Chapter 2
His ears were ringing.
Warmth, comfort, silence, surround him. He tries to open his eyes but quickly gives up, surrendering to the heaviness that’s fallen over him. He knows what he’ll see, anyway. He’d rather stay in this strange fantasy his mind has conjured a little longer.
“When will the serigala kecil wake?”
“Give him time, Nagini. We don’t know how long he was there.”
Nagini, that name sounds familiar, he thinks, just before darkness consumes him once more.
Everything’s burning.
His lungs were filled with that now all too familiar feeling of freezing water. Screaming filled his head as the towering cloaked figure drew closer and suddenly he was drowning once more.
The sound of shattering glass greets him next, followed by hurried steps and that strangely soothing female voice telling the other to calm down.
“Calm?! How can I possibly be calm?!”
The pacing stops, something else shatters. He wants to see, to open his eyes and pretend this warmth enveloping him is real.
“You will calm down or I will bite you!”
The man sighs. Footsteps fill the room as he moves again, this time slower and more purposeful. Silence fills the room for a few moments, but a few moments is all it takes for Morpheus to reclaim him.
Everything hurts.
He feels like he’s been shoved into his cupboard for a month while playing Uncle Vernon’s nightly punching bag. Carefully he curls his toes and wiggles his fingers, wincing at the stiffness and effort it takes.
He freezes, curling his toes again.
His eyes flutter open as he registers the wrongness.
The first thing he sees is the light, causing him to wince. It feels like years since he last saw the sun but it couldn’t have been more than six months. Merlin, his friends must be worried sick. He hopes poor Hedwig is okay. He squeezes his eyes shut, trying to focus his thoughts, before opening them again.
He’s on a four poster bed, he realises, tracing the soft blue sheets. The room he’s been placed in is clearly a purebloods, a rich purebloods. Wooden floors, a few landscape paintings on the cream walls, and expensive furniture that looks like it's never been used. It reminds him of a photo out of Aunt Petunia's catalogues. More importantly, he doesn’t recognize it.
Carefully he slips off the bed, taking a moment to get his balance and marvel at the feeling of the white fluffy carpet beneath his toes. He needs to find out where, and with who, he is and work out the best way to get to the safehouse they had set up. He dosen’t even move before the door opens.
“ ‘Check on the little one’ he says. If he doesn’t want me to - serigala kecil?”
They both freeze.
Harry, gripping the lower bed post, bare chest, and hair skewed in hundreds of directions. Nagini, 12 feet long, balances on her tail in the doorway blinking at him. They must look ridiculous, he thinks, with a small giggle chuckle. He doesn’t giggle, Luna giggles.
Nagini moves first, lunging toward him frighteningly quickly. Startled from his thoughts, Harry stumbles back and trips over the carpet. “Fuck!” He curses, bones vibrating with the impact. Before he can scramble away, Nagini is there.
“ Silly hatchling! What are you thinking? You should be resting and regaining your strength, not planning to sneak away! Just like Tom, always planning, planning, planning, never able to sit still even if it kills you! Get back in that nest, now!”
When Harry fails to move, the snake drops her head in a very human-like sigh. “Killy!”
With a near silent crack a house elf appears next to them with a frightened expression, wringing its ears. “Great Snaky be calling Killy?”
Nagini seemingly distracted, Harry takes the chance to slowly pull himself backwards, off the fluffy carpet and onto the hard wooden floors. When he glances back up to make sure he’s not being watched, he sees that the giant snake isn't saying anything to the elf but rather gesturing her head back and forth rather comically.
“Miss Snaky would like the wizard on the bed?” The house elf nervously asks. Taking that as his que (and suddenly realising that these are not his pants) he flips over to make a run for the still open door.
He doesn’t even make it to his feet before he’s floating in the air, yelping loudly. In seconds he’s tucked into the bed with Nagini draped across him, rather effectively pinning him to the bed.
He struggles for a moment, trying to push the 12 feet of what feels like pure muscle off of him, before his arms give out. He lays there panting, exhaustion clawing at him. The cold is creeping back in and he lets out a sob. He just wants to go home.
“ Hatchling?”
He can’t respond. He wants to, Merlin, how he wants to talk to someone. But he can’t find the words, his tongue feels too heavy, and his visions starting to go fuzzy, along with his hearing. Nagini’s cold but her weight is grounding and she’s speaking to him softly (what is she saying?), and he slowly loses his fight to stay present.
Harry's eyes fluttered open and he slowly registered a cold weight on his wrist. He glanced down, feeling too tired to move, and saw a beautiful bracelet encircling his wrist, formed of two intricately designed silver snakes. One of the snakes had piercing red eyes, the other striking green.
He slowly raised his wrist, ignoring the way his bones stood out, and studied the bracelet with interest. He could practically taste the magic embedded in it.
He turned his head slightly to see Nagini watching him intently with intelligent yellow eyes, curled up on the other side of the bed. “ What is this?” He hissed softly, his throat protesting.
Nagini raised her head and flicked her tongue out, hissing back. “ A gift from Him. He should be back soon.”
The panic at the idea never came. He hadn’t been scared of Voldemort since he was eleven years old and staring at a deformed phantom plastered to his professor's head. Merlin he’d been such an idiot back then. Besides, it was very unlikely that he could do something that Harry couldn’t withstand.
He didn’t know how long he lay on the bed with his eyes closed before his ears pricked as the door was pushed open. He swallowed as his stomach fluttered with sudden nerves as footsteps made their way over, stopping beside the bed.
The silence dragged on and he slowly got more tense, the feeling of being watched making the back of his neck prickle uncomfortably. Finally he couldn’t take it any more and opened his eyes, instantly meeting red.
“You’re awake.”
Harry swallowed, taking in Voldemort's appearance. Or rather, Tom Riddle. Unblemished pale skin, a sharp jawline and dark hair, a single curl falling onto his face. He had a nose, Harry realised with a touch of hysteria. He swallowed again, blaming it on his sore throat, and opened his mouth, “Don’ suppose you wan’ ‘o ‘ell me why ’m here?”
The stupidly handsome man blinked slowly, like a predator studying his prey, before he replied. “One of my Death Eaters found you. Locked away in Azkaban, just waiting for someone to steal you away.”
Harry snorted, “Ya, doubt Dumbles thought he’d beat you there.”
Red eyes narrowed, “How did the saviour of the wizarding world end up behind bars?”
“How else?” Harry hummed, closing his eyes again. “Dumbledore. I… lashed out. Apparently the old fool thought he was losing control and that I needed to be taught a lesson.”
Unknown to the young man on the bed, Tom flexed his jaw in anger. He had assumed as much once he’d pieced together exactly what and who the boy was. Potter hissed slightly, silver glinting as he raised his hand to his forehead. To his scar, Tom realised, his anger morphing into curiosity.
Before he could ask about it the boy raised his arm again, “what is this?”
He raised a brow. “A bracelet.”
“No shit,” Potter muttered, scowling. “But what does it do? ”
“Monitors your vitals.”
Harry huffed a croaky laugh, blinking heavily as he turned to look at the Slytherin. “Hmm. And what else does it do?”
The man smirked, raising a brow. “And why would I tell you that?”
They stared at each other for a moment before Harry yawned, his eyes slipping closed again. He thought he heard the Dark Lord sigh before the man's voice washed over him, telling him to sleep. Harry didn’t even get the chance to tell him to fuck off before Morphious clamined him.