddy is not a pureblood so-” he tries.

“He is raised by a pureblood woman, in a magical society. His parents were both magical and assimilated into our culture. He has what? Two great grandparents that are Muggle? I assume they must be dead by now or close to it.”

“They are dead,” Harry confirms.

“So, what reason does he have to be close to Muggles, more than knowing they exist and I agree, some basic knowledge of their ways, just enough to blend in when needed?”

Harry doesn’t know what to answer.

“You wear their clothes and know how to use their money but that’s about all, isn’t it? Ironically, your only interactions with muggles, besides occasionally buying food from them, are because you are hiding from journalist and drag your godson along for the ride. Tell me, if you had the choice, as a child, to live in a magical community, wouldn’t you have preferred it?”

“Of course!” Harry says. “But just because the Durselys were terrible-”

“How about your mudblood? From your stories it seems she spent a lot of holidays with you at Hogwarts or even at Grimmauld instead of electing to stay with her parents. Or were they abusive to her as well?”

“No, of course not,” Harry says only- well he assumes so; somehow Hermione’s family was never much of a subject.

He frowns. He knows their names, their professions but that is all. Harry met the Weasley, early on, but he only saw Hermione’s parents once, in passing.

Voldemort smiles, victorious and it pisses Harry off.

“It seems to me they aren’t involved in her life.”

“Because she erased their memories. They’re -I mean, after she restored them they are..a bit.. well can you blame them?”

“She saved their lives,” Voldemort raises an eyebrow. “My Death Eaters searched for them, when I took control of the Ministry.”

Harry cringes. “Don’t ever tell Herm-”

“She knows; that is why she hid them, because she knew we will go looking. In any case- they are frightened of her; they cannot understand why. They were not a part of something major in her life. And never will be. Because they are muggles and she is a witch. She didn’t choose to pursue a muggle career, and from your conversations, yes, she lives in London, but in a magical house. Even if there was no riff between her and her parents, they’d still grow distant. Because there’s nothing in common anymore, just some shared genes and some distant childhood memories.”

Harry falls silent. He can’t believe he never thought in depth about Hermione and her parents. Throughout Hogwarts, yes, he knew she had parents, but in most ways, it was as if she didn’t. The Weasleys were always there, tangible in a way the Grangers were not. In fact, during their school years, Hermione, like Harry was sort of adopted into the family of red heads.

“You insisting the boy have contact with Muggles, shoving their toys at him might only make him resent them, really. Which he should, in my opinion, but you don’t want that. Let him be; how old is he? Six? He’s old enough to have preferences. Of course, he shows poor taste if he likes Lucius, but the fact remains that he does and you trying to force the matter won’t change it.”

(-)

As May rapidly approaches, even people like Rita Skeeter have the decency to give respect to all the fallen victims covered in the Daily Prophet, write about their accomplishments and achievements- or in the case of the ones that have died far too young, write a few kind words about them.

Harry only read these sorts of long obituaries the first time around. He can’t make himself read them again, so he cancels his Daily Prophet subscription for a week.

It occurs to him, only after he does it, that he shouldn’t have. That maybe, just maybe, having Voldemort confronted with pictures of his victims at breakfast, reading about the atrocities he’d caused might…

Might what? He won’t care. It’s not like he’s deluded. He knows it was wrong. He just doesn’t care.

Reading about Colin’s photographs and his wishes to become a journalist will not move him to anything.

Harry takes long walks in secluded Muggle Areas. He doesn’t go to visit Teddy, doesn’t want to see the grief and hate in Andromeda’s eyes; he can’t bear to see the Weasleys- not with Molly shut in her room, with George disappearing, Ginny’s hard eyes-

Harry stays away from everyone and everyone knows to stay away from him, trapped in their own grief.

He doesn’t want to hear or read about nooks and crannies in Knockturn alley that display the other fallen.

It caused a mass upset that first year when Aurors found pictures of Rabastan and Bellatrix Lestrange put up on walls, some with Crabbe Senior alongside his son and several others.

'We will not forget'written under them.

They did not find the perpetuators.

(-)

When May first rolls around, Harry locks himself in his room.

Usually, he has some alcohol with him, but not this time around.

He shuts his curtains and stays in bed.

Harry tries to force himself to sleep, hoping, as always, that he’ll just wake after the whole thing is over, that he’ll go down the stairs and the date in the paper will be the third of May.

It never works. Not even when he tried to drink himself into a stupor; he’d still stayed awake, remembering.

Fuck it, Harry thinks, after some agonising hours. Fuck it.

He leaves his sanctuary, to collect a few bottles of anything he can grab in the cellar.

Of course, he just has to find Voldemort already in the kitchen; he’s sitting there, staring at the wall as if it had done him great harm.

Harry imagines he’s spent the last four anniversaries being tortured by grieving Aurors.

When Harry enters, that gaze shifts onto him, full of hate.

“Shouldn’t you get ready, Potter?” he spits. “To attend your party?”

Harry snaps. “So many people are dead!” he says, chocked, throws it in Voldemort’s face, uselessly. The man doesn’t care.

He only cares about himself. And he proves it.

“I died,” he reminds Harry.

“So did I!” Harry yells. “You killed me! You killed dozens! You killed yourself!”

Voldemort stands and the atmosphere grows heavy, dangerous, the air around Voldemort cracks with magic.

Harry pulls out his wand, holds it steady.

“Give me a reason!” Harry snarls, because he’s boiling with anger. “Just one reason, and I swear-”

“You won’t,” Voldemort’s face transforms, full of rage. He steps around the table, close to Harry. “You want to know why?”

“Because I’m weak and pathetic -” Harry imitates him.

“Because you are alone. You have no one left. Your friends have their own family. You have no one. You never had anyone. Just your godfather, for all of five minutes. That is all you ever had. That, and me.”

“You took him from me,” Harry says, and instead of geeing angrier, he just gets desperate.

“Will you go there? To celebrate? Will you pretend that you’re not keeping the dark lord in your house? Will you accept toasts and applauses while I wait for you here, making dinner? What a hero you are-”

Harry puts the wand in his pocket, and before Voldemort can even blink, Harry punches him straight in the face.

That finally shuts him up.

Harry thrills at the expression on his face, once Voldemort’s head returns to its previous position, blood pouring from his nose.

Harry turns and leaves him to stew in silence.

He only realises he’s forgotten his drinks when he’s already back in his room.

(-)

Fred must have died right around this time. Harry looks at his watch, curled around himself in his bed.

Colin.

Lavender.

Tonks and Remus must have died around now, he thinks, some time later.

He can see them in the Great Hall, laying side by side, eyes open and unseeing.

Harry feels like he’s bursting apart.

He remembers walking past the Great Hall, Snape’s memories fresh in his head, the realisation of it all.

He remembers stopping beside Neville, telling him to kill the snake, because he had to think of the Cause. It was all there was. All that mattered.

So why was everyone surprised when there was nothing else, once Voldemort was gone?

“Does it hurt?” Harry had asked Sirius, five years before, to the second.

“Not at all.”

And he’d been right. Death had not hurt at all. It’s living that gives Harry issues.

He remembers the Horcrux, in despair. Unwanted, stuffed out of sight under a seat, struggling for breath.

Harry had wanted to help him.

“You cannot help. Is beyond either of our help.” Dumbledore. Fucking Dumbledore.

So many deaths, so much grief, because Dumbledore had not tried to help Tom Riddle. Because Dumbledore had been so secretive.

Dumbledore had been all for second chances. He handed them like candy. For ex Death Eaters, for petty criminals like Mundungus, for cunning, conniving professors like Slughorn. And he hadn’t given even one to an eleven-year-old Tom Riddle.

Were you too blinded by memories of Grindelwald? Or was Tom already beyond help? Was he that incorrigible, so early on?

Did it hurt you to send me to my death, after having me hunt Horcruxes all around the country? Did you ever care for me, for Sirius, for anyone, besides the cause?

Harry had not made his peace with the Headmaster. Harry hates him some days.

He misses him terribly on others.

Harry would like to know what Dumbledore would have to say, about what his current living arrangements.

There’s a lot of dead people at Dumbledore’s feet. And even more, far, far more, at Voldemort’s.

But Harry has his fair share. All those students that were lost in battle, buying Harry time to destroy the diadem. Sirius.

Harry wants to die, is the sad truth of it, had wanted to die since the adrenaline of the Battle had went away, leaving him empty.

Death is living with him.

Harry gets up, puts his wand in a drawer in the nightstand.

He breathes in deeply and then exhales.

He makes his way down the stairs, through the long, winding, dark hallway, knocks on the wooden door.

There’s no answer. Harry enters anyhow, the snake shaped doorknob biting him when he touches it, leaving two tiny wounds in his hand, with its sharp, silver fangs. It hisses at him, and fives years prior Harry would have understood what it was saying.

Voldemort’s room is resplendent.

It looks nothing like the bedroom he’d last seen, some ten months before, when he’d given it to the dark lord.

A few candles shed a dim light over it; the curtains are dark green velvet, thick and heavy and not a speck of dust on them. The armoire is black, shiny new.

There are no books, no portraits, the walls look as if freshly painted, pure white.

All there is, on a nightstand, a picture of Bellatrix he must have stolen from the ones he got for Harry.

The bed is downright imperial, massive four posters in the shape of dragons. The sheets are dark green, mixed with black. All silk.

Voldemort lies on top of it, upper body supported by the beautifully sculpted headboard.

“You could have done so much good,” Harry laments, running his fingers over the snakes moving on the side of a desk that had never been there before.

He’s such a phenomenally gifted wizard.

“I don’t owe anything to anyone,” Voldemort sneers. “No one was good to me.”

Harry knows. He knows, and he’s so very sorry for it.

For what could have been.

“Except you,” Voldemort says, tilting his head, the same way he’d done in the forest, when Harry showed up, ready to die. “You are good to me. I might owe you something.”

Hearing him admitting it was all that Harry thought he’d wanted.

And yet it hurts.

“I destroyed your soul,” Harry says, and he feels the tears welling in his eyes.

Hacked at it, piece by piece. At someone’s soul. Someone who was so terrified of death, he willingly parted with those pieces, protected them so fiercely.

Harry’s very much the bad guy in Voldemort’s story.

“You were a puppet, obeying orders. A child, playing at war. When it came to it, you couldn’t say the words.”

“You think my kindness makes me weak. Is that why you’re never kind, to anyone?”

“You are weak,” Voldemort says, looking at Harry more intensely than he’d ever done before. Because it is not one of his practiced seducing looks. It’s not calculated. It’s raw and pure. “But you are mine. Mine to torment. Mine to play with. Mine to take care of.”

What would have happened if Voldemort had known Harry was a horcrux? Would he have chained Harry in a dark cave? Would he have kept Harry close, like Nagini?

Would he have locked Harry in a silver green castle?

“No one took care of me,” Harry says, and it hurts so fucking bad. “No one cooked for me.”

Molly had cooked for all of them. But no one had made Harrys’ favourite dishes, day after day.

Harry always wakes up, and his tea is ready, his toast burned just how he likes it. Harry doesn’t even remember the last time had to do anything around the house.

No one ever listened to his incessant rambling.

Harry talks and talks and talks, like he never talked to anyone, because he’d been afraid not to bore them, because he thought they wouldn’t understand, that Harry can’t possibly have anything interesting to say.

He’d never talked to anyone about the Dursleys, Aunt Marge and her dogs.

He’d told Voldemort everything.

And if it hadn’t been for Voldemort, Harry would have never met the Durlseys. He’d have had his mother and father, Sirius and Remus, to look after him.

It just hurts, all of it, it’s so confusing. It wights heavily on him, the duality of his feelings.

He just doesn’t want to feel all that pain, anymore.

And Voldemort is good with causing all kinds of pain.

I swear on my magic I will not kill Harry Potter. But just that.

Harry craves that other pain that brings his mind peace and Voldemort knows it, knew it before Harry did.

Harry takes off his shirt, and instantly he’s more grounded in the present. The guilt and sorrow distance themselves from him, as shyness and apprehension move to take their place, adrenaline rushing through him.

Voldemort watches him as he takes off everything until he’s naked.

“You’ll have to beg me to touch you, after that little stunt you pulled in the kitchen.”

His nose is already healed, but there’s a drop of blood smeared on the bridge. “After you insisted you don’t want it.”

Harry closes his eyes. “Please.”

Humiliation comes and yes-it washes away everything else.

It’s just him and Voldemort, in the present and in his head. It’s only Voldemort that matters, now.

Wasn’t that always the case, one way or another?

“I’m angry, Harry.” His voice has that softens to it that raises the hair on his neck. “Perhaps it isn’t wise to do this now.”

“Please,” he asks again, opening his eyes.

Harry cannot go through the night, alone and locked in his head with the dead and the guilt and the what ifs. He simply cannot do it anymore.

Voldemort stands.

Harry’s pulse, impossibly, races even harder.

There’s something about him that keeps Harry centred.

Voldemort is indomitable, carries himself with confidence and authority, and his impressive height only adds to the illusion that he is someone that cannot be fought against.

It isn’t just an illusion. Many had tried to fight this man, to end him. None had managed. Not even Dumbledore.

And seeing him like this, gives Harry the permission to stop fighting, tells his brain that it would be useless. To just let go. Accept it.

“Kneel.”

He does, shivering, like a puppet whose strings have been cut, like he’s been so tired and finally he was given the permission to rest.

He’s not being Imperiused, but it’s similar in a way. The way his body feels lighter, the way his concerns and fears melt from him. The way he only needs to listen to that deep, assertive voice.

Voldemort circles around Harry until he’s at his back.

What will he do? Harry wonders, unable to see. What is he doing? he thinks when long seconds pass and nothing happens.

The anticipation, the not knowing only builds Harry’s…whatever he is feeling.

Eventually, Voldemort must kneel too, behind him, because a hand comes to his shoulder, pushing Harry forward, until he’s supporting his weight on his hands and knees.

The carpet is very soft, he notices, distantly. Harry’s fingers just sink into the material.

“Don’t move.”

The hand retreats from his shoulder, but it leaves Harry’s skin scorching hot, in contrast with the rest of him.

He grows hard, just from that.

Harry closes his eyes, heart smashing against his ribs.

Voldemort spits, an unmistakable sound and it startles Harry, the vulgarity of it, from a man that presents himself as a Lord.

He grips Harry’s right hip, with bruising force; at the same time, one of Voldemort’s fingers rests very lightly between Harry’s cheeks.

Harry makes a noise, he flinches-

“Don’t move,” Voldemort repeats, and his grip only gets more crushing.

It is an almost impossible demand, when a wet finger starts applying pressure, slowly pushing inside.

A strangled noise escapes through Harry’s open mouth.

He’s on fire- so so hot all of a sudden. It’s not just the foreign feeling, the way his muscles rebel at the intrusion- it’s the idea that this is Voldemort.

He doesn’t give Harry the time to accommodate, pressing another finger in, shortly after.

And if the first had been just strange, two are mildly uncomfortable, a burning sort of stretch. Harry can’t focus on anything else- the only parts of his body that he feels are the ones in contact with Voldemort.

“Did you dream of this, with the Horcrux?”

Harry’s tent dreams had been -well, they had been what he’d wanted them to be, the Locket guessing his desires and trying to please him.

And Harry wanted love in those dark, horrible months. He’d wanted comfort, after Ron left and Hermione stopped talking.

Tom had kissed him, long, deep kisses, held Harry, wanked Harry slowly, before taking him in his mouth. And sometimes Harry would return the favour, eager to please Tom, too, but his mind had somehow never conjured this.

“No,” Harry breaths out and then Voldemort’s fingers brush by something that sends a wave of too much pleasure up his spine, makes his cock twitch. It lasts just a second, but it leaves Harry shaking even more than before.

Voldemort isn’t gentle or careful. More like, methodical. Harry wonders, just briefly, with whom he’d did this before.

But he can’t sustain prolonged thoughts, too focused on that stretching burn, the way it mixes with the pleasure, when Voldemort touches his prostate again.

Harry can’t be sure, but after a minute or so, he thinks Voldemort’s avoiding it on purpose, giving Harry just a taste of it, but not more.

And then the fingers withdraw, and even that feels strange-

Voldemort spits, again. It makes Harry’s abdomen clench.

Voldemort’s cock, hard and hot and big, presses against Harry, insistent.

Fuck, he thinks. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

He lets out a strangled yell, when Voldemort forces his way in through not so willing flesh.

It hurts.

All his muscles tense up, even more than they were before, taunt and stiff. Harry forces himself to stay still, gripping the carpet between his fingers, hard.

On and on, Voldemort pushes further until it seems he’s reached a limit. Without a pause, he draws back, making Harry whine.

He’s fucking me, Harry thinks, as if just now it dawned on him.

When he thrusts back in, unhurried but determined, Harry’s elbows give out from under him, and he falls on the floor, resting his head between his arms, biting his lip, eyes very tightly closed, trying not to shriek.

But when Voldemort starts to build a rhythm, Harry tries to draw away without thinking.

Fingers curl around his cock and Harry’s surprised he’s still hard, but he is. And now he’s confused, between the pain in his arse and the pleasure building as Voldemort expertly touches him.

There’s no way I can come, he thinks, pain chasing pleasure and the other way around, Harry’s body writhing.

He comes, minutes later, when Voldemort stops fucking him, stays still inside Harry. It’s a tortured kind of orgasm.

White stars explode behind his closed eyelids, his body seizes up, and that only makes him clench harder around the cock inside him, which only brings more pain.

He doesn’t even recognise his voice, when it comes out of his mouth, in a string of meaningless sounds.

Harry can’t think, at all, there’s no thinking with that combination of pain and pleasure, which was the sole point of this.

He doesn’t think that five years before, Voldemort was dropping, lifeless, in the Great Hall.

Voldemort must remember it, because once he starts moving again, he’s brutal. Harry jerks forward, just instinct, to get away-

Voldemort grips his hip harder, slams his other hand between Harry’s shoulder blades, pinning him to the floor.

He lowers himself over Harry, his chest covering his back.

“Ask me to stop, if that is what you want.” His mouth is right by Harry’s ear-

Harry stays silent.

“Good,” Voldemort’s lifts his upper body away from Harry’s. “You know you deserve it.”

Harry knows.

He can’t be sure how long it lasts. Time just stops. It’s possible he loses some moments, focused to just stay still, just stay still. That is the only thing that matters.

He doesn’t even realise when Voldemort comes, just becomes aware it’s over, when he’s laying on the floor, shaking from head to toe, sweat and tears mixing on his face, breathing hard.

His entire body hurts all over, especially his arse and lower back, but there’s only a vague sense of relief washing over him.

And also, a pang of loss, because Voldemort will kick him out, surely, and Harry can’t bear to be alone.

Voldemort turns him around, face up, and even that tiny movement reignites the pain.

And then he’s floating.

No, he’s not floating. He’s lifted up in Voldemort’s arms. Like he weights nothing.

Harry does feel weightless, slumping against his chest, holding onto Voldemort’s neck.

Even when he’s laid over silky, cool sheets, Harry doesn’t let go, rests his forehead on Voldemort’s shoulder.

You can’t keep him with you, if he doesn’t want it. Harry can’t make Voldemort do anything.

You can’t make him love you. You shouldn’t want it.

Another cool sheet covers them.

“Sleep,” comes the command and just like that, Harry knows no more.

(-)

The discomfort sinks in before he’s fully awake. Harry moans, shifts in his bed. The sheet slides off his midsection.

It feels off; it feels like silk?

Harry opens his eyes, flounders for his glasses on the nightstand-

Finally, they’re on his face and he realises he’s in Voldemort’s room.

He remembers.

Fuck. Heat travels to his chest and face, and how in the world will he ever face Voldemort again?

He sees his wand on the nightstand and that gives him some relief, he grabs it-

Only, he had left his wand in his room, locked in a drawer, not wanting to go with it anywhere near Voldemort, in the state he’s been in.

Harry jumps off the bed. His legs almost buckle under him, as his arse protests to the motion.

Voldemort looks at him, calmly, from the other side of the bed, still wearing the robes he’s been in the night before.

“Good morning.”

He looks positively chipper, all a terrifying smile.

Before Harry can start to feel whatever he’s supposed to feel about what happened between them, he sees Voldemort’s hands, laid inconspicuously on his knees. The sleeves are rolled back-

The cuffs are gone.

Terror seizes every cell of Harry’s body. Pure, unadulterated terror.

The Dark Lord is free, at last.

Chapter 12

Chapter Text

Pure, unadulterated terror.The Dark Lord is free, at last.

Harry raises his wand. “Petrificus To-”

The wand leaves his hand and lands neatly in Voldemort’s open palm, as an unseen force slams Harry in the chest, sends him crashing to the floor.

The force of it is staggering, takes Harry’s breath away.

“Now, now, Harry. That’s not nice at all.”

Harry scrambles to his feet, panicked.

The sheer power of Voldemort’s raw, wandless magic is impossible to comprehend.

“Before you get yourself into a frenzy, remember I am still bound by the Oath. I cannot leave, without your permission; I cannot try to escape. I cannot kill you.”

Ok. Ok. It’s not all lost. It’s not.

But it still feels like it.

Everything is happening too fast; he doesn’t have time to think, to understand-

“I will give you your wand back, but if you attack me again, I’ll break it in half,” Voldemort throws the wand at Harry’s feet.

Harry scrambles for it, trying to make sense of what the hell is going on, relieved to have it back, but terrified because it won’t make much of a difference.

Not after seeing how easily Voldemort disarmed him.

“How-” his voice cracks and he’s gripping the wand so tightly, sparks shoot out of it, setting the carpet on fire.

Voldemort stands and Harry shrinks back.

With a smirk, Voldemort waves his hand and the fire is put out, just like that.

Harry realises he’s naked. But all his senses are so assaulted, he doesn’t even know what to do with this information.

“I only needed a wand, for some extended period. My will is great enough to break through anything, with a little help,” he tilts his head. “That wand does suit me rather well, I’ll confess.”

“I-”

Harry grabs the sheet and wraps it over himself, instinctively. He’s cornered.

The grand bed on one side, the wall on the other, and Voldemort now blocks the small space Harry could have used to flee.

Flee where?

“You knew it will happen. You’re not well read at all, you’re frustratingly naive but you’re not stupid,” Voldemort says, calmly, as if walking Harry through a very simple problem with a very obvious solution. “You knew this was going to happen, eventually.”

Harry knew, didn’t he? He’d always known. He’d told Kingsley as much, when Voldemort was still in his cell at the Ministry.

And that is why Harry took him, because the oath is the most important part, the one Voldemort can’t break.

“What now?” Harry asks, willing himself to breathe.

“Not much will change,” Voldemort says, waving his hand and the sleeves of his shirt fasten around his wrists, the robe covering them. “I only need to make a brief trip.”

“No,” Harry says, agitation spiralling out of control. “Absolutely not.”

“Now, you can come with me, or I could go alone,” Voldemort goes on, ignoring him.

“You can’t. Not without my permission.”

The Oath! The Oath can’t be broken, Kingsley assured him, the Unspeakable assure him-

“You already gave me your permission. Remember? When you said you’d let me go to Malfoy Manor, just to scare and I quote ‘the crap’ out of Lucius?”

Harry has made several comments of that nature during his many rants against Malfoy.

“I retract it!” he says, desperately.

“Magic doesn’t work like that, Harry. I have your permission. You gave it, you must have wished it. It is done. I could have already gone, you know. But I’m being considerate. I figured you’d have a heart attack if you woke up and I was not here.”

“It can’t work like that. You don’t have my permission. I don’t want you to go to Malfoy’s. No!” Harry says, full of fear.

Voldemort stands, unbothered. “Very well, I’ll be going alone then. Now, before you go to the Ministry and blow this out of proportion, remember I cannot escape. I’m not trying to escape. I have full intentions of returning here.”

“No!” Harry yells, stumbling with the sheet around him, almost falling on his face when Voldemort turns and walks out the door and Harry tries to follow him. “Wait! Wait! I’m coming along! Wait!”

“Five minutes,”Voldemort’s voice floats down the corridor.

Harry hastily puts on the clothes that are still all over the floor.

He’s in discomfort, his lower body feels strange, but he doesn’t feel pain, nothing seems wrong, inside.

It’s not his primary concern, in any case.

He goes to the bathroom, barely taking notice of how grandiose it looks, still trying to wrap his mind around everything. He throws water on his face and goes after Voldemort.

He has to find a way to keep him in the house, even if Harry apparently stupidly gave him permission to leave it.

(-)

There is no way to keep him inside the house. After another short, confusing argument in the foyer, Voldemort camouflages himself to perfection and opens the door.

Harry lunges for him, even if he can’t see him, and luckily his hands close around a robe.

And then the door to Grimmauld closes behind them and Harry is pulled into the void that is Apparition.

They’re spit out in the countryside, the enormous gates of Malfoy Manor looming ahead.

Voldemort becomes visible again. He looks around him and just for a second up at the sky, closing his eyes, as if basking in the morning sun’s light.

He looks happy, truly so. It’s the first time Harry sees him experience joy. His smile would be contagious, if not for why he’s so deliriously pleased. “Shall we?”

Harry doesn’t even have time to process anything. Not the sex, not the lack of cuffs, the fact that Voldemort is out of the house.

The gates open, and Harry is dragged along through the winding pathway.

“Still has the peacocks, I see. Must have bought new ones. Nagini went through quite a few.”

“You can’t kill him,” Harry says, as if he has any authority over Voldemort.

The right thing to do is to go to Kingsley. Right now. Well, right now is too late. He’s already inside the AntiAppartion wards. But as soon as they get out. IF they get out.

Yes. That’s what he has to do. He hopes Draco and Narcissa aren’t home. He hopes no one is home, not even the annoying patriarch.

Draco’s son, Harry thinks, panicked. Does the boy live here?

Teddy! What if Andromeda is visiting-

Narcissa opens the door.

She gives Harry a smile. “Mr. Potter! What an unexpected surprise! Please, do come in.”

What?

Voldemort pushes him in.

“Pardon Harry, Madame. He’s not been raised with very good manners,” Voldemort speaks and Narcissa smiles at him too, though her sharp eyes scan his face.

She must not know this face, because she doesn’t run away screaming.

“No matter; young ones aren’t as concerned about old traditions. Narcissa Malfoy.”

She extends a hand, nicely manicured, fingers adorned with expensive jewels.

Voldemort takes it, bends over and kisses it. “A pleasure.”

Think! Think! Just do something.

What? What could he possibly do?

Voldemort doesn’t introduce himself. “I am aware this isn’t the proper hour for visits, especially unannounced, but I am afraid we have a rather urgent matter to discuss with your husband.”

Narcissa’s eyes narrow, but she maintains her smile. “Of course. Please, if you’d be so kind to wait in the living room.”

She must think this is Ministry related. Something about the “Death Eaters”. Merlin knows how many times Aurors and politicians had strolled inside Malfoy Manor demanding to speak to Malfoy.

A house-elf pops out of nowhere and leads them through a corridor that thankfully looks nothing like the part Harry had seen of the house.

“She never could stand me,” Voldemort says, as he takes a seat on a very expensive-looking armchair.“You should get something like this for our house.”

“My house,” Harry says, stupidly.

Malfoy has a wand; Narcissa as well.

Could we take him down, together?

Voldemort is powerful, but he’s wandless. Surely, three armed people could stop him.

Malfoy fought in two wars. He must be well acquainted with dark magic- maybe there’s a chance.

The doors open and Malfoy comes through.

For a second, he looks his old, arrogant self.

Just a second. Than his face falls, almost comically. Harry would laugh if they weren’t all so screwed.

“My Lord-” Lucius says, and he adapts fast. He falls to his knees. “My Lord, I tried to-”

“Spare me. Stand up.”

Lucius does, rapidly loosing colour.

“I-”

There’s no trace of the previous joy on Voldemort’s face. His eyes are hard, expression blank.

“There is no excuse for the high treason your wife and son committed against me. At least you deserted me after I was presumably dead. They did so before.”

“It’s my fault. All mine. Punish me.”

Harry had thought, back in the living room of Grimmauld, where all this was theoretical, that it would be funny to see Malfoy grovel at Voldemort’s feet. It isn’t.

It’s horrific.

The terror on his face, the lack of any concern for his own being, clearly worried only for family-

Is this how my father looked?

“Harry here,” Voldemort says, and only then does Malfoy seem to notice him. “is rather adamant to save your traitorous family. Not only from the Ministry, but from me as well. He’d requested I’m not to kill any of you.”

Malfoy’s eyes meet Harry’s, surprised. Grateful. Confused.

“And I am prepared to indulge him, on one condition.” He considers Malfoy for a second. “Do you still have it?”

Malfoy seems to breathe for the first time in minutes. “Yes, My Lord. It wasn’t easy to hide it, when they came, but-I did.”

“Fetch it.”

“Tinsy!”

The house-elf pops in.

“Master,” she bows.

“Bring me the long, brown box, from the West Wing, the one you sealed behind Mother’s portrait.”

“Master,” she bows and disappears.

“He doesn’t have a wand,” Harry blurts out, drawing his own, moving away from Voldemort, to stand beside Malfoy.

They can act now, before whatever no doubt evil thing Malfoy’s about to hand Voldemort.

Harry doesn’t look at Voldemort, staring at Malfoy, trying to communicate with his eyes.

But Malfoy just frowns, gaze moving between Harry and Voldemort.

“He doesn’t have a wand,” Harry repeats.

“I know,” Malfoy says. “My Lord?”

“Ignore him,” Voldemort drawls, and he sounds amused.

Harry can’t believe it! What is wrong with Malfoy? He’s clearly terrified of Voldemort, he wants his family safe, why won’t he do something?

In less than a few seconds, spent in a deeply uncomfortable silence-

or at least Harry and Malfoy are uncomfortable, Voldemort seems unconcerned- Tinsy appears again, presenting Lucius with a box.

Lucius gives it to Voldemort, head bowed.

Inside it, the yew wand waits.

Harry glares at Malfoy. “Why would you keep it? I went through all that bother, to keep you out of Azkaban and here you are, hiding the wand.”

Voldemort must have left the yew one at Malfoy Manor, since he was using the Elder wand at Hogwarts.

“In case my lord would come back-”

“He meant to sell it,” Voldemort cuts over him. “Or keep it, so his great grandsons can brag about having such a prestigious artefact.”

“My Lord-”

“Shut up. For once, you did something right.”

Voldemort holds his wand tightly; Malfoy doesn’t notice the pure joy shining in those brown eyes, but Harry does.

Even when he speaks, his voice has an undercurrent of pleasure to it.

“This is your last chance, Lucius. Once, during the first war, you were quite competent. Nothing like the man I found after my return. I must infer that family life had made you softer.”

“My Lord-”

“Fail me again, and I shall see your family suffers greatly. There is no Bella now to beg for her sister’s and nephew’s life. Remember that.

If you breathe a word about my existence, about what happened here today, to anyone, including your little wife, I will skin her alive and make you watch. And that is nothing compared to what I will do to your useless son. I hear he has procreated as well- more Malfoys for me to kill. You will keep your mouth shut.”

“Yes, My Lord, I swear-”

“You’ve been talking to the Aurors quite a lot.”

“My Lord, only because I thought you gone! I will not- I will do anything you want-“

“Good.”

Voldemort stands, and Malfoy kneels again.

“Harry, we’re done.”

“My Lord. Ah-” Lucius raises his head to look at Harry, quickly, before returning his gaze to Voldemort’s shoes. “A word, in private?”

“No,” Harry says. “No. Absolutely not going-”

Voldemort cuts over Harry, sharply.

“I already know all about it. Nothing goes past me, Lucius. Best remember that.”

And then he walks out of the doors and Harry runs after him.

(-)

“Calm down,” Voldemort says, for the hundredth time. “I didn’t kill anyone; I didn’t even torture Lucius. Everything is fine.”

It isn’t.

Harry is beside himself. He still hadn’t went to Kingsley; what is he supposed to say? ‘He got free while I was passed out, because he fucked me so hard I fell asleep?’ Yeah, that’s not going to go well. And even if he goes to Kingsley-

Voldemort has his wand. And he can’t leave the house without permission or without Harry, but certainly no one will be able to drag him back to the ministry.

In fact, Harry might not be able to leave the house, now. It’s unlikely Voldemort will let him, and Harry doesn’t fool himself that he could best him in a duel. Not when Voldemort disarmed him, when he’d been wandless.

“Harry,” Voldemort sits beside him on their brand new transfigured couch. It looks precisely like the one in Malfoy Manor.

He puts a hand on Harry’s shoulder and Harry should flinch, he should push him away-

Harry melts into it. He needs comfort, he needs someone to tell him everything will be alright, and this is the only human around, if he could even be called human.

He is human. He is.

Harry saw him bleed, Harry saw him in pain.

Harry saw him ask for something pleasant to hear.

Harry had sex with him. All human.

But therein lies the problem. Harry had tried so hard not to view Voldemort as a monster, he had forgotten that while Voldemort is human, he is a terrible, dangerous man.

He had been tricked, lulled into a sense of security and look where that got him.

And yet-

Voldemort had gotten his wand back and Harry had not been hurt, even if it hadn’t been a day since he punched the dark lord in the face.

“What will you do now?” he asks, so incredibly numb. The shock had went away, once back at Grimmauld, after an hour of just staring dumbly at Voldemort.

“Not much I can do,”Voldemort answers, and his joy about having his magic and wand must have diminished as well, because he sounds like his usual self, no inflections in his voice.

Harry stares up at him. They’ve never been as close; not in normal circumstances.

The hand around his shoulder feels good. Solid. Grounding.

“Don’t look so guilty. You did nothing wrong.”

“I did.” Harry is very aware of it. “You were right. I knew you’d get your magic back. I just ignored it.”

“I did say you are prone to lying.”

“I’m not like you!” Harry says.

If only he were- they wouldn’t be in this situation. Voldemort would be dead and Harry would be-

Alone, a traitorous voice whispers in his head.

“You aren’t,” Voldemort assures him. “I lie to others; you lie to yourself.”

“We can’t talk anymore,” Harry says, his stomach twisting, a chilly feeling in his chest because he’ll lose Voldemort.

He was never yours.

He draws back- or tries to.

Voldemort doesn’t let him go, his fingers digging into Harry’s shoulder. “Why?”

“Because you’ll use my words to twist the oath. I’d always have to be careful about what I say. Months ago, you made me give you permission for Malfoy. You were planning it since then, you manipulated me. I can’t keep up with this. I-you’ll twist my words again and I can’t take that chance.”

“Oh, Harry. You are so -” he says, and there’s some exasperation there, but almost fondness too. “I couldn’t have gone anywhere. You really should research matters so pivotal. I need express permission, not just for an ‘what if scenario’.”

“But you said-”

“I lied. I wanted you to believe I could go without you, but I couldn’t. Especially after you said I couldn’t. I merely said it to make you come with me. It was the only way to leave the house.”

Harry groans, buries his head in his hands.

He doesn’t know what to believe anymore. He truly never learns. Again, he hadn’t researched anything. And he doesn’t have Hermione with him, day and night, for her to see through this.

Is Voldemort telling the truth now?

Harry swears to himself he’ll head straight to the library and study all Grimmauld library has on Oaths.

“I want a new oath, if you want us to speak,” he says.

Voldemort gives him a searching look.

As if he’d care about you not talking to him, now that he has his wand.

“Go on,” Voldemort finally says.

“You can’t leave the house ever, period.”

That sounds safe enough.

“What if it caches fire and I’m trapped here?”

Harry gives him a look. Voldemort laughs.

“What if I cast a terrible, long range curse, and the Ministry comes to take me away, and they can’t, because I can’t leave the house? What if you want to move? I’ll have to remain here.”

“You can cast curses from here?” Harry’s stomach twists.

“You’ll just have to read and find out.”

“You can’t leave the house without me at your side. There. In case we need to move you.”

“What if you need saving? You do attract the worst sort of attention. Can’t I come then?”

“I don’t need saving. I can hold my own.” Voldemort doesn’t look convinced at all. “I escaped you for years! Since I was eleven!”

“With a lot of luck and help-”

“I don’t need saving!”

“What if the mudblood is in trouble and I am the only one to help?”

Harry rolls his eyes. “Like you’d want to.”

“They make you happy. I couldn’t care less if they dropped dead, but it would devastate you. And while I enjoy that tragic lost look in your eyes, I think you’d had quite enough trauma to last you through a lifetime. Besides, whom will discuss Gamp’s Laws with me if she’s dead?”

Just like in his cell at the Ministry, Voldemort keeps throwing out scenarios in which he would need to leave the house without Harry, each more outrageous and unlikely than the last.

The literal apocalypse is amongst those, right after a large scale war with Muggles in case the Statute of Secrecy is broken and Voldemort would be the last wizard left alive capable to help their kind.

One after the other; it seems he could go on forever.

“Fine,” Harry says, thinking of something. “You can’t leave the house without me unless to save an innocent soul, that will not bring you any benefit what so ever. And you won’t twist my words to escape. There.”

That should never happen.

Voldemort goes quiet, finally!, as he ponders on it.

Harry considers the wording, carefully. It seems pretty solid to him.

“I vow on my magic not to leave Grimmauld Place without Harry Potter, unless I am to save an innocent soul with no evident benefit to myself. I shall not twist his words to escape.”

Harry gets a modicum of relief, when he feels the magic settling around them.

And there’s that sick part of his brain, pleased that Voldemort seems to care enough about having Harry talking to him, that he’d make another vow.

(-)

Harry spends the rest of the day watching Voldemort; it’s very similar to when he first came to live with Harry.

The same sense of dread, the same waiting for something to happen.

When eventually Voldemort closes a book and retreats to his room, well past midnight, Harry trails after him.

“You wish to join me?” Voldemort asks, with a little smirk, from his doorway.

“No,” Harry shakes his head but remains in the hallway long after Voldemort closes the door to his room.

Harry goes to his own room, when the sun is almost up, spends an hour or two in a very fitful sleep, awaken by every small noise, wand in his hand.

He checks and rechecks all the wards around his door, every time he awakes, heart hammering in his chest.

When he finally gives up on trying to sleep, he goes to the kitchen. His breakfast is there, as usual, and it relaxes a part of him.

He has his magic and his wand. He could torture me; instead, Voldemort still made Harry’s breakfast.

Don’t! Stop trying to think him changed or even remotely nice. Look where it got you!

But the breakfast is there and even if Harry can’t stomach more than a bite of toast, his stomach still in knots, the tea offers him some energy.

Again, he spends his day watching Voldemort, trailing after him everywhere.

Despite Harry’s desperation the other day that he won’t be able to speak with Voldemort anymore, so the man won’t twist his words, Harry doesn’t say anything, even with the new Oath that should prevent anything bad happening.

He just doesn’t know what to say.

Everything is uncertain.

Malfoy could tell Kingsley at any moment.

He should. You should want him to say something, to alert the Ministry, since you are obviously incapable.

Harry tells himself he doesn’t want the Ministry to know, because then they’ll come to take Voldemort and Voldemort will kill them all.

He could turn on Harry at any moment.

What would happen if Harry just got up and told Voldemort he’s leaving?

Would he try to stop Harry?

Try, a sarcastic voice laughs in his head. He can stop you. There would be no ‘trying’ about it.

Voldemort just taps his wand on the desk, and in the blink of an eye it turns into its former glory.

In the span of a day, the library looks new and luxurious.

The temperature in the house doesn’t shift anymore.

He commands magic so easily, so flawlessly. Harry had only seen Dumbledore perform such feats of non verbal spell casting, just a flick of a wand, without seemingly any focus behind it.

What would Dumbledore say?

For the first time since the battle, Harry thinks he wants to go to Hogwarts, to speak with the Headmaster’s portrait.

It’s not the real thing, but it’s something; perhaps it has some advice for Harry.

His tiredness catches up with him at the end of the second day and he goes to his room, telling himself that it’s useless anyway to stay glued to Voldemort.

Even as exhausted as he is, Harry can’t sleep. He rests his eyes, but his mind keeps conjuring awful situations for him.

He tries to come up with a plan of action.

Hard to do that when you don’t know what you want, no?

“Interesting wall decor,” Voldemort says, and for a second Harry thinks it’s just happening in his head, but then he opens his eyes and Voldemort is right there in his room.

He stands so fast he gets dizzy.

Watching Voldemort inspecting the naked muggles on the wall is surreal.

“They’re not mine. Sirius put them there, with a Permanent Sticking-”

A flick of his wand and they’re gone.

“Don’t touch the picture!” Harry warns, moving towards the small photograph of the Marauders, to protect it.

Voldemort looks at the four boys. “Do you want me to curse Pettigrew out of it?”

“No,” Harry shakes his head.

Wormtail from the picture was not who he became later in life. The Marauders look happy, side by side.

“How did you get past my wards-?”

Voldemort laughs, seemingly very amused.

Another flick of the wand and the armoire moves aside to reveal a muggle lady, completely naked, even if very dusty.

“I wish I’d have seen Walburga’s face when she discovered it,” Voldemort says. “I got rid of her portrait, while you slept.”

That piece of information would cheer Harry up, if he wasn’t so uneasy.

See, Voldemort can do something good for the world, even if it’s just removing any remains of Walburga from it.

He vanishes the poster and soon the walls are clean, as if just painted.

The armoire becomes vaster, more polished.

So does the bed.

“I don’t- Hermione tried so hard,” Harry says. He tried too, but Hermione really made an effort, studied tomes after tomes trying to improve the house. “But Kreacher kept laughing at her and told us we can’t-”

“The house listens to me,” Voldemort explains. “Old wizarding buildings, like this house, have a personality. They welcome or not welcome people. It quite hates you, and I am sure it was equally resistant to the Mudblood. It likes me.”

“Why would-?”

“I take care of it. It responds to me, with only a little push. I was grateful to be here, after the cell. It appreciates my investment in it. It can feel your resentment toward it. Do you like your new bed, Harry?”

Harry turns to look at it; the sheets are now a rich red, with subdued golden details.

It looks exactly like the one in Gryffindor tower, only bigger.

Voldemort pushes him on it; Harry hadn’t even seen him move.

He lands on his back, on a much more comfortable mattress than he’d grown used to.

Harry’s apprehensive, the pain had been too much last time; but a treacherous part of him instantly gets excited at the thought of having Voldemort close, interested.

His clothes just vanish out of existence; Harry gasps at the feel of magic on his skin.

Voldemort doesn’t turn him around, however. He gets on the bed, between Harry’s legs, and his own clothes vanish.

Harry breaths in, struck by the view.

He’s seen Voldemort naked before, but Harry did his best never to look, because of the circumstances, because Voldemort wouldn’t have wanted to be seen like that.

He seems to be made of marble, very pale skin stretched over a lean, hard body.

And the scars- the ones he hadn’t had when Harry first saw him, three days after the Battle when Kingsley brought him in to kill the dark lord.

Voldemort will never forget those years; Voldemort would never forgive what has been done to him.

Surely he blames me for it, too. He can’t really want me. He’s just doing it to manipulate me or hurt me or-

Whatever reason, Harry should stop giving him weapons to use against Harry.

He opens his mouth to tell him that he doesn’t want this and he can only hope Voldemort will care-

Voldemort leans in and kisses him.

Harry almost jumps out of his skin.

His lips are soft on Harry’s chapped ones.

He makes a little noise and Voldemort’s tongue slips between Harry’s lips.

Of course he’d be a great kisser, Harry thinks.

He’s caught wrong-footed, as always. Everything intimate they’ve done had been hard, brutal, twisted-

The kiss isn’t so.

It’s exactly like Tom, from the Locket.

Harry kisses him back, winding his arms around his back, uncertain, convinced Voldemort won’t allow it-

But he does.

When Harry can’t breathe anymore, Voldemort moves to his neck as Harry pants for air.

It’s nothing like the last time; Voldemort flicks his wrist at some point, and Harry is barely aware a bottle of oil appears on the nightstand.

He prepares Harry slowly with his fingers and Harry had had sex before, but it never felt so fantastic.

He doesn’t have to worry about his performance, as with Ginny or that other girl.

He doesn’t have to think about Voldemort’s pleasure- Voldemort is the type to get whatever he wants.

The attention he pays to Harry however is overwhelming.

By the time Voldemort pushes inside him, slowly, Harry is close to crying, only not from pain.

Why is it so different from the last time? Harry questions, with the tiny part of his brain that is still capable of coherent thought.

Because he has his magic back, comes the answer. Because he feels safe, with his wand close by.

But then Harry can’t think any longer.

He’ll burn in hell probably, but for the time Harry feels like he belongs.

He feels happy, without any concerns.

He feels loved, even if he knows it is a lie.

When he reaches orgasm, without Voldemort even touching his cock, Harry sees stars.

An expression he never understood before, thought of as just a stupid metaphor; but he experiences it, the lights flashing under his close eyelids as his whole body relaxes.

Once Voldemort’s done, he doesn’t leave. He just lies next to Harry, and it takes all the willpower in the world for Harry not to nestle close to his body, to touch him.

“Please, we can just stay in the house. Please don’t do anything that would make me fight you,” Harry begs, though he knows, he knows it serves no good.

Voldemort can appear loving and considerate, but he isn’t. He never knew these things, and he despises them.

“You won’t fight me again, Harry. There’s no Dumbledore to throw you in my way.”

“I’ll stand in your way, if you mean to hurt people.”

Harry doesn’t need Dumbledore for that.

He wants to tell Voldemort it wasn’t Dumbledore that pushed Harry to fight him.

Dumbledore helped, he might have manipulated a little, but he never threw Harry in the fight.

It was Voldemort himself that made Harry fight him, when he would not leave Harry alone, when he threatened to destroy everything Harry loved.

But he doesn’t say it.

Voldemort sighs. “I suppose you want me to never leave this house again.”

Harry really does. He turns his head to look at Voldemort and he finds his eyes.

“That’s not who I am.”

Harry knows.

(-)

Tom is slumped in the chair, eyes closed.

“We have to go,” Harry shakes him, trying to rouse him, but Tom is unresponsive.

Harry tries to lift him, but he’s far too heavy-

A noise at his back.

Harry turns, wand out. Moody is there. He’s missing his eye, a gaping hole instead.

“Move away, lad,” he grumbles, wooden leg thumping on the floor, wand trying to aim at Tom.

Harry shield him with his body.

“No,” he says. “No, just listen, for a second-”

“Harry, get away.” Cedric says, and Harry startles, because he hadn’t seen him entering.

While he’s looking at Cedric, the whole room fills with people.

They’re all demanding Harry steps away.

“No, wait!” Harry begs them, feeling sick. “Please, if you just hear me out-”

“Harry,” his mother says, and Harry doesn’t want to cry, but his visions get blurry with tears. He doesn’t look at her. “Harry, step aside.”

“Let us have him!” someone yells.

“Let they have him,” his father says, and Harry shakes his head.

“No, he’s -look at him, he’s sleeping-he’s dead! You can’t- there’s no need to hurt him anymore-”

“How can you do this?” his mother asks. “How can you protect him? He killed me, Harry. He killed all of us-”

“I’m sorry,” Harry says, and he feels so wretched, why can’t he be dead too? Why is he always alive?

Harry looks amongst the bodies pressing forward, crowding him- he’s looking for an ally, someone that understands.

But Lavender is crying, half her neck bitten off, and Colin is trying to take a picture, Remus is whispering something to Harry’s father and Harry doesn’t want to look at them, he can’t.

He sees a man that looks so much like Tom, a man Harry had once seen in a memory.

“Won’t you help him? He’s your son!”

“He killed me,” the man says. “He walked into my house and killed me and my parents. Why would I help him? Why would you help him? He killed your parents.”

Harry looks around, getting desperate. Moody is trying to shove Harry away, and he’ll hurt Tom, he will-

Finally, his eyes find Sirius.

“Sirius,” Harry says, begging.

Sirius is abnormally quiet, just looking at Harry harshly. Besides him, out of all people, is Snape, bleeding from the snake bite.

They don’t say anything, they don’t interfere.

“Sirius, please, help me! I’ll explain it later! Please!”

Sirius was never one to go by the rules. If he’d just let Harry explain it-

Everyone else is yelling at him to step aside.

Harry just grips his wand, but doesn’t -cannot raise it against them, tries to convince them to give him a chance.

And then the crowd parts and Dumbledore walks through and Harry knows this is the end.

Dumbledore won’t even care about Harry, like the others did. Dumbledore won’t ask him to step aside, he’ll just make Harry do it-

His blue eyes aren’t kind- they’re looking past Harry, as if he’s invisible, straight at Tom, filled with hatred.

Harry turns, and he gasps because Voldemort is standing now.

Harry feels relived, for a second. They can’t hurt him now.

But then Voldemort whips out his yew wand, a cruel smile on his face.

“No!” Harry opens his arms, tries to shield the crowd from him. But there are so many of them, Harry can’t cover them all. “No, Tom, don’t!”

“Tom is dead,” he says, and with a flick of his wand Harry goes as rigid as stone.

He can’t move.

Everyone is screaming, they are trying to run-

“Not Harry!” his mother yells and she comes to stand in front of him and Harry closes his eyes as the green light floods the room. “Not Harry! Kill me instead!”

He wakes gasping for breath, cheeks wet with tears.

Voldemort isn’t in the room anymore, must have left when Harry fell asleep.

How can you sleep around him? How can you have sex with him?

Harry covers his head with the blanket, disgusted with himself; every time he blinks he sees Moody’s outraged face, he sees the judgement in Sirius’- the pain in Cedric’s-

His mother dying for him.

Just a dream. They’re in a better place; they’re not suffering anymore. Voldemort can’t hurt them again.

How about the living ones?

(-)

“I’m going out,” Harry announces, his fingers grasping his wand inside the pocket of his robe.

“About time; we’re running out of food,” is all Voldemort says, without even looking up from his book.

Harry breathes in relief, but remains tense, until he’s actually out of Grimmauld Place.

He can’t believe Voldemort didn’t try to stop him.

Harry could go to Kingsley and Voldemort didn’t-

He trusts me, Harry thinks.

He trusts in your stupidity, that’s why he thinks you you won’t tell anyone.

It appears Voldemort is right, either way.

Harry just goes to the store.

(-)

Voldemort is calmer. Which is strange to think- Voldemort always appeared calm, but now that he has his wand, Harry can see the shift in him, the more relaxed line of his shoulders.

He’s not as still as before, either.

He likes to torture Harry; standing by the window, caressing his wand, he smirks at Harry and says things like “I could cast the Imperius from here. See that subtle disturbance in the air, by the oak? That’s Savage.”

Harry tells himself that if Voldemort wanted that, he’d have done it already.

Maybe he did.

Sometimes Voldemort tells Harry the truth, declares his intentions clearly- “I have my eyes on someone, he looks promising” Voldemort said when Harry was worried someone will get Voldemort out of the cell.

And then Harry got him out.

“I’ll get my powers back.”

He did that too.

“I’ll be free,” he says, and Harry- fuck, Harry has to believe it, but this is easier to control.

It all depends on Harry. Not his wits, not his feelings- Harry has to actually say “I release you from your oath.”

And Harry will never do that.

“Can’t you Imperio me?” he asks, after spending days researching Oaths.

He's on the couch, reading a new book about them, as Voldemort just plays with his wand, looking at it like a long-lost lover.

“No,” Voldemort says, unbothered. “Didn’t you just read that?”

“I did,” Harry shrugs. “But -I don’t trust them.”

Voldemort sighs.

“I don’t share Hermione’s confidence in books. Not when I dealt with you my whole life and you defy any text book. You always brag you push the limits of magic.”

Voldemort seems pleased to hear it.

“I can’t place you under the Imperius to break the Oath. It has to be your pure intent, uninfluenced.”

Harry closes the book. “And how will you manage that?”

Voldemort smiles. “I am glad you learned to accept it will happen. It will spare us the dramatics when it does.”

“I won’t do it,” Harry says, determined. “And there’s no other option.”

“There are loopholes,” Voldemort offers.

“And you wonder why I don’t trust texts!” Harry sneers, opening the book again.

“I can’t coerce you, I can’t give you potions or blackmail you into it. There are rules even I can’t cross. But there are loopholes. Do you actually believe I’d have ever accepted making an Oath without knowing I can get out of it?” Voldemort scoffs.

Harry pulls at his hair. He needs to figure it out. He can’t ask Hermione- besides, Hermione trusts books too much. This isn’t an information to be found in books. Voldemort just said so- it’s a loophole. Hermione isn’t good with those.

“It is not an option I am…. eager to choose,” Voldemort says, and he looks almost- he sounds-

Harry breathes in.

Voldemort sounds regretful, and he looks at Harry with something akin to pity. So Harry knows whatever the option is, it will be bad, bad news for Harry.

“Perhaps I’ll wear you down and you will agree to do it, before I have to resort to more unpleasant methods,” Voldemort says and his face goes back to its usual blank expression. “But I do not hold much hope. You are particularly stubborn.”

Harry squares his shoulders, draws out his Gryffindor courage. “Does- do you-” he bites his lip. “Does it have anything to do with sex? Are you using that to-”

“No,” Voldemort says. “It is not related.”

Harry blushes, but feels lighter. He hates to think Voldemort doesn’t really want Harry that way; that he only does it to gain things.

He wants Voldemort to want him, not for what he could gain from Harry. That’s how other people would want Harry, and he doesn’t want Voldemort to be like that.

He isn’t. He wants to sleep with me. He said so.

He could be lying.

No, he isn’t.

(-)

Harry learns to leave the house without fear, in time.

Like in the beginning, step-by-step Harry becomes reassured Voldemort won’t escape, every time he returns home to find the dark lord in the library, dinner on the table.

But Harry refuses Hermione when she asks if she may come over, for a cup of tea.

He goes to visit his friends, once or twice a week, lies that he was in the neighbourhood, pretends he isn’t home much so they can’t stop by at Grimmauld.

(-)

It takes approximately a month before Harry gets out of the shower to find Voldemort in his room again, leaning against the armoire.

Harry goes to him, eager.

Sex is simple; Harry doesn’t have to think, he doesn’t have to feel guilty for however long it lasts.

He can just focus on the present, on his body and leave the rest behind.

What will I get this time? He wonders, already removed from the harsh reality he’s been living in since Voldemort got his wand back.

“You’re growing daring, little lion,” Voldemort says, when Harry reaches him, stops just short of touching and looks up at Voldemort, expectingly.

“I was always daring-”

“Hush now,” Voldemort reaches over, grabs Harry by the throat and pulls him closer. It’s not a hard grip, but it makes Harry shut up.

He’s already hard underneath the towel around his waist.

He isn’t sure why he likes it so much when Voldemort manhandles him, what is it about it that is so enticing.

He guesses why Voldemort likes it; Harry assumes he misses ordering people around, being obeyed without question.

And that’s never going to happen in their day-to-day life, but in special circumstances, Harry is more than happy to indulge him.

He’s not as brutal as before- not when he pushes Harry to his knees, nor when he takes him to the bed- but he’s not as careful as the last time either.

Harry lets him do whatever he wants, lost in his pleasure, mind hazy.

He’d only like it more if Voldemort at least got off his shirt.

He must say it out loud, eventually, even if he can’t remember asking - though in that state he’s hard pressed to remember his own voice-because Voldemort takes it off, before pushing inside Harry.

He’s already used to it- it’s like Harry’s body remembers him, wants him as much as his mind.

Harry tries to put his arms around him, like he did the last time, to touch him and hold him close, but this time Voldemort grabs both his wrists in one hand and pins them above Harry’s head.

Harry likes that too.

He feels his body vibrating, as sensations envelope everything from his core to the tips of his fingers.

He’s just lost in all of it, mindless-

And that’s when it happens.

“Tom,” he hears himself saying and instantly he’s dragged back to reality; all of his muscle tense, expecting punishment, his eyes fly open-

Voldemort just grips his wrists harder, to the point Harry fears he might crush them, but does nothing else.

Their eyes meet and Harry’s heart was already galloping inside his chest, but now it’s just smashing painfully against his ribs.

“I’m sorry-”

Voldemort lets go of his wrists to cover his mouth.

“If there is one thing I respect you for,” he says, voice deep and reaching straight down Harry’s spine and into his cock, “is that you don’t fear me. You’re afraid for others, but not for yourself. Don’t start now.”

Harry nods.

He said he respects me, he thinks, his skin itching with the compliment.

“No,” Voldemort says when Harry tries to move his arms, because he wants so badly to touch- “If I left them there, it means I want them there.”

Harry nods and doesn’t move again.

Voldemort’s hand keeps covering his mouth and nose, even when he resumes thrusting hard, depriving Harry of air.

But Harry finds he enjoys that, too.

(-)

“Would you like to duel?” Voldemort asks so casually.

“No,” Harry shakes his head, putting down the tea. “Of course not!”

Voldemort smirks. “Afraid, Harry? No need, we’ll keep it friendly.”

“I know you’re better than me, alright?” Harry says. “There’s no need to prove it-”

“Of course you know; you’re not as deluded as the rest of the world. Yet you always insist you are a good duelist. I’ve never seen it.”

“I dealt with the attackers, alright?”

Voldemort would say his Death Eaters had gone easy on him because they had orders not to kill him; he’d say being the best in his class at Hogwarts means nothing.

With these pretend ‘Death Eaters’, however, he can’t find any way to say luck saved Harry or-

“So I hear. But I did not see.”

“No,”Harry shakes his head.

It is such a bad idea.

You’ve been full of them for the past year.

“Then I shall continue to operate under my assumption you can’t fight at all.”

Harry grits his teeth. He stands.

“If there is one thing I respect you for, is that you do not fear me.”

“No blood, no Cruciatus,”he says.

Voldemort laughs. “You are such a child. I can’t believe you would fall for that.”

“Of course I would!”

Harry is a Gryffindor. The best way to get him to do something is to tell him he can’t do it.

He wants to, as well. If he can make himself believe Voldemort won’t torture him, Harry would like to duel him.

He always liked magical duels. He’s good at them; Defence had been the only subject in which he never felt inadequate.

And he never got to really enjoy it- when he’d taught the others in Dumbledore’s Army, Harry was there just to instruct them, to correct their position or incantations, to cheer them up.

Outside that, he’d always been worried he’d die or worse, someone else would die, so enjoyment was out of the question.

He wants to prove he’s good. He knows he’ll lose, but Voldemort will see Harry is not as hopeless as he believes.

“I like to duel,” Harry says as they go up the stairs, adrenaline sinking in. “But outside you know- the frequent murder attempts, I only truly did it once, with Malfoy, in our second year, during Duelling Club.”

“Who won?” Voldemort asks.

“Well, it was undecided, I suppose. Unfair to begin with since Snape was whispering in Malfoy’s ear- but hey! That’s where I learned the Disarming Charm! Snape used it on Lockhart.”

“As if I need more reasons to hate that spell,” Voldemort mutters.

Harry laughs, a little nervous. “When Snape wanted to give Sirius to the Dementors, I used it on him- and I wasn’t the only one, so we kind of knocked him out.”

“Deserved it, the filthy traitor-”

“Anyway, Malfoy conjured a snake, and it wanted to attack Justin- a Hufflepuff, so I told it not to. Suffice to say, that was how all the school learned I was a Parselmouth. How I learned I was one- well, I knew I could talk to snakes, I once set one free at the zoo, but I didn’t know it was rare or it had a name. They all thought I was the Heir of Slytherin-”

Voldemort snorts. “As if!”

It’s Harry’s house- technically, at least. But Voldemort seems to know it better. He leads Harry to a ballroom on the second floor, a large empty space Harry had only seen once in his life.

He imagines it had once hosted beautiful parties, full of laughter, dancing and expensive robes.

Harry is buzzing with adrenaline.

You really shouldn’t do this. But the voice is very weak; Harry has become quite adapt at ignoring his good sense.

Voldemort smiles at him, lazily.

He doesn’t insist on bowing and Harry is glad, because he did that in the graveyard and-

Not thinking about that!

He just waits there, watching Harry curiously.

It’s Harry that casts the first spell.

He’s half tempted to go in with the Disarming one, but he reminds himself the goal isn’t to get tortured, so he refrains.

It is thrilling.

Harry doesn’t think much, all instinct, but even so, as the duel progresses he knows Voldemort is going very easy on him.

He blocks all Harry sends against him, with no sign of effort, without even moving a step.

But that was to be expected. Harry just wants to show him he knows how to defend himself as well.

And he does. He can block half the spells, or doge them, at least.

The ones that land are surprisingly tame.

Stinging hexes, simple charms- one turns his T-shirt green and perhaps Voldemort is mocking him, choosing such harmless spells, but the truth is, it makes Harry happy, more relaxed.

Then again, perhaps relaxed isn’t the best state to be in while duelling.

The only injury Harry gets is when he falls on his face, because of a Leg-Locker he doesn’t manage to dodge in time.

“Expelliarmus,” Voldemort drawls, the only spell he’d said out loud, towards the very end when Harry is breathing hard, tired.

It’s the price he pays because he grew cocky after he squeezed himself between two rapidly cast curses.

He was just congratulating himself mentally when the red spell hits him squarely in the chest and his wand goes flying out of his hands.

Voldemort laughs. “How do you like it now?” he asks, holding the holly wand.

Harry makes a face, a little worried, since he’s wandless.

He just proved it wouldn’t matter if you have a wand or not. He can deal with you, regardless.

But Voldemort tosses him back his wand.

Harry catches it, fast.

“You aren’t used to fight in a formal setting,” Voldemort comments as they go down the stairs.“You do much better in chaos, far better when the stakes are high. You like an unpredictable environment around you.”

“Yeah, I suppose I do,” Harry says, rubbing his forehead, which will most likely bruise later on.

He feels- he feels good. He liked it.

A challenge, but not a dangerous one.

“I told you I never got to do it properly.”

“Hogwarts really lowered its standards; back in my day, Duelling Club was mandatory for OWL students. Of course, that old goat presided over it, so I could never show off to my heart’s satisfaction.”

Harry shrugs. “Well, he hardly had the time when I went to Hogwarts; he was the Headmaster. And thanks to someone-” he narrows his eyes at Voldemort, “we never had the same Defence teacher for more than a year so- yeah, maybe education was better in your time.”

Harry sits on the sofa, exhausted, when they reach the library. Voldemort sits beside him, instead of his usual place at the desk.

Harry stares, the dull pain in his head forgotten, but Voldemort acts like this is an everyday occurrence.

“I had Death Eaters that were worse than you.”

Harry smirks, pleased with the admission.

“Well, that’s not saying much. Some of them were really, really bad at - anything, really.”

Voldemort just nods.

The next day, it’s Harry that asks him if he wants to duel.

Chapter 13

Chapter Text

“You won’t hurt them.” Harry says it simply. He doesn’t make it a plea, he makes it a demand.

The letter for Kingsley is still in his hand, scrunched up.

Voldemort tilts his head. “Define hurt, because you and I have very different definitions.”

While not reassuring, Harry had expected him to start with the ‘you don’t tell me what to do’ variation of an answer.

“You won’t do anything to them,” Harry clarifies. “Talk away, but don’t use any magic-”

“Impossible. Savage will check the cuffs.”

“Kingsley didn’t, last he came-”

“Because he was alone; he didn’t follow protocol, and he paid for it.” Harry well remembers it. And back then Voldemort’s magic had been tampered, he used Harry’s wand, and he still subdued Kingsley. “Savage will check them.”

Harry paces around the kitchen, trying to think.

“Can’t you transfigure something to look like you still have them?”

“I will,” Voldemort looks unconcerned with the impending visit. “But he will be able to tell the difference. There was a certain magical signature keyed to them.”

Harry runs a hand through his hair, no doubt making it stick up even more. “Then what do we do?”

The ‘we’ is very novel. It is profoundly different from ‘we are having breakfast,’ or ‘we duel’.

This ‘we’ places Harry and Voldemort on one side, and the Ministry on the other.

“The Confundus Charm or the Imperius,”Voldemort says, and he sends the rest of the bread and butter to the pantry, without even moving a muscle.

“The Charm,” Harry says.

Voldemort gives him an amused look. “I wasn’t asking you to pick, Harry. I was merely conveying the most simple solutions.”

“I don’t want the Imperius.” It is a dark spell and it can be long lasting. “So-”

“That’s quite enough demands for today,”Voldemort speaks, and just like that the amusement and easy going attitude dissolves.

He can jump through emotions with dizzying speed sometimes. It gives Harry whiplash.

Harry opens his mouth-

He won’t harm them. He agreed to it, didn’t argue the matter. Compromise.

However, it is a slippery slope; very slippery. The bar is getting lower every day and Harry doesn’t like it. One moment he is agreeing with an Unforgivable, and what will he be forced to agree to in the future, so he may keep others relatively safe from Voldemort?

What choice do I he have?

“Ok,” he says, a very bitter taste in his mouth.

Voldemort’s anger passes just like that, and he bites into his toast, satisfied.

(-)

“I’d prefer the Confundus,” Harry tries one more time, hastily, minutes before Kingsley is set to arrive. “If you can.”

Voldemort narrows his eyes.

“It would make me feel better,”Harry goes on.

“I don’t care about your feelings,” Voldemort says, flicking his wrist and big fake draperies appear to cover the empty space on the wall left by Walburga.

Without another word, he goes up the stairs.

Harry remains by the door, waiting.

(-)

Savage heads straight for Voldemort, who is standing for once. The Auror grabs his hands, roughly.

Harry’s heart is in his throat, praying Voldemort doesn’t lose his temper, praying the whole thing will somehow not end in tragedy.

It’s frightening how capable Voldemort is.

For a second, when Savage lifts his sleeves, there is a glimpse of shock and fear in his eyes as his wand taps on the fake cuffs-

Voldemort doesn’t move, doesn’t whisper, nothing; and yet the look in Savage’s eyes quickly goes away, replaced with a glazed one, unfocused.

“All in order,” he says, and he steps back.

He blinks, the slightest of lines between his eyebrows. He looks confused, but that too passes as soon as it happens.

“Someone talked,” Kingsley says, straight to the subject, as always. “These people know you are alive, there is no doubt about it.”

Voldemort doesn’t react.

Kingsley gives him a scrutinising stare. “It seems we were wrong; they do not want to free you. They want to kill you.”

Harry already feared that. Voldemort knew that.

Kingsley expects a reaction. Voldemort doesn’t disappoint.

“I am trembling in fear. How will I ever sleep again?” he drawls, every word dripping with ridicule.

“You insist you don’t know them, but you do. Clearly.”

“Clearly,” Voldemort agrees.

A muscle jumps in Kingsely’s jaw. He gives Harry a hateful glance that translates very plainly into ‘see? I told you’.

“Don’t you want them caught?” Savage intervenes. “They want to kill you!”

“I heard it the first time, no need to repeat yourselves.”

“I don’t understand you,” Kingsley spits.

“A common problem amongst small insects looking at their betters,” Voldemort says.

“So you won’t cooperate, even now?” Kingsley phrases it like a question, but he delivers it like a statement.

Voldemort laughs. “You want me dead. You tried your best, for years. And you think I would want to help you catch someone that also wants me dead? Let them try. We all know they will be as successful as you were in this endeavour.”

Kingsley turns to Harry; he knows by now that Harry wants Voldemort alive.

“He will be better protected at the Min-”

“No,” Harry says, apologetic. “Sorry, but no.”

They’ve had this conversation already; Kingsley understands it is useless to insist.

“If-when- they will come to your doorsteps, he,” his head jerks to Voldemort, “won’t die. But you might. Your luck can only hold for so long.”

“Oh, fuck you!” Harry spits. “Luck. Really? Is that what you think of me? That I am lucky and that’s how I survived all the shit in my past?”

“Truth hurts, doesn’t it, Harry?” Voldemort intervenes.

Maybe that is why Harry’s angry. Because it is, at least in part, the truth.

“No, I don’t think that,” Kingsley ignores Voldemort. “You are an exceptional wizard-”

Voldemort snorts.

“But-” Kingsley adds, loudly, to cover it. “If they come in great numbers- and they will, when their target is him, then there is only so much you and two Aurors watching your house can do.”

Harry was concerned about it, before. He worried they would come and hurt or kidnap Voldemort when Harry was not home.

But that was before. Voldemort got his magic and wand back since then.

The only people that will get hurt will be the ones attempting to pass through the door.

“Is this a risk you are willing to take? For this monster?” Kingsley asks, meeting Harry’s eyes.

“I’m confident the wards will hold,” Harry says, as calmly as he can. Voldemort said they will; he could have lied, of course, but it is the only answer he has for Kingsley.

“Try to pry it out of him,” Kingsley suggests, when Harry is leading the Aurors down the stairs. “He clearly wants to keep your favour.”

Harry’s cheeks blush, remembering what assumptions Kingsley made about them, last they met.

And they weren’t even fucking back then.

“We need to catch these wizards, Harry. They’re gaining ground all over the United Kingdom.”

“I know,” Harry whispers. He reads the newspapers. “I’ll try.”

Kingsley sighs and leaves without another word, Savage close behind him.

“Why do they want you dead?” Harry asks when he’s back in the library.

He knows there are more chances to get an answer to this than asking for an identity.

“I insulted them.” He’s seated on the couch, his posture relaxed, legs slightly spread, one of his hands on the armrest, playing with his wand.

Harry snorts. “You insult everybody.”

Voldemort smiles. “Not everyone takes it in stride, as you do.”

Harry rolls his eyes, leaning on one of the bookshelves. Much sturdier than it used to be.

“Thank you,” he says, softly. “For going with the Confundus. I’m grateful.”

Positive reinforcement. Hermione says it works miracles.

He’s not a dog.

“Why don’t you show me how grateful you are?”Voldemort asks, and even if Harry was dense enough to not get the meaning, Voldemort parts his legs a little more, to make sure Harry understands what he wants.

Just when he gets used to the way sex works between them, Voldemort likes to change it up.

When Harry kneels between his legs, Voldemort just looks at him, expectingly, and that never happened before. He’s supposed to take control; that’s what always happened so far, and Harry found comfort in that, knowing what to expect.

He swallows, peering up, uncertain.

“Go on. Show me,” Voldemort says and if his tone was mocking or amused, Harry would get up and leave but it isn’t the case.

His eyes are always dark, but when he’s aroused, they get darker and they are almost black when he looks down at Harry.

Harry reaches out carefully, because Voldemort never lets him take off his clothes or touch too much.

Yet he’s asking for it now.

Harry parts his robe and then hesitates a little, before going for the trousers’ buttons. His fingers feel numb as he opens them.

His knees are already aching, even if there’s a new, surprisingly soft carpet underneath them. But Harry is just so aware of his body, in painstaking detail.

Voldemort is half hard already, Harry can see it through his underpants. His wand is still in his hand, twirling, and it makes Harry slightly anxious.

In an unexpected kind of way. It’s not fear, not exactly; it’s…something else.

Voldemort hardens quickly in Harry’s hand. Harry never touched his cock, not with his fingers at least. He’s not really sure what to do, which is nonsensical; Harry has a cock as well, and he’s well practiced in handling it, but he and Voldemort clearly have vastly different preferences.

Shifting further, Harry bends over his lap and takes it in his mouth.

Will he ever do this for me? The thought makes his own cock throb, tapped in his jeans.

(-)

There are always plenty of Aurors at Harry’s Quidditch games and practices, their eyes never leaving Harry.

It makes his teammates uneasy and he hates it.

It used to be the only place where he could have fun, forget about the outside world.

(-)

“Is he acting up or something?” Ron asks.

More like blurts it out.

“Ron!” Hermione hisses.

Harry puts down his hot pink empty, miniature tea cup.

“No!” Rose yells. “Drink!”

“Oh, sorry!” Harry takes it back and pretends to drink; Rose imitates him.

They are having a tea party. One of many; Harry always insists he is to come to their place, or they should meet at the park or anywhere else but Grimmauld.

“No, Ron, he’s -you know, as he is.”

“You hadn’t invited us over in a while; mind you, it’s not like I want to spend time with the-”

“Ron,” Hermione sighs, pouring them all some more imaginary tea.

“But I’m just wandering if everything is alright.”

“It is,” Harry lies. “Sorry to break it to you, but you two aren’t as interesting as you used to be. Now I’m more interested in this lovely little lady,” he says, winking at Rose. She giggles, proud to show many teeth. “And she’ll never step foot inside that house, so I have to come over.”

Rose will never meet Voldemort, that’s for sure.

“Since Ron so tactfully brought it up,” Hermione says, biting her lip. “I think it’s good for him, that we come over.”

Ron makes a face. Possibly so does Harry.

“No, truly. Listen, he’s forced to spend time with a muggleborn and a-” she mouths the word ‘blood traitor,’ so Rose won’t hear it, even if she’s only a few months over a year. “And he can see we aren’t as he thought us.”

Harry doesn’t tell Hermione Voldemort knew exactly who they are, since long before the war ended.

But Hermione must get it from his face. “Fine,” she adds. “Then he can witness how normal people connect. He-”

“He knows that, too.”

“I’m sure he’d seen people interact before,” Hermione is getting heated. “But it must have been long ago, maybe even as far back as when he’d been a student. But since then, God knows what company he kept. I think he’s making progress, he doesn’t seem to dislike us-”

“He’s pretending,” Ron points out. “Because he knows that if he doesn’t play nice, Harry will take him back to Kingsley.”

“Thank you, Ron,” Hermione snaps at him. “I am aware. It’s just that from the first time we went over, he started talking more every time-”

“With you,” Ron mumbles.

“Well, he’d hardly want to talk to you, since all you do is glare at him and hold on to your wand for the entire visit! Last time I was there, we had a chat about elemental runes and I think he genuinely enjoyed it.”

“So what if he did? I don’t wanna make him enjoy anything!”

“It’s not about that,” Hermione insists, pushing a long strand of hair behind her ear, her other hand resting on her belly.

“You want to rehabilitate him?”

Hermione glowers at Ron, but she slumps her shoulders after a few seconds.

“I don’t know. It’s silly, probably. It’s just- it’s such a waste. A mind like his…he should-he still could do something good with it! If he’d share his theories, if he’d speak of all the magic he knows-”

“A mind like his?” Ron asks, incredulous. “You mean twisted and cruel-”

Harry takes Rose to another room when the argument between her parents gets heated.

Incredible how Voldemort manages to cause strife even when he’s not present.

(-)

Harry combs through the thin books he’d bought for Teddy, carefully, trying to decide if they are suitable for a child his age.

“They never have parents in these blasted things!” Harry complains, slamming a booklet with famous fairytales on the table.

“That’s good,” Voldemort interjects and Harry glares at him.

“It is,” he insists. “The boy doesn’t have parents either, he can relate better to the little heroes.”

Harry opens his mouth but closes it again after a second. It’s useless to try to explain anything of the nature to the man.

He returns his attention to the stack of gifts, separating them in two piles, one for Rose and one for Teddy.

“It’s all you want, isn’t it?” Voldemort speaks after a while, watching Harry intensely. “A little family.”

“Well, I’ll never get it,” Harry snaps at him.

Voldemort took his first family and now he took Harry’s chance at another one. Harry can hardly marry and have a kid with Voldemort tied to him.

(-)

“Who waits for you on the other side?” Harry asks, cautiously. It’s a very touchy subject, death. “For me, it was Dumbledore. At King’s Cross. I think I told you.”

“I wouldn’t mention that name in my bed, if I were you,” Voldemort says.

Harry had avoided his room since that terrible morning when Voldemort got his wand back.

But now he’s in it again, between silk green sheets. He’s still on his stomach, aching pleasantly, lacking the energy to move.

Voldemort’s back to his domineering ways; Harry doesn’t protest, not at all.

He wonders if Voldemort will let him sleep there. Besides that first night, Voldemort always leaves after sex, but now Harry is in his bed. Where is he going to go if Harry just falls asleep?

In the other dozen rooms. Or he’ll just curse you out of it.

“Is there anyone-” Harry tries again, but trails off.

Was Voldemort alone, in all that whiteness, scared and desperate and confused? Or maybe it was dark for him, maybe-

“Yes, there is someone,”Voldemort cuts over him. “Now shut up and sleep.”

(-)

“Did a vampire bite you, Harry?!” Teddy asks, concerned. He lowers his voice, his face scrunched up with anxiety. “Or a werewolf?”

Harry frowns. “No, of course not.”

“Then what is on your neck?”

Oh, fuck!

Harry instinctively moves his hand to cover what must be a hickey. He splutters, terrified and embarrassed.

“Looks like a doxy bite to me,” Andromeda says, highly amused. When Harry turns her way, she gives him a knowing look.

“Doxies bites are small! Remember when one bit me on the hand?” Teddy says, abandoning his new toy motorbike to come closer to Harry, who is still gripping the side of his neck.

“Must have been a big doxy,” Andromeda says, smile broadening, and Harry just gets redder and redder. “See, that’s why he’s flushed like that. And that dreamy look in his eyes, the way he dropped his cup two times-”

“Yes!” Teddy says, nodding. “I noticed!”

“That’s the doxy venom, intoxicating him.”

Harry wants the floor to swallow him.

“Oh, no!” Teddy throws himself into Harry’s chest. “Will you be alright? Is there a cure, Nana? We can take him to Lucius, he always knows how to fix things!”

“Oh, don’t you worry love, it will ultimately pass.”

Harry doesn’t know how he gets through the rest of the visit.

“I’m so, so sorry,” he tells Andromeda before he leaves. “I will- it will not happen again.”

He’d rather not mention it at all, head lowered between his hunched shoulders, but he doesn’t want Andromeda to think Harry is a bad influence on Teddy.

Andromeda snorts. “What are you sorry for, boy? It’s perfectly normal.”

She’s grinning and what a difference it makes; she looks far younger when she’s not her stern, scornful self.

“Teddy-”

“Teddy is six, he can hardly understand. Even if he would, there’s nothing wrong with it. Dare I say, I’m glad you found someone to spend some time with. Maybe that will pull that stick out of your arse.”

“Hey!”

She shrugs. “You can bring them over, if you think it’s something serious and they’ll stick around. I have nothing against it. Of course, if they are a muggle, we’ll have to make adjustments.”

“He’s not a muggle,” Harry blurts.

Fuck, can you shut up!?

“Splendid!” Andromeda’s eyes twinkle. “How come I didn’t read about it in the papers?”

“No one knows. Not even Ron and Hermione,” Harry adds, extremely uncomfortable. But Andromeda sometimes takes Teddy to play dates with Victoire, if Molly isn’t there, and Ron might visit Bill at the same time. Harry doesn’t want this piece of information to reach them.

“Oh my, how did you manage that feat? And why hide it from your friends?”

Harry doesn’t know what to say.

She frowns. “Because he’s a gentleman? Though gentleman might be the wrong word, he quite mauled your neck, love.”

Harry is going to die! He groans and looks away.

“In any case, I know you were raised by muggles, but it is not an issue here. Men can date men.”

“No, no. It’s not that.”

Andromeda waits, eyebrow raised.

How in the world has he ended up talking about this with her, of all people|?

A terrible thought comes to Harry. “For Merlin’s sake, don’t tell your sister! Malfoy can’t get wind of this!”

“I assure you, Lucius has zero interest in you love life.”

Oh, he would. He knows Harry’s somehow involved with Voldemort.

“I’m not a gossip. You know I don’t care. I just wanted to let you know that you have my permission to bring them over, if you think Teddy should meet them.”

“No, no. Not going to happen.”Ever.

Andromeda nods. “Nothing serious, then?”

Harry shrugs, because what else can he say?

“I hope you’re making Sirius proud, having dalliances right in front of Walburga’s portrait,” Andromeda says gleefully, and yes, she is a Black, as mad as the rest and just as cruel.

“Sirius wouldn’t be proud,” Harry says, dejectedly.

It feels awful to say it out loud.Sirius would be livid with him.

Her sharp eyes take Harry in. She tilts her head, regarding him, in an eery imitation of Voldemort.

“So you don’t want your best friends to know, you insist Lucius never learns of it, you don’t want to bring him around Teddy- are you having an affair with a former Death Eater?” she asks, incredulous. And then - “Don’t tell me it’s Draco!”

“WHAT?” Harry speaks so loudly Andromeda winces. “The ferret? Oh Merlin, I might throw up! He’s- forget anything else, he’s married!”

She rolls her eyes. “Like that ever stopped anyone.”

(-)

“So now she thinks I’m shagging Malfoy! Ugh!” Harry shudders.“And it’s all your fault!”

Voldemort looks amused. “She’s delusional if she thinks any Malfoy would come within two feet of you. Your sense of what you call fashion alone would make them run in despair.”

Harry rolls his eyes.

“You’re mean,” Harry says, realising how it sounds when it’s too late to take it back.

“I’m mean? I’m a Dark Lord, Harry, what do you expect?”

Voldemort is lounging on the sofa, an open book on his chest, which never used to happen before. He always read at his desk.

My desk, his mind corrects, uselessly.

“Perhaps this will teach you to glance in a mirror before you leave the house, in the future.”

“Perhaps this will teach you not to bite me.”

“Unlikely,” Voldemort says, taking hold of his book and ignoring Harry for the rest of the evening.

(-)

It takes many dulling sessions before Harry realises Voldemort is teaching him things.

He doesn’t voice anything, but he keeps making Harry fall into the same trap over and over again until Harry finally learns how to avoid it.

He moves his wand deliberately, and eventually Harry is forced to admit it’s because he wants Harry to observe what he’s doing, to associate certain movements with certain spells.

Their sessions grow more intense too, gradual enough that it takes Harry a while to notice.

Nothing too sinister, but the jinxes grow nastier, more painful.

It makes Harry more alert, makes him move faster.

“I know what you’re doing,” Harry accuses him.

“Even you couldn’t have possibly missed it,” Voldemort drawls, giving the holly wand back to Harry.

Every single time, without exceptions, Voldemort ends the duels with the Disarming spell.

Harry is starting to hate the spell.

“Why?”

Voldemort sighs, as if tired of Harry’s stupidity.

“They can’t get inside this house. So they’ll come after you outside of it. I know you are being careful, but one day you will slip, and when that day comes, you’ll be grateful for having learned a thing or two.”

Harry pulls himself off the floor, limping a little.

As always, Voldemort doesn’t have a single scratch on him, though Harry almost got him with a stinging hex.

Next time, he promises himself, like he always does.

“If you care about my life, you could tell me who they are.”

“I don’t care that much.”

(-)

Eventually, Ron and Hermione come to his door, unannounced.

Harry just glares at them but doesn’t have time to say anything before Ron shoulders his way in, forcefully.

“We were in the area,” Hermione says, sweetly, the same thing Harry told them dozens of times.

Harry runs up the stairs, the fastest he’d run anywhere in his life.

“Ron and Hermione are here,” he says, panting for breath.

“Delightful,” Voldemort answer with a sneer, folding the Daily Prophet.

“Don’t-” Harry starts.

“Don’t start again. I am not going to curse them.”

“The cuffs-fuck! I’m going to delay them!” Harry runs back out, only to stumble right into Ron at the top of the stairs.

“Why don’t we head to the kitchen?” he asks, but he must look frantic, because Ron draws his wand.

“I don’t think so,” he says, jaw set in that determined way of his. “Hermione, stay back,” he says and marches to the library.

Hermione doesn’t listen to him, waddling right after her husband, Harry along them.

“Listen, there’s-let’s have a cup of tea-”

But Ron is already entering the library.

Harry blinks.

Their sofas are shabby again, all the furniture decrepit and old.

Voldemort is at his desk, the faint bulge of fake cuffs under his sleeves.

Wow.

Harry was only gone for five seconds.

“Good evening,” he says, folding the same paper he did before. “You didn’t tell me you were expecting guests, Mr. Potter.”

Ron looks around, suspiciously. Hermione is more discrete, but it’s clear she’s been expecting something too.

“They were in the area, apparently.” Harry says, sarcastically.

He refuses to leave them alone for the entire visit. Four bloody hours, but Harry doesn’t even go to the loo.

Harry has no leverage- before he was sure Voldemort understood that if he hurts his friends Harry would kill him; or at the very least send him back to the Ministry.

Now that he has his wand and magic back, neither of those options are valid.

But Voldemort is mostly silent, happy to ignore them as they talk amongst themselves. At some point it’s Hermione that draws him in a conversation about something nerdy.

Towards the end, she complains about a bill she’s been trying to make the Wizengamont pass.

“They always reject it, and I’m certain they don’t even read it!”

“I’m not convinced some of them even know how to read,” Voldemort says.

“What do you think about house-elves?” Hermione asks him.

“Merlin’s beard,” Ron mutters, hiding his face in his hands.

“I don’t think anything at all; why would I waste time on such lowly creatures?”

“Oh, no,” Harry and Ron say at the same time, because Hermione gets that look about her that signals she’s about to go on a tirade about elves and servitude, one they have heard at least a hundred times.

“But,” Voldemort adds, possibly sensing the impeding doom. “I could always learn more. Feel free to send me that bill proposal. I am sure I will find it riveting.”

Hermione can’t decide if she’s being mocked.

“If Mr. Potter will allow it, of course,” Voldemort continues.

“Whatever,” Harry says.

“Did you liberate that atrocious elf of yours?” Voldemort asks him after Ron and Hermione finally leave.

“I tried,” Harry says. “But Kreacher said he’ll kill me in my sleep if I suggest it again.”

“Where is it now?”

“He,” Harry says, with emphasis, “Is at Hogwarts.”

When three exhausted owls bring over Hermione’s bill proposal the next day, Voldemort looks surprised for once.

He sits at the desk, blinking at the mountain of parchment. “All this,” he says, when he recovers. “About house-elves?”

Harry laughs at him.

(-)

For the next few days, he hears mutterings about ‘exasperating mudblood, no wonder no one ever reads her papers’ and ‘snivelling, disgusting creatures’ as Voldemort goes through the parchments, quill in hand, striking entire paragraphs, with such force Harry is sure he’s perforating the parchment.

A week later, Voldemort hands Harry a neat scroll.

“Give it to the Mudblood,” he directs.

Harry pulls out his wand and checks it for curses.

“So little faith you have in me, Harry,” Voldemort says, close to his ear, his chest pressed to Harry’s back.

Harry shivers. “Reading about house-elves put you in the mood?” he asks, trying to feign disinterest.

“Watching you trying so hard to foil my plans and failing miserably puts me in the mood.”

(-)

“Wait up!” Harry pushes away at the witches and wizards surrounding him, glad for the excuse to get away from all the adulation.

Malfoy doesn’t stop, pretending he hadn’t heard him, but Harry runs until he’s at his shoulder.

“Can we talk?”

Malfoy’s face is carefully blank. No usual sneer, no look of contempt.

“Of course,” he answers, and even the posh superiority is missing from his voice. “I would suggest a private place,” he goes on nodding to the two Aurors dressed in simple robes, watching from afar.

“Yeah,” Harry agrees, aware of all the eyes on them. And it is a busy day in Diagon, more onlookers than usual.

“My manor is private,” Malfoy says, and Harry makes a face. “Or your home; the most private places in Britain.”

Harry shakes his head. “My house isn’t...safe.”

Malfoy immediately gets his meaning.

They Apparate to Malfoy Manor, even if Harry loathes that house. He has the worst memories of it. Every time he entered through those gates, something terrible happened.

“Let Narcissa know I have a guest and I am not to be interrupted,” Malfoy barks at an elf, before taking Harry in an enormous office.

A solid, wooden desk dominates the room; behind it, on the wall, the Malfoy Family Crest stands proudly, surrounded by portraits of blond men with pointy faces, in various stages of life, ranging from young to very old.

“Please, sit,” Malfoy says, and Harry had never heard him so polite and accommodating.

Well, except when he was addressing Voldemort, but he hadn’t been polite then, he’d been grovelling in fear.

They both sit on opposite sides of the desk.

Harry isn’t sure what he wants to say. It had been an impulsive decision; he’d been trying to escape the people harassing him for autographs, he’d seen the light blond hair in the distance and he’d just went after him.

But now in the silent office, with Malfoy looking at him expectedly, Harry isn’t sure how to proceed.

“What are you doing with Teddy?” he asks, because it’s easier.

Malfoy clearly hadn’t foreseen that question. He shows his surprise by lifting an eyebrow, before quickly subduing his face back to blank.

“I am gratifying my wife,” he answers. “The boy and her sister are dear to her.”

Right. Andromeda said the same. Harry knew it and believed it. He’d just asked it to break the silence, but it persists.

“However, if it bothers you, I will cut all contact,” Malfoy says, when it’s clear to him Harry won’t say anything else. “They will not be welcome in this house anymore, if that is your wish.”

Harry blinks at him. What? Since when does Malfoy care about-

Since he saw you side by side with Voldemort.

The politeness makes sense, in hindsight.

“Listen, it’s not like that,” Harry hurries to say, because he feels dirty having someone fear him and for that reason. “I didn’t join him or anything. He was a captive and-”

“With all due respect, Mr. Potter,” Malfoy interrupts him, raising a hand. “I have no desire to know yours and my lord’s business. Unless, of course, my lord wishes for me to know.”

“Oh, come off of it,” Harry spits. “You don’t need to act like that. I’m not going to tell him we talked so feel free to be your obnoxious, disgusting self.”

“How dare you, you filthy little half-blood, in my house-” one of the portraits start, indignant.

Malfoy points his wand at it and the man keeps talking, his lips are moving but no sound comes out.

“I apologise, Mr. Potter,” Malfoy says, still no expression on his face.

“Stop it!” Harry is getting really irritated. “You called me worse than that. You tried to kill me and you think I’ll be bothered your dead relatives call me a half blood?”

“That was before,” Malfoy says, smoothly.

Before you walked with Voldemort into his house, shoulder to shoulder.

“I’m not going to snitch on you or anything like that, ok?”

Malfoy gives him a wary, look. “My lord knows everything, Mr. Potter. Everything. Nothing goes past him.”

Harry rolls his eyes. “This will,” he says.

“If you say so,” Malfoy says, clearly not believing.

Another long stretch of silence.

“So you won’t tell Kingsley, right?” Harry goes on. It’s been months, and nothing happened.

“Of course not,” Malfoy doesn’t waste a second.

Harry stares at him. “I don’t know how anyone trusts you,” Harry says. “Voldemort-” Malfoy’s jaw twitches at the name. “Kingsley. How can anyone trust your word? It means nothing.”

Still no reaction, though all the portraits are waving hats or fingers at Harry, in silent outrage. One even makes a very rude gesture that Harry had never seen an old man displaying.

“I understand why you feel this way,” Malfoy says. “But I will keep my lord’s secret. I am grateful to be given another chance.”

The man is talking like Voldemort is in the room with them. It is frustrating.

“Who is behind the attacks?” Harry goes on, because that is why he came. Voldemort won’t tell him. Harry should take advantage of Malfoy’s fear.

But Malfoy gives him a scrutinising look; Harry can see the wheels turning behind his cold, grey eyes.

“I don’t know,” he says, and Harry scoffs.

“Kingsley said you gave him a few names of men that are likely to lead this new wave of terrorism,” Harry says. He bites his cheek. “We would like to know those names as well.” He hates himself a little as he says it, at the implication.

“I will be glad to tell him about it,” he says, carefully.

“You can tell me,” Harry says. “I’ll tell him.”

“Hmm,” Malfoy scratches his jaw. “I have no doubt you would, Mr. Potter. Like I said, you can’t hide anything from him. But still, I would...it’s prudent we have this conversation with him here.”

Harry sighs. It was worth a shot. But Malfoy probably guessed Voldemort knows already- he told Kingsley as much “the dark lord would be the only one to know for sure, alas he’s dead”.

And he guessed Voldemort doesn’t want Harry to know.

Well, this was a waste of time.

“One more thing, Mr. Potter,” Malfoy says when Harry stands. He looks uncertain.

“Yes?”

“My son,” he starts but closes his mouth for a few seconds. “We have properties in France. Would it be alright if my son would take his wife and child to live there, for a time?”

Harry is speechless. He has a tightness in his chest, looking at Malfoy, asking permission- only he’s not asking for Harry’s permission. He’s asking for Voldemort’s.

Harry softens. “Listen, I- he can’t hurt Draco. He can’t hurt anyone. I won’t let him. I won’t tell him we talked or- I can’t tell you what to do with Draco, but he’s safe.”

Malfoy stands, and even surrounded by grand furniture, his family crest at his back, proud and pure silver, portraits of his ancestor covering the wall, he looks vulnerable.

“I’ll wait for an answer,” he says, completely ignoring all Harry said.

(-)

“I’m home,” Harry says loudly, as he does every time he’s walking through Grimmauld Place’s door.

He doesn’t wait for an answer, because Voldemort never responds.

He’s still in his Quidditch clothes and he can’t wait to get out of them. He hadn’t changed in the locker rooms, not with the Aurors insisting to follow him everywhere.

But he stops on the first floor, before heading for his room.

He thought he heard a noise…a soft voice- no, it couldn’t have been. But he heads to the library, just to make sure.

He drops his broom when he goes through the door.

There is a child in the library.

Harry’s heart flies to his throat, chocking him, before plummeting to his stomach.

A little girl, about the same age as Teddy, dressed in a dirty, frayed nightgown, sits on the carpet at Voldemort’s feet.

She looks up to him and stands immediately, a terrified expression on his face.

Harry takes out his wand. He tries to speak, but he can’t. Terror gripped every single cell in his body.

“Hey, come here,” he forces the words out. “It’s ok.”

She has some scratches on her bare arms, but they look old. She doesn’t seem freshly injured. And Harry will make sure it stays that way, no matter what.

But the girl hides behinds Voldemort’s long legs. “It’s that wicked man,” she whispers.

“Harry is not wicked. He’s my friend.” Voldemort reaches down, grabs the girl by the shoulder-

“Don’t touch her!” Harry says, shrilly, moving forwards, wand ready.

Voldemort rolls his eyes. “Child, don’t be shy. Come now, meet Harry.”

She shakes her head, eyes wide, but Voldemort pushes her in Harry’s direction.

It dawns on Harry, what this is.

He went and kidnapped a child, to give Harry a family.

“All you want is a little family, isn’t it?”

How, how did he get out?

Harry feels like yelling.

Later, he thinks.

First, he needs to get this child to safety.

“Hey,” he says again, trying to smile, though his face feels stiff. “Hey, it’s ok. I’m Harry. Come here, please. You’ll be ok.”

She stumbles closer, pushed forward by Voldemort.

She starts to cry, silently.

“He killed mama,” she says and Harry’s blood freezes. He stares up at Voldemort-

“No, he didn’t. That was a lie,” Voldemort says. “Harry never killed anyone.”

What?

The girl runs back to Voldemort, hides behind his legs again.

“What’s going on? What did you do? How did you leave the house? The Oath-”

“You said I could leave Grimmauld to save an innocent soul,” Voldemort says, looking extraordinarily pleased with himself. “Here she is, as innocent as they get.”

“He killed mama. He is evil!”

Voldemort bends down to her level. “No. A woman killed your mother. Her name is Molly Weasley.”

Oh God. Oh, Merlin. Oh crap!

“She’s-no! She’s Bellatrix’ daughter?”Harry asks, dizzy.

“Yes.”

“But-but-” Harry stares, uncomprehensive.What?

“Rodolphus was taking care of her; when I demanded he hands himself in, he gave her to someone else. Now, Delphini, stop hiding. I told you, Harry didn’t kill your mother.”

“He killed my father!” she says, voice very high, tears running down her face. “Rody said so!”

A long sigh. “I’m here, aren’t I? I’m not dead.”

Harry feels faint. The room sways around him for a moment.

He looks closer at the girl. At her dark, beautiful brown eyes. Identical to Voldemort’s.

“Calm down, child,”Voldemort demands.

Harry keeps staring. “You’re her father?”

The world stopped making sense. Is Harry dreaming? Is he trapped in a horrible nightmare?

Voldemort gives him a strange look. “Why else would I bring her here? Did I ever gave you the impression I like children? Horrid little noisy things, demanding and messy. But she’s mine, and Rowle wasn’t treating her right. It’s my duty. Child, stop crying!” His voice gets hard, and that only makes the girl cry harder.

Voldemort looks miffed and out of his comfort zone.

Harry pockets his wand and goes to her. “Your name is Delphini?” he asks, putting himself between her and Voldemort.

She nods, hiccuping, but tries to go around him and back to her father.

Merlin, this can’t be real.

“That’s such a pretty name. Never heard anything like it.”

“Mama chose it,” she says, hesitantly. And yes, those are Voldemort’s eyes, no mistake about it, when she fixes them on Harry’s face. “Rody said so.”

Her face is very pale and dirty, her hair resembles a bird nest, a long, tangled mess of black curls.

She’s incredibly skinny.

Harry’s chest hurts.

“It’s very beautiful,” he says, voice cracking. “How old are you, Delphini?”

She hiccups. “Seven.” She frowns. “I think.”

“Oh, wow,” Harry says, smiling in what he hopes is a reassuring way. “Seven, huh? You’re a little lady.”

She looks at him from under long, wet lashes. A small, tentative, watery smile pulls at her pouty lips. “I am?”

“Oh, yes.”

“I’d like a nice dress like ladies have,” she says, tugging at her filthy, well warn nightgown. “But she wouldn’t let me. She kept me in the attic.”

So eerie. How is Harry’s destiny so fucking fucked?

He looks up at Voldemort, who had retreated further away.

“Where is this Rowle woman?”Harry asks.

“Dead, of course,” Voldemort answers with such satisfaction it leaves no doubt he was the one to kill her.

Later, Harry thinks. I’ll deal with this later. The girl needs all my attention now.

He makes a gesture with his head towards Delphi, to signal Voldemort shouldn’t speak of this in front of a child-

“Oh, she knows Rowle is dead. She was there when I killed the hag.”

Delphini nods, empathically wiping her tears away, and she slips past Harry and closer to Voldemort.

“Yes. You promised, and you did!” She stares up at Voldemort and when she smiles, there is confidence in it.

“See? Now you don’t have to cry anymore.”

Chapter 14

Chapter Text

Harry spends a few hours trying to put Delphini at ease. It’s complicated; Harry is still dazed and she, understandably, is scared.

“Where is father?” she keeps asking, peeking around the room.

Voldemort had long since left the room. On one side, Harry is grateful; Voldemort shouldn’t be around children. On the other, the girl would clearly feel safer with him around.

“He is busy,” Harry says. “You will see him later, ok?”

She doesn’t trust him. Because Rodolphus told her Harry Potter had killed her parents, had showed her pictures of Harry in the newspapers and taught her he is the enemy, her mortal enemy.

But Rodolphus also said her father was the wisest man in the world, and when news reached them that Voldemort was alive, he told Delphini to always listen to him.

And Voldemort says Harry is a friend.

So the poor girl is conflicted.

She has nothing. No clothes, no toys, just the wand Bellatrix was using at the Battle of Hogwarts, salvaged by Rodolphus. It is in a box Delphini clutches close to her chest, doesn’t let go of, even when Harry takes her down to the kitchen to feed her. She’s terribly skinny.

She eats fast, falls upon the food ravenous, getting herself even dirtier.

It is so painfully obvious she hadn’t been fed properly. Harry knows all the signs, because he’d lived through them.

Eventually her eyes close, exhausted, and even is she tries to fight it, she falls asleep on the sofa in the library.

“You killed someone!” Harry whispers-yells when Voldemort finally makes an appearance. “You got out and killed someone!”