Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. It’s a phrase that has been around as long as poetry and love have existed within the universe. A phrase that thousands have told their children, passed down from lover to lover, parent to child, whispered into the ears of the insecure and lonely.
Harry Potter is inclined to agree. Beauty is absolutely ever changing, and true beauty is only ever seen by those who wish to see it. Passion and admiration, love, a sentiment he was always critical to hold. By all means, he can love, and he has, but never loved the way he has now. His fleeting, salty kiss with Cho Chang, or his ever complicated romance with Ginny Weasley cannot, and should not, ever compare to the love and devotion he feels for his master, his beloved, his most precious, a man who has guided and adored him for so very long, ever since he was taken and discovered to be a horcrux.
Lord Voldemort is the epitome of beauty in his eyes. The veins that run up and down his pale skin, white as the snow he plays in when it falls in the first week of december. Purple and blue dance and weave together to make the man he loves and that is beautiful. His eyes, red as the roses he grows in the garden, he tends to them every day with the same vigor he loves with his partner, because they remind him of that ruby gaze. That is beautiful. The snake-like slits where his nose should be, something that makes him inhuman, almost blasphemous, striking fear into the hearts of his Death Eaters. They are beautiful.
Even as he sits on his lover's lap, his head laid in his chest, hand mindlessly picking at the horrifying man’s pants in wait as the meeting goes on and on, he cannot help but admire the beauty of the creature that holds him. As if he is made of marble, a statue, forever with his poker face in the public, but ever smiling when they are alone. His laugh, the way the skin around his eyes crinkle when he grins, his cocky and sometimes utterly insufferable attitude, all are just holy, beaming, if he could bottle every moment, he would have shelves of just his face.
“Voldie?”
His beloved stops talking to Lucius and looks back, a non-existent eyebrow raised.
“Yes, my precious horcrux?” He responds, eyeing the younger boy with a curious look in his eyes, one that only Harry can ever pick up on.
“I love you.”
“And I as well, my darling soul.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
And that was good enough for him.