Chapter 7
In the aftermath of the ritual, life goes back to normal. Only, Voldemort cannot seem to shake a feeling of dread every time he looks at Harry, who continues to be small, and pure, and good.
“My lord frets overmuch,” Narcissa says softly as he pours him tea one evening. “Harry is a darling child, and he will love you, no matter what.”
“A comfort though that is,” Voldemort muses, “I still think that the ritual has caused something to come loose. The wheels are moving, and I am discomfited that I know not where they are leading me.”
Narcissa cocks her head slightly, and then smiles. “This is the life of every parent, my lord,” she replies. “We rarely wish to see our children grow up and apart from us, but we take solace in that our children carry us in their hearts, if we have done our job right.”
Her words, surprisingly, are soothing to the dark lord as he watches Harry help Nagini scrub her scales and oil her shiny new exterior, but they are a small mercy.
***
“Of course things are different, old man, you got a honking horcrux out of him and pieced a bit of your soul back together,” Sirius says, when Voldemort confides in him.
“It could just be that with more of your soul, you are feeling emotions more strongly,” Hermione suggests, and honestly, Voldemort shouldn’t be as surprised as he is when she says something smart. He really ought to work on shedding that 1940’s misogyny.
“Perhaps,” he concedes, and makes a mental note to offer Hermione a job when she graduates. Can’t have brains like that going to Dumbledore, or worse yet, the Ministry.
Voldemort watches Harry help Remus in the kitchen, while Avery, who has probably never been in a kitchen before, flounders beside them. It is an endearing sight, not least because Harry has to teach Avery how to knead dough with his tiny hands holding Avery’s larger ones.
***
It only strikes Voldemort later in the night that Avery is the son of a baker, and knows perfectly well how to knead dough. It is therefore with a warm feeling in his stomach that the dark lord rises, and silently walks across the deserted halls of Malfoy Manor.
***
“M- m’lord? Wha- it’s gone one thirty in the morning, is everything alright? Oh Circe, is it Harr-“
“Shut up, Avery,” Voldemort says gently, and they don’t say anything for a long time afterwards.
***
The next morning, the elves have thoughtfully placed a cushion on Voldemort’s chair.
Equally thoughtful, Voldmeort removes it and places it on Avery’s chair, for those truly in need of it.
***
Atticus is looking at Voldemort.
At least, Voldemort thinks that Atticus is looking at him. One can never tell with Atticus. He is rendered correct when Atticus scares everyone in a fifty mile radius by bursting into rapturous prophecy.
“The Dark Lord falls into the embrace of Death, accepting his demise and looking to the past to redeem his future-!”
“Oh shut up, Atticus.”
***
The dark lord, Voldemort realizes, is not being quite so dark lord-y these days, what with his time being split between being the world’s best papa, and being Lord Thomas Gaunt, the hot, wild, banging revolutionary member of the hereditary Wizengamot.
“My lord, the werewolves will get antsy about the lack of raids,” Lucius frets like a wet cabbage. Honestly, it turns his stomach.
“Hmm,” Voldemort hums, not looking up from his paperwork, “I know.”
“Does… does my lord seek to do anything about it?”
“I already have,” Voldemort says distractedly, and reaches over the desk into the drawer, to toss a very ugly skull at Lucius, who squeals whilst catching it.
“Is this- Greyback!?”
“Astute as ever, Lucius. Honestly man, stop flailing, no one liked him, and I did the world a favour.”
“But- but the wolves!”
“They’ll find another leader.”
And they had - specifically converging on Remus’ house where he kept a perpetual kettle going on the boil for tea now. The wolves thought that their Leader collaring the Lord Black as his obedient mate was a real hoot. This misconception was not helped by Sirius walking around the house shirtless with only several jewels adorning his chest.
“Sirius why.”
“Because I was born for the theatre, Moony, and I am playing the role of my life!”
“They think that you are my submissive mate, Sirius.”
“Yeah, it’s fun being a kept man.”
“Sigh.”
***
“Papa, you have mail from the Wizengammut.”
“Wizengamot,” Voldemort murmurs, but takes the correspondence from Harry’s small hands. “Did you take Nagini for a walk?”
“Yup, she taught me to hunt squirrels!”
Voldemort nods, and then pauses. “Open your mouth.”
Harry giggles and opens his mouth. “Papa! I didn’t eat any!”
“Thank heavens. I cannot stand a repeat of the mouse incident,” Voldemort shudders. “Why are your robes grass-stained?”
“Nagini thought it was very rude of me to be bipedal when she wasn’t, so I squiggled beside her.”
“Slithered,” Voldemort corrects, and glares at his unrepentant snake-mother-friend-figure, who unhinges her jaw in a mocking smile.
“Oh my poppet,” Narcissa clucks, picking Harry up, “you need a bath now!”
Harry tucks his head under Narcissa’s chin and smiles in that winning way of his. “Okay, Aunt Cissa. I can draw my own bath, you don;t have to worry. I used to do the baths and clean the washrooms at the Durs- oh, only, papa does not like me talking about them,” Harry whispers as the teacup in Voldemort’s hand melts with the heat of his fury.
Being more restrained in her emotions, Narcissa just frowns. “Indeed not, your papa is justified in his reaction. Come now, up you go, and you can come down for morning tea to say goodbye to your papa before he goes to work.”
Voldemort watches as Harry waddles away with a house elf chasing him, lest he do anymore housework as he is so wont to. “You are enjoying this, far more than Lucius, at any rate,” he says to Narcissa, who has sat down for her breakfast.
Narcissa looks up at him, surprised. “It is my pleasure to host you and your child, my lord,” she says softly. “I do not have the same compunctions as Lucius with Harry and yourself - all I see is a small child and his father trying to make the world work for their circumstances. Happily, your vision for the world and mine are quite similar.”
Voldemort sips at his tea and ponders what he wants his world to look like, and finds that he is happy with it as it is.
***
“Harry? Are you done in the bath?”
“I’m done, papa,” Harry calls, and opens the door to reveal himself wrapped up like a burrito in an oversized towel. It is so sweet a sight that Voldemort cannot help but smile. “I drew a fresh bath for Uncle Atty, because he became messy.”
“This is true,” a muddy Atticus mumbles, waddling in, wrapped in his own towel.
“Atticus, what in Merlin’s name happened?”
“Uncle Atty was outside in the morning, looking for pink hydrangeas for his scrying, and he tripped over Nagini,” Harry giggles. He pads over to Atticus, now under a layer of bubbles, and hands him a little dragon toy. “Here Uncle Atty, you can have this for your bath.”
“Thank you, childe,” Atticus bubbles mysteriously, sinking underneath the bubbles.
“This is the third time this week I had to see Atticus’ buttocks,” Voldemort laments, as he whisks Harry away. “I am seriously considering therapy.”
“What’s therapy, papa?”
“When someone talks at you and makes you feel better.”
Harry reaches up and holds his father’s hand. “You can always talk to me, papa, and I’ll make you jam sandwiches to make you feel better.”
“My lovely son and heir, already career-minded,” Voldemort smiles, in denial that Harry was just a sugarplum masquerading as a child. “You may sit with me anytime you want.”
This is, after all, the one person the dark lord would always have time for.
***
The removal of the horcrux was doing wonders for Harry’s development. Voldemort observed that at long last, Harry was able to keep down the food he was given, and had lost his unhealthy pallor. He remained, however, a very tiny child.
This also meant that Harry’s magical prowess was now free to come to the fore, without the weight of the horcurx’s magic sapping his energy reserves in order to stay hidden within his soul. Voldemort was therefore rather pleasantly surprised to see that he was performing more wild magic, in his own sweet way.
“Those golden flowers are very nice,” Voldemort remarks at the vase on his study desk. “Good eye, Narcissa.”
“That was Harry, my lord,” Narcissa hums happily. “He has been turning various objects different colours all week.”
“Has he?” Voldemort is thrilled. He is even more thrilled when Harry sneezes and inadvertently turns Snape’s hair blonde.
***
Curiously, it is Harry’s growing magic that sounds the alarm bells in Voldemort’s keen and analytical mind. While colour-changing charms are commonplace, the rippling waves of wild magic emanating from his body are decidedly not.
Has Harry’s magic grown stronger after the horcrux was removed? Voldemort’s ideas are justified when there is a crash and a shriek that has the dark lord racing outside, only to see Harry sitting in the middle of a crashed chandelier, sobbing and gasping for breath, while Avery clears the crystal shards around him.
“I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry please don't hate me aunt cissa I’m sorry-“
Narcissa strides forward and decisively pick a wild eyed and panicking Harry up. “Hush chicklet, hush,” she croons. “This is hardly the first chandelier to be destroyed. It was an accident! When Draco caused it to fall, he was playing quidditch indoors, and ignoring my warnings!”
Harry hiccups sadly, and tears continue to spill down his face. “I didn’t mean it,” he whispers fearfully. “It just happened, I promise. It was just my freakiness-“
The dark lord has heard enough at this point, and takes Harry into his own strong hold. “None of that talk, or do you want to dishonour my killing of those horrid Dursley monstrosities?”
“N- no papa,” Harry sniffs.
“Then we shall have no more tears,” Voldemort says, and directs his wand at the chandelier. “Reparo.” The shards reassemble and fly back up to their usual spot on the ceiling. Narcissa notes that the dark lord has offhandedly transformed some of the crystals into diamonds, because he is Like That.
“You have cuts on your hands,” Voldemort notes worriedly, looking at Harry’s hands. “Harry, what happened?”
Harry sniffles sadly, but speaks. “I- I was sittin’ on the sofa and then I got a bad headache. I wanted to go to bed so I got up, but everything went hot and dark, and then- and then there was a loud crack and I looked up and the chan- chandelier was falling and I was so scared, papa-!”
“I cast a shield charm overhead,” Avery interrupts quietly, and by god, Avery is going to get Saviour Sex tonight. “The cuts on his hand could be from when he fell and touched the shards on the floor.”
Voldemort looks at his tiny, clammy, shivering son. He recognized the signs of magical exhaustion, and tucks him close. “Harry, it was wild magic,” he says as gently as he can. “This was not your fault.”
“B- but it never happened before,” Harry murmurs sadly. “I can usually make the headaches better, but I messed up and now-“
“Harry, you have had these headaches before?” Narcissa asks, horrified. “Why didn’t you tell us?”
“I- I didn’t want to make anyone worry,” Harry whispers, fat tears dripping from his cheeks. “The last time, I was at Uncle Siri’s house, and Uncle Remus was all poorly and cut up real bad, and I just had a headache, and he looked so bad and I was scared for him and didn’t want to be a bother,” he says in a rush, and Voldemort has never wanted to hit something more. Where was Dumbledore when you needed a target?
Nevertheless, this warrants more research and thought.
***
“Given Harry’s unfortunate magical outbursts, I think it might be best if I moved with him to Ri- I mean, Gaunt Manor.”
This idea is quickly abandoned when Narcissa Makes Her Opinions Known, and rather forcefully at that.
***
The house elves corner Voldemort after tea and sit him down before gently telling him that He Knows Nothing, and Why Would You Take The Babe Away, and Haven’t We Done Enough For You and Proven Our Love For Him?
***
“I have a house too, you know,” Avery says loudly one evening while everyone is ganging up on Voldemort, “and they are *my* step-son to-be, and *my* affianced, respectively. By all rights, they should live with me.”
The house elves burst into tears as one, and Narcissa throws a vase at Avery’s head.
***
Sirius decides to join the kerfuffle by descending on Malfoy Manor as Lord Black, decked out in furs and dripping in jewels, his moustache tips waxed into perfect little swirls that make Harry giggle endlessly, in spite of his headache.
“As Lord Black, I outrank all of you,” he declares, “and Harry and his unfairly hot dad should come and live with me!”
“How did you get into my house!” Lucius shrieks.
“Cissa let me in, I bribed her with a necklace,” Sirius replies haughtily.
It is then revealed that Lucius keeps a knife in his cane, as he attacks Sirius with it. It is also revealed that for a Light Wizard, Sirius knows a mind-boggling amount of dark curses - some that even Voldemort takes interest in.
***
“Atticus, why is it that I found my son sleeping in the hydrangea bush at midnight?”
“Oh, I sent him out to gather flowers with midnight dew for my scrying ritual. Look, he got me 10ml of dew, I am a rich man.”
“Atticus, it is past midnight, children are supposed to sleep early!”
“But however will I encourage the next generation of diviners if the childe is held to the rules of the mundane world! Sleep is for those blinded by the trappings of the physical world-“
“Oh shut up, Atticus,” Voldemort seethes, watching the man dance away with his dew drops.
***
“Please don’t go,” Rodolphus says quietly one evening. Voldemort stares at the broken man, paying for his sins with a lifetime of his own unique brand of dementor-induced suffering. “Yours is the only family I will ever know.”
***
“Are we moving, papa?”
“No.”
***
In the kerfuffle of deciding whether or not to move house (they don’t, in the end), Harry’s headaches and wild magic only get worse.
It hurts Voldemort to see his son massaging his tiny temples and apologizing for creating odd wild magic. These incidents included turning Snape’s robes blue, conjuring a pineapple with womanly legs, accidently starting a fire in the garden, turning his own hair into leaves, and on one memorable occasion, summoned an eldritch shadow beast, after which Harry was so scared that he had to sleep between Voldemort and Avery for two nights.
This is not to say that only Voldemort was worried for his son. No, there was also Sirius, Remus, Ron, and Hermione.
Ron’s methods of help tend more toward the culinary. “Mum says that you’re best off with some good chicken soup when you’re off colour,” he says as he stirs a pot and ladles some into a bowl for Harry. “Salt to taste, Haz, eat up.”
“Thank you,” Harry says quietly, and proceeds to be an absolute angel by feeding Voldemort a spoon first. “Papa, eat.”
Voldemort wants to cry, but is too manly and dark to do so. Sirius has no such compunctions, and bursts into tears and smothers Harry with kisses and hugs that has the boy giggling incredulously.
Hermione’s fervour for research kicks into high gear, which Voldemort is equally grateful for. Suddenly, the dark lord’s desk is filled with notes of Hermione’s tidy handwriting on topics ranging from repressed magic, time magic, wild magic in children, and everything tangentially related to it.
At one point, Voldemort decides that he can’t possibly be caring for a child, running a business, being a Wizengamot Lord, and a secret Dark Lord and floos Hermione into his office to organize all of the mounds of research they have put together.
It is a nice reprieve from the stress when Draco walks in with some reports, sees Hermione, and faints.
***
“You really don’t mind that I’m in your house?” Hermione asks Narcissa, who is gliding around gracefully, doing various feminine activities.
“Your work is aiding the dark lord in terms of both his greater plans and maintaining his sanity,” Narcissa says evenly. “Therefore, you are an asset.”
“It doesn’t bother you that he isn’t pushing his dark lord agenda quite so much anymore?”
“I do not care for dark magic for the sake of being dark,” Narcissa hums. “I care that he is a staunch protector of wizard-kind and our traditions. That he does this as Lord Gaunt or The Dark Lord matters little to me.”
“That is… very expedient of you,” Hermione observes, somewhat warily.
“Yes, I know,” Narcissa smiles. “Now, has anyone told you that you would go much further with a bit of lipstick?”
***
“I have a theory,” Voldemort announces himself as he walks into Sirius’ house, where Hermione has taken to staying. Of course, Ron is there too, obediently putting parchment into binders while Hermione tries valiantly to drown herself in paper.
“Good,” Ron says stoutly, and reaches into the walled fortress of parchment to extract Hermione. “Let’s hear it. Hermione’s been spending too much time researching, and she’s moved into the boys dorm because she filled her own bed with books and stuff. If I hear Seamus whinge about not being able to sleep in the nude anymore one more time, I’ll hex his googlies.”
“Tea first, then theories,” Remus says stoutly. “Hermione can go and freshen up in the meantime. Sirius, get a comb, won’t you, and some detangling potion?”
Voldemort resigns himself to sipping on his tea while watching Sirius try and detangle Hermione’s hair and comb through it, only for the hair to try and attack him in turn.
“I did not know that her hair was sentient,” Voldemort remarks. “It is quite reminiscent of the charm on Medusa’s hair. Is she Greek at all?”
“Dunno, but I think her father’s mum was Jamaican. Right, Hermione?”
“Yes,” Hermione said, and then squealed as Sirius tugged at her hair. “Ow, Sirius!”
“Sorry love,” Sirius muttered, “but by Circe, I have never dealt with sentient hair before. Lavender shampoo to calm the locks, that’s the way to go.”
Eventually, Hermione was restored to some semblance of human girl, and Voldemort was able to expound on his theory. “From all the swottiness that Granger keeps sending me, I have come to the conclusion that Harry’s magics are evolving faster than his physical body, presumably due to the effects of the de-aging potion.”
“By Jove, that makes sense, thank Merlin you’re such a nerd,” Sirius cries, slapping his thigh enthusiastically.
“Thank you,” Voldemort mutters bitterly. “Cad.”
“So what do we do then?” Ron asks, ever the man of action. “We can’t suppress magic in a kid, that’s how you make an obscurus, every daft egg knows that.”
“Well yes,” Voldemort echoes, and can’t help but be impressed by Ron’s knowledge of obscure things, as is everyone else. “The way forward, therefore, is to help his body and mind catch up with his magic, lest his own magic do him an injury.”
Sirius hiccups emotionally, because his Harry is going to come back, but also from sadness because this is the version of Harry that he had missed out on for thirteen years. “I… is it best for him?”
“I see no other choice,” Voldemort replied, “and I have considered every possibility. Harry’s safety lies in helping him regain his true form and mental faculties.”
“How do you plan to do this?” Remus asked. “This kind of thing has to be a gradual change, or it will shock his system.”
“That’s right, so that’s a ritual out. I think that I have come up with a suitable potion,” Voldemort said, handing out his work.
“This is fiendishly difficult,” Hermione said. “Are you sure you can do this? I mean, I know you are very accomplished but you are mainly a spellcaster-“
“I don’t need to do this,” Voldemort grinned. “I have a potions master.”
***
“My lord presents me with a challenge,” Snape said, scanning the dark lord’s potion.
“Will it have the desired effect?” Voldemort asked.
“A slow aging potion, intended to reverse a de-aging one,” Snape murmured. “This recipe looks to be in order. It will work, yes.”
“Then I bid you to make the potion, Severus,” Voldemort said. “I recall that the potion that you presented for your Mastery had several similar components, especially the impact of brewing during the dark of the moon.”
Severus lips twitched upwards at the happy memories of sitting alone for days on end with a bubbling cauldron. “A most blessed period of time in my life.”
“Will you be able to do it, Severus? There can be no mistakes,” Voldemort said dangerously.
In the face of mortal peril, Severus glowed as Apollo had stood when facing down Porphyrion, his majesty and virtue blinding the unworthy eyes of his onlookers. “My lord,” he breathed, “I do not make mistakes.
“I make miracles.”
***
After that fateful conversation began Harry’s potions regimen. Being a good boy, Harry took his awful potion when his papa directed him to do so after meals.
“It tastes like socks,” Harry says matter-of-factly, “but papa says its to make me healthy, and he’s very clever, so I listen to him.”
“If only the rest of Wizarding Britain would say so,” Voldemort hums happily.
“I am sure that there are other places in the world where wizards would embrace your ideas, my lord,” Mulciber said obsequiously. “The world is your oyster! Japan, Brazil, India-“
“Mulciber no,” Voldemort says, horrified. “Just… no. Have you not read about colonialism?”
“What?”
“Muggle Britain had colonised India,” Voldemort explains slowly. “They would not embrace me. In fact, I am fairly sure that they would try and kill me harder than Dumbledore.”
“When was this?” Mulciber asks vacantly.
“Egads,” Voldemort says in quiet horror. “Harry, I insist that you read your world history textbook before bed.”
“Okay papa,” Harry replies cheerfully, and waddles off to be the best son ever.
Voldemort then goes and floos Remus to have an intellectual conversation, because that is totally something that they do.
***
The potion does not have a tangible effect on Harry, and in the following months, he remains small, and good, and pure. While part of Voldemort is glad to see his tiny son gamboling around cheerfully with Nagini, part of him also despairs to see the same boy experiencing headaches and bursts of violent magic that make him scared and fall silent as though he expects a punishment to soon follow.
“Why- isn’t- it- working!” Voldemort snarls out between firing off curses at Severus.
“My lord, the potion was made perfectly!” Severus cries, between dancing between evil looking spells that he dearly hopes don't land. “I can attest to this! I tested it myself!”
“On what?”
“I smuggled away Longbottom’s toad and tested it on the animal after subjecting it to a de-aging potion first! It worked fine, I swear, my lord!”
Voldemort pauses and watches Snape scurry away to hide behind the ficus plant. “It works,” he murmurs. “Then why is my child not reacting? His bursts of magic are approaching that of a full-grown wizard.”
“Perhaps it is simply the anomaly of Potter,” Snape grumbles.
Voldemort walks to the window and looks out to where Harry is doing his best to be like his Auntie Cissa and sew an intricate runic design onto a set of Voldemort’s robes. He recognizes it as a protection rune and has to wonder once more how he has been so blessed.
“I will figure something out, my lord,” Snape says softly, following his lord’s gaze. “I swear it.”
Voldemort looks at him curiously. “You don’t like him, Severus, you made no bones of that in the past.”
Snape takes a second before responding. “The child was prophesized to bring peace with his birth, and your demise. As I see it, the prophecy is complete. The Dark Lord I once served is no more, replaced by a man who is his better, only made so by the love of his child.”
It takes Voldemort several minutes to digest this news, and he comes to with Severus pushing a cup of tea into his hands. “You will not repeat this to anyone,” Voldemort says finally. “Egads. You are not supposed to be sentimental and insightful, Severus, you are meant to be a swot with the temperament of an unfixed cat.”
Snape smiles, looking rather like an evil parrot. “I learned at your knee, my lord,” he dumurrs.
“Stop trying to butter me up, I am already having a crisis,” Voldmeort mutters, sitting down on his favorite armchair. “I can’t believe that I have to tell Atticus that he was right.”
Snape knows better than to offer sympathies. Instead, he retreats gracefully, and hopes that the dark lord doesn’t end up killing Atticus.
***
“…”
“…”
“The dark lord’s passage to the Otherworld is nigh, and he embraces his end-!”
“Shut up, Atticus.”
Atticus only smiles vacantly at a sulky Voldemort, who is trying very hard to not melt into the sofa crease.
***
“Papa?”
Voldemort jolts awake in the middle of the night to see Harry at the foot of his bed. “Harry? What is it?” Voldemort croaks.
Wordlessly, Harry clambers into bed beside his father. “I don’t feel well,” he admits. “I’ve had a headache and I’ve been throwing up glitter since dinner.”
Voldemort blinks. His child is a unicorn, apparently. Still, it is better than regular emesis. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t want to bother you,” Harry admits softly, twisting the blankets adorably betwixt his fingers. “Uncle Atty was already giving you a headache.”
“Atticus doesn’t give me headaches, just gas,” Voldemort mutters, as he moves aside so that Harry can lay down next to him. “You must promise to tell me when you are unwell, Harry. I shan’t have any of this martyring behaviour.”
“Okay papa,” Harry smiles tiredly, and Voldemort’s tiny, twisty heart breaks. He puts it down to Atticus-induced heartburn. “Papa, where’s Uncle Avery?”
“Avery has a cold and is poorly, and he was thoughtful enough to sleep apart so he wouldn’t get me sick.”
“That’s nice,” Harry murmurs. “When you get married, what colours will your robes be, papa?”
“I will wear green, of course,” Voldemort hums, “the same as your bright eyes. Avery can wear whatever he wants.”
“What’s his favourite colour?”
“Blue,” Voldemort says, recalling the seven years Avery kept pinching his Ravenclaw brother’s scarves.
“Oh! Like Uncle Siri’s eyes!” Harry beams. “They’re so pretty, like silver mixed with blue, and so sparkly!”
“Your Uncle Sirius’ eyes are not a normal human colour, he is an inbred anomaly the likes of which should never procreate,” Voldemort frowns as Harry giggles. “Honestly, that man and his whole family are aberrations.”
Harry eventually falls asleep, with Voldemort recalling all of Sirius’ inbred traits and expounding on how repulsed he is at the thought of Sirius’ webbed toes.
***
Later the same night, the dark lord is awakened once again by his son - his now considerably larger son. “I think I hulked out of my clothes,” Harry whispers, shamefaced, and Voldemort gawks at his now teenaged child. It seems that Snape’s potion worked after all.
Harry is holding the blankets around him and blinking owlishly at his erstwhile nemesis, now turned doting father. Voldemort looks at his son - the sinewy, lean muscle born of quidditch, the faded scars across his body, and the bones too sharply visible through his skin. It makes Voldemort rage that no matter what, Harry will always carry the physical trauma of his past with him.
Silently, Voldemort slides out of bed and to his cupboard, returning with some boxers and a robe. “No headache?” he asks, as Harry struggles into the clothes.
“Hm? Ah, no. That was just until… now, I guess,” he says.
Voldemort nods, swallowing against the lump in his throat. “Good. Go back to sleep then - I am going to get myself some cocoa,” he says, and feels a knot in his chest detangle when Harry smiles at him shakily and slip back under the covers.
As he leaves, Voldemort picks up on a tired little “Goodnight, dad,” and it takes all of his strength of will to not burst into relieved tears there and then. He waits until he gets to Atticus’ room and then cries on him instead.