A cooling vacation

Kicking and screaming as soon as clarity hit her like a sledgehammer, whatever method Harry expected Voldemort to wake her up with, she didn’t think the mad man would allow it. To let Nagini squish Harry under her massive weight. 

Not to body shame a snake but she was getting too heavy for Harry to haul her arse out of the bath without magic. Perhaps that Voldemort should put his pet on a diet. 

So when she woke up and had a ten-feet snake snuggled up to her, Harry unhinged her jaw and screamed bloody murder right into Voldemort’s ears. Nails scratching and fists hitting whatever was within her reach, her abuse had Nagini recoiled back, hissing angrily and flicking her tongue out as if to sulk before she slithered to the other side of the back seat. Voldemort, generally exhausted and exasperated, coolly shielded his beloved pet from her thrashing.

It was a nightmare already to face the snake, much less than to be constricted.

Harry didn’t have that kink, thank you very much. Or was she? 

Because Voldemort already had his arms around her, he merely yanked her back and then came Harry’s tenfold struggle, legs kicking the air instead of his Horcruxes, the one that didn’t give him as much headache as her. Something he was thankful for after their marriage ceremony and the prospect of spending eternity in her loving damnation came into play. 

Somewhere along the way, her shoes fell off and hit him on the head with a stifled ‘oof’. 

That didn’t stop Harry from shrieking in panic before Voldemort decided that their little game was over and covered her mouth, ankles locked with hers.

There was no reason for Harry to cease her spite so pulling back, knocking her incredibly hair head according to the Dark Lord, against his nose. Then, and only then, did she become docile as a lamb in the slaughterhouse when the fun dwindled away. Harry knew when to pick her fight and when to surrender for his tender mercies. 

Let it be said that Lord Voldemort was not without mercies. 

Proven that he stopped squeezing the living light out of her immediately after, Harry let out a breath of relief, shoulders slackened, legs limped. The man was too prideful to not let her off the hook for the sake of his ego.

A breathy laugh saturated in the air as she licked and nibbled the fleshy part of his palm. Harry knew how he got. Voldemort’s temperament was soft as metal in the heart of his anger. So easy to tame, not unlike a dog. So effortlessly to beg for forgiveness. Because Harry was him. His. He was never in the wrong. How could he? So indulgently righteous in ideology that his penance was free given when she lowered herself to ask for it. Harry had learnt to play his game right. Honed the skill so well she could practically be a second Tom Riddle in the making. All the glory, all the fame, all the ego that got in his head. But she was better because there was no pride and personal offences taken. 

Because Harry was a girl and had no honour to earn. The concept was beyond her. Or more likely, behind. Because she was a girl. 

“You love to get a rise out of me, don’t you, my love?” Voice a throaty gravel, he pressed a kiss to the crown of her head, nuzzling his nose as if to savour the proximity, whenever she allowed. And Harry was cautious as all things in the wilderness as heavy breaths saturated the air, woven in the strands of her hair when he drowned in the smell of her skin like sharks to blood. Oh how he loved it.  

She snapped back, teeth bared. “Practically an entertainment.” 

“The wonders of marriage, I presumed.” He said off-handedly as if he was about to comment on something but retracted his statement before Harry could call him out on his bullshit. White chalky lines mapped out her skin when he rubbed his chin to her throat, like a cat grooming its possession. Her fallen shoes shot up into his hand as Voldemort manoeuvred their limbs to put it back on her. 

“I hope not.” Compressed from all sides, she squirmed, scrunching her nose in discomfort. “Will you unhand me now?”

“I thought we were getting to the fun part?” 

That was it. It gave her the ick. Voldemort gave her the ick and Harry shuddered. “I hate you.” She spittled, glaring back and forth between him and the flickering tail at the corner of her eyes. “Besides, not in front of Nagini!”

He grinned and a sense of dread filled her when those fangs made their appearance. “How delightful.” Something flunked in her stomach, like a heavy lead brick but it wasn’t just dread. Harry didn’t even want to know what it was. She could only hope it was not desire. It felt filthy to have it for Voldemort of all people. 

Without a hitch, he fixed her posture, rendering her pliant as a ball of flour. Fixing the clothes. Fixing the hair. Fixing like Harry was a garden to prune.

In retaliation, she snapped her jaws, the sound of teeth gritting against teeth raised goosebump as she nearly tore his ear out when he tried to get another look at her hair. He chided, amusement at bay. “Now, now, no need to get so feisty.”  

“No need to get handsy.” Matching him step to step, Harry took no time to fire back. 

In a blink, Harry promptly fell back onto the seat, confused at the cold air behind her back instead of hot flesh. Voldemort, who should have been sitting behind her, pulled the door from the outside and offered his hand to her.

Under the bright sunlight, hair in waves of bronze and oak, his magic felt like a sun-dried blanket against her cold skin. The smell of pine bark and bonfire filled her senses. It was winter all of sudden. Nothing more than a dark stain on a good soft day. Nothing but a hazy dream in the dark of the night. Harry regarded him with an odd look, entirely out of place on her delicate features.

But she was grateful for the offer nonetheless as she muttered a thank you. His hand was so warm for a heart so cold. She revelled in the heat as it cascaded down the edge of her shoulders, filling between the hollow of her collarbones, trickling down the knobs of spine. 

Joining him under the clear sky, no hat on her head but his palm spreaded out, smoothing down her hair like a river, Harry stretched her back. She let out a groan as the air bubbles between the bones popped like champagne. It might not be healthy, but it felt good. With a quick roll of her wrists, Harry had Voldemort pushed around like a doormat because her spell of dizziness miraculously disappeared. And just like that, he dug his heels, laughing at her measly attempt at moving him. He was, out of all the words Harry knew, nothing more than a cat, if he didn’t want to move, he wouldn’t, not even if the sky collapsed and the earth shattered. 

“You-” Harry complained, punching his back. It might have been more of a tickle than a punch as nerves wrecked through his body, fighting against the urge to burst into laughter. “-go find a cafe and I will dallying around.”

Ordering him around as if he was a pauper, she pouted when Voldemort sent a stern glare. 

He parsed his reply. “Very well.” 

Patting the dust off his forearm, he stiffly sauntered, leaving Harry to her devices. But before he was three steps away from her, Voldemort turned back, as if to give her the chance to come with him, walking side by side, hand in hand. To be a normal couple. To be like every other married people. They never got the chance to be that in public. “Be back in 20 minutes sharp. No tardiness.”

“Roger that.” Harry saluted him. 

No extravagant wedding ceremonies, no white dress. Only two witnesses and an officiant in the Ministry’s courthouse. It was a quick and simple affair. No rings either. Wizards didn’t have that tradition. He complained as if it was a bother and not an absolute delight for Harry. 

Low heels on cobblestone, wand tucked away in a bun on her head, Harry wandered around the seemingly ghost town. The locals were too busy fighting against the summer heat in cafes and stores with cooling shades. 

But at second glance, hidden pathways and entrances to another life revealed itself to her. 

Magical town had that distinctive air. Like undercurrent waves, waiting for disruption, prowling like hunters in disguise. 

It had a bloody grin, a prideful one too. 

Harry could sense the runes work in the town’s square, its old foundation pulsed and beaten like a heart. Living and sentient. It curiously traced and followed the residual magic she left behind in the shape of footprints, as if wanting to grab her ankles and pull her into its stomach, examining the content and digesting the oddities of her existence. 

A particularly catchy sign reeled her in, the dusty blue paint and golden design was pleasing to set her eyes on. With a quick peek inside, it was a magical store with pictures on a book's cover on display moving around behind the window. 

The people on the cover waved to her and Harry couldn’t resist. 

When she pushed the vibrant indigo blue door, the scent of old parchment and fresh paper hit her full force. Humming at the unexpected chaotic arrangement, she looked around, not exactly window shopping but it wasn’t as if she brought along any money. Perhaps she might pull Voldemort back here just so she could spend all the money in his wallet. Sounds like a solid plan because he wouldn’t deny her this small guilty pleasure as someone who had more books than he could read. I’m building a collection, he informed her with a miffed tone the other day when Harry tore into the flesh of the package just to be greeted with another copy of Magick Moste Evile bound in human skin, shudders, as if two other versions hadn’t sat on their bookshelves already and nearly gave her a curse when she flipped them off. 

No clerks nor managers but Harry knew better not to nose around where magic was more hostile, keeping her away from the back door and the staircase leading up to nowhere she knew of. Voldemort would definitely adore this one, she thought absentmindedly, flipping through random books that appeared on the shelves. They were miniature versions! It was mind-boggling how small they could get but Harry wouldn’t pass up a chance to make fun of Voldemort’s ageing eyes. Not that he aged. 

In a blink and all the labels, titles, even genres shuffled themselves away, changing at every glance back. Washed away like drawings on seashore. 

Rows upon rows of bookcase shifted and wheeled itself around the store. The squeaky wheels, she guessed, weren’t oiled regularly as they went off track and bumped against each other and her hips, lightly, like dogs pressing their snout to people for attention. Polished to shine metal clasps rattled in its hinges. Harry laughed through her nose, hitched it back in place with a slight nudge before examining the sturdy spines that shimmied from excitement under her fingers. The gold pressed letters winked at her when she skimmed through them. Certainly charming. 

Walking round and round, slowly, like a waltz, Harry stumbled upon a peculiar title. Well, more like it jumped into her hand. Its rich purple cover glowed at her own magic. Combing through the chapters, she was hit with complex enchantments and charms and promptly shut it before her alleviated headache returned. 

Maybe Voldemort would take a liking to it because Harry was hopeless in French. 

Maybe Harry could get him to teach her as a last resort. 

She spent a good quarter of her time browsing through the unknown sections, reading off titles and trying to figure out which words seemed familiar and which she actually knew the meaning of. It was a good guessing game to kill time. 

Right on the clock, Harry felt a tug in her head and rolled her eyes, clasping the book in her hand shut and putting it back onto its original place. 

On the way out, she spotted the tuft of dirty blonde hair. That must be the clerk then, with the name tag and funny crooked grin. Smiling apologetically, nodding at his ‘au revoir’, she dashed out of the bookstore and blindly followed her instinct. Harry had that built-in blind, if not implicit, trust in Voldemort, that he wouldn’t let her get lost. She just knew that he wouldn’t do such things. 

Like a guardian devil perching on her shoulder, whispering directions and descriptions in her ears, occasionally scolded her for going left when he said right, walking in circles because the signal went dead because he was busy using his great social skills to charm the absolute pants off someone, figuratively of course. 

Situated on the more vacant side of the town where the locals frequent, a small generic cafe sandwiched between the larger housing buildings appeared at the corner of the street. 

The establishment was every word in the dictionary run down with paint peeling off the wall.

Harry wrinkled her nose, a sense of contempt flushed in her head. Perhaps it was just Harry and her irrational fear of small closets and black mould. 

Peering into the well of an entrance, of dark interior through white window sills, Harry saw Voldemort chatting to the owner, an old cherub-looking man with wiry hairs on his bald head, his cheeks were a permanent red stain, watercolour-like. She kept her grimace to a minimum as her eyes glazed over the rough stone ceiling and askew scenery painting mounted on bare walls. 

But the aroma was divine. The subtle bitter roasted coffee permeated the air. 

Funnily, it reminded her of Voldemort’s office. And work ethics might be the only thing authentic about him. For a politician that’s all. 

He must have picked up the essence of her presence for Harry was no different from his own shadow. Voldemort could close his eyes and imagine the curve and the slope of her outline, where she was sharper and harsher, where he could run his palm over and feel the endless span of her love spreaded out like butter on bread. For him, Harry had spring inhabited around the valley of her chest, down the supple waist but cold and cruel winter at the tip of her fingers and the knobs of her spine. 

Somewhere, he remarked the other day, under the flush of her cheek, it was endless summer year round when he rubbed his face to hers like an overly clingy feline and had heat roused him back to the living. 

Because he knew her more than his own shadow, Voldemort turned his gaze around, cocked his head to the side. Red met green and everything sparkled a little. 

Like someone tilted the lens and saturated the sunlight. 

Like the world suddenly shifted its axis and knocked Harry off her balance. Oh, so that was what the nun in churches warned her about. The kind of beauty, of temptation, people would sin for. Harry was lost among the waves of her thoughts, each rippled and rose with the wind, sinking then rising with the tide. Oh. So it was what it was. 

When he waved his hand to the seat outside, on the porch, behind the safe shield of the half-moon entrance, Harry was coming home. A home with a made bed and warm food. 

There was no better description for the influx of feelings that burst like bubbles in her chest but home. There was nothing else in this world but Voldemort and Harry must have lost her minds because it seemed the darkness shrouded him in wedding veils. And the light, how romantic that reflected back on the sanded down stone floor, blurred his edges out into a vague outline of love. 

Harry would like to see him under the altar. Under the same veil, preferably. 

As if knowing which was her hand and which was not, Harry recognised his weathered briefcase, softened over time, rested against the high-back chair. The bare skeleton of it seemed cold and unwelcoming until a few pillows floated by and settled on the seat like a couch potato. She wondered if the food was worth the downgrade in quality. 

“Don’t judge a book by its cover.” Voldemort materialised behind her, pulling a chair, granting Harry the open street view where sunlight spilled between her toes when she kicked off her flats. He chose to sulk in the shade, back to the wall and the road, surrounded by hanging pots of vines that draped over his shoulders and entangled with the curls on his head. So neat. So proper. Pale pink petals grazed the side of his face like hairs. The sight he made was so ridiculously pretty that Harry couldn’t help but feel displeased. Between the two of them, Harry didn’t have the luck to win the genetic lottery tickets. 

“That’s funny, because you just insulted the cover designer.” And the chuckle she earned from him was better than thunder before rain. 

Harry sat among the plants. One vines, woven with the wind, caressed the top of her head. The wind giggled in her ears as she looked around, wide eyes. Faery magic. Not Muggle. Not Wizards. But Faery. She leaned over, whispering. “When did you find this place?”

“Wouldn’t you want to know?” 

But the smile on his face curbed her appetite for truth. It was of mischief and an equal part of underhand slyness. Something that shouldn’t be mixed up, especially with Voldemort. Harry sniffled, looking like she would rather be dumb instead because what Voldemort didn’t flat out tell her, it must not have been a good thing. “I’ve decided that I don’t actually.” 

The radio switched its tune at the slight glance of the owner’s eyes and tea spoons swirled like ballerinas. 

Cupping the tall glass of mangoes smoothie, Harry discreetly spied on the staff and was pleasantly surprised by the amount of half-creature wizards. When she darted her eyes back to Voldemort, he had a devious grin and a lazy content. “So?” 

“Shut up!” She bristled, hissing between her teeth. 

Voldemort had the gall to look offended. “I haven’t said anything.”

“Your thoughts are loud.” 

“How ironic that I should be the one to say so.”

“Hmph.” Nose turned the other way, swinging her feet back and forth, occasionally hitting his calves, Harry made a face. He bore the offence until the food came out and her fit of temper mellowed. Hair pushed back and into a plaid, Harry scooted her way nearer to Voldemort’s seat, rubbing shoulders and grazing knees just so she could steal whatever was on his plate for the annoyance of it.

It was the mild inconveniences in his life that gave Harry a sense of purpose. If she couldn’t kill him then at least she could make his life miserable. The price of her hand in marriage. 

Harry spent the longer halves of her meal watching people, blowing bubbles in her smoothie, which earned a look of contempt from Voldemort. The sound must have busted his concentration. Looking up from his work, he grabbed the paper straw with his thumb and index finger, sneered at the little teeth indents and disposed of it. The curl of his fingers lightened. Harry was left with barely any entertainment.

“Vee, I’m melting from boredom.”

“What do you want?” Harry mustered up the biggest puppy eyes ever existed and sniffled. 

Behold, Voldemort looked somewhere halfway between fondness and exasperated with his lips pressed into a down-turn smile, like he couldn’t help but to do so. After a long pause, he wrapped his arm around her shoulder, smiling cheekily as he pressed a kiss to her temper. 

A ball of warmth glowed in her when he did and Voldemort ruined it by saying: “There’s nothing I can do for you.” 

It was immediate that Harry recoiled from him from pure dissatisfaction, smacking his arm away as if swatting flies. Voldemort made a vague hurt noise, pinching her bicep in retaliation then smoothed out the pain with a palm. The sun was in the flesh of his palm for them to be so warm. But that didn’t mean that she liked him any more than now when he went right back to his papers. 

As Harry busied herself doing nothing significant, a bell chime pulled her out of their world. Head craned backwards, glasses skewed, she spotted a vendor riding on his bike with crates full of apricots on the side of his back seat. Its faint pulsing scent wafted in the air. The absolutely tempting sweetness of it practically called for Harry. A certain kind of look flitted through her face. Like hunger. Like curiosity. She whispered, voice down on the low as to not startle him. If someone unmoveable like the mountains like Voldemort could be startled. “Vee, pssssh-”

When he remained motionless, musing over his paper, Harry shook his legs with a hand on his knee, the reverberation rattled his joints. “Veeee-” She clambered to his seat, pressing her face into his bicep, and gave a pathetic muffled whine. 

Two can play a game.

“Yes, my darling?” He played coy, face slowly turned to her while keeping his sight trained on neat little rows of letters, as if Harry was an impatient ever-demanding child and Voldemort the reluctantly indulgent guardian. 

It was...the best comparison she could come up with, no matter how borderline incriminating it felt. 

Shuffling to lay her head on his shoulder, a coy finger went up and down his forearm, tracing the veins there, occasionally digging her nail to make moon crescent marks, knowing all of the blood rushing in his body was hers and half of her soul was made from his. It was wrong in all the places but right in the sense of self. “Can we have those?”

Voldemort held his chin, appearing to be deep in contemplation. “Well can we?”

Smartass. It was not time for English lessons. 

Yet he was toying with her. Dragging the wants out. Teasing the hunger. Waiting for the begging to precede his deliberate ignorance.

“Apricots!” Harry could only reply one word at a time out of restlessness, knowing he would not cooperate if she acted out like a true brat. “Please.” Her mouth stretched to the side, making a rather comical sight with her full cheeks. Ditching all self-respect, she wrestled under his arm to be face to face with Voldemort, the metal rods painted red welts into the skin of her knees. “Pretty please.” She even pouted for it, rubbing cheeks and nuzzling noses. Harry was lucky that he had erected a simple private ward around them. 

“My silly little girl,” He gave a mocking smile, big big hands cupped her head to push it side to side as if playing with puppies, as if examining diamonds under bright light. “-it’s nearly out of season. I doubt there are any left for you.” 

“Look! He’s selling them right over there.” 

Grabbing his face by the jaws, adjusting his head until Voldemort was looking in the same direction as her, the all knowing look from his face was wiped clean. “Let’s get some.”

Voldemort gave a disbelieving grunt, entirely amused by her antics but annoyed that he was wrong for once in his life. Not that he was counting. That helpless look on his face when she pouted and kissed him was a waving neon sign for his deteriorating restraint. “Only if you behave.” After all, Voldemort was merely a man. 

“But I am!” Harry felt cheated for all the moral dilemmas she had to overcome. 

“Not quite,” Another sceptical expression bled out through his eyes. So it was a battle between Voldemort’s immovable determination to win vs Harry’s unstoppable force of wills to make him lose now. 

It took an unhealthy amount of willpower to stamp down her dread before smacking her lips against his. Again and again and again. 

Putting a hand over her collarbones like a necklace, putting Harry back her place before he crossed hers, Voldemort put some distance between the two of them. “Besides, it might not taste good anyway.” His voice was breathy all of sudden, like he couldn’t help but to be affected as she sat sideways on his lap, knowing they had the space to themselves. An alcove made of desire and mutual dislike toward people. Harry had nothing to be afraid of. 

“Why?” Her lips were a perfect o before dissolved into a gap. 

If Voldemort cut the chase short and lunged for her lips, he would find his name curled like a cat under her tongue, find the remaining adolescence’s crush, find the surging adoration for someone who looked similar to his shadow at the break of dawn. Somewhere between rising infatuation and desperate hunger. 

“Because all the good ones had already ripened and consumed, the rest is bland as water. There are a million other reasons you shouldn’t get it.”

“It won’t hurt if we try. Just a little.”

To demonstrate her point, Harry pinched her fingers together, as if to tell him that buying an apricot or two wouldn’t put a dent on his wallet. It took a while to convince Voldemort with his pessimistic scepticism. He gave in eventually and fetched his wallet, exaggeratedly slow, as if he was enabling her the time to reconsider and back tracked her demand. When it was clear that she wasn’t going to change her mind, Voldemort hurried up, patting her on the head and telling her not to run off doing something he wouldn’t approve of. Like driving his car with no licence. Like setting it on fire with Nagini inside when she hit the streetlight. 

Oddly specific. But extremely on brand for Harry. 

His seat hadn’t even gone cold before a shadow sprinted through the entrance of the cafe, bringing in a subtle scent of sun-dried wheat and tree sap.  And something very familiar, like autumn three years ago. 

Obviously, that caught her attention. 

Sneaking a glance at the corner of her eyes, Harry expected something different as she lost any interest completely. It was just a boy. A bright blot of perfect blue and foamy white, of seawaves before they melt into the shore. 

On the verge of death, feet stamping on the ground, Harry went back to watching people, back to the safe corner of hanging plants and pretty green vines. 

On the other side of the road, Voldemort was having a banter with the vendee. He must be bargaining for a cheaper price in a way that Harry couldn’t wrap her head around. It seemed that the world could only be quiet when he was there. His tall silhouette near the grainy sandy crates had her sight go back and forth, anxiety sloshing around in her stomach. 

All smiling and joking around. She grew up going to the market for Petunia but never achieved the same success he had in playing with people. 

It was so effortless. So natural. Like the world abided by his wants when needed. Like he could play with the strings of fate as if playing a lyre. Voldemort was made for this, born with that kind of placate personality. One that made people instantaneously take a liking of him. Harry could scoop his thoughts from the riverbed of his mind, between the fake smiles and witty comebacks, catching an occasional quip in another language when he got tired of translating for her. He knew that she wanted to be everywhere, in the pockets of his time, of his space, taking up the corner of his trophy box. Everything he had ever loved was in there, the dead womb of stolen adore. 

Voldemort could have been so lovely. If it wasn’t all rotten underneath. 

Mind in a station of thoughts with railways regularly overlapped, Harry listened to the buzzing chatter through the line connecting her head to his. It was as if she was a part of him, having access to the deepest darkest section that even himself might not be aware of. 

It lapped up like waves to her hands. Harry could submerge herself in them, all day long.

But before she could eavesdrop his conversation, someone spoke directly at her, cutting straight through the rumblings like sharp scissors through the soft malleable flesh of silk. 

The clerk. She looked up, the light blinded her, startled and started skittish away. It was the clerk of the bookstore, running off his post because he seemed to fancy Harry and wanted to impress her. Entirely unprepared and caught unguarded in the cusp of fright, she blinked, left eye went first then to the right. 

When one does not know what to do, smile. 

Taking Voldemort’s advice to heart, playing a novice politician, Harry gave an award-winning smile for the poster child of stupidity. It gave off the wrong idea somehow, because the boy sat down enthusiastically, pressing a book into her unwilling hands, laid heavy in her palm. 

Like judgement. Like a verdict. A smooth stone that was about to be thrown her way. 

Glancing nervously from Voldemort’s back to the boy’s face, she shook her head vehemently to whatever he was talking about. The accent was familiar but not the inflection. Harry could barely read and understood complex sentences in French. 

Much less slang and real life conversation. 

“Sorry, I can’t speak French very well.” Her voice trembled onto a higher tone, nearly hysterical. The most Harry could speak was how to say thank you and ask for help. It was something Voldemort always wanted to improve but failed to as she frustrated each and every tutor he hired. And he wasn’t about to waste his precious time on her. 

“Ah, English girl.” The boy had a knowing smile. He spoke in a rapid fire of mixed accents. A caricature of Wales dialects and Northern France. “My mother is English too.”

Harry paled in horror at the prodding stare from Voldemort in the back of her head. He wasn’t happy but never intervened until it was absolute. After all, they didn’t marry out of love. Nonetheless, out of decency, she distanced herself from the conversation the boy was trying to rope her in. Such a flirt he was. Talking about his humble gift for her. If she could go and dance with him at the youth’s club that night. Where in Britain she came from. Apparently, his mother was a Muggle studying in Oxford. Harry ignored half of his inquiry, replying for the sake of being polite. 

Was she a student on summer vacation? “You look like one.” He had a dashing confidence, elbow leaned on the table, hanging half of his torso in the air. 

Harry was 25. 

The last time she was in school was to pick Hermione from her masters’ ceremony for celebration. It was a story from three years ago. A bottle of Olgen and three shots of firewhiskey later, Voldemort vowed to never let Harry out of his eyesight ever again during his election campaign for a seat in the Merlin’s Order. At least it got him the tie breaker vote so he forgave her for kissing him in the middle of a work dinner. The press got wind of it and allegedly he had been courting Harry for the past three years as far as they were aware of. The rest was history. 

“You don’t have to say yes to my offer.” He glanced to the side, licking his lips nervously. “But please, take the book, if I bring it back, my master will never let me live it down.” 

“Thank you.” A wobbly smile appeared on her face, Harry shove the book back. It laid pointedly on the table, like a waving white flag. “But I think you should leave.” Running her fingers over the runes on the table, calling for the waitress, Harry asked for a refill for the coffee, loudly, and if she could bring more napkins as the ice melted in her smoothie, spilling water everywhere. As if she could predict the future. 

Anyone with eyes could see that Harry was already with someone. 

Clasped hands, cheek kisses, it certainly should send messages. Yet the boy chose to ignore it and continued to chat, despite the panicked looks from the owner inside the bar counter. Voldemort was wrapping things up, asking for a paper bag to hold all of his apricots. Her mind split. Harry was looking at the dirty blond hair and felt the ripe pink of fruit instead in the palm of her hand. Feeling unease and simultaneously annoyance. Polarised to the point of near pain, stretched out like a new kind of emotion, she stammered, knocking over glasses and hurried to charm it away. 

At the corner of her eyes, through the looking glass and the dark of the shade, Harry saw the owner rubbed his bald head before hearing his raised voice calling out for the boy, berating him for bothering her maybe, because her ears picked up the ‘mademoiselle’ and ‘interdit’ in the same sentence. A thousand sounds of a thousand lives bounced it her head. It was too much. Definitely too much when Voldemort’s seat screeched out as the boy moved around. 

A loud and cheerful laugh bubbled up from his chest, he had a sunshine-like laughter. He didn’t sound like he had finished puberty and Harry cringed. 

It must have been the same feeling Voldemort had to suffer through. 

The owner gave an apologetic gesture and made his way over before his easy-going demeanour dropped at the shadow Voldemort casted on the ground. It reached the grey pavement and contaminated the flooring. Suddenly, Harry broke into cold sweat, summer wasn’t that hot anymore as darkness clung around her, vine-like. Burningly cold breeze filled up the small corner they cramped in as a heavy bag of apricots hit the table, deafeningly. The glassware shook and rattled. 

Having sensed the slight shift of mood in the air, the boy shot up from Voldemort’s seat, still keeping his smooth confidence, looking like he was the prize pony of the show. 

“Sir.” He started off on the right foot but with the wrong intention. “I was just talking to your lovely daughter.” Said in a funny tone that made her winced out. It was so quiet that Harry could hear a pin drop from a metre away.

“Daughter…” Sleek eyebrows quirked into an arch, if Voldemort had been mildly displeased then he was practically livid to be offered a handshake from someone who hadn’t wiped his nose clean with his sleeves yet. “-ma fille?” Harry saw how he tested the word in his mouth, rolled it back and forth under his tongue as if to taste the blood of a quick and low blow. He ran his tongue over his teeth, poking it on the inside of his cheek. A flash of red in his gaze got Harry at the edge of her seat, hoping he wasn’t about to beat the boy to a bloody pub. Then, surprisingly, Voldemort extended his hand out. “Lovely.”

“Mais oui,” Despite the intensity of Voldemort’s blank eyes, the boy gingerly took his hand, albeit sweating and stammering. “She’s very beautiful, isn’t she?”

Lips curled into a nasty snarl, crushing the boy’s hand, Voldemort did a nice work on him as the boy flushed from head to toe, not even dared to look at her direction. Harry heard snippets of the tense conversation and rolled her eyes and couldn’t help but to be terribly flattered. An iron cladded grip fell on the nape of her neck and she flinched from the gentleness of his caress. Reaching up to clasp her hand over his, she gave a pointed look and Voldemort was not the same kind of man he was in his youth.

“Marvolo.” His name rolled off her clipped tongue. The redemption he was given. And Voldemort backed down, not without another wilting sneer. “It’s just a misunderstanding.”

Forcing an amicable smile to his taunt expression, the owner quickly intervened with an enlightening slap to the back of the boy’s head. The muscle in his face jumped and twitched in anticipation, deepening the lines of age on his forehead. He explained something to Voldemort, a handkerchief from his back pocket made its entrance to wipe his temper here than there. 

With a hum at the end of his story, Voldemort looked at Harry expectantly, as if to ask for her verdict. She frowned and shook her head, mouthing no. 

A charming grin cracked his stern facade in halves, dispelled the hovering doom over the top of their heads. “On the courtesy of my generous wife then.” A storm dissipated. But it didn’t mean that his razor sharp glare went away until the boy was thrown out of the cafe. 

“Good riddance.” A peck to her temper and off he went with the owner. 

Reverted back to his attractive persona, Voldemort offered their shares of apricots to the old man who just recovered from a heart attack. Arm over his shoulder and asking advice on which one tasted sweeter, they disappeared behind the counter, chatting like old friends again and Harry sat through his ridiculously humorous quip. 

When he was back, he had a plate of sliced apricots and a sly grin. Harry squinted her eyes. “What have you done?”

Innocent as a church boy, Voldemort dialled his befuddled frown. 

There was a slight tinge of  indignation coloured his voice. “Why is it that you always blame me for nothing at all?” 

“Should I contact the local Auror force to warn them of a potential homicide of a young man tonight?” Apparently, when you were a Dark Lord, murder seemed to be a minor offence as he had the audacity to look sheepish, picking up apricots to hand feed her. Harry avoided him like the plague. “What schemings are you cooking up in that pretty head of yours?”

“So you think I’m pretty?” He had that devious unadulterated glee on his face. The range of his acting could win a country over. Looking through his eyelashes, Voldemort grazed his shoe up and down her bare calf under the table where no one could see. The absolute tease. 

Ruby red cheeks, Harry argued, stealing the fruit from him. “That’s not the main point!” 

“Does it matter? No.” He mouthed the last part, crossing his hands behind his head and leaned back like a bloated fat cat who had scarfed down stolen fish. 

Voldemort won at the cost of her ire. “Urgh, men.”

“Excuse me!” Acting all offended, he scowled half-heartedly, going along with the joke. “I’m not your average man out there.” 

“Right, because you are the specialest whittle princess in this entire realm.” Harry squealed in an impish voice, especially nasty with sarcasm. “Does my whittle princess want a kiss to sooth his bruised ego?” 

“Your humour is strange, Harry. Was it hereditary or you accidentally ate the wrong kind of mushroom last night?” Referred to the gross onion soup they had at the restaurant after the escargots. While she respected people’s cuisine, Harry vomited a little in her mouth after having watched their hosts using their hands to pick out the snails. Voldemort offered no condolences beside patting her arm, merely sucked it up and went along like he was a native. 

The man had the guts of steel to finish it and drown the texture out with a big gulp of wine. 

Right before she could chew him up and spit him out barely alive, the waitress politely coughed into her fist, retrieved the dirty plates and added in a hushed voice about an apology for the disruption and the cafe’s treat.

Harry smirked, violently reminded of something. “Your wife. Heh!”

“Well, what would you be if not my wife?” He pursed his lips with a devil-may-care streak. 

“Oh, I’m Harriet Potter.” She let it get to her head for once. “Saviour of the Wizarding World.” Harry listed it out to turn her nose up at Voldemort. “Two times duelling champion and an avid advocate of the modern witch society. Not to mention my brilliant contribution to the Newblood charity for the integration of Muggleborn to our society. Need me to add more?”

“But you are my wife, are you not?” His thin lips pressed into a fond smile, eyes softened while the crow's feet turned dark. 

“I’m multifaceted!”

“Sure you are.” Voldemort made a face. “But my wife at the end of the day.”

“Only on paper.”

He shrugged, examined a slice of fruit between his fingers then promptly devoured it. “I’m not exactly a picky man in these kinds of situations.” 

“You can say that again, but slowly.” 

“Oh, absolutely.” And then Harry was pushed to the sideline while he cleaned up the table, putting away his pens and whipped the papers into order with an overpowered spell. “Shall we wrap up the leftovers?”

“Glad you mentioned it.” 

Seatbelts on, engine revved, Voldemort let Harry have the passenger seat while he drove. Nagini took over the back happily as she was able to lay however she wanted with the spacious seat between . Steering the car out the parking space, one hand on the wheel, the other behind her headrest, he glanced over his shoulder, looking straight at you, the figure behind the bookstore display, cowering under a protection ward. 

A smirk made its way to his face as Voldemort leaned forward to kiss her. She jumped in her seat, looking as if she ate something sour. 

What Harry didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her. 

That included the unfortunate accident happening that night to the shop. Broken windows and one beaten black and blue manager assistant. An average built 18 years old boy, recently graduated from Beauxbatons, majored in application of statics spell in medicine, was found in the back alley, muttering nonsense under his breaths but made full recovery without his memory of the accident. Not that Voldemort was that cruel. 

By the time they made it to the small cottage he rented for the vacation, Harry was so tired that she was knocked out cold on the couch and woke up on a bed in the morning, having no recollection in the change of clothing attires and dinner but Voldemort insisted that she took a shower and tripped him in the hallway to bed after it. 

He even showed the bruise on his calf when he hit the drawer but she digressed. 

The fuss was settled when Voldemort agreed to whatever she said and Harry admitted that she was in a strange mood because he looked annoying to her.