Chapter 8
Light came creeping into the bedroom through tall windows in shades of red and purple and then in strengthening beams of orange and yellow. It crawled over the mahogany bed posts and maroon feather down comforter until it finally reached Harry’s dark eyelashes. He turned once and raised an arm over his eyes to keep out the sunlight. His consciousness faded in and out of dreams that were as insubstantial as mist. Whenever a tug of his mind prodded him to wake up, the cool air and warm blankets pulled him back to sleep. The sun was bright yellow and rising past the curtains when he finally opened his eyes.
He was alone in the room. His body was naked underneath the sheets and duvet. He pushed himself up onto his elbows and looked around the room, bewildered.
He went to swing his legs over in the bed and felt for the first time the soreness coming from deep inside that radiated out to his hips and back. He froze and memories came flooding back to him. The overwhelming pain of penetration and the humiliation of his response. Voldemort’s eyes glowing bright and filled with lust just beyond his own. He reached up and touched the raised skin on the back of his neck. Blood or- he couldn’t tolerate the thought of what else- flaked off at his touch. He pulled his hand away with mingled disgust and disbelief.
Reality took on a dreamlike texture. The room he was in was unfamiliar. He was naked and saw no clothes to change into. His memories felt impossible in the bright light of day, but he ached. The two doors on either side of the bed could go anywhere or have anyone waiting behind them. The thought taking form in his mind that the Dark Lord could be behind them- that he would eventually have to face him again- filled him with a dread more terrible than anything he’d ever experienced.
He stayed indecisively in bed with the blanket clutched in his hands. The logic that had underlined his life seemed to be falling away. What had happened the night before was not the kind of thing that was supposed to happen to him.
The room was swaying. He got to his feet feeling pain intensify and radiate up and down his back. He gathered up a layer of sheet around him like a makeshift robe and stepped stiffly to the bedpost until he had to stop. His legs were shaking. Panic was rising in waves. His throat tightened and he became aware that he was going to throw up.
He shuffled to one of the doors and threw it open. He was lucky to find a large, empty bathroom. He clamped a hand over his mouth as he felt the bile rise until he was leaning over the toilet bowl and retching up thin, clear liquid. His breath was hot and fast but couldn’t seem to fill up his lungs, and then he felt liquid start to leak out of him.
It wet his thighs as he was still trying to understand what it was.
His face went chalky white. He grabbed frantically for a towel and tried to clean himself. It kept coming out. Thick and slow. His breath came faster but his hands seemed to slow down and become clumsy.
The door knob rattled. Harry froze like an animal in headlights. He dropped the towel and held the bedsheets up higher, panicking. Two knocks came on the door, slow and steady. He backed up away from the door but there was nowhere to go. The only window was too small for a body to fit through.
The lock turned. The short, portly figure of the healer Ysvley entered the bathroom with his wand out. He wore the clean white garbs of St Mungo’s hospital and a calm, guarded expression. He stayed an arm span and a half away like Harry was a wild, unpredictable animal.
“Hello, Harry.” His voice was bland and soft. He pulled a brown bottle with a handwritten label out of his coat and set it on the bathroom counter. When Harry recoiled, he said. “It’s only a calming potion.”
The last potion Harry had been given was an aphrodisiac. The evidence of what had happened immediately afterwards was all over him. A bed sheet clutched against his chest, bite marks on his neck, swollen lips. Shame almost made him want the calming potion, but there could be anything in that bottle.
When Harry didn’t move, Ysvley said. “I’ve been tasked with healing and assisting you this morning. Would you like to take a bath?”
He did want a bath. Even as they stood there, his thighs were becoming wet again. Memories were coming back, too. He was extremely conscious of every place he’d been touched. His mouth, ears, neck, chest, thighs, ass. Even his thoughts felt compromised because he could be listening in and groping about in Harry’s mind. It was like being naked under a microscope. Panic was making bile travel up his throat.
“Please take the potion. You’ll feel better.”
“I just want to take a bath.” He shifted from side to side in discomfort as cum dripped all the way down to his calves. He remembered feeling it fill up inside of him, hot and gushing, and the way he’d cried out and lost his mind as his own orgasm had come onto him. Disgust was a tidal wave that swept him under.
“I’m afraid I’m going to have to insist you take the potion.” Ysvley’s expression was stiff as he pushed the potion across the counter towards his patient. “Then a bath and a medical evaluation.’
Harry heard the order behind his words and who they came from. His face twisted. He knew there was no more choice here than there ever had been. The cage of Malfoy Manor was closing in around him. He drank the potion and set the bottle back down. It tasted minty and spread warmth through his chest, arms and legs as it moved to his stomach.
The twisting of fear and guilt in his stomach settled into nothingness. He was no longer panicked or afraid or ashamed. The soreness in his back and the stickiness between his thighs were all now just physical discomforts that would soon be taken care of.
Ysvley held out the arm that didn’t hold his wand and Harry took it. They apparatus away to the large bathing room that Harry had scarcely been in since he’d stopped having to take medicinal baths. Ysvley waved his wand and one of the tubs was encircled by a screen of white linen. Steaming hot water and soap poured out of two faucets and sent small white bubbles up into the air.
”Take your time,” he said politely.
Harry undressed and got in. The warmth sunk into his aching muscles and wiped away the residual sweat and bodily fluids. When he sank completely underneath the water, he imagined he was in one of the simple white bathtubs at Hogwarts. He would re-emerge and join Ron and Hermoine for a breakfast of bacon, toast and blackberry jam in the Great Hall. They’d go off their classes bemoaning potions and chatting about Quidditch with all the time in the world.
He came up for air in Malfoy Manor. His emotions were far away but his thoughts were still his own. He knew what had happened last night would change things, but he thought there was a good chance it wouldn’t happen again. After all, Voldemort had never shown any sign of interest in him before and they had both had to take a potion to make what they did feasible. He didn’t think there was anything about him, plain and male, that would be more attractive than a woman like the one who had curtsied and made eyes at the Dark Lord during the Malfoy wedding. He comforted himself by going over these reasons again and again until they seemed to ring true.
More insidious than the rape were the scar lines on the back of his neck. There had to be a reason why Voldemort had chosen to do the ritual with him and he suspected he wouldn’t like the reason, whatever it was.
Once he’d repeatedly washed foaming soap over his body and between his legs, he grabbed a towel and a robe and climbed carefully out of the tub. Any flexing of his thigh muscles sent pain up his back and made all of his other abused muscles spasm and twitch. If he hadn’t taken the calming potion, the feeling of that soreness and having only a robe between his bare skin and the cold air would have sent him into a panic.
With his emotions firmly locked away, he was able to lay down on a surgical table and let Ysvley examine him and begin to smooth away the marks on his skin. It went smoothly until he was requested to spread his legs to allow a salve to be applied internally. Harry’s calm broke and his breath began to speed up, but Ysvley quickly summoned another dose of the calming potion. He could only tolerate being touched there once absolute calm, bordering on comatose apathy, washed over him.
As Harry was getting dressed and Ysvley was cleaning up the surgical table and potions he’d used, the healer suddenly straightened and pressed a hand to his forearm. His eyebrows lowered as he listened intently.
”The Dark Lord requests your presence in the library.” The healer went and cleaned his hands in the nearby sink. Harry did not respond immediately. His hand went up to the back of his neck and moved away when it touched the raised scar. “Do you need any more of the calming draught?”
“No,” Harry said. If he took any more he’d be calmed straight to sleep. He straightened the collar of his dress shirt so that it covered up more of his neck and went to see his captor.
On the coast of Italy, three hundred wizards had stormed the ancient assembly hall of their Ministero della Magia and taken as hostages their leader, the Alto Mago, fifteen wizards and witches of pure blood and mud blood status, three goblins, a hag, five centaurs and a Veela. The rest of the Italian Ministero workers had no choice but to accept a court of conservative pureblood wizards and witches who would put their elected officials on trial for treason, corruption and any other charge they could reasonably fabricate. The non-human members of the old assembly were stripped of their roles and sent off to prison with no pretense of a trial.
The construction of the second wizard school in England had been completed. Worthington School of Witchcraft and Wizardry had the capacity to house three hundred young witches and wizards of mixed blood purity and of questionable connections. The classes available to the new school were simple spell casting, magic creature handling, herbology and a required course of the history of wizarding relations with muggles and magical creatures. The teachers were eager young Death Eaters. The rules were set up to be strict and discipline enforced through physical punishment.
The school Lord Voldemort had been raised in was still under repairs. The grand halls and staircases were being rebuilt, polished and fitted with new splendor and grace. The portraits were removed from the halls and great black banners with the snake and phoenix of the new order placed along the walls. Teachers were being recruited from all over the world to teach ruins, transfiguration, arithmancy, potions, advanced spell casting and history in a more intensive curriculum to the pureblood young relatives of his new order.
New spies compromised by the captures of their families were leaking information about the Order of the Phoenix that revealed the organization to be scattered, dispirited and weak. Plans were being put in place to lure the leaders out of hiding and into the open where Death Eaters would be waiting with open arms.
When the Dark Lord walked through the gardens of the manor in the early morning, he didn’t even resent the sun shining and the birds singing. His shoulders had previously been tight with stress and exhaustion lurking on the corner of his mind but after waking up from a rare full night of sleep he felt energized and almost cheerful. He had strolled the garden, visited the Ministry, written letters in four languages to wizards around the world and begun work on a difficult but promising new project before Harry had even stirred in his sleep.
When his horcrux answered his summons and stepped into the library with his eyes determinedly downcast, the Dark Lord set the reports he’d received from his spies down with a smile that his young companion missed. Harry was wearing a full length black wizard’s robe and black dress pants. It was Draco Malfoy’s old cast offs and not sized appropriately for him. New clothes would have to be ordered.
”Did you sleep well?” Voldemort’s voice had a teasing lilt.
Harry’s lips tightened and his eyes narrowed but still he didn’t look up.
”Sit down, make yourself comfortable.” He waved his wand and a chair pulled out halfway down the long table. Harry sat. “I’ll keep this brief. A team of Death Eaters have prepared the Weasley home and occupants for your stay.” This dragged Harry’s eyes upward. There were emotions simmering below the still surface of his face. Anger, fear, hope, humiliation, despair. Steam had to be let off when a pot got hot enough. Harry had the look of boiling over written clearly on his face. The Dark Lord held up a finger. “One week. If you behave well, I’ll consider making your visits to the Burrow regular. You do want to see Arthur and Molly Weasley again, don’t you?”
Through their bond, Voldemort knew that there was nothing Harry wanted less than to receive anything from the man who had raped him the night before. The obvious carrot-and-stick manipulation behind it all offended him. Still, with the calming draught he had enough distance from his emotion to see that it was pointless to reject the gift. He had already resolved to do nothing that would attract the Dark Lord’ attention or punishment. Normally, the thought of returning to a place of so many good memories would thrill him, but now it was the prospect of escaping Malfoy Manor and Lord Voldemort’s attention. Slowly, Harry nodded.
”Have you gone mute?”
“What do you want me to say?” It came out icy.
”You could start with ‘thank you’.” The Dark Lord observed the angle of Harry’s clenched jaw. His face was pale in comparison to his dark hair and black robes. Voldemort’s mood was too good to mind the young man’s insolent tone but he thought hearing that reluctant ‘thank you’ would only make it better.
”Thank you.” Harry said robotically. Voldemort sensed from the connection between them that the calming draught was wearing off. Harry’s heartbeat was picking up. He prepared himself to ask the question on his mind and Voldemort patiently waited for him to get it out. “What are the Rites of Aine?”
“You know better than most what the rites are.” The memory of what they had done the night before made him want to smile but he repressed the impulse. Generously, he explained. “It’s an ancient wedding custom of the Celtic people from before the time they were invaded by the Romans. By mixing the ash of their ancient cedar trees, which tied them to the Earth, with the essence of their seed they were able to bind two willing participants to a location on the other’s bodies.”
He stood up from the table and reached his hand out in mid-air. In a blink, he was gone and a cold hand pressed to a fresh pink wound carved on pale skin. Harry looked up with wide eyed panic. Voldemort’s hand lingered on his neck and he felt the hair rising at the back of his neck as a wave of fear swept over his horcrux. He walked back to his seat.
”You’ll never be able to run from me again. If it makes you feel any better, I’ll never be able to run from you, either.” The rest of what the ritual did he kept to himself. Through their connection he sensed that the effects of the calming draught were almost entirely worn off. Harry was spiraling into paralyzing anxiety, shame, anger and despair. He was rigid in his chair and unable to look at the Dark Lord as he took his spot at the head of the table again. “You’ll keep the truth of our connection hidden from the Weasley’s.” He had to smile. “Well, you can’t tell them you’re my horcrux, but you’re welcome to tell them about our recent marriage.”
He’d said it for the pleasure of seeing Harry’s face change and wasn’t disappointed. Harry’s face flushed but he said nothing.
He pressed a finger to one of the tattoos on his forearm and summoned his Death Eaters. Five of them had been entrusted with the knowledge of Harry’s capture and with his safety at the Burrow. When they arrived, they saluted him without even a glance at their new charge.
”Keep him safe.” He instructed them. He had work to fill his time while Harry was gone but a strange reluctance filled him as the hour to part came. Without Nagini or Harry Potter around, the library would be quiet. To his young horcrux, he promised. “I’ll see you soon.”
The gardens and walkways of the Burrow at the tail end of summer were overgrown with weeds, stray chickens and fallen fruits that lay littered and split on the ground. The hole in the side of the building and the fire had been cleaned up, but he could see the evidence of it where new siding piled up on top of the old. With the setting sun hiding behind it in the West, a halo surrounded the lopsided and patched up little house. The sight of it made an uncomfortable swirl of anxiety, anticipation, homesickness and longing sweep over him. The Death Eater holding Harry by his elbow cursed as his foot slid along a rotted apple hidden in the tall grass. Two flanked him on either side and three followed behind with their wands held out.
The doors of the Burrow burst open when they were within a few feet of the red door and Molly Weasley soon had Harry in her arms. Her arms were strong, thick and warm. She smelt like cinnamon and moth-eaten blankets. Tears came up in his eyes, but he blinked them down.
“Oh, Harry, it’s good to see you.” She had no luck keeping her own tears away and she wiped them with the back of her sleeve as she held him back to look at him. He was sure she spotted differences in him the same way he did in her. She was thinner than she ever had been before and her hair became more gray than red. There were new lines on her forehead and around her mouth.
“Hi, Mrs. Weasley.” It was the same words he said every time he came to her at the end of summer, but his voice was deeper now. He couldn’t find the words for what he really wanted to say.
“Inside, now.” The Death Eater said gruffly.
Arthur Weasley was waiting in the door frame as they approached, and he clasped Harry’s hand warmly. He, too, had aged in the wake of his son’s death and his capture. Only a ring of hair was left around his head, and he wore a pair of glasses Harry hadn’t seen before. “Hello Harry. Come inside, quickly.”
The living room of the Burrow felt too small to hold so many people. Harry was shepherded by Molly towards the kitchen while Arthur stood toe to toe with the Death Eaters.
“There will be someone stationed just outside,” a female Death Eaters rasped. “You’ll obey the rules that were set. No funny business.” Arthur nodded and the Death Eaters turned on their heels and apparated out in a cloud of ash and smoke. When they had left, Arthur let out a deep breath he’d been holding in.
“Are you all right, Harry?”
Molly ladled up a bowl of steaming, chunky stew into a bowl and answered for him, “Of course he’s not okay, Arthur, just look at him. Come here, Harry, let’s get some warm food in you.”
“I’m all right,” Harry said. There were a hundred things he wanted to ask them, but he only stared stupidly as Molly put the bowl in front of him and started slicing away at a loaf of bread. “Are you… okay?”
The last time he’d seen Molly Weasley she’d been convulsing and shrieking in pain on a dirty floor. He couldn’t quite meet her eyes when he thought about the role he’d had in putting her there. Not to mention what had happened to her sons on account of being close to him.
Molly scoffed. “Me? I was fine as soon as I was out of that awful place. That Bellatrix Lestrange will get what coming to her for what she’s done someday, as they say, a wizard swallows that with which he poisons.” She reached out and grasped his hand. She was warmer than him. Her hands were calloused and dry. “We’ve been treated very well, all things considered, which I know we have you to thank for.”
Harry couldn’t meet her eyes. “Do you know anything about… the others?”
“We’re always being listened to.” Arthur warned. He came and joined them at the table. “Not that there is much to tell you. We were captured not long after you were.”
“Although they have made attempts to free us… bless them but I wish they wouldn’t go to the trouble. We’re not worth enough in the war for any young person to die over.”
“Who tried?” Harry asked. “Do you know who’s still alive?”
Arthur and Molly exchanged a glance. “Bill, Charlie, Fred and three others made an attack on the Death Eaters guarding the Burrow. When reinforcements came, they made their escape, but that’s the last we’ve heard of them. We do have a radio which receives news from the Ministry, and they announce it whenever they catch a ‘rebel’ or any poor soul who hides their muggle born friends, so we hope they’re still on the run out there. We had made our way into hiding with the rest of the Order but we… well, we came back to see Fred’s grave, which was our undoing.” Arthur Weasley’s face was grave. “We buried him on the top of the hill behind the Burrow and left it unmarked, but somehow, they knew or suspected we would come back. Just grateful it was only me and Molly. Last we knew, members of the Order were on the move in small groups throughout England. The Death Eaters got that much out of us but no more. Kingsley Shacklebolt was wise enough to keep his cards played close to the chest.”
“You saw Ron last, after the Battle of Hogwarts,” Molly said eagerly. “How was he?”
“I saw him more recently than that.” Harry explained what had taken place at Draco Malfoy’s wedding, the invasion, battle, and the flight on the hippogriff. Then he tracked backwards as they asked him about his imprisonment at Malfoy Manor and told them all about his day-to-day life. What had happened to him only days ago, he kept to himself.
“Harry.” Arthur Weasley considered his question carefully before he asked. “If you can’t answer this, then we’ll say no more about it, but why have we… that is to say, why are you being kept alive?”
“I can’t say.” Harry admitted. “Ron and Hermoine know why. I think they must have told the Order by now.”
“What about Dumbledore’s orders?” Mr. Weasley asked eagerly. “What was his plan? Of course— you know, don’t say anything you shouldn’t.”
Harry's stomach sank like a lead weight. Dumbledore’s plan had been for Harry to die and by failing to kill himself he’d left them all at the mercy of the Dark Lord. He wished now more than ever he had found the strength to stab the basilisk fang into his arm immediately or jump in front of an oncoming train. Alive, he was a burden on the lives of the people he cared about. A lump was caught in his throat. It felt like it wanted to rise. Against all his wishes, hot tears were gathering in his eyes.
After a moment of silence, Arthur cleared his throat and changed the subject. “It’s good to have you here, Harry. We‘ve been more worried about you than you can know.” He clasped a paternal hand on Harry’s shoulder and said kindly. “It can’t have been easy living with the Dark Lord.”
He had to blink the tears away and said quickly, “I just wish I was still able to help the Order. I don’t suppose… they didn’t let either of you keep your wands?”
”I’m afraid not. We are a magic-free household now. The first week we weren’t even able to start a fire or get a stove going, but we got it eventually. I have a very good stock of matchsticks and my plugs and e-lect-tonics will be a great help once I figure out how they work. It’s been a very difficult time.” Arthur said happily.
“It’s been awful.” Molly said with a glare at her husband. “It’s a good thing we’re not allowed to leave the house, otherwise I don’t know how we’d find the time to manage all the cooking and cleaning.”
As they spoke, a high pitched sound went up in the house. Harry froze. The noise was shrill and unfamiliar, it died down for a moment and came back up, like a bird or a fox shrieking. While he was trying to decide what could possibly have made a noise like that, Arthur rose from the table with a tired smile and began to bustle around the kitchen. He poured liquid softly steaming from the stovetop into a bottle and capped it off. By now Harry had placed the source of the cry. Arthur grabbed a small, baby blue blanket that had been warming near the fire and went up the stairs.
Harry made a guess. “You had another baby?”
“Us?” Molly Weasley chuckled. “Oh, you’re sweet. No, we’re past that point, but still happy to have a little one in the house. We’ll take you to meet him once you’re finished with your soup.” She bustled around cleaning things up and stacking plates in the sink. He noticed that she kept her back to him as she worked.
Harry put down his spoon. A few couples went through his mind that made him go cold. Ron and Hermoine. Bill and Fleur. He cleared his throat. “Who are the parents?”
Molly didn’t reply for a while, but her cleaning slowed down. “Maybe we should wait for Arthur to come back down.”
“Please tell me.” He said quietly. “It’s all right. I can handle it.”
She turned to face him. “It’s just not right. For you to have to deal with all of this- I mean, you’re so young still. I didn’t want things to turn out like this.” For a moment, tears gathered in her eyes. Then she straightened and found what she needed to say. She had lived through two wars in her lifetime, lost friends in her youth whose memories were beginning to blur and had a young son whose face followed her from her dreams into her waking hours. “Remus and Tonks were betrayed on a mission in France. They died fighting Death Eaters and then their son, Theodore Lupin, was discovered on the scene and brought back for us to raise.”
Harry stared through the window into the garden where the sky was still blue and the birds singing. What had he been doing in Malfoy Manor at the same time Remus and Tonks were struggling to defend their young son from the Death Eaters?
“Harry.” Molly Weasley approached and took his hands in her rough, calloused and wrinkled hands. “Remus and Tonks began their fight against the Death Eaters long before you were born. They knew the risks and they chose to take them, just like you did, just like all of us do. I know you feel like you’ve got to take on the weight of the whole movement because of the prophecy but we all have our roles to play. I know you loved them, so I won’t say any more, but I hope you don’t blame yourself.”
All he could do was nod.
“Do you want to meet Teddy?”
They went up the rickety, uneven wooden staircase. Arthur Weasley was coming out of Percy’s old bedroom with a trash bag. “Freshly changed, but he’ll need a bottle” he told them as they passed. “Merlin, I’d thought these days had passed.”
Percy’s bedroom had been renovated to suit the needs of a newborn. There was a changing table, a rocking chair, and an old wooden crib where a bed had once been. Everything had a well-worn look to it and the blankets were soft and fraying. Above the crib hung an enchanted boat that bounced merrily up and down over fluffy woolen waves. The wavering cries were intensifying into a real fit. Molly hustled over and lifted Remus and Tonk’s little son up into her arms.
He was doll sized even wrapped in blankets. She cooed down towards him and bounced him up and down as she brought him over. Harry had never held a baby before. He couldn’t even think of a time when he’d been face to face with a child under five years old. He held his arms out awkwardly as Molly passed him over.
Teddy’s little face was ruddy and round surrounded by thick blue blankets. His toothless pink mouth was wide open as he wailed and whimpered. Only a feathering of blond hair crowned his head. Harry tried to imitate Molly by bouncing him gently up and down and making hushing noises. Molly corrected Harry’s posture by bringing the baby closer to his chest and bringing his hand around to support the baby’s head.
“Sit here with him,” she instructed as she pushed Harry into a nearby rocking chair and began bustling about gathering laundry and straightening blankets. “It’s really such an inconvenience not to have magic at a time like this. The stove needs to be lit and the milk warmed up and watched. You need a funnel to get it into the bottle and then everything needs to be cleaned by hand. If it weren’t for having Arthur around the house to help, I don’t know how I would manage it. You grew up with muggles, how did they survive like this?”
Harry thought back to his own childhood with difficulty. “We spent a lot of time cleaning.”
She clucked her tongue. “What a waste.”
Arthur came in with the baby bottle and showed Harry how to test the temperature by dripping milk on the inside of his wrist. “Go ahead and give him the bottle,” Arthur encouraged. “No way to do it wrong, babies know what they’re about.”
Doubtfully, Harry pushed the bottle near the wailing open mouth. He had to nudge and shove the bottle before the baby’s mouth clamped down and began to suckle. Suddenly quiet and satisfied, Teddy gazed upwards with round blue eyes.
“He’s almost three months old now.” Molly said, looking down at him fondly. “A very well-behaved baby. Oh, I almost gave up on more children when Bill was a newborn. He howled and screamed all day and all night until I was just about ready to tear my hair out. Charlie was an easy baby, but if I took my eyes off him for a second as a toddler I’d find him halfway out the door.”
Harry was quiet but he let her talk. Everything in the room could be adjusted and fixed, she fussed with the clothes in the wardrobe, cracked open the window, and lit a candle in its lantern. She pressed a hand to his shoulder and left him there with the baby and his grief.
He couldn’t see Remus or Tonks in the newborn’s face. He wanted to. He squinted his eyes and brought into his head the way Remus had looked standing in front of his classroom or in the Pensieve as a young man. He remembered Tonks with her pig noise oinking at them all and causing such an uproar that Mad-Eye had to burst in to put an end to it, and the sober young woman she’d become after the war began.
There was a thought circling around his head like a wolf prowling. Molly and Arthur Weasley might live another forty years. Ron and Hermoine could live sixty. What he held in his arms was a hostage that might live a hundred years. He was immediately so ashamed of himself for the thought he wanted to cry.
He had been orphaned before he could remember but he’d been haunted by his parents all his life. Even in his happiest moments, when he’d been at Hogwarts and his friends were around him, he’d still thought of them and all that they could have had. No matter what Mrs. Weasley said, Remus and Tonks had made the sacrifice he hadn’t been able to. Now their son would grow up looking at pictures, listening to the stories of the people who had known them and wondering what life would be like if his mom and dad had been around for him to know. Warm tears splashed down and landed on the child’s face.
He thought about what his parents would think of him now.
Would they blame him for not being willing to die for the cause they way that they had? He remembered the way they had held him and smiled in a tattered old photograph. What expression would they have made if they could have seen him tangled in bed with the man who had murdered them? His chest heaved and his breath caught in his throat, wrenching out in sobs that he tried to muffle with the back of his hand.
Little Teddy looked up at him as he cried. There was no judgment in his eyes as they roved over Harry’s face. He was heavy and warm. When he had drunk his fill of milk, he closed his eyes and slept as Harry held him. His eyelashes were as light and fragile as spider’s silk and his cheeks were pink and warm.
For the sake of Remus Lupin and Nymphadora Tonks and the memory of an orphan boy who had longed for the warm touch of the people he belonged to, he swore to himself that whatever else he had left to give, he’d give to Teddy Lupin.
In the few hours of sleep that sneaked in and out in the long hours of the night, the Dark Lord often dreamed. The dreams were as vague as smoke and drifted away from him as he was only beginning to understand them. Sometimes it was the orphanage he dreamed of or the horrors he’d committed his life and the wretched faces of the people who had looked up at him with accusation, fear and grief. The dreams that were the hardest to handle were the ones of Hogwarts. When the world had spread before him as pure and untainted as fresh snow and he’d been warm and happy.
Lately, his dreams had taken a sexual turn.
On the second day of Harry’s absence, it was a faceless, anonymous form that had laid over him. Warm, slender and naked. The feeling of a face pressed against his neck and the pressure of a body laying on him felt like an embrace. When that body began to squirm and rock against him, he reached up to grab hold of it and felt it disappear like smoke in his fingertips.
The next night, it was Harry that appeared before him. He stood in an empty hall on a cold stone floor. His feet were barefoot and his robe was black. When he pulled the black robe off his shoulders and revealed the pale, naked flesh underneath, he kept his eye contact with the Dark Lord before him. His green eyes were electric and knowing. His body was different than it was in reality. He sensed rather than saw that there was male and female genitalia available to him in this dream. When he approached where the Dark Lord sat, he reached out and stroked his master’s pale face affectionately. The words that slipped from his lips were snake language that only he and the man before him could understand. As Voldemort reached out to run a finger up his thigh to that slick hole and hard cock, he felt his desire strain and his heart beat race. He woke up cursing and hard.
The fourth night, he was running through dark trees with black earth between his toes. Breathe came fast and smooth through his lips. He slid past branches and trees as sleek as a cat and as quiet as a shadow. He smelled his prey before him. He sensed the movement in the trees ahead. He felt no exhaustion even as roots, leaves, rocks and cold water swept over his feet. He began to catch sight of the slight figure slipping in between the thick trunks of oak and pine trees. The black robe drifted behind him like the feathers of a dark bird. His prey’s feet scrambled over slippery leaves and tripped over hidden tree roots. His breath came out ragged and with the hint of a sob. Deeper and deeper into the forest they went, until cliffs rose up around them and the trees became giants. The roots formed caves and labyrinths of wooden, frozen octopus tentacles. In the valley of a great clearing, his prey was driven into a corner of steep rock and clawing tree roots. Desperate, he tried to climb to escape, but the hunter was too close behind him. The Dark Lord’s hand found his ankle and pulled down gently, indulgently, until the fingertips grabbing frantically at stone and wood gave way and he fell to the dark ground. He struggled to escape, even then, pulling himself along the ground with his wide green eyes filled with fear. The hunter’s hands slid underneath the dark robe and felt the soft, warm flesh underneath. As Harry sobbed and kicked away, the dream began to slip away. He struggled to stay with it, but the sun was in his eyes and the Dark Mark was searing with the message of another day’s work.
The fifth night, he invited Lucrezia Borgesia-Retina to Malfoy Manor. She was the daughter of a falling French pureblood family. Her older brother had inherited the family wealth with the death of their patriarchal father and made the most of it at the betting rings of cockatrice fights and on goblin-made fire whiskey. Her younger brother had impregnated and run off with a muggle shopkeeper and wrote back frequently to beg for money and favors. Educated at Beauxbatons, Lucrezia had gone on to work for a collector of fine art and magical artifacts. With her pretty face and demure charms, she had done well to bring back countless treasures, but her rewards weren’t worth a quarter of what her family needed to be able to continue to live in style.
Her eyes were sky blue and her blond hair fell in perfect waves framing her heart-shaped face and drifting down to her round, small breasts. The dress she wore was inspired by the fashion of 1950s Britain with a modest neckline. She bowed low before him before sitting down to eat. They ate arugula, apple and walnut salads, filet mignon and lyonnaise potatoes. The wine they drank was a vintage of the Spanish anarchist wizard commune from their best year of 1826. He interrogated her on her work history, her family and French politics. Every response was carefully formulated and spoken in her soft, hoarse accent.
When the meal was finished, he invited her to join him in the cigar lounge and to take off all her clothes. She stripped her dress off, her bra, her panties and lastly her jewelry as she followed him. She stood before him naked with her head bowed but her hands didn’t attempt to cover her hardened nipples or the blond mound of hair between her legs.
With a glass of fire whiskey in hand, he asked her about her relationship with her supervisor, all the while examining her naked body from head to toe. Her body was almost perfectly formed. She was slender and graceful, pale and unmarked except for a mole underneath her left breast. She had been collected as a piece of artwork by her supervisor but wanted to leave the old man for a stronger, more wealthy patron.
He told her to get on her knees and suck him off and she did, immediately.
Her tongue was skilled as it circled around the head of his already erect cock. She took him in her mouth and sucked with a tight pressure and an even, pleasurable speed. After a few minutes, the Dark Lord was growing bored. He put his hands in her perfectly coiled curls and began to control how she moved. She adapted immediately to each correction and obeyed him without the thought of complaint.
Physically, it was exactly what he had been seeking. If he closed his eyes, it would be no different than using his own hand.
”Get on the desk and spread your legs,” he said. The girl rose and sat on the old mahogany desk. She spread her long legs and exposed every shameful part of her body. Her hair was no longer perfectly coiled. Her blue eyes were as clear and cold as the winter sky, even when he demanded that she touch herself before him.
When he entered her, he brought himself back to that dark forest and the prey beneath his fingertips. The frightened green eyes and the legs that kicked him away. Dark hair and firm muscles. Parseltongue being whispered from a reluctant mouth.
A soft whimper interrupted his fantasy. The girl was arching her back and feigning arousal. The thought of being the first among the Death Eaters to gain his approval and the power and riches to come had made her wet, but the thrusting inside of her was inconsequential to her. His erection immediately flagged. He pulled out, wrapped his hand around the French whore’s throat and squeezed.
”Did I give you permission to squeal in bed?”
Her eyes went wide as she struggled to loosen his grip. She didn’t have the strength to loosen even his smallest finger and her porcelain light skin began to turn splotchy and red. Her chest heaved and stuttered as the air was trapped. Finally, as she kicked and scratched at his hand, her expression was honest and fearful. He sneered in contempt.
He pushed her away from himself as he let go. She sputtered, wheezed and covered her body with her hands to hide the shame of her own naked vulnerability. With his robes again covering him from head to toe, the Dark Lord pulled out the Elder Wand and aimed it at the young woman.
”No,” she said hoarsely. “No, please, I’m sorry.”
The Elder Wand flashed silver and the woman slumped awkwardly over the desk, unconscious. The Dark Lord raised his wand to kill her, but then lowered it again. He went back to his whiskey and drained it. Only a few nights ago he had outdone himself in the bedroom. There had been no faltering, no need to be encouraged, and no end to his stamina. Did he need aphrodisiacs to enjoy himself like some lecherous old man?
That night clung to him in his dreams and his waking hours. He had the anxious jitters of an addict after his first taste of bliss. He wanted to retract his promise and bring Harry back immediately. He wanted to apparate to the Burrow and find Harry tucked away underneath woolen blankets. To touch him underneath his clothing and remind him of all the ways they had lost themselves together.
There would be time for that, he reminded himself. At least a thousand years. His captive horcrux would need more skillful handling than Lucrezia Borgesia-Retina. His life was worth more and there’d be more satisfaction in the conquest. There could be no mistakes in such an important task.
He downed the rest of his whiskey and approached the young French woman. Her head was tilted over the side of the desk and her neck and all those fresh pink bruises were exposed. Her perfect breasts and flat stomach were available to him but he didn’t touch her again.
The memory charm that he cast on her went deep. Her original memories of their dinner and conversation together, leading up to her stripping on her way to the smoking room and his casual commands, were wiped clean. In their place, he put in a more bland version of the night’s events. She had come to him for dinner and been interrogated. She had left the manor late and stumbled home to her bed without taking her clothing off.
If a wizard experienced in occlumency examined the memories, they would discover a secret layer hidden deep in her subconscious. In that memory, they had entered the smoking room and Lucrezia had been fucked hard and rough, in three different positions. After cumming, she had drifted off to sleep and he’d summoned Death Eaters to return her fully clothed to her own apartment. Only the best legimens in the world would be able to see what had really happened.
He summoned Death Eaters to gather up her body, deal with her bruises and leave her clothed in her own apartment. He thought it was a kinder treatment than she deserved, but he was capable of being both lenient and patient.
He spent the rest of the night alone in the library with his mind far away. Recipes, incantations, rituals fell before his eyes as he passed over one heavy, leather bound tome after another. Somewhere, a young man was sitting in front of a fire gently murmuring a baby to sleep.
The tomatoes on the furthest side of the garden were growing red and fat. Sparrows pecked clean holes in the tomatoes growing on the top of the plant and garden gnomes nibbled at ones close to the ground. They had to be picked, cleaned, cut up and heated in a large pot until they simmered down into a red stew that Molly Weasley stirred salt and thyme into. Fifty jars of pickled green beans, beets and cucumbers lined the space in the kitchen where baby bottles weren’t being sterilized. Fresh corn was picked for every dinner. The husks went on the growing compost pile and the half-eaten cobs went to the chickens.
Steady rain followed by steamy, late summer sunshine turned the inside of the Burrow into a wooden sauna and the garden into a jungle. Weeds poked out of every corner of the garden no matter how long Harry and Arthur Weasley spent pulling them.
Five days had drifted away like round white clouds in the sky. The seconds spent cleaning the baby’s spit up, pulling weeds and washing dishes seemed to move slowly but in the blink of an eye, his time was half over. As peacefully as his days passed, his nights were filled with dreams he only half remembered.
He woke up the morning of the third day tangled in thin cotton sheets and soaked with sweat. The feeling of fingers on the nape of his neck lingered even as he ducked his head into a sink full of icy cold water.
The next night, he was alive with the smell of smoke and musk circling around him. His bare feet were cold on the hard floor and his arms and legs had goosebumps, but his heart was racing. He was drugged. Amortentia, he thought dully. No, I’m dreaming. The black silk on his bare skin felt intoxicatingly good.
Someone was ahead of him, waiting for him. His hair was dark and fell in obedient swirl across his pale forehead. He was a Hogwarts student like Harry was, perhaps in his sixth year, and handsome, like Cedric Diggory, except his eyes were calculating and the bridge of his nose high. Harry wanted to strip the tie and white collar from him but then the thought came to him that he could strip instead. Shameless and aroused, he let his robes fall to the ground around him, exposing himself to the deliciously cold air. He saw the man’s eyes trace his body with a barely restrained desperation and felt a surge of cool, detached triumph. If he wanted, he bet he could have this man. He bet he could make him beg.
He touched the soft, pale face of the man. “You want me, don’t you?”
The boy’s hand found Harry’s thigh. It rose up and up until it touched something foreign and wet, something that made Harry pull back, alarmed and disgusted.
He woke up hard and deeply uncomfortable.
He tried to banish the dream by spending the whole day trailing after Mrs. Weasley who kept up a running commentary of her fears for her family and her frustrations with completing all the necessary daily tasks without her wand. He was happy to carry baskets of laundry and scrub at baby throw up. The presence of Molly Weasley made him feel normal again, like he was still the same skinny child who had arrived at her doorstep in a flying car.
Only when he was alone did he begin to feel like a stranger in his body. He was aware of parts of his body he had never cared about before. In the bath or when the snores of his roommates had filled the room, he had touched himself and thought of things that were embarrassing in the light of day, but that had felt natural. Healthy.
Now, every reaction his body had shamed him.
He began to stay up late into the night. When he laid down in the dark silence of his room, smelling old quilts and hearing the low thrumming song of crickets outside his open window, thoughts paced around his heads like caged animals. Incoherent and hopeless aspirations to defeat the Dark Lord and return the world to how it had been, memories he was afraid to forget of the people who’d died, how he would manage to face the man who had both murdered his parents and…
He tossed and turned all night.
And the hours slipped away.
He was on the run. Branches whipped at his face and stones scratched the soles of his feet. The moon left pale shadows on the forest floor that Harry used to navigate tree roots and the fallen trunks of massive trees. Somewhere, Ron and Hermoine were waiting for him on the back of a hippogriff. He could be safe and free if only he was fast enough, but his legs were weak and tired and growing heavier every second.
Just a little further. Something in the undergrowth was snapping branches and breathing hard. Hunting him. The shadows grew larger, and the moon shrank away to the size of a pin in the cold night sky. He heard the panting, excited breathing of what was chasing him. Just a little further.
The raw stone face of a cliff cut off his exit. It stretched for as far as his eyes could see in either direction. Roots he could grab snaked out tauntingly from the steep edge, but his arms and his legs were aching with exhaustion. He wanted to scream. He wanted to sit down and give up. Whatever was behind him couldn’t possibly be as bad as the fear and desperation of trying to escape.
Still, he climbed.
His fingernails chipped and the soles of his feet bled as he scrambled up. Dirt and leaves rained down around him as he frantically searched for another hold to grab onto.
A hand closed around his ankle. Slowly but with horrifying strength, it pulled. Harry’s feet kicked out and his fingers clawed but still he fell. The breath was knocked out of him and the thing was on him. Its long fingers clutched at his calves and his thighs. Its face was monstrous and pale, devoid of human features except for its glowing red eyes and jagged teeth. It was going to bite him, he realized, with a horrified cry. Please, someone help me. He scrambled along the dirt floor. Please, someone—
A rap came on the door. Yellow sunlight was sneaking into Ron’s old room past faded orange curtains and lighting up posters of Quidditch players. “Harry? It’s breakfast time.” Harry sat up and rubbed a hand roughly over his face. His arms and legs were as heavy and stiff as if he really had been running all night.
When a wet plate slipped out of his fingers and clattered noisily to the floor as he was passing it onto Molly Weasley to dry, he jumped and stared down at the plate numbly.
”I’ll get it, I’ll get it.” Molly’s red hair streaked with white was tied up in a frizzy ponytail. There were dark circles under her eyes and her blue dress was streaked with stains. A wail rose up from a small wooden cradle near the window. Molly swore.
“I’ll grab him,” Harry said, but she was already storming past him. Her hands were gentle as she lifted Teddy up into her arms and placed him and a rag on her shoulders. She patted his little back and paced around the living room table. Harry turned back to the dishes.
”They’ll come to get you sometime tomorrow.” Molly said as she walked. Harry’s hands slowed as his stomach twisted into a knot. He tried to keep the fear off of his face and out of his voice.
”I know.” His throat was dry and the words came out as a croak. He tried again. “Maybe they’ll let me come back again someday.”
”I hope so,” she said. She came close to him. “You’re always welcome here, no matter what happens in the future. You’re Ron’s best friend and we, well… we already see you as a member of the family. No matter what happens.” She said again. Her tone was suggestive but as to what Harry couldn’t figure out.
”Right.” He said.
”I won’t lie and say I didn’t have my hopes, but I understand that young people… young people change their minds and there’s nothing wrong with that.” She was looking at him meaningfully. He stared back blankly. “Your situation is uniquely difficult and that’s no easy thing to drag someone else into, I do understand.”
He continued to scrub at a cast iron skillet with a brush. He put his arm strength into scrubbing but a burnt piece of porridge was giving him trouble. She bounced the baby on her hip and kept looking at him.
”It’s just that you only have a day left here.” There was something in her voice that reminded him of the calm moments before she had exploded at Fred and George. “I would have thought you’d at least like to know… I understand it might be a painful topic and I don’t want to upset you.”
“Right.” Harry said again. His head felt waterlogged and slow. Exhaustion wanted to pull his eyelids down and have him sleep standing up in the kitchen. Molly’s eyes were narrowing and she was bouncing Teddy a little bit too quickly.
”It’s just— you’ve asked about Ron, Charlie, Fleur, Bill, George, all the members of the Order and all the students at Hogwarts we might know about, but don’t you think you’ve forgotten someone?”
He searched his memory desperately for anyone he’d forgotten. As she watched him earnestly think about it her face turned red and her frizzy hair seemed to crack with electricity.
“Ginny!” She bellowed. “I’m talking about Ginny!”
Bewildered, Harry said, “Who’s Ginny?”
They stared at each other for a long moment. Realization came to them at the same time. Molly’s hand went up to cover his mouth and Harry’s eyebrows furrowed together. Ginny, Ginny, Ginny… It was like a word on the tip of his tongue. Now that he knew he had forgotten it he couldn’t stop trying to picture her face. Ginny. Long strawberry red hair framing a pale face. The first time he had come to the Burrow she had put her sleeve into the porridge and blushed bright red. He had crawled to her cold body with a basilisk fang in his arm. She’d flown with him just beyond the chestnut trees in the backyard on a cleansweep broom and bombarded her older brothers from above every chance she’d gotten.
When they had kissed for the first time, he could have died from how happy he’d been. Every time they had kissed after that, he might as well have been blind and deaf. Her vanilla shampoo and soft skin was the only thing that existed in this world.
”Ginny.” He said, amazed. The best thing that had ever happened to him. The best thing that had ever happened to him… and he’d forgotten her. “Oh god, Ginny.”
He grabbed Molly Weasley’s by the shoulders.
”What happened to her?” He asked desperately. “Is she still alive?”
”I…” Her mother’s brown eyes, so like her daughter’s, filled with tears and spilled over. “I don’t know. Oh, Harry.” She crushed him in her arms in a painfully tight hug and began to sob. “I knew that you still loved her, I… I’ve been so worried about her…”
He did love her. He loved her easy confidence and the way she teased him. He had wanted to marry her after graduating Hogwarts and have a boatload of green eyed, red haired children and to call Arthur and Molly Weasley “mom” and “dad”. He loved the way she pinned him down on the soft green grass at Hogwarts and kissed him urgently, tenderly. He had held back from taking things farther between them because he wanted to keep her safe and somewhere deep inside, he hadn’t thought he would return from his fight with the Dark Lord. But how much could you have possibly loved her, a little voice whispered in his head, if you could forget her? And enjoy those things with…
“If something had happened to her, Ron and Hermoine would have told me.” He tried to sound reassuring, but he had his own doubts. Ginny hadn’t been with Ron and Hermoine when they had shown up at the Malfoy wedding. He might have missed his last chance to ask them if they had seen her and if she was okay. They might have chosen not to tell him, given how vulnerable his mind was to the enemy.
Little Teddy began to wail. Molly rocked him up and down and shushed, even as fat tears fell onto her stained dress. She wiped them away roughly with her sleeve.
“I’m sorry, Harry. I never should have doubted you.” She pulled him close and planted a kiss on his check. “I know you would never betray Ginny.” Harry didn’t know what to say to that. Molly went on, oblivious. “But why would they only obliviate your memories of her?”
Harry could not answer, but he suspected he might know. They spoke more of everything they knew about where she could be, but there wasn’t much to say. A new layer of guilt piled up on top of all the old ones.
After the dishes were finished, he went out to look for Arthur Weasley. The day was as beautiful as it could be. The late afternoon sun cast long shadows out of trees and flowers and outlined puffy white clouds in gold and pink. A stray cat trailed after him as he walked until a garden gnome snuck out from behind a peony bush and grabbed its tail, causing it to shriek and bolt away. He looked in the toolshed, the apple orchard, the garden and the pond before he found the former Ministry employee crouching near the chicken coop with three nails held tightly in his mouth and a hammer in his hand. He was pounding eagerly at a part of the wooden fence that had rotted away and causing it to deteriorate further.
“Mr. Weasley,” Harry called. “Do you need any help?”
Arthur looked up and took the nails out of his mouth, “no, no, thank you. I’ve just about got it here. The key is to keep using more nails until it’s all held together.”
That didn’t sound quite right to Harry, but he kept that to himself. He squatted down next to him. “Actually, I was hoping you might be able to help me with something.” He chewed his bottom lip. “Do you know much about occlumency?”
“Ah, well… not much.” Arthur admitted. “Not a fraction of what Dumbledore knew or even Snape. I did do some practice once we began to suspect the Ministry had been infiltrated but I’m not sure if I’d be able to help you, especially without a wand to use legimens. Didn’t Dumbledore make you study occlumency back at Hogwarts?”
“He did, but I was rubbish at it. I didn’t try as hard as I should have.” He had known it was a long shot. He had given up on ever being able to learn it but now he had to try again. He explained what learning from Snape had been like with some frustration. “I can keep my mind empty when I’m by myself but as soon as I’m distracted, I lose all control.”
Arthur listened thoughtfully and when Harry was done, he said, “I think you’re overthinking it, Harry. There can be quite complex tricks to occlumency but if all you want to do is protect your mind, it’s more a matter of long-term focus and the ability to multitask. When Kingsley taught me, he had me constantly count numbers in my head as I went about my day. Once I lost track of what number I was on, I had to start from zero. ”
That seemed much easier than what Harry had been instructed to do. “Is that all?”
“It’s not as easy as it sounds, especially if you’re distracted or working on something, but that’s the point. You must be able to apply occlumency even when you’re under pressure or when you split your focus to work on another task. It’s just a matter of focus and practice to get good at it. Once I had mastered the counting, Kingsley had me focus on an elephant day in and day out. Then, he used legimens against me, and no matter what he said or did, I had to keep my mind on the elephant. You see? You must be able to discipline your mind so that your thoughts don’t wander where you don’t allow it to. Go ahead and try counting. We’ll work on repairing the fence together.”
Arthur gave Harry a full box of nails and a large hammer and sent him to work on the far end of the fence. He did as he was told. It was more difficult than he’d thought it would be to keep count as he set himself up. He spilled the nails out on the ground, struggled to hold up a plank of wood and hit his thumb with the hammer. The shadow of Ginny and Voldemort haunted him as he worked, guilt and fear lingering side by side in the warm summer air. As the sun worked its way down and the shadows turned into indigo, he reached two hundred without stopping. By the time the stars had come out and the crickets were singing their nighttime lullaby, he had already gotten to a thousand.