Perfect Places

The forms disappeared and were no more than a dream,
A sketch that slowly falls
Upon the forgotten canvas, that the artist
Completes from memory alone.

- A Carcass.

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.

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(Ten months earlier)

Harry wakes up, and his brain is pounding in his skull as if it wants to escape.

He groans first, because he had not felt those kinds of migraines since Voldemort’s disappearance, and then freezes, because he had not felt those kinds of migraines since Voldemort’s disappearance.

He opens an eye, and finds himself in Sirius’ room, in his old room. Oh, he thinks, and his relief is so strong that he could drown in it. He loves this room, with the old posters on the wall, with the Gryffindor theme and the faint smell of leather. He loves it with a fire that is tied closely to Sirius himself, and Harry knows how Sirius had loathed this house, the memories brought with it, but can not bring himself to carry the same fight.

He prefers so, he thinks. He does not want it to be tainted by loathing, this Grimmauld Place that had saved his life during the Horcruxes hunt, he wants it to be loved. He wants to remember Sirius’ smile, his laugh, his disdainful amusement when he had presented the house to Harry.

He doesn’t want it to be tainted by decades of cruelty. Its time has passed, now. All things change.

Then Harry steps out of his room and realizes this is not Grimmauld Place.

He freezes at first, much akin to a deer in a roadway, and muffles his breathing. If it is a joke, he fiercely thinks, anger bubbling in his chest, he does not like it very much. He does not understand, does not know who would trap him inside a house, transfiguring a room to make it look like his own, and it would need to be someone who knew Grimmauld Place.

Mondingus, Harry immediately thinks, perhaps unfairly so, because the man is the only one he does not trust. He does not like. Then, he shakes his head and realizes it can not be the man. Why would he? Mondingus is far from his stealing days, having been thanked for his actions in the war by a very lovely sum in galleons.

Harry tries to remember where he had been before that. His brain is aching, as if someone is pressing two fingers on it and tries to crush it in a tight embrace, and Harry makes a low wheezing sound. He had been talking with Ron, Harry thinks, they had been talking about- about-

He doesn’t know.

He doesn’t know.

Carefully, Harry explores the house. He has his fingers curled very tight around his wand. It comforts him, to have the familiar warmth accompanying him.

He passes a few doors, and then, when walking next to one on his left, Harry hears a sound. He stops, and very slowly turns towards the door. Is someone here with him? He is not sure to know if this is reassuring or not.

Harry makes a very careful step towards it. He hears the words of his Auror instructor in his mind, remembers another man and constant vigilance and almost smiles. It helps him sometimes, to think about what would have Moody say, the man very much alive in Harry’s memories.

Another stolen by Voldemort, Harry thinks, and he feels the familiar anger come back. It is insidious, burning, and Harry hates it almost as much as he hates the man himself. To have flown away like a coward, Harry thinks, after causing so much distress and dismay-

He had screamed in the early days, when people had thought that it was only a temporary disappearance, when they had thought Voldemort to have gone to a quest of a sort. But then, the days had transformed into weeks, into months, into years. No, Harry thinks, Voldemort had seen the truth, had seen his Horcruxes been destroyed, and he had flown away, like the snake-like coward he is.

Harry sighs, and tries to push the thought to the back of his mind. He makes a few steps forward, and directs his wand at the door. Its handle turns, with a slight squeak that makes him stop and wait, and then, when no sounds arise, Harry enters.

Voldemort is sleeping on the bed.

Harry feels drenched in icy water, and becomes as immobile as a statue. His eyes can not divert from the sleeping form of Riddle, and he clasps a hand against his mouth to keep silent. It is short, a matter of one second or two, pure horror hitting him.

Something that freezes him in place, wrapped around him so tightly that he cannot move, cannot breathe-

Constant vigilance, Harry thinks, and he can breathe again. He draws his wand, so fast that the air hiss, and summons Riddle’s wand.

It flies into his hand, and Harry feels as if a weight is suddenly lifted from his chest, immediately spelling for two ropes to encircle Voldemort’s body. It does not work at first, and Harry panics- he tries again, and again, and again, only for nothing to happen.

Harry runs then.

He slams the door behind him, and runs, Voldemort’s wand tightly gripped between his fingers.

He needs to hide them, Harry thinks, eyes wide and heart pounding in his chest, he needs to hide both of them.

~*~

Hours pass and Voldemort does not come for him.

They pass and Harry is still hidden in his room, all the furniture pressed against the door, two wands grasped in his hands. He will fight, he assures himself, and he will win.

He has the wands.

~*~

Days pass and Voldemort does not come for him.

His sleep, Harry quickly realizes, bears nothing natural. He crept out of his room on the third day, briefly wondering about his lack of hunger, and realized that Riddle has not moved an inch from his bed. He sleeps, as if someone charmed him to sleep for all eternity, immortality as he has always desired, and Harry wants to laugh, and laugh, and laugh.

So he does. And realizes through his laugh, that he is not amused at all.

~*~

Harry tries to escape.

So many times.

He cannot.

He tries, and tries, again and again, pounding his fists against the glasses, transfiguring a hammer to add strength to his blows. Harry has found that he can do magic, that it obeys his will as always, but cannot touch Voldemort.

He tries to draw Aurors rituals, he tries to read through the house’ library and throw every spell he knows of and can read about.

Harry tries to escape, and finds himself screaming, begging out loud for the door to open, asking if fate had not taken already enough, if it desired his freedom in addition to his life, if it wanted for Harry to beg and cry, to kneel and weep.

He does not understand what it wants, and this is it, Harry thinks, more than anything, that gnaws at his mind and makes it blur into numbness.

~*~

Harry is standing near Voldemort’s bed. Riddle, he rectifies, because the man does not deserve the honour of respecting his desires. He understands Dumbledore’s reasons for calling him Tom, for disregarding his identity. There is nothing greater than the sense of self, Harry thinks, and to be disdained it is an insult that cannot be surpassed.

He can not help but thinks of Voldemort, nonetheless, for Harry tries to find features of the handsome Tom Riddle in the snake-like face, and finds none of them.

“Cru-” Harry whispers, his eyes bloodshot by tears and tiredness. A tiredness that gnaws at his very soul, a fatigue so deep that it slows his every move, and still Harry cannot sleep.

 He lays awake at night, staring at the dark, and knowing that Voldemort is sleeping next door. That he is peaceful, in the realms of dreams where desires are easily grasped, where wishes fall as easily as rain on the trees.

“Crucio,” he tries again, his hand trembling, his wand directed at Voldemort, and nothing happens.

Harry falls to his knees, and the yew wand falls with a loud clang.

“I can’t,” he whispers, and he does not know if this is due to the constraint that bounds the house or if it comes from him. “I can’t.”

Riddle is so peaceful on the bed, Harry realizes, and it makes him want to scream. He does not deserve peace; he does not deserve to know nothing of punishment, to just... to just sleep. He deserves Azkaban and regrets, he deserves the realization of the horror of his actions, he deserves nothing but what had been granted to him.

He killed his parents. He killed Remus. He killed Sirius. He killed so many. He killed so many, and he sleeps, and sleeps, drifting away in mirages that enraptures him.

Minutes pass before Harry can raise to his full height. They are alone in this house, him and Voldemort sleeping, and he is so tired. He cannot escape, he cannot leave, and he is tired, a fatigue that has nothing to do with sleep. He feels too much, Harry thinks, and not for the first time, wants to tug at his chest and pull out this ball of unwanted emotions.

He wants to throw it away and gaze uncaringly at the monster of his nightmares, he wants to not feel this mixture of hate, fear and sadness that seizes him when looking at Riddle.

He does not want to feel anything.

~*~

Harry tries Fiendfyre one day. It is supposed to eat the very essence of the caster, but he cannot bring himself to care.

He is strangely detached now, and he looks at the flames licking the door without ever causing damage. It reminds him of another time, it reminds him of screams of fright and Draco Malfoy’ eyes widened by fear, it reminds him of failure and another death.

Harry thinks the house drains his feelings. He has fallen into a strange routine now.

He wakes up. He eats through a bland grilled toast, nothing has taste anymore, and a cup of coffee. He takes a shower and thinks about letting his beard grow. He reads and tries to blast curses at the door. He eats an apple. He goes to Voldemort’s room and stares at the man until his eyes burn. He looks through the library. He goes to his room and lays on his bed, eyes wide open as he tries to reach for a sleep that never comes. He wakes up.

It will change, Harry thinks, the first days.

It will not change, Harry thinks, one day.

It will never change, Harry thinks, every day.

~*~

Harry stops trying to escape.

He doesn’t realize it at first. He had spent the day in Riddle’s room, with a book in an armchair. The man - and as much as he tried to convince the world of the contrary, he was just a man – never moved, never opened his eyes.

There is just the silence, and Harry breaking it by turning the pages of his book.

He does not speak either at first, for there is no one to speak to. They say the first step of madness is talking to yourself, and Harry does not want to be mad. He dislikes the word, hates it even. It reminds him of what the newspaper used to say, the mad mad mad Harry Potter who lied to the world, the mad Dumbledore who indulged him in his lies, the mad Sirius Black who had succumbed to the illness of his blood.

But one day he forgets. He says something to Riddle, because the man cannot talk back, the man can not protest, and Harry finds the silence that answers him better than the silence of not speaking at all.

“I watched your memories,” Harry says. He does not know why he says this, why should he confess anything when Voldemort could be hearing everything Harry whispers. “I don’t think it was supposed to make me think what I thought. I was supposed to hate you more, I believe, and maybe it worked but maybe it did not.”

No one answers. Of course.

“I saw the orphanage. The Dursley often threatened me with sending me there. I thought that perhaps it would be better than them. I think I was wrong,” Harry’s voice is raspy. He has not spoken for so many days that it does not surprise him. “I saw your family. The Gaunt, I mean. Your Father too. How funny, I thought, that he had the same haughty sneer as Tom Riddle. Or would he be Tom Riddle? You must understand your Mother, she was not in a very good place I think. Marvolo Gaunt was not a very kind man.”

Harry marks a pause. “Not that it forgives her actions. I thought that you were the way you are because of how you grew up. I think Dumbledore believed it was because of how you were born. But then again, it is the old debate of nurture against nature. An heir to the deformed and inbreed House of Gaunt, the result of a love potion. I saw what it does, those potions. They are very strong.”

Harry stays quiet then, and his book lays open on his lap. He tries to think about what he would have felt, if his Mother had given one to his Father. There is a terrible sense of dread and horror that washes through him, and Harry finds that he can feel in the end.  He would have been so angry, Harry thinks, so distressed to realize the truth.

He says nothing more, and the minutes passes once again.

And then, without any warning, Voldemort opens his eyes.

Harry does not move. He does not even react, and it is very strange, that he knows, but he cannot bring himself to care. Instead, he watches as Voldemort silently raises, and says. “Hello.” He tilts his head to the side, and think about time and curses. “You have been asleep for a very long time.”

Voldemort says nothing, merely stares. It is very piercing, Harry thinks, this red gaze of his. It burns as if he tries to gaze at Harry’s very soul, and the thought would have been enough to tear a bitter laugh out of him had he not been so tired.

There is silence as Voldemort stands, and gaze at his wrists, incomprehension written on his face.

Oh, Harry thinks. He believes we captured him. “The Order did not make you a prisoner,” Harry then says, because the silence is unbearable. Not now that there is someone to break it. His wand, Harry then thinks, and retrieves it from his pocket. “Your magic is not inhibited.”

Half a second has not the time to pass that the wand flies from his grip to Voldemort’s. Perhaps he should be frightened, but he is not. Instead, he stares at the anger flashing on Riddle’s face, his eyes narrowing, and thinks that it is all very familiar.

He craves familiarity.

“And why is that, boy?” Voldemort finally asks. This is the first time since Harry’s arrival that another voice breaks the silence, and Harry feels something twirling in his stomach. The voice is high and cold, so very cold, when so long had things been devoid of any warmth or ice. “Do you believe yourself,” Voldemort continues, and his tone is too soft, the same softness that comes before the tempest. “for some foolish reason that escapes me, safe from my wrath?”

Could someone be? Harry had seen the treatment he had reserved for the ones he valued the most. “I don’t think anyone is,” he says. His own voice struggles to get out. “This is not above will but capacity”, he specifies, because Voldemort‘s gaze is still scorching on his own. “You cannot harm me here.”

Voldemort draws his wand then, and a green curse hits him. Harry slowly lowers his gaze to where it had hit him, and thinks that this has marked the third time Voldemort’s killing spell had not harmed him. Never two without three, he thinks, and laughs.

And laughs, and laughs.

Voldemort whispers something, his red gaze widened by fright. The fear of death and unknown again, and Harry so desires to say that death should not be a man’s greatest fear. It is other men, he thinks, who proves themselves much crueller.

“You cannot harm me here, or cast any spell at me,” Harry says. He shrugs, because he feels like a frozen statue, and wants to test if his body still obeys him. “The rest, you can. Just me… Your magic doesn’t affect me. Mine doesn’t affect you either.”

“And how did you find out,” Voldemort grits out. “Would the Boy-who-lived be darker than the interests he claims to serve? What kind of spells have you tried to cast on Lord Voldemort?”

Harry thinks of falling to the ground and failing to cast a spell on the one who had harmed the world the most, thinks of wanting to stop feeling, and this numbness that had seized him. “The Cruciatius,” he says. He had been so angry. He doesn’t know if he can be now. “When I arrived here first; woke up and explored the house... only to find you sleeping. I was angry; so much so; the kind of anger I had never felt before. You killed so many of them that day, and you were sleeping.”

There is silence, and Harry can see Voldemort thinking. His lips thin when he thinks, and something, probably anger, coats his scarlet gaze.

They speak more after. Harry continues, and Voldemort asks and asks. Enough so that it makes something flickers in Harry’s stomach, enough that Harry bitterly laughs, and it is the most vivid reaction that he had displayed in a few weeks.

“I will be in the kitchen making tea,” Harry finally says. He does not wait for Voldemort to answer and promptly leaves.

Well, he thinks, once he reaches for the kitchen. It could have gone worse.

The very same night, Voldemort tries to strangle him.

~*~

It goes worse.

He can hear Voldemort trying to escape, screaming curses at the door, but never does he see him.

Perhaps it goes better. Harry finds that there his numbness lessens as the days pass. He is less influenced by the house, he thinks, now that there is someone else to take energy from.

He still does not sleep.

~*~

They finally speak. Harry does not know how many days had passed. He just knows that he can feel something tugging at his stomach, and realizes, the night (or day? There is no indication of time here) after their second interaction, that it is anger. Anger and sadness.

He cannot, Harry fiercely thinks. He doesn’t want to.

He cannot return to loathing Lord Voldemort, Harry realizes. He does not want to feel anger anymore, not this burning feeling that makes him sick, he does not want to feel constricted, to feel this painful ache at hating, hating, hating. He had done so, and Harry cannot do it anymore. It has nothing to do with Riddle himself.

Harry does not want to be the kind of man who hates. He has seen what it does, what it had done to Sirius who had loathed and loathed Wormtail, Snape, Voldemort. He had seen what it had done to the young Tom Riddle, who had riveted his brown eyes on the world and decided to hate, and hate, and hate.

He can pity him instead, Harry thinks. There is nothing glorious in pity, nothing extreme that makes his heart tighten as if it would explode.

There is much to pity, and Harry decides that he rather wants to be kind.

Kindness is nothing like hatred, and as he lays awake, his eyes riveted on something he can not see, Harry thinks of his parents, of Sirius, Fred, of Remus, of Tonks, of Moody and all the ones fallen to hatred, and thinks that they would rather have him being kind.

It is much harder, Harry knows, to choose the latter.

This is why he wants to.

~*~

Time passes, as time is bound to do, and Harry realizes that Voldemort too tries to engage in conversations. There is no need to, for if there is one among all that cannot be charmed, that will not be charmed, it is Harry. What use would it have?

It is not always peaceful.

Despite choosing kindness, Harry still is angry. He cannot bury it under words of self-delusion. It had come back, gradually so, those unwanted feelings, and they very well know how to parasite his mind. They know how to be insidious, how to slither into his thoughts when Voldemort speaks or move.

It bubbles and explodes, as things that are repressed cannot help but do, and they scream at each other one day. Harry immediately regrets his outburst and tries to calm himself. It helps, he thinks, when remembering the reason for his need for cordiality. It helps to visualize his family, born or found, looking at him and proud of the kindness he tries to give.

It might be a selfish reason, but Harry believes the results to be far more important than the reasons laying underneath. The man reaching a hand towards one drowning can not be more faulted for doing so out of interest than the one seeing the scene and walking away.

The next day, a tentative peace is established. Harry tries to give an opportunity for honesty, and to his surprise, Voldemort takes it. French braised tongue. It does not surprise him, for he would have expected nothing less from a man of such refined tastes. How strange, Harry thinks, for one to appreciate some of the finest arts and yet relish in such cruel brutality.

~*~

“Time no longer obeys to his own laws,” Voldemort says one day, and Harry knows how to recognize an invitation for cordiality. It amuses him, very much so, to see how Riddle’s face distort when trying for amiability. He had forgotten his mask of politeness, Harry thinks, grown accustomed to what fear brings. “They desire to confuse us.”

Harry had often said that Aurors were not behind their entrapment. He believes another being to have done so, but Voldemort does not deviate kindly from his certitudes.

Then again, age often tended to do so.

“Everything is made to confuse us here,” Harry points out, raising an eyebrow.  

It is part of the cruelty of their entrapment. It is not enough to chain them; it needs to take their minds too. It will wait long for it, Harry thinks, for the mind is what a man still possess after everything is robbed from him. The mind survives, and the mind hopes, because it had stayed in Pandora’s box all those centuries ago.

Voldemort’s face twist, and Harry had noticed that he does not know it. Perhaps being dispossessed of a body for so long makes it harder to control one’s facial expression, and Harry, Harry who had spent so many days facing his own reflection, cannot fault Riddle for being human.

“You seem,” Voldemort begins, his voice baring the softness he was so fond of, so far away for the cockney accent eleven-years old Tom Riddle had worn. The snake-like nostril flares. “Particularly indifferent to the powers at play.”

Harry laughs. “Of course I am,” he says, his voice quiet but still wary. “There is no use in lamenting about what cannot be changed.”

Voldemort’s red gaze pierce through his own. “What can, and cannot, be changed is entirely subject to the length we are willing to go to.”

Of course, Harry thinks, with a fondness that is grown out of fatigue, of course, Riddle would elaborate comparisons between what drives him and an entirely different situation. “Sometimes not,” Harry slowly answers. “We are subject here to constraints on which we have no control of. I think it"s better to adapt than running against the tide.”

Voldemort sneers. He is still trying to escape, drawing rituals and hissing curses at the door. Harry stops to watch him sometimes, enthralled despite himself by the magic displayed.

There is no shame, Harry thinks, in recognizing beauty. He sees it in the magic that obeys Voldemort, and Harry is confident enough in himself and his values to not judge himself a lesser man for appreciating talent. A wasted talent, he fiercely thinks, for he judges it terribly unfair that skill often brings arrogance.

Is the law of nature, perhaps, that such talent would be given to Voldemort, a man who loathes the world, instead of someone like Neville, so full of kindness and love for others, ten-fold more deserving of greatness. Harry stops himself then- Neville is great, he thinks. Neville does not need to be the most powerful to be great. He already is.

Then, because Harry is a Gryffindor above all else, and should really know better, he asks. “What is greatness for you? You speak of it so often.”

It is stupid- and Harry should be wiser, should stay quiet and not indulge Voldemort, but he asks, nonetheless. Perhaps it is because only then the lingering anger recedes from Riddle’s face, when he speaks so fiercely about what animates him, and his snake-like features resemble the avid joy of Tom Riddle when he had discovered himself to be magical.

It had been ugly, Harry knows, this greedy pleasure that had twisted Riddle’s features. But he cannot fault him, not after having been given six years to ponder on it, to understand it. Harry too, had been so full of joy, so full of awe and wonder, of a want so fierce that it could have consumed him, upon discovering the wizarding world.

He understands, perhaps better than anyone, the utter delight of being said special, after years and years of degradation, of contempt and loathing directed towards oneself.

“You are intriguing Harry Potter,” Voldemort says instead, and if the voice is cold and high, there is none of this slow infliction Riddle had always put on Harry’s name. “Are you looking for conflict?”

Harry laughs again. He cannot help it, not when Voldemort is so full of suspicion. It is a genuine demand, one born of having been raised to hate a man without ever understanding his motivations.

“I am sincere,” Harry smiles, and the smile destabilize Voldemort, he can see it in the small recoil that animates him. How strange, Harry thinks, that screaming his hatred had not done so, but a smile would. “Curious too, perhaps. I find the definition so variable from one to another, you know, that I wonder what you see in it.”

Voldemort keeps silent at first. Then. “Tell me yours, first.”

“Why?” Harry tilts his head to the side, a little bit suspicious. “Would it change your mind?”

Voldemort raises a hairless eyebrow. “Contrarily to what you seem to think, I know how to recognize a wise argument.”

Harry says nothing, but his silence speaks for himself.

“Speak boy,” Voldemort says, and Harry believes that it is only the Slytherin etiquette that refrains the man from sighing.

“Very well,” Harry agrees. He narrows his eyes then, points a spoon at the man. It is hilarious, he thinks, to see the utter disgust of Riddle had being pointed at by cutlery. It makes Harry want to do it again and again. “But don’t interrupt me to tell me it is utter nonsense. I want you to hear what I am saying. There is no point if you don’t.”

Voldemort smiles and his smile is sharper than Nagini’s. “Of course,” he softly says, but Harry trusts none of his words. He is deceit made human, and Harry would be a fool to forget it.

“I am quite serious.”

“I agreed.”

Harry hums and says nothing more about it. Instead, he stretches, relishing as ever in non-verbal communication. It infuriates Voldemort, that much he knows, to see Harry shrug, stretch, roll his eyes, all what he judges vulgar and bestial. Use words, he had hissed, once, and Harry, for all the kindness he wants to give, is not above being petty.

“Being great is not about what you can give yourself,” Harry quietly says. He keeps his eyes riveted on the wall, because he does not want to see Voldemort’s dubitative sneer. “Selfishness is not greatness. It is not defined by the societal’s constraints and desires. It is not subjugating others to your yolk, and disdaining them for what you judge is weakness.”

“You speak of what greatness is not. I believe you wished to enlighten me on what greatness is.”

“A vast definition is it not?” Harry smiles. “It all depends, really. Why should one definition be given to it? Greatness is what you make out of it. Greatness can be being kind to others. Greatness can be cleverness, and using your intelligence to contribute to progress. Healthy progress.”

Voldemort laughs then, his high-pitched and glacial one.

It skill makes Harry’s skin shudder when he laughs. It had been so many years, and yet he remembers that laugh, that icy delight at the prospect of destruction. It is too easy to forget, Harry thinks, when Riddle wears his mask of polite attention. Too easy to forget that it is only a mirage, and that violence lurks underneath it.

“Is it not what I have done, then?” Voldemort asks. “Is it not progress? Is it not cleverness to recognize a threat and take care of it?”

“Ignorance often is the reason behind cautiousness,” Harry simply says. He had seen it, so many times, as an Auror. “You cannot use this excuse. You know the muggle-borns are no threat. How could they?”

“How could they?” Voldemort quietly repeats. “Secrecy, Harry,” he says, and the syllables are hissed on his tongue. “Arrogance. Foolishness. They desire the world to adapt for them, to their traditions and forsake ours. Tell me, how many magical traditions have you honoured this past year?”

Harry says nothing.

“What a surprise,” Voldemort softly says. “You repeat words heard without understanding the damaging ignorance they are coated with.”

“Violence is not the solution. Someone will always rise.” Harry is angry now, this bubbling white anger that so likes to seize his heart, clawing at it with a painful delight. “Someone will always stop a tyrant. Education is the answer, not extermination.”

Voldemort’s voice is so very cold. “Is it? You, child of the prophecy, failed to do so if I recall.”

It is Harry’s turn to laugh. “Did I? Do you feel like having won, Riddle?”

Voldemort hisses at him, and another killing curse lodges itself in Harry’s throat. It does nothing, as it always does, and Harry shakes his head.

“Change is a mirage for you,” he says, because his anger is slowly fading towards tiredness. “Trapped again and again in a vicious circle of your making.”

He leaves then, and hears Voldemort snarl and send curses behind him. A few hit his back, but Harry does not turn.

Kindness is hard, he learns, when it is met with nothing but disdain.

~*~

A few days later, Harry discover the mirror, and can’t help but say what weight on his heart, this fear he has about hatred, and he says he hates Voldemort because he is supposed to, he should to, even if he doesn’t want to.

Voldemort has killed many, so many, the world is still healing from his passage, and Harry, Harry who should loathe him, who should despise him, doesn’t feel it. He had wished to be free of it, of this parasite feeling, and he doesn’t know what he wants.

Harry wants to hate him, for what he did to his parents, to Sirius. Harry doesn’t want to hate him, for what hate does to Harry. He blurts it all out, his confusion, his incomprehension, and then- then Voldemort says the words.

“I did not wish to kill you,” Riddle says, and Harry thinks, with wide wide eyes, that all what he had thought to understand about the man crumbles.

He is passionate, so fiery about his interests, and Harry, Harry who have thought him to love nothing else but himself, sees the fleeting regret when speaking about the library, a regret that speaks of affection. He is intelligent, so very so, that Harry had always known.

He loves, even if he does not want to admit it, he loves very fiercely what captures his attention.

Harry spends the rest of the day in his rooms. He hides, he thinks, but even the disgust of his own cowardness cannot prompt him to leave and face Voldemort. He is too much confused, the lines between what he thought to know and what he learns blurring to a painful extent.

~*~

Harry enters, and Voldemort is wearing Tom Riddle’s face.

He freezes, his thoughts blurring into a startled mixture; and why, Harry asks himself, is it a sign of truce, Harry hopes, it is deceit, Harry knows.

Don’t be fooled, Harry says to himself. Don’t lose yourself in your hopes.

Deep in his mind, a voice laughs.

~*~

“You are my Horcrux,” Voldemort breathes. He is frozen in place, handsome and unblinking, and Harry does not understand. “You bear my soul.”

Oh, Harry Potter thinks, much later, in the loneliness of his room. It would explain many things, if Voldemort had not known. He had been so certain Riddle had seen, had understood- they had both fell when the Horcrux had been killed-

How devastated must one soul be, Harry wonders, to not feel being cut off from its self. To not feel being in another being, to not feel being killed.

He remembers the Horcrux, the thing in King’s Cross and Harry’s chest tighten. It is useless, he knows it very well, but he cannot help it. Riddle could have been so much more, Harry thinks, when he sees how his features animate when speaking of his interests. How he explains, quietly, when Harry asks about a subject.

The image is hard, sometimes, to reconcile with the man that had sought to kill him. Still wishes to do so, Harry is sure, but he cannot control the feeling of pity and regret that seizes him when seeing Riddle being so passionate.

A true waste, he thinks, and sometimes he is not sure if the remains of his anger are directed towards Voldemort himself or the situation.

~*~

Days pass and Harry finds their cordiality to be less strained than in the past.

It is so strange, and more often than not, Harry finds himself in front of the mirror of his bedroom. He has a beard now, one that he had begun to grow because he cannot bear to see James Potter’s face look at him, not when he is showing kindness to his murderer.

Harry is not stupid. He knows Voldemort’s lack of violence to be born of the constraints that hang upon them, knows that should it disappear, Riddle would waste no time trying to kill him.

He knows all of this. It doesn’t mean that he can not wish for it to change.

It is easy to wish so when Voldemort wears the face of his true self. It renders him more human, and animates his features in such a way that tugs at Harry’s chest. It is utterly stupid of Harry, and he lays awake at night thinking about it, thinking of Fred, of Sirius, of Colin, and wants to sink a hand into his own heart and squeeze it until there is nothing left.

It is loneliness perhaps, so many days and months with nothing but both of them, Riddle’s handsome features, the way his eyes gleam when he explains something, the way he hisses in parseltongue under his breath when frustrated and does not notice it, how he indulges Harry when he speaks of his discoveries inside the house, and seems the very picture of phlegm, only for his face to brighten when he had spoken to that snake, how he contemplated Harry and tried to find resemblances between them.

He’s beginning to be less cautious, Harry realizes, and he thinks about Hepzibah Smith and the death eaters, he thinks about Riddle charming his way through life and knows that it’s beginning to work on Harry.

Kindness should not come at the detriment of carefulness.

I will do better; Harry says to himself. I will be better.

~*~

He will not.

~*~

(Now)

“Antares Nott, blamed the loss of magical abilities of our wizards and the overall decline in the level of education and magical strength of wizards on pre-natal conditions,” Voldemort is saying. His brown gaze is riveted on Harry, intense and determined, and Harry is outraged.

Blaming a supposed loss of magic on the increasing presence of muggle-borns? This is pure racism, no evidence there to prove this very biased theory, and he gasps in indignation.

Then, Voldemort, very slowly, adds. “I disagree.”

Harry, which until then, had believed the theory to resonate with Riddle’s values, marks a pause. He opens his mouth, promptly closing it, for he finds all words entrapped in his mind. Only one passes the barrier of his lips. “What?”

Voldemort is the very picture of phlegm. He raises no eyebrow, pinches no lips, merely stares at Harry and repeats. “I disagree.” And then- then- “I am of the mind that the genetic cannot be tampered with; and believes mutations to be out of the human control. Prenatal mutations, of course, for the body is a reflection of the soul, and I have proven that such can be transfigured to one’s will.”

Harry needs a few seconds to understand what is being said. Another to blurt out. “Wait- what? But you said it caught your attention?”

Riddle’s brown eyes find Harry’s. They are very pretty, Harry fleetingly thinks, and then stares in horror as he realizes his thought. “I did. I never said it caught it because of its righteousness. Antares and I had quite the vivid debate on the subject.” Riddle tilts his head to the side, and Harry is reminded of the pythons in the zoo. “Nature is a fickle creator,  and it is useless to wonder about the abilities gifted to you upon birth. It is knowledge and power who gift you others.”

There is a silence, long enough for Harry to shake his head in incredulity.

Was it a joke, he wonders- and he has no time to ask it, that Voldemort laughs.

He laughs, and Harry’s heart jumps in his chest. His features brighten, nothing like the cruel laughs Voldemort had given to his public, genuine mirth that illuminate his face. He laughs, and Harry finds himself wanting, seeing in this laugh what he had hoped to see for so long.

It is childish joy, delight at a harmless confusion, so far away from the cruel pleasure of inflicting pain, of demeaning others, and Harry’s heart skips a few beats.

He doesn’t know what seizes him then.

Perhaps having found Riddle so handsome in those memories from the diaries, perhaps being the reason behind such genuine mirth, perhaps the loneliness that haunts him at night.

Harry bends forward and kisses him.

Voldemort does not react at first. He stays frozen in place, taken by surprise, his lips cold and soft against Harry’s. And then, Harry’s brain kicks in and he retreats, staring in pure horror at the abnormal rigidness of Voldemort.

“Fuck,” Harry breathes, and if his eyes are widened by panic, Voldemort’s unblinking ones resembles those of a deer caught in the headlights. “Fuck” he says again, frantically, and Voldemort still has not moved by a single inch. “I’m- I should not- fuck”

Harry flees then. He can not think, can not talk, and stumbles out of his chair, running for his room.

He locks it with all the spells he can think of, and falls against the door.

Fuck, Harry thinks, and there is no other world in his mind. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

The boy kisses him.

It is very sudden, enough to surprise him. Very few can pride themselves in surprising Lord Voldemort, but it seems that Potter manages to do so again and again.

He freezes at first, and finds himself unable to react. How familiar, Voldemort thinks, and the thought is tainted with consternation, to find himself trapped in a body without exerting any control on it. This time, however, it is not a physical constraint that refrains him from moving, from reacting, but the stillness of his mind.

The more powerful part of the self, some say, and here it is, amorph in its surprise.

Potter runs away, then, his eyes wide in horror. Voldemort watches him fly to his rooms, and finds his skin to be painfully burning where the boy had touched it. It is a phantom pain, as there is no connection between his nerves and his brain, but one that is fierce all the same.

He will let the boy a few days of silence, Voldemort decides. He will let himself a few days of silence.

He needs to think. Cruelly so.

~*~

Alone in the fortress of his thoughts, Voldemort reaches a decision.

This is a game he had won so many times. One that was not played with external pawns but with the sweet delicacy that was words and actions, who continued even without the consent of its players, one who had shaped his path at Hogwarts.

This is the game that is taught to Slytherins, the one that is whispered to them the very first night in the castle, the one that is murmured until it becomes a voice in the back of their mind. A lesson, perhaps even more important than recognizing that transaction came with every decision.

Words, Slughorn had said, and it is perhaps one of the few times that the man had been useful, are all the more dangerous than their blow never fade. Words, he had said, evaporate in the air and lingers in the heart; and wounds more viciously than curses for their injuries are hidden to the eye.

He will let the boy come to him, Voldemort thinks, with a vicious delight that emerges from his years as a wraith, as he had done in the forest. He will let the boy crave for what he should not, and he see trust in the eyes and the soul.

And then, he will escape.

~*~

True to his word, Voldemort says nothing when Potter enters the kitchen.

The boy is averting his gaze, and Voldemort finds it all very entertaining. What would have Dumbledore said, he thinks, so delighted it burns through his veins, seeing his golden child fervently desire for the one the old fool despised the most.

Then perhaps, he would have twinkled his eyes and spoken about love. Love, of all.

Voldemort does not understand love. It is not born out of ignorance, for he knows each of the chemicals involved in the process, how it twists senses and rends blind to the other’s shortcomings. No, this, he knows. What eludes him, is the fact that people would wish to submit themselves to such blindness.

It is weakness, he thinks, he knows, to voluntarily gives control over yourself to another. Obsession, lust, all those are easily comprehensible matters. Affection too. Close contact with another human being is bound; to most people; to affect them, create fondness for the other.

It is fondness, certainly, what he had felt towards the Lestrange. The recognition of their loyalty, brilliant minds, unshakable faith. It is fondness, for he would have granted them their deepest desire for such a prove of devotion, but never would he give free reign over himself. Never would he allow any of them to judge themselves superior to him, to think owning any right to him.

This, he does not understand.

Nevertheless, Voldemort pushes a fuming cup of tea towards Harry Potter, and keeps silent. He does not raise his eyes to the boy, wishes for him to slowly release the tension that reigns over him, lower this cautiousness of his. Potter is a wounded beast, Voldemort thinks, quick to attack should he feel himself threatened.

A few seconds pass. “I apologize,” Potter says, his voice strained, and it seems that he wishes to address the subject. “I was very rude. I won’t do this again.”

Voldemort has a choice then. There is always a choice, when partaking in a conversation. “I was taken by surprise,” he says, and there is truth in his words. “There is no need to talk about thiss.”

His last word rips, fades into parseltongue, but Potter understands all the same. He nods, once, a very tight and curt inclination of the head, and raises his cup to his mouth.

“Okay,” he says. “Okay.”

There is a silence then. “Join me in the Lestrange’s library,” Voldemort says. His voice is quiet, bearing that softness that separates him a step further from Tom Riddle. “I desire to search about souls.”

The boy raises an eyebrow. “Have you not read all the possible works about it?”

Of course, he had. There is nothing the library could offer him that he does not already know. It is not to gain knowledge that he wishes for the boy’s company, but to reclaim influence.

“You have not,” Voldemort corrects. “Perhaps a… second pair of eyes could enlighten me on some precisions I would not have judged important.”

“My,” Potter breathes. “Admitting to not be omniscient?”

Voldemort sharply smiles. “I never claimed to be.”

The boy huffs, relaxing as the seconds pass. “Yeah sure. I remember very vividly, thank you, you telling me four nights ago that so little escaped your sight that you had thought yourself a seer upon arriving at Hogwarts !”

This is not entirely true, but he indulges the boy. Trust, he had found, was born in the little things. Nourished by affection and sustained by honesty. Alas, he thinks, honesty entirely depends on one’s vision on his surroundings. His honesty is not Potter’s, and the boy can not know if his words are coated in truth or lies.

“The library,” Voldemort pointedly says.

Harry Potter does not move.

“It will not go away. Neither will us.” There is a pause, and Voldemort has the feeling that Harry Potter is being voluntarily obnoxious to hide his shame at his actions. “In fact, time is the last thing we are lacking.”

“It should not encourage laziness.”

“Laziness, my lord, has a much wider definition than taking your time to finish your breakfast.”

Voldemort’s head turns with a snap, and his sharp gaze pierces through Harry’s. The words had fallen carelessly from the lips, offered without much thought, but it makes his blood boil. Yes, he thinks, it is how it should be, the title so fleetingly given, as if anchored in Potter’s very soul.

“There is no need to call me my lord, Potter,” he finally says, a faint delighted smile stretching his lips, and Potter barks a very loud laugh.

He raises an intrigued eyebrow. “Is it the title that causes you so much joy?”

Harry Potter fans his hand, shoulders still shaking in laughter. “No,” he finally breathes, still smiling so wide that it cannot help but raise curiosity in Voldemort’s mind. “A memory, that’s all.”

Voldemort waits for an explanation, but nothing comes.

“Yes,” he says. He so rarely ask. People provide.

“Snape,” Potter tells him, for an answer. “Nothing that would interest you, I am very sure. We had a few, ah, disagreements during my time at Hogwarts.”

He does not push for more. He had seen in Severus’ mind a few of those altercations, back when he had been intent on accumulating every ounce of knowledge on his prophesied foe. Instead, he raises to his full height, and does not wait for Potter to finish to depart for the library.

And because, Voldemort wants to escape this thrice-damned place, he passes very close to Potter. Close enough to hear the boy’s breath hitch, and a delicious satisfaction run through his veins. It will never cease to amaze him, he thinks, to have such control over others.

It reminds him of a supposed muggle-born in a closed world, of all talks of purity only for golden coins to count, as it did in every civilization, and it fills him with an anger so deep that even his delight struggles to stifle it.

“Finish your meal,” he finally says. His voice is soft, too much perhaps, and it comforts him to know himself the last one able to compare it to a harsh cockney. “I shall wait for you upstairs.”

~*~

“You know,” Potter is saying, that Voldemort is positive he will not be interested in the boy’s rambling. “It’s funny how people with money tend to then not know what to do with it and spend it in the most incomprehensible things ever.”

True, but he does not confess it. Instead, he lets the boy continue, a few steps away from him, brushing his short fingers against the decorated marble of the wall. “Egoistical too, I think, because they’d rather add three golden statues to their garden than doing something helpful with it.”

Voldemort thinks of the hundred and twenty-five peafowls of Abraxas Malfoy, and thins his lips. “People’s possessions are them and them only,” he says. “ There will always be avid eyes on them, motivated by jealousy.”

Potter laughs. He still is contemplating the luxury of the Lestrange’s library. “You speak as one of them,” he murmurs. The boy had been rendered bold by the violation of his body, Voldemort thinks, and needs no other proof to know that it is a coping mechanism. Thus, he keeps silent, trying to still his fingers who twitch on his wand. Trust is not built in a day but can be destroyed in a matter of seconds.

“It is of a questionable taste for you to judge yourself outside of it,” Voldemort coldly says. The boy spins to face him, but Voldemort lets no one interrupt him. “I seem to recall that the financial legacy of the Potter’s is quite consequent.”

He remembers hand-made robes, and accepting charity. He remembers the eyes of pitying contempt, the oh of realisation upon asking why should he bother with so old quills, the avert of the eyes and the faint pinch of the lips. How very hypocritical, Voldemort thinks, and the thought burns, for the boy to speak of himself as if belonging to a category he does not.

Potter stays silent for a few seconds. Then. “I discovered it at eleven,” he says. “It was the first time in my life I saw something being mine- I don’t want to touch it more than necessary- it’s the last traces of-”

Voldemort laughs. “Amusing,” he says. “You speak of the very same words that should enlighten your mind and yet is still blind to the truth. You said it, boy, more than necessary. You do have more than necessary, have you not?”

“Yes but I just said-”

“No,” Voldemort softly interrupts, his tone bearing the cold of a thousand winters. “There is no similarity between possessing but choosing not to use, and having nothing.”

He is angry. It infuriates him, more than Potter’s words, the fire that burns through him, as if the brown-eyed boy is not dead within him, as if he has nothing. He does not. He has everything, merely need to ask- no- to order- and it is gifted to him. Everything. Even the Malfoy’s peafowls should he wish for them to disappear.

He grits his teeth and rivets his gaze on the book he holds. He hears more than see Potter’s sigh, an exhale that breaks the silence, and refuses to meet the boy’s eyes.

“Sometimes,” Potter whispers. “I would truly want to know the way of your thoughts.”

There’s a noise then-

Both turn their head in the direction of it, just in time to see a section of the library wall collapse on itself. Something emerges from the debris, something large, and they both stare at it, curiosity mixing with incomprehension, as it slowly appears.

“A pensieve,” Harry Potter breathes, the house having yet again answered his wishes. “Are those-”

There are vials on the wall, just above the pensieve.

“Do you think it’s ours?” the boy asks. He has his green eyes riveted on the object, and something akin to want flashes within it.

Fascinating, Voldemort thinks and cannot avert his gaze from the want that shines in the boy’s eyes. Potter is not exempt to greed then, nor to those emotions he judges as lower than his nobility of heart. Interesting, isn't it, how words of disdain towards the things of life take nothing away from their power and immerse themselves in the most delightful revenge by subjugating the one who disgraced them. And perhaps that was the greatest irony of all, that it was those who abhorred these emotions the most who were most animated by them.

But Voldemort already knows this, for it is not him that had bent to kiss the boy.

“We need to try one,” Potter then says.

Voldemort’s head snaps towards him. “No.”

The boy turns two incredulous eyes towards him. “What? Why? It might help us to get out of here! We need to use everything we can!”

“No,” Voldemort slowly repeats. The word is cold, glacial even, but it does not deter the boy from staring at him in disbelief.

Potter’s voice is soft when he speaks again. This recommended sweetness when addressing wounded beasts, heavy with a condescension that sometimes escaped its author. “Why? Do you fear revealing something about yourself that you don’t want me to know? What worse thing could I learn?”

“This is not about yourself, boy, cease this arrogance of yours.”

“It could very possibly be my memories,” the boy argues. He is full of Gryffindorish stubbornness, but Voldemort had never been one to easily abdicate. “You know what? If it is one of yours, then just after, I’ll take one from my mind and show it to you. Anything. Even my talks with Dumbledore if you want to know what he said to me about you.”

Voldemort hisses at the name. There is no deeper fury than the thought of the old fool believing himself in the right to divulge Voldemort’s past, rummaging through his memories to give biased impressions of him. He had no right to freely give Voldemort’s intimacy, gaze at it with a hateful eye and discuss it with the Boy-Who-Lived.

Harry Potter raises two hands in the air.

“Do we have a deal?” The boy smiles then, a bright one. As it tends to do recently, it destabilizes him; to be offered such beaming smiles when considering the history between them. Voldemort wonders if the boy is aware of it, or if, as he has recently learned, the genuineness they are coated with is not at all a strategy to build trust.  “It is a Slytherin technique, is it not? Can you refuse something to one trying to do honour to the house of your ancestor?”

His fury slowly receding, Voldemort raises an eyebrow. “This is very far from Slytherin’s politics. Blunt asking is not a feature of the house.”

Potter shrugs. Voldemort’s jaw twitches at it, and there is an amused gleam in the boy’s eyes.

“I guess not,” he confesses. “At least, I tried.” He marks a pause. “So? Yes? No?”

There is a thirty-three percent of chance of falling on one of the boy’s memories. The other options are his own or an entirely different person. However, would it fall on Potter’s, it would be another chance to gain insight into the boy’s thoughts. On his self. Would it fall on him, then would Potter voluntarily gives him one of his memories.

Voldemort narrows his eyes.

Chance had always favoured him.

“Yes,” he says.

~*~

“No troubles at all, my Lady,” Tom Riddle says, and wishes the old witch a good day.

Voldemort seethes. Harry Potter beams.

“Retail,” the boy whispers. He does not need to whisper, as Tom Riddle cannot hear them. “Hermione told me that she did it one summer, for a month, to have a little bit of muggle money before returning to the wizarding world. She said it was a true nightmare.”

In front of them, Tom Riddle’s polite mask fades towards a vicious sneer. He hisses something in parseltongue, a few curt insults that Voldemort disapprove of, and Harry Potter laughs – despite not understanding the hissed worlds.

It seems insults transcended the barriers of language, Voldemort distastefully thinks.

“How charming!” Potter laughs. “Truly a very polite boy, aren’t you. I wonder if she would come back and gaze at you, this witch, if she knew of amiably you spoke of her when leaving.”

Voldemort sneers and says nothing. Instead, he stares at the brown-eyed boy in front of him, at the youthfulness of his features and the fatigue that is written all over his face. Sunken cheeks, blemish skin, dark rings under the eyes.

The consequences of three Horcruxes, Voldemort knows, for Smith’s elf must be well on its way to Azkaban.

“What were people coming to seek here?” Potter asks, curiosity creeping into his tone. He’s watching Tom Riddle writing on an account book, no doubt narrating the latest purchase.

“Take a guess, Potter,” he says.

He still follows Tom Riddle with his eyes, strangely fascinated by how realistic this memory is. Even brighter than in his own mind, buried deep under much more important knowledge. The brown-eyed boy does not raise his eyes, does not say anything, scribbling on the accounting book.

There is a part of Voldemort who wants to destroy him, that memory of a boy that doesn’t exist anymore, wants to crush him against under his heel, and another part, perhaps even more vivid, who wants to warn.        

Potter rolls his eyes and takes a few steps near Tom Riddle. He is so close, now, that he would only need to reach a finger to brush at the sunken cheeks. “Yes,” Potter says. “Thank you, I am aware this is a curse and terrible-fear-for-your-life shop. But- what was the best seller?”

Voldemort laughs, high and cold. There again comes the resemblance with Tom Riddle, who, had too indulged in a frowned-upon curiosity. “Interested to purchase it for yourself?”

The boy shrugs. “Indulge me.”

He brushes his long fingers against the wood of the table, and lets a few seconds fly between them before speaking. “Mostly petty acts of revenge,” Voldemort murmurs. It was one of the greatest evils afflicting mankind, or perhaps it was one they had created for themselves, releasing it along with the vices of the world when Pandora had opened the box. Men indulged in jealousy, contempt and pettiness. “Small cursed object to punish someone. The prestige of it cannot be overlooked.”

“The prestige?” Harry Potter incredulously asks, just at the same time as a customer enters. “What prestige is there in cursing someone?”

“Not cursing someone,” Voldemort absently corrects, his gaze riveted on Tom Riddle. He finds that he cannot avert his eyes, much akin to the pull that seizes him when gazing at parts of his soul. It is enthralling, and infuriating at the same time. “The legacy some of those objects bear.”

“Greetings,” Tom Riddle says, a bright smile illuminating his face. Voldemort is half in a mind to curse the boy to take it off his features, but of course, no spell could ever touch a memory. “What can I do for you today?”

The witch, a young one, perhaps in her thirties, blushes. Voldemort does not remember her. She must have been unremarkable. Instead, he gestures for Potter to stay silent, curious despite himself for the interaction.

“I heard some rumours,” the witch begins to say, and Voldemort knows this has never bode well. He takes a few steps to the side, enough for the scene to play for him. “About a tunic, the one of Nessos?”

“You heard well,” Tom Riddle agrees. “It happens that we are in possession of such a relic. It is very wanted, however, for we acquired it very recently.”

“I don’t mind the price,” the witch hurries to say, and avid satisfaction shines in Tom Riddle’s eyes.

Voldemort is not certain to be amused, or disdainful. He remembers, now that the scene is so bright in front of his eyes, the demands of Tom Riddle to Burke. Should he reach a certain point of sales, any cursed object under a sickle would be his.

He had not used them as they were, merely observed the magic at play, studying it in order to create his own curses. It was imagination, more than money, that had served him and allowed him to advance along the path of his choice.

“Then if you would not mind waiting for a few seconds,” Tom Riddle sweetly says, and Harry Potter barely hide a chuckle.

“So charming,” he says again, when Voldemort’s piercing gaze falls on him. “Merlin, I wonder when it all fell apart.”

“As soon as she had left the shop,” Voldemort pointedly says, and the boy laughs once more.

“They’re strangely nice for now,” Potter then comments. “I thought we’d see, I don’t know, someone ordering you around or barking nonsense at you. What a bizarre choice for a memory.”

Voldemort thinks the same. He refrains from saying that no one ordered him around, and contemplates the scene in front of him. He wonders if the reason behind such a choice was to show mundanity, or bewitch Harry Potter in making him think Voldemort harmless.

It does not matter, for as soon as Tom Riddle comes back with the tunic, the memory begins to fade. It happens in a few seconds, long enough for Voldemort to cast a last look at the boy of his past, feel something tighten in his chest as the prospect of not being able to warn, to speak of the prophecy.

And then, they find themselves once more in the Lestrange’s library.

“Well,” Harry Potter says. “Wasn’t this inspiring.”

Voldemort stares at him. “It is your turn,” he murmurs, when his voice is once again his.

He does not like being reminded of the boy of the shop. He has tried, and succeeded, for him to be killed. It reminds him of lost opportunities now, and this, perhaps above anything else, is as a burning fire in his veins.

Potter shrugs, and his bright eyes turn to his wand. He retrieves it, slowly, and points it at the vials.

“Accio Harry Potter’s memory,” he says, with such stupidity, and Voldemort has barely the time to raise his wand for the vials to levitate and not crash all at once into the boy. Potter laughs, and seizes one mid-air. “Thank you,” he slowly says, perhaps a hinge surprised at Voldemort’s reaction.

Voldemort too cannot explain himself. He says nothing, for there is nothing to be said, and motions for the vials to return to their place on the wall.

Potter tilts his vial. “So,” he begins. “I wonder what it’ll be.” Then, in a whisper, to the vial itself. “Don’t embarrass me, right?”

In a swift movement, Potter pours the vial into the pensieve, and they plunge their heads under the water.

~*~

The boy is younger than now, coming back from the Quidditch Pitch.

How peculiar, Voldemort thinks, that this interest is so engraved in Potter’s soul that it is what fate chooses to show them. He is curious too, especially at the incomprehension written on the boy’s face, trying too to understand the reason behind such mundane memories.

“I don’t understand,” Potter, his Potter, says. “Why this one? I mean- there are so many that could be of interest… Like, I don’t know, those conversations I had with Dumbledore, or when trying to find the Horcruxes…”

Anger flashes in his heart. Voldemort does not know if it comes from mentioning the Horcruxes or the old fool name, so buried under loathing and fury that his very name is bound to bring anger to the surface. He finds that the association is easy to make, easy to resurge, when the thought of the man is coated with such deep contempt.

It infuriates him all the more that Potter is oblivious to the faults of the man. What Voldemort despises, and had always despised, is hypocrisy. Ironic, perhaps, for having wielded it as a weapon, but he does not subject himself to the same constraints he puts on others.

“Wood has gone mad,” the younger Potter is saying. He must not be older than fourteen. Voldemort is not sure what fourteen looks like. There is a redhead next to him, certainly the Weasley Lucius had told him about. “I’m all about winning against the Slytherins, but that’s way too much, I can’t keep waking up at five; I was sleeping in Flitwick’s classroom last time and barely got away with an excuse.”

Next to him, his Potter flushes red and waves his hand in the air, as if trying to dissipate the memory.

“This will not work,” Voldemort says, raising an eyebrow.

“Better try than die of shame,” Harry Potter says under his breath. “Go, shoo! No memory! Memory is bad, and his rightful owner doesn’t want to see it, thank you!”

Voldemort loses a few seconds contemplating the boy’s shenanigans, bearing a striking resemblance to Don Quixote charging the windmills. “Potter,” he says. Then. “Potter.”

“But then,” the redhead is laughing. “How to beat Diggory when you’re gazing at him like he hung the stars?”

Harry Potter, the youngest, flushes red. Harry Potter, the oldest, plunges his head into his hands and says nothing.

“I’m not-” Potter chokes, a deep crimson colouring his cheeks. “I’m not gazing at him! It’s the techniques that’s all!”

“Sure,” the redhead says. “The technique. Nothing to do with the big muscles of his-“

His Potter makes a loud wheezing sound between his hands.

Voldemort finds himself deeply intrigued, and, if his raised eyebrow is an indication of it, profoundly amused by the boy’s embarrassment. He does not care in the least for the boy’s infatuations, for he remembers his peers at the same age. They had been worse, he recalls, enthralled by whatever had legs. He remembers watching them with deep consternation, comforted once more in his distinction from the masses.“Now, Harry,” he softly says. “How interesting that fate had judged fitting to show us this memory…”

The young Potter blurts a few blabbering nonsenses. He finally manages to speak, his voice strangled. “No! I- He’s a very talented seeker- it’s for later- you know- I’m learning how to beat Hufflepuff-”

“There is second-hand embarrassment,” Harry Potter voice is a muffled whisper from behind his hands. “And there is reliving pure shame.”

The boy judges it shame, then, to confess his infatuation with another. How strange, to speak so highly of love only to disdain it when presented to the light of day. It is again the hypocrisy he loathes, and Voldemort is not surprised at all to find that he is, as always, right.

“Come on. You have a type, have you not?” the redhead laughs. His laugh creases lines on his features, but Voldemort finds his face entirely unremarkable. He should have met this boy, he thinks, if this is one of Potter’s loyal dogs. Had he?

“No, I don’t,” Younger Potter squeaks.

‘Oh no,” Potter breathes. He peers from his hands, sightly spreading his fingers. “Oh no. I forgot. Merlin. I forgot.”

Voldemort grows even more curious with the boy’s reaction and rivets his gaze on the scene in front of him. He wonders what is so deeply embarrassing to cause such distress for the boy, and finds himself following the two memories.

“Yes, you have,” the redhead counters, still chuckling. “Come on. There’s Cho, first, which is the brightest one of Ravenclaw in Defence, and which has a truly mean hook. You should have seen what she did to Goyle when he insulted her sister! She has quite the punch, I tell you. And she’s very good at those stinging hexes.”

Younger Potter frowns in displeasure. “Goyle did what?”

The redhead fans his hand. “She took care of it. Then there’s Diggory, which you know, is the golden goose of Hufflepuff. Super bright too, and good at duel. Very talented, all the things that his Father is telling to ours! He’s always so proud-”

“Yes and?”

Potter has gone back to try dismissing the memory, to no avail. It amplifies Voldemort’s curiosity, who sees no shame in recognizing talent where it lays. If those who possess it are worthy of it, he rectifies in his mind, thinning his lips.

“You’re right to say and. There another one, isn’t it?”

Potter is wearing the same deep red as his younger self. “Oh no- Merlin why-”

“I don’t see what you’re talking about,” Younger Potter squeaks.

“But yes,” the redhead laughs. “That black-haired Durmstrang guy! What’s his name again? You said he was super good-looking, with killing cheekbones and super good at Defence. Shit, you told me his name, but I forgot, Ron must know- I have it on the top of my tongue! A common name- John-”

Potter is mumbling to himself. “Sometimes,” he is saying. “Death is not enough, and Fate itself takes a look at you, and decides that your grave is not so deep, and you could dig more.”

He does not understand the boy’s despair. Perhaps he does not want Voldemort to know of yet another name which is dear to the boy’s heart; another target that he could use. Voldemort glances at the boy, his gaze deep and piercing, and sees no resemblance with the boy of the shop on the flushed features of Harry Potter.

He wonders what it is that prevented the Horcrux from fully entering the boy's consciousness. Certainly not occlumency, for the boy’s skills at it are distressingly miserable.

The redhead snaps his fingers in triumph. “Tom!” he exclaims, and Voldemort’s head snaps from where he was staring at the boy.

He immediately loathes himself then, to have turned his head, to have reacted-

“Oh no,” Potter moans.

Tomasz is a Slavic name; Voldemort immediately thinks, and his eyes pierce through Potter. Tom is not. No boy at Durmstrang would wear it.

“Yes,” the redhead continues, beaming. “You said he was powerful, no? You have a type, Potter, you have a type.”

He sees the truth now, Voldemort absently thinks, and his gaze is so burning on Potter that he barely notices that the memory fades. The boy is averting his eyes and jumps to his feet as soon as they find themselves in the library. Certainly with the intention to flee, but Voldemort lets him no time to do such a thing.

Instead, he laughs, a short and cold one, and rivets his eyes on the boy.

Power, he thinks, has the sweetness of honey and the sharpness of the blade. Power, he thinks, charms, and seduces as it had always done so. Power, he thinks, whispers in the man's ear, and floats an invisible blindfold in front of his eyes, its suggestions golden in hearing and venomous in action.

“Oh Harry,” Voldemort murmurs, and this is not the usual coldness that creeps through his voice, but a delight so vicious it gnaws at his very soul. “There is no shame in desiring greatness, nor admiring those who have achieved it.”

(the redhead is Fred! but of course, he would not know who Fred is)

I hope Harry's POV pleased you so you can understand a bit more what is happening in that brain of his! ❤ (+ to give back to Caesar what belongs to caesar, the 125 peafowls of one Abraxas Malfoy belongs to Retired Prometheus by limeta (go check it!)) 

The review is the bread of the author 🧡🧡🧡