Perfect Places

In this world, all the flow'rs wither,
The sweet songs of the birds are brief;
I dream of summers that will last
Always!

In this world, the lips touch but lightly,
And no taste of sweetness remains;
I dream of a kiss that will last
Always.

-In this World,Sully Prudhomme.

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Neither speaks for a few seconds.

The boy’s cheeks are still flushed; that deep crimson that had coloured them and now refused to fade. One bound to bring shame, most certainly, for what honour was there in forsaking your values, in renouncing in your beliefs- only to indulge in a carnal pleasure?

Voldemort is not certain if he desires to gouge at his own eyes or claw at the boy’s throat.

He had thought himself above such manner; above those primal desires that animated lesser men. Those that corrupted the mind; and him, him who had always praised his own rationality, him who had known himself worthier, had known himself wiser; had fallen to the oldest entrapment in the world.

He has bitten into the apple, Voldemort thinks, and he thinks of mornings spent kneeling in front of an altar, listening to words that faded in the air, listening to murmurs that had fooled them all. They had fooled them, certainly, for they had made themselves invisible, seemingly disappearing, only to sink their claws into their mind, into their heart, into their memories.

For this is the will of God, your sanctification; that is, that you abstain from sexual immorality; Voldemort thinks, pupils dilated, blown wide. That each of you knows how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honour.

Harry Potter is still silent. Voldemort looks at him and does not see him. Instead, he sees the stony walls of a church; remembers the coldness of those stones on his skin, remembers the scorching gaze of a priest, and the words that had been burning on his tongue.

Potter must be saying something then; or perhaps he says nothing at all, perhaps Harry Potter’s mind is merely the same mystery it had always been for him-

Harry Potter laughs.

It is not even a mirthless one; one born out of misery and self-affliction, one born out of distress and self-loathing. Not it is something else entirely. Irony perhaps, Voldemort thinks, and something shivers on his skin.

“Imagine that,” the boy murmurs. His voice is still brittle, be it broken by exhaustion or the desire that had shaken him. Pain too, perhaps. Voldemort had not been particularly gentle in his desires. “Imagine saying it ten months ago. Hell. Two months ago. Perhaps even less. A week? What’s a week anyway when we are stuck here? Perhaps I’m still the same age. Perhaps I’m seventy. Perhaps I bear no age; out of time and those qualifications humans had always bestowed on themselves.”

The boy’s words make no sense. Or perhaps they do.

Voldemort’s fingers twitch. There is something warm under them, and he is not yet certain to know what. Who, something murmurs in the back of his mind.

“I think I would have been outraged. Very very angry. I liked to think that my anger came from you, from the pain our connection gave me. Then, later, I thought it was because of the Horcrux. In the end, I think it was just me. I was just so angry, you know. With everyone and everything. Fairly, perhaps, because my situation was not exactly to be envied, but… now I think I don’t want to be.”

“Stop mumbling nonsense,” Voldemort manages to murmur. He is so very cold, he thinks, even with the warmth under his touch. Something that he now acknowledges, and finds that he loathes.

No, he thinks. It was not true. He had always loathed the cold. The icy touch that came with it; pressing fingers all over his skin, relishing in it, in his discomfort. He feels, he thinks, this very same cold creeping inside of him. One that spreads throughout his organs, that does not stop upon facing a barrier. One that is akin to a parasite, for it advances slowly, but advances all the same.

“That’s not nonsense,” the boy says. “There is a reason, you know, for all those Healer’s sayings about forgiveness and reconstruction.” He marks a pause. “Well, no, you don’t know. I firmly doubt that you ever saw one. But I did. I went to them. Hermione asked it of me. After the war, there was so much anger- I didn’t even know where it begin and where it ended. So I went. I talked to them.”

Voldemort closes his eyes.

He does not want to let the torpor fades from his mind, for he is bound to come to his senses. He closes his eyes, for letting them open makes the shadows behind the boy resemble the ones in the church. There are words, he knows, that linger so close to the surface.

One look at the shadows, he is well aware, and they would pierce the shield wrapped around his mind.

“Did you?” he thus asks, desireful for any kind of distraction.

“Of course, I did,” the boy says. He does not move, entrapped as he is by Voldemort’s embrace. His head is resting on the cold tiles of the floor, just next to Voldemort’s, and his legs are intertwined with Voldemort’s legs. Voldemort does not need to open his eyes to know for Potter to have stayed immobile. “Well, not at first. First, I glared at them. The Evans’ glare. Then I yelled. The Potter’s yells. Then I screamed and broke things, and I believe this to my entirely my fault.”

“How ungrateful,” Voldemort murmurs. “For you to destroy the possessions of the ones desiring to heal you.”

“I know,” Potter says. “I can be very ungrateful. Anger, you see, clouds my vision until I see red. This is perhaps why I despise it so much. But well, after that, well, after that I talked.”

Voldemort’s heart is pounding in his chest.

He feels it, he thinks, and would believe it to have succeeded to break through his ribcage, was it not for the absence of blood in his lungs. He stops breathing then; barring the entrance of oxygen to said lungs, and keeps his eyes closed.

He counts.

How strange, he thinks, for the boy to once again have succeeded in defeating him. Worst even, he knows, and the realization should draw anger was it not for this torpor engulfing him, the boy had managed it all. To destroy his body, when only an infant; to destroy his soul, when a teenager, and finally, finally, to destroy his mind.

He feels, so faintly, as if once again dispossessed of his body, the coldness and rigidity of the floor against his head.

Voldemort’s lungs burn; deprived of oxygen, sending messages of alarm throughout his entire body. He relishes in them, and it is only when the burning becomes too unbearable that he speaks.

“What did you say to them,” he says, not gracing his tone with curiosity.

Harry Potter does not answer immediately.

So many seconds pass, in fact, that Voldemort would have thought the boy asleep; was it not for their inability to sleep there.

“Many many things,” the boy murmurs. “Not all about you. Mostly, though. About- About the Dursleys,” he says, his words a confession, and Voldemort faintly recalls the vision of a grotesque man and his even more grotesque family.

“Ah yes,” he says. “This family of yours.”

The word burns on his tongue, the way it had always done. Voldemort is above the pettiness that drove lesser men. He is above jealousy. He, he thinks, has overcome such a state of being long ago. He thinks so, but perhaps the thought is more of a desire and less of a truth; for the best liars were the ones to fool their own minds.

Harry Potter laughs then, and Voldemort absently wonders about the observational skills of the boy.

“Family,” the boy repeats, as if tasting the word on his tongue. “No, they were not family. DNA, you know, does not define the bonds we bear for life.” There is a silence, one that spreads above them. “No,” Potter continues, his voice a whisper. “ The Dursley were not my family.”

“Who, then” Voldemort whispers, a whisper made of cruelty and mockery. “is the family your judge yours? Your friends?”

He feels the boy fidget next to him but still keeps his eyes closed.

“Yes,” the boy says, plainly. He does not rise to the bait, nor grows angry in front of the mocking tone of Voldemort. Instead, he confesses the truth of it without any shame, judging it above laugh and derision. “Yes, they are.”

Voldemort sneers. “And how long,” he murmurs.” Until they will betray you again? Is family, as you say, supposed to turn its back on you?”

“Again?”

“Yes,” Voldemort says. “I have seen it in your heart. I would not need it, nonetheless. Media and carefully spread information works as well against one than in his favour. Tell me, Harry, how many had snarled at you, saying you mad when claiming my return?”

The boy does not falter. “None,” he calmly says.

Voldemort opens his eyes.

“Do not lie to me,” he hisses, and turns to face the boy. Harry bears his scorching glare without faltering. He even dares to smile, a faint thing, and stares back; uncaring of his tousled hair, reddened cheeks, or come-stained clothes.

“I’m not lying,” Harry Potter says. His voice is quiet, and this, perhaps above all, dissipates the torpor that had seized Voldemort’s mind. The boy so seldomly speaks quietly, favouring the ever-burning energy of the Gryffindors, lacing his words with either anger, excitation, or annoyance. They are fervent, his words, betraying desires even more fervent than them. “I am really not.”

Voldemort stares at the offered eyes, and sees only truth in them.

“The ones I judge as family, as you said, are the ones who stayed true to me,” Harry Potter whispers. “They might have had trouble to understand, sometimes, to have lost hope, for you are very skilled at reclaiming it from us, but never ever had one of them lost faith in me. Never had I lost faith in them.”

“A matter of faith then,” Voldemort says. His voice is laced with doubt. Perhaps incredulity, he thinks, to see it so similar to what he had asked of his Death Eaters. He had expected the boy to talk about his greatest strength, or so was it supposed to be, love.

Harry Potter does not answer immediately. Instead, he fidgets, enough so for their intertwined legs to remind them of their state of being. Voldemort tries to disentangle them, then, for he loathes to think again about its implication, but Harry Potter swiftly seizes his wrist.

“Wait,” he says, with this same quiet tone he had born since his laugh. Potter’s fingers curl around Voldemort’s wrist, so warm against the iciness of Voldemort’s skin that he cannot suppress the shudder that runs along his flesh. “Please.”

It is this that makes him stop.

Please, the boy says, a word never said between them. Voldemort does not consider the desire-induced begging of the boy during their intercourse, for he knew it to be born out of a haze.

A muscle twitch in his jaw. He desires, very much so, to jolt out his wrist from the boy’s grip. But- in equal intensity, he desires to relish in the touch bestowed upon him; to savour it.

Voldemort realizes, with an incredulity that should not be so intense, that Potter has managed to bewitch him. Body and soul, he ironically thinks, and tries to stir fury in his self; only to find fierce tiredness.

The boy smiles again; a little stretch of his lips; and he realizes wanting to touch it. His desires, the utter betrayal of them, had not faded upon indulging them. On the contrary, Voldemort thinks, and loathes the fact, they had taken in his mishap to grow in intensity.

He recognizes it, now, how Potter had been made to stand as his adversary.

Fierce, fearless- and there is another qualificative that comes in his mind, one that he judges with contempt, and yet thinks of all the same. Once again rises the urge to see his talons claw at the white throat of Harry Potter, draw blood and wash with it the impurity of the thoughts that seize him. Not in their viciousness, for long ago had he disregarded such self-made constraints, but in the weakness they indulge.

Kind, Voldemort thinks, hatefully and despite himself. Harry Potter is fierce, fearless, and kind.

“Faith is a very large word,” Harry Potter says, his fingers still circling Voldemort’s wrist. “I don’t think we quite share the same definition of it. I don’t mean blind devotion by it, but trust. Trust in me, a trust that I share. You can’t expect everything and give nothing in return. It doesn’t work like that.”

Voldemort sneers. “You know better than I do, then, what I can and cannot do.”

“Yes,” the boy plainly answers. “Yes, when it is about people, you are cruelly ignorant. It is almost amusing, in fact,  how far your impressions of them fall short of the truth."

He laughs, taken aback for a second; a disbelieving laugh.

Only the boy would be so bold in his words; going as far as calling him ignorant.

“On the contrary,” he says, his voice velvety and distant. “It is you, boy, who is mistaken if you believe to have a better insight than me on the nature of men. They are not prone to give faith to others, as you say, for the human instinct is an egoistic one.”

“No, it is not.” Harry Potter’s tone is soft, although tainted by something that Voldemort could only describe as sadness. It intrigues him, perhaps whereas he should feel infuriated, because the reason for such sadness eludes him. Regret perhaps? But no, Potter’s voice lacks the longing associated with it. “Perhaps you just met the wrong kind of people.”

“Or perhaps you are deluded about the truth wrapped around your family’s hearts,” Voldemort snaps; his heart thudding in his ears. He is not certain of why, but cares not to discover it. What he is certain, paradoxically, is to despise the answer. He cannot forget the fingers of the boy on his skin; the warmth of it, one that had eluded him for so long. “You believe what you want to see.”

Harry Potter lets go of his wrist then, and Voldemort does not sneer, does not blink, but immediately mourns the loss all the same. He loathes it; to see himself once again a prisoner of what he had thought to have been conquered, but his cravings are stronger than his contempt.

His fingers twitch, barely so, but Harry Potter smiles.

“It is so very strange for me too,” the boy confesses. “I am feeling very conflicted, and I suppose for you to be the same. I won’t turn a blind eye to what happened between us, although. I’m older than that. And I have no shame in saying I wanted it. Perhaps regret. Incomprehension. But not shame.”

Voldemort’s burning gaze pierce through Potter. “And why is that?” he murmurs.

“Because you are very fascinating,” Harry Potter says. He says it so plainly, so honestly, even if Voldemort had known since the day of his birth the truth of it, that Voldemort is taken aback. He blinks, surprise colouring his features, and finds himself speechless.

It is of no matter, for Harry Potter seems to be speaking enough for both of them.

“You are perhaps the most intelligent man I’ve ever met,” the boy says. The words are lay bare for both of them to hear, terribly raw in their honesty. Voldemort cannot avert his gaze. “You are so vividly curious in the ways of the world, so desiring to learn and learn everything it can teach you. You are powerful too, but not in the ways you think of. You have this magnetism around you, one that you are well aware of, that I too can see and appreciate. I am not blind;”

“Dumbledore would be so pleased to know of your perception of me” Voldemort murmurs; too stunned to not react by anything else than sarcasm. “To what do I owe this praise?”

Harry Potter smiles, once again. “But,” he says. “But you are so terribly ignorant to what makes a man, that you have forced yourself to think yourself above humanity. You have given such nefarious features to mankind that not displaying each of them would make you a god in your thoughts. It’s not true. You have deluded yourself with thoughts of purity and madness; wishing so ardently to stand out from the crowd that you have done so in the worst of ways. You do not see humans as how they truly are, and it is mostly why you feel so disdain for them. They are crippled with shortcomings, made solely of them; so why should you feel anything but hatred for them? You hated so much the wizards and muggles alike that you wanted to destroy both of their worlds. It is not the latter, who you supposedly despise more than anything, that had suffered the most. It is the very same wizards you recruited. Those pureblood families, it was them who had undergone the most.”

Voldemort narrows his eyes-

“The Black Family is entirely gone. The Lestrange one subsists, but so faintly. The Malfoys have the horror of war written everywhere on their skin. The Crabbe lost their Heir. And so many more.”

Harry Potter sighs then, hastily enough that he once again interrupts Voldemort when speaking again. “I am not even certain that you wanted to see them win. It is your turn to tell the truth, now. Did you want to give the purebloods more power or did you merely want to see the world burn around you?”

“You think yourself so perceptive,” Voldemort snarls; and his glare burns through the boy. “To give every of your words the golden medal of truth incarnate, to vulgarly try to psychoanalyze Lord Voldemort. Tell me more, boy, about what I am, for it seems you most certainly know it better than I do.”

Harry Potter does not shiver in front of his anger, nor does he retrieve his legs. Instead, he stares back, and says, insistently. “Then tell me.”

“And what should I owe you anything?” Voldemort coldly seethes.

“Well, Tom,” the boy murmurs; and he tenses, immediately, in that infuriating way that seize him upon hearing this hated name. “Who should you be truthful to, if not your soul?”

He freezes.

“What was it then,” Potter continues, unaware – or perhaps uncaring – of his stillness. “That made yourself judge the world as so unworthy?”

“It is unworthy,” Voldemort says, barely so. His voice is only a faint whisper in the air.

“But this is the thing. It is not, really.”

The boy leans on his elbow then, and raises, just enough so to be a few centimetres higher than him. “Tell me when you will have an answer for me. I will wait how long it will need.”

Will you, Voldemort desires to say, but bites his tongue violently enough to draw blood. He says nothing then, and watches as the boy slowly retrieve his legs and raise to his full height. The boy is filthy; with this sinful post-coital appearance he bears, but Potter does not seem to care.

Potter passes a hand through his hair and disappears through the door.

But I say, Voldemort thinks; and the church is once again vivid in his mind, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please.

And then-

But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire compassion, and not sacrifice,’ for I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

~*~

Behind him, the water evaporates into mist.

Voldemort does not turn to face it, nor does he acknowledge it. Instead, he disrobes, and stares at the reflection facing him.

The mirror’s glass is covered in steam, and he waves his hand, barely so, for it to immediately dissipate. Then, he waves his hand once more; and watches silently as the features morph and shift. They do, with a quickness that leaves him no time to reflect on it, and Voldemort does not avert his gaze.

In front of his eyes, the skin blemishes. Slowly; as if so barely hidden from the world, the truth of his self reveals itself.

Voldemort once again faces the body he had forged for himself.

The image that meets his gaze is one he had grown to appreciate.

 Or perhaps, he thinks; just the slightest vanity in the thought, one that he had always worked towards. He blinks then, and watches the translucence of the skin; of this flesh that had been created by his own hands. It pleases him, he thinks, so vividly so; for down to his body itself to have been made by him.

Not anymore bestowed upon him by fate, by some events he had no control on.

Not anymore, Voldemort thinks; and this is the thought that pleases him the most; is he the vivid sign of the filthiness of his Father. Not anymore is he the sign for the purebloods to have fallen so low; sunken to such extremities, that they’d have chosen weakness, filth.

He loathes it, so very so, to gaze at his reflection and think of another.

Voldemort waves his hand again, and the glamour returns to his features.

The mask is on, he thinks, and it had worked even better than he had thought it would. The boy had been enthralled, even more than Voldemort had expected he would, and soon they would escape. Voldemort was certain of it.

He had passed by the front door upon walking to his rooms. He had seen; and it had been of no surprise, the new fissure that adorned it.

He turns then; walking towards the burning water. Almost to the point of boiling, Voldemort thinks; but this does not deter him from entering it, sinking into the water.

And as he disappears beneath it, his eyes are wide open.

Those new desires of his changed nothing, Voldemort thinks, Voldemort knows. He has, as he had always done with his surroundings, learned to recognize the value of the boy. He wants; for he, better than all, knows of the temptation of forbidden desires, and Voldemort had never been one to refuse himself such wishes.

Soon they will be free.

In the meantime; Voldemort thinks, he intends for the boy to prove himself rather useful.

There is an ache that he had not realized; one that burns vividly at the contact of them; and he does not need to wonder to know to be born of one soul meeting a part of itself.

The boy might believe having entirely severed the bond between them, but Voldemort knows better.

Never could a Horcrux be so easily destroyed.

~*~

Voldemort corners Harry Potter in the kitchen the following day.

The boy is making scrambled eggs, having for some reason desired to do them by hand. Potter is standing against the oven, and seems to be unaware of his arrival until Voldemort’s breath brush against the boy’s neck.

Potter shudders against him. He turns to protest, a wooden spoon held tight in his hand, but Voldemort seizes his chin to swallow his objections. He could not care less for Potter’s meagre wants, and presses a hand against the boy’s waist; trailing it under his shirt.

The wooden spoon clatters as it falls to the ground.

Potter grips the front of his robes then.

“I thought you were regretting this,” the boy whispers, already breathless; and his gaze lodges itself into Voldemort’s eyes. There is only a flicker of heat in them, and Voldemort finds himself desiring for it to grow and grow.  “You didn’t seem exactly pleased.”

His grip tightens around the boy’s waist. Enough so for his fingers to sink into the warm flesh, to tear a gasp out of Potter’s mouth. Pinked, flushed cheeks overhang those parting lips; and Voldemort presses harder on the chin underneath them.

“You would be wise to stop,” Voldemort quietly says; and he hunches forward to press a kiss on the jaw in front of him, tantalizing jaw, before sliding towards the neck. With every kiss he feels the boy tenses against him, his fingers grip harder at the front of Voldemort’s robes. “-making assumptions about my person.”

“But then,” Potter breathes, and he arches just so slightly against the wooden counter. He bites his lips to stifle his groans, and his cheeks flush an ever deeper pink. “-how would I know for them to be true or not?”

The boy is delicious. Voldemort does not answer, for he finds a far worthier occupation for his mouth.

He licks first; tasting the saltiness of Potter’s skin; and the boy trembles against him; fingers leaving his robes to claw at the flesh underneath, at the skin willingly offered. His nails leave deep imprints on Voldemort’s skin, sinking into them, and a long shiver runs all along Voldemort’s spine.

Voldemort knows for his own lips to part, for a hiss to leave them; an anguished exhale, one that feels so distant-

Potter laughs against his skin, a breathless laugh, and he feels the throat tremble under his lips.

Voldemort bites, violently, on the warm flesh.

Potter’s reaction is instantaneous.

The boy’s body jerks under him; and a moan escapes his lips; one that feels like a name.

Voldemort freezes, eyes wide open; and feels his head throb; his heart thuds in his ears. Heat flares in his body, burns in his veins; so deep, so low-

He wants, he thinks, he wants- his eyes feverish; his skin aching for the warmth underneath it; for the boy’s fingers to sink again- for that pain, that delicious pain to seize him whole again; and he knows, he knows, so fervently, so crudely, that he is certain to be burning, that he feels his body arch at the slightest touch- this heat that builds in his crotch and spreads-

He breathes then; for he had been holding it since the boy’s moan, and meet Harry Potter’s eyes.

They are hazed, clouded; and pierce through him entirely.

He wants, he thinks, desperately; feverishly-

Their lips find each other. He is not certain of how, nor when; but the boy is pressed against him; so close and so far; fervently kissing him. Almost one. The soul reunited, he thinks, and his talons sink deep into the flesh, bringing the boy closer, closer, enough so for their groins to rock against each other-

Potter throws back his head, breath hitched.

“Tom,” he hisses, frantically, feverishly, and the hiss leaves his lips to slither against Voldemort’s skin, settling deep in his crotch. The jolt of arousal springs in his gut; flaring the already present heat; making it ache. “Don’t tease- hahh- don’t… don’t-”

“Don’t what,” Voldemort murmurs; voice velvety and soft. “Use words, boy.”

“Not- not a boy-” Harry Potter moans, fingers clutching at the fabric of Voldemort’s robes; trying to breathe, head lolling back. “Not a boy-”

Voldemort watches with febrile eyes as Potter tries to speak; breath far too hitched for his words to be coherent. There is this cloud, Voldemort thinks, absently realizes, around his thoughts. This torpor, induced by the heat building up in his groin, that makes him-

Harry Potter slips a hand under his robes, wraps a hand around his aching cock, and he doesn’t know anymore what it made him.

Voldemort hisses, and rasps ineligible words. “Yesss,” he hisses in throbbing pleasure. “Fassster Harry, do… do-“

It is Potter this time who chuckles and teases. “Do?” he quietly asks; and his hand accelerate his movements. “Words, you say. Talk then” Harry Potter murmurs, hunching forward, enough so to both pumps at his throbbing cock, hardened by the boy’s actions; and to press a dozen of butterfly kisses against his collarbone. “What should I do? I am yours to command here, as much as you are mine. Haven’t you dreamed of it? Haven’t you wondered how it would feel like, my lips on your cock?”

“Yesss- Harry-”

“Look at yourself,” Harry Potter murmurs; and Voldemort desires nothing but to seize this wrist, for the boy to go faster, harder but Potter doesn’t and his body burns- “How ravished you look like. How far from the composure you always have. How sinful.”

Voldemort’s body arches under the boy’s touches. Parseltongue, he thinks- the boy is speaking parseltongue- and he wants to speak, but finds himself unable to do so.

A series of moans escape his lips, wordless, breathless whimpers that he cannot refrain; that the boy fervently drinks; swallowing them on his lips.

He lunges forward then, the only way for him to try regaining control, for the boy to lose this triumphant grin of him, and they stumble; nearly falling on the table. Potter’s glasses slip from his nose, falls with a soundless noise next to them. Neither care; nor notice. It is on the floor that they fall onto, instead, and Voldemort groans as Potter’s fingers are still curled around his length.

He shivers under the boy; and in a last resort, sinks his fingers into Potter’s hair, and pulls.

Potter’s eyes widen, and he whines.

Voldemort grins then, and pull harder.

The boy’s body hunch then, as if trying to coil over himself; panting, whimpering, and in his haze, squeeze his fingers tighter- much tighter. Enough to draw pain; for a spike of it to flare in Voldemort’s gut, burning enough for him to blink; for his vision to turn white-

He feels- he feels- delirious- the boy’s fingers thumbing the ridge of his dick; those calloused fingers- Aurors fingers- the hitch of a cry almost on his lips-

His fingers tighten around the boy’s scalp, Potter cries out, and, just like that, he comes.

His hips jolt forwards, pressing against Potter’s hardened cock; and he spills into both of them.

Voldemort falls back then, his torpor spreading from his mind to his body, and can only stare at Harry Potter as a cry falls out from his lips.

The boy is panting; broken by overstimulation, eyes widened in pure want, and as he rocks his lips against Voldemort’s, he can not refrain it anymore-

The boy helplessly comes.

His entire body arches against Voldemort’s, a puppet whose strings had been brutally cut; and his fingers sink into Voldemort’s shoulders, holding himself in place, as he rides through his orgasm.

Harry Potter falls next to him with a thump.

Voldemort knows to not be able to sleep and yet desires it vividly. His breath is still itched, chest rising and lowering with his exhale; and his skin throbbing.

And so, he closes his eyes.

~*~

Voldemort wakes up with a jolt.

He has fallen asleep, he realizes, and the thought fills him with distress. He raises, immediately, mind tangled with contradictory thoughts; and gazes upon the room. He recalls, vividly so, the last time he had fallen in such a slumber, recalls waking up to see Harry Potter’s face. How much time, he thinks, how much time had he spent asleep? Hours? Days? Months?

His concerns are unfounded, he realizes, his relief surprising him in its intensity; when he sees Harry Potter seemingly asleep next to him.

The boy has his arms crossed under his head, his legs intertwined.

Voldemort lets his gaze trail over the boy. He does not break the silence, his lips pinched, and immediately raises to his full height. He indulges in the sight for a few seconds before lowering his eyes, noticing the filthiness of his robes.

He casts a cleaning spell then, and leaves.

What he does not see; desireful to not linger within the room, is Harry Potter rising to a sitting position. What he does not see; entirely driven by his wish for freedom, is the slight regret that shines on Harry’s face. What he does not see, is the sigh that escapes Harry Potter’s lips, the breathless words that he murmurs to no other than himself.

And should he have lingered, perhaps would he have heard them; those words that could have made the door open.

~*~

Voldemort is tracing the fissures with the tip of his finger when the boy appears.

He immediately notices him; of course; for he had been trained in recognizing the slightest creak on the floor, the faintest clue of his loneliness’s disappearance. Voldemort does not speak, however, and continue to gaze at the cracks, pointing his wand at them and murmuring another litany of spells.

Nothing happens, and Voldemort is not surprised enough for it to flare anger in him. Hope, he thinks, and the thought is laced with the leniency he reserves for himself; is and had always been the last one pillar to which one clung to.

Instead, he stores his wand back where it belongs, and turns to face Potter.

“Freedom is only a matter of time,” he says, in that soft whisper of his. “Perhaps days; should Fate feel lenient enough.”

Harry Potter chuckles. “Yeah, I wouldn’t count on that,” he bitterly says. “Until now we haven’t been the best of friends me and her. Or it. I don’t know.”

“Haven’t you? On the contrary, Harry, it feels as if She had favoured you since the moment you were born.”

A muscle twitch in Harry Potter’s jaw. “Well,” the boy murmurs, incredulously so. “Pardon me if I don’t feel as if my life had been particularly lucky. A few laps of Fate’s appreciation for me doesn’t really counterbalance the whole absurdness of it.”

Voldemort looks at the boy.

He is leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed on his chest, and his gaze is directed towards the cracks in the door. There is something, Voldemort instantly notices, in that gaze of his. A conflict, he is quite certain; although he is not sure of the nature of it.

Strangely enough; it does not seem aimed at their… activities.

He narrows his eyes, trying to decipher the boy’s thoughts. He can not use legilimency; not when Potter so ardently averts his gaze; but far will be the day where Voldemort is unable to pierce through a man’s mask of impassibility.

The boy is upset, that much is easy to understand; but his anger is not for Voldemort’s words. Instead, it seems- Voldemort thins his lips, and his stare is scorching on Potter – it seems, as if it is the door itself which is the target of his ire-

Voldemort pauses- could it be?

“You do not want it,” he says. His voice is laced in incomprehension; incredulity. Anger too perhaps, for he knows of their freedom to entirely depend on the boy.

Potter jolts. “What?” he stammers.         

His reaction comforts Voldemort in his thoughts.

“You do not want it,” he murmurs; stunned. Once again it seems that the boy entirely escapes the knowledge he holds about mankind. “You do not want our freedom.”

“What?” Potter squealed. His cheeks are flushed; but Voldemort knows it to be for a very different reason than previously. Shame, he knows, easily marks a man's face, perhaps even more than desire does. “Of course, I want to escape! You think I want to stay trapped in here?”

Voldemort’s eyes had not left Potter’s face.

“Yes,” he says. “That is precisely what I think.”

Potter stammers but he leaves him no time to blurt out half-hearted protests.

“Now what I find intriguing, Harry,” Voldemort continues, softly. “is why would you desire such a thing. Why indeed,” his voice fades towards an even quieter murmur; as the boy tries to protest. “When freedom had been our sole objective since the beginning of our entrapment.”

“It still is!” Potter sharply says, before Voldemort could interrupt him again. “I want to see my friends again!”

Voldemort arches an eyebrow. Potter is furiously blushing, and himself is not certain of what is agitating the boy. Or perhaps he knows, something whispers in the back of his mind, something he hastily kills, but merely refuses to state the evidence.

“Amusing,” Voldemort says. “-to see the order of your priorities. It is seeing your friends again then that prevails over the joy of the loss of my company? Would you not be thrilled, Harry Potter, to see me disappear?”

Potter tries to say something; then, upon realizing the stutter in his explanations, pinches his lips and stays resolutely silent.

Voldemort’s fierce gaze try to pierce through the boy’s flesh; through the bones, until seeing the mind, the soul. He wants, he knows, so rarely having been one to hide his desires under others considerations, to see what makes the boy so agitated.

“Would it be-” Voldemort murmurs; his lips curling cruelly. “Would it be, Harry, that you would be disinclined, reluctant, to leave my company?”

Potter pinches his lips harder.

Yes, Voldemort thinks. Yes.

Pleasure immediately runs along his spine, and he thinks it to be of a triumphant sort. Exclusively so. He has succeeded, he thinks, and the prospect of his victory – at the end of his fingertips – fills him with such a delight that it could make him falter.

Finally.

“Oh Harry,” Voldemort softly says, and such cruel delight laces his words that the boy raises two wide eyes towards him. “You never learn, do you. You still delude yourself with the words of Dumbledore, ones carefully chosen to lead a lamb to slaughter, to fill you with such desire for righteousness when you had merely been a pawn on the chess game that is life. Manipulated by higher powers.”

Potter stares at him, silently. He does not try to say anything, nor does he averts his eyes. Instead, he looks, and looks.

Voldemort continues, his whispers conscientiously chosen to be akin to the Cruciatus, hitting precisely where he aims for. “You are the very same that you were younger; driven by delusions and foolish hopes. What did you think, Harry? Did you believe that I would willingly stay here? That I had grown to appreciate you? No-“ he murmurs; and relishes in the blankness that seizes Harry Potter’s features. “Perhaps you thought me desiring you for others purposes than establishing my control over you. You proved yourself useful to an extent, but you hoped beyond this, did you not? Did you feel lonely, Harry, in your rooms, clutching the hope that I would see worth in you?”

He stares at Potter; Potter who has yet to say anything.

Potter who still blankly stares back.

Voldemort feels something flaring in his chest, something burning, something hideous, and thinks victory to rather bring pain with it. Perhaps fated to be, he thinks; reminding the sweet bitterness of it. It reminds him of Bellatrix.

Bella, who; upon killing Sirius Black, who, upon seizing victory and holding it dear to her heart, had spoken of the burning fire of it. The pain it brought, she had murmured; and her eyes had been even wider than usual. She had spoken of an ache, the same one that was spreading in his chest and had said it to be even more fierce than she would have thought.

Rodolphus had looked at her, then, his eyes dark and his lips silent.

Bellatrix had laughed; this short barking laugh of her, and she had raised her eyes to him. Fierce, decided. Victory, she had said to him, upon a so-long desired want was fated to bring with it some ache. The loss of a goal, she had said, who flared a sensation of loss that was bound to fade. A temporary affliction.

Voldemort, who then had not understood her words, is now painfully reminded of them.

“How you relish, Riddle,” Potter finally says, his voice quiet. “-in inflicting pain in others.”

Voldemort sneers at the name, but it is Potter turn to let him no time to speak.

“You remind me, you know, of those snakes you like so much. But be cautious in not resembling them too much. You like to forget your humanity, perhaps forsake it in favour of those reptilian friends of yours. I can understand; to an extent; because I know how much humans disappointed you.” Potter’s voice is barely audible, a blank murmur that is coloured with neither fury nor hatred. “But this is not a reason to mimic those snakes of yours. You do it, you know. You misjudge kindness for threats, and coil around yourself before striking.”

Voldemort wants to laugh but feels his throat stunningly frozen.

Potter continues to speak.

“The King of the Snakes, of course,” he whispers. “With the mightiest venom of all; one even more burning than those of your familiars for it does not strike the body but the mind.”

“Potter,” Voldemort snarls.

“You said that I was hoping for something from you,” Potter says; uncaring of Voldemort’s interjection. “It is true, of course. You were always able to see the truth or lies in others, pierce their mind and lay them bare. It is truly a powerful ability. It would have helped me sometimes. With Quirrell, or well, was it you really. With Snape. With Dumbledore.”

“You are speaking nonsense,” Voldemort hisses.

“For you perhaps.” Harry Potter is quick to agree. There is the faintest smile on his lips now, but calling it amused would be a terrible lie. “But even you are not omniscient.”

Voldemort’s pupils dilate. “I fail to see where your point is.”

“Of course you do. Let me be clearer, then,” Harry Potter absently says. His voice is still devoid of this fury Voldemort had been waiting for. It destabilizes him, to see the boy so detached from the words he had said; destabilizes him, even more, to acknowledge the growing ache in his chest. “You are not as good a liar as you think you are.”

Voldemort snarls and Harry Potter frowns. “No,” he continues. “Perhaps you are. Perhaps it is merely me who had grown to see when your words are true or when they are not. When it matters the most.”

Voldemort laughs then, a high-pitched, cold, desperate one. “Are you saying I was lying? Are you so deluded…?”

“No, no.” Harry Potter takes a step forward. “You were meaning it, I know. Or at least, you thought that you were meaning it. I don’t know. But this is not what I know. What I know is that you were not lying when I had you moaning my name; when you were reading next to me in the Library, teaching me those spells; when you were breaking bread with me, or when you were kissing me.”

Victory does taste bitter, Voldemort thinks, for the ache in his chest had not soothed at all. Instead, it grows, with each step the boy is taking. It spreads; a fire burning that desires to be extinguished, one that he knows not how to. Amplifying this triumphant delight, Voldemort thinks, pupils still widely dilated, might prove itself deadly.

He curls his lips in a sneer. “Mirages,” he hisses. “It is you boy who misjudges manipulation for kindness.”

“You know,” Harry Potter says, finally stopping a few steps away from him. Two or three at the most, so very close- and Voldemort seethes at the treachery of his own thoughts. His ache was growing so painful now, that he feels as if it would shatter his ribcage. “that I wanted to be kind instead of hateful. I could very easily have chosen the latter.”

“Why had you not?” Voldemort murmurs. His fingers twitch; desiring to sink into his own chest, his ribcage, desiring to pull out this flaring pain that makes his lungs burn, that is tearing out wheezy breaths from between his lips.

Harry Potter smiles again.

“It had nothing to do with you,” the boy says. “It had everything to do with me. Very selfish, I know. Or perhaps it had a little to do with you. You see, I had tasted that fury of yours, that hatred, and I thought… I thought that I didn’t want the same. I thought that I didn’t want to lose myself in it, and that perhaps… perhaps… kindness could work were anger had not.”

“You are a fool,” Voldemort breathes.

His breath is hitched, words almost hissed. Briefly, quickly enough for him not to be furious at the betrayal of his mind, he wishes to not have won. He wishes to have lost against the boy, for the pain of his victory grows to be unbearable. Bellatrix had said it to soothe, he thinks, but how long would it be-

“I am,” Harry Potter murmurs. “Because I tried to be kind, and I saw you be patient in exchange. Not gentle, nor soft; but indulgent. Sometimes considerate. Because I saw that Dumbledore might have seen one vision of you; but it was not what made you whole. The more I thought that I had known precisely what you were, the more you were proving to me that it was false. I had known some; for not all.”

“It is I who killed your parents, I who killed your friends!” Voldemort snarls, and he clenches his jaw, for the pain in his chest flares, brighter than ever. “You forget my actions for a few glances at a mirage!”

Potter stares at him. He still is so devoid of anger, so calm, that it makes Voldemort grow even more furious, even more desperate. “Yes, you did. And I won’t forget it. I will never forget them, nor what you did to them.”

“Then-” Voldemort breathes, painfully so. His pupils are widened to their full extent. “Then why-?”

“Because I forgive it,” Harry Potter says, plainly. “Because I forgive you. I won’t ever let their memory fade, nor will I forget that it was you who killed them. But I can not let it anchor me to anger and fury. I can not let it change me into something they would not like. I can’t lose myself, you understand? Because I think you could be so much greater than the limitations you put upon yourself, this raving fury you have for the world, and I want to give you something of worth; I want to show you that it’s not what you think it to be.”

Voldemort freezes.

His pain had never been so vivid. He stares back at Harry Potter, at the peacefulness of his features, as if the boy did not know… as if the boy did not understand his own words… what was he saying… talking about forgiveness… as if Voldemort had not been the one to kill his family…as if he hadn’t wanted to do so…

Harry seizes his wrist. “You were very cruel against a world that was cruel first,” Harry murmurs. “But it is not fated to always be so.”

Voldemort lowers his gaze to where the boy had seized his wrist. The touch is warm; so much so; and he feels as if he can not breathe. The pain, he fears, had spread to his lungs; coiling around it with such a tight grip that no exhale pass the barrier of his lips.

“It really is not,” Harry says, and Voldemort feels it.

Amongst the pain, he does not understand it at first.

It floods him, instantaneously. Voldemort is staring at the boy’s hand, and the next second the pain reaches its higher point.

Regret. 

He regrets.

He regrets for the prophecy to have set Harry Potter as his opponent.

He regrets having killed James Potter and Lily Potter.

He regrets aiming his wand at Harry Potter, murmuring that spell that had left him as a wraith.

Lord Voldemort regrets; so vividly so, and so Death hears.

The door has not the time for another crack to happen that it explodes.

And both Harry Potter and Voldemort have merely the time to turn their eyes towards it before everything fades to black.

The world ends, and the last thing Voldemort feels, is Harry Potter’s fingers curled around his wrist.

~*~

There is life and there is death.

Some say for the latter to be the greatest wrong made to mankind. Some say for it to be cruel, relishing in the pain it induces, and delighting itself in stealing souls from Life to its realm.

Death, they say, words slithering from their lips as if having ever gazed at it, stands as the ultimate enemy of Men; for it is aware of its ineluctability. Death, they say, takes pleasure in the misfortune of men, for it is this misfortune that brings them together.

Death, more than a great man had said, looks mockingly at humanity’s attempts to evade it. Watch with derision as they try to repel it, because it knows the futility of those expectations.

It is not true.

Death, in the end, watches mankind fear it and curse its name.

Death looks, with a fondness that no one had thought it to have, as humanity crawls and walks. It looks as they grow, and has all the patience of the world, for it knows that each will ultimately be welcomed in its realm.

Death watches, as one soul splits into two. Into three. Into six.

Into two again.

It watches as those two fragments of souls try to fusion, try to join the other. It watches, as they die, one after the other, and find themselves unable to enter its realm. It watches as both souls, or perhaps it is one, try to break the barrier, only to find themselves repelled.

Never could them enter, if split in such a way.

Death reaches a decision.

It snaps his fingers, and two souls find themselves in a very different place.

Death, in the end, can not take something that is not there.

And so, Tom Marvolo Riddle and Harry James Potter survive.

~*~

Voldemort opens his eyes and sees white.

It blinds him at first, and his eyelids instantly snap shut.

He waits for the pain to fade, a familiar one since the cemetery. Hit cat-like pupils bore a sensibility that Voldemort had been forced to grow accustomed to; one that no amount of glamour could hide.

Voldemort opens them once again, then, and finds himself surrounded by this whiteness.

He is alone, he instantly notices.

He raises, slowly to his full height, and instantly realizes for the glamour to have once again disappeared. Voldemort thins his lips, none of the reasons for it to have happened being devoid of concern. There is only one thing, above all, that could have induced it, and it is Voldemort magic’s disappearance.

He lowers his gaze, then.

He is draped in a thick black robe, plain, but long enough to brush at his ankles.

Where is Harry Potter? Voldemort thinks; as soon as he raises his eyes. He… He remembers; he thinks, for the boy and him to have been close, to have been talking- He remembers the pain, so vivid, and how he had thought for it to be induced by his victory, only to find it was not the case… not the case at all…

He had felt the boy curl his fingers around him…. And then, Voldemort recalls; the door had been blasted open.

So long had he thought for the boy to hold the key to their freedom, Voldemort thinks. He feels no cold, even with the small wind that slithers under his robes. So long had he thought for Harry Potter’s trust to be what he needed… what they needed…

Voldemort remembers the burning in his chest.

He remembers regretting.

“You remember well,” a voice murmurs in his ear.

Voldemort jolts; eyes wide- his fingers search for his wand, only to find nothing, to find thin air- and he knows- he knows- he does not need any proof, any confirmation to know- his pulse race in his chest- this is fear, he thinks, he knows- terror that washes through his veins-  this voice- so cold and hollow-

“Show yourself!” he snarls; pivoting to find the origin of the voice; finding only himself and whiteness.

Voldemort’s heart pounds in his chest, so violently that he thinks his ribcage to have cracked. He knows- he knows- not him, not yet- not ever- no- no, no, no-

“You do not need to fear me,” it says. “I am nothing to be feared. I am nothing to be hated.”

no.

“You wished so ardently to cheat me,” it says, his murmurs so very glacial, so very cold. “You chose the worst way for it. You wished so ardently to elude me, to never see me. You did not see it to be pointless. All men see me.”

Voldemort’s pupils are dilated by terror. His wand- he thinks, his wand- he needs his wand-

The voice continues. “You have no power upon me, here.”

There is a silence and Voldemort can only hear the pulse of his heart.                

“You were lost to my kingdom,” it whispers. “Fated to drift in limbo for eternity. Fated for pain and misery until the end of it all. Until nothingness. You are a greedy one, Tom Riddle. So full of desires and wants, driven by them up to the point of trying to escape from my sight. You did not. I see all. I claim all.”

He can not move, can not speak.

“Fated to a destiny you had bestowed upon yourself…” it says. There is another silence. “But then… then Fate took pity of the path you were wandering on.”

Voldemort wants to scream that he does not desire pity; that he does not- his lips are sealed shut. He can only stare at the whiteness, the voice murmuring in his mind, in his very soul.

“Then you made Harry Potter the recipient of your soul.”

What has the boy to do with this-

“Harry Potter,” it says again. Voldemort understands a second too late that it is a call.

He has a second, perhaps two, for his brain to realize it before the boy appears in front of him.

Harry Potter falls in front of him, a white robe covering his body – and Voldemort wants to laugh at the irony of it, for even here to be duality- and lets a pained noise escape his lips.

Voldemort does not explain it, then. Nor does he wish to, but for a small second; for a faint instant, his freezing terror fades enough for him to lend a hand to the boy. Harry Potter’s fingers curl in his palm, leaning into them just enough to raise to his full height.

“Tom,” Harry says, that dreaded name, but Voldemort does not snarl, does not seethe, not when he is not alone- not when Death- Voldemort’s chokes. “Merlin, Tom.”

And then the boy lunges at him.

He stumbles upon the impact, and it is only the lack of his magic that refrains him from blasting the boy away, and perhaps something else entirely that he does not wish to think of. Harry Potter wraps his arms around his waist, his chest; and breathes.

“Tom,” he says again, as if unable to say anything else. “I thought…”

Harry Potter is warm against him.

Something flares in his chest, and he raises his arms too, so very slowly… and presses Harry Potter firmer against his chest. Voldemort is painfully aware of the coldness of his own skin, the paleness of it, the talons that sink into the boy’s robes, but Harry Potter says nothing of it.

Seconds pass; slow or perhaps not, with only the silence and their breath to break it.

And then, it speaks again.

“Master,” it murmurs.

Harry Potter tenses against Voldemort. “I am not,” he says, almost plaintively. “I am not.”

What-

“You are,” the voice says.

Voldemort feels something freezing running along his shine. “Pardon?” he whispers; the familiar terror washing through him with each of the voice’s words.

“You made a Horcrux out of Harry Potter,” it says, its voice still as empty and glacial. “Harry Potter reunited the Hallows. Harry Potter became my Master. Harry Potter was refused the entrance to his own realm.”

Voldemort does not understand. His fingers sink even more in the boy’s flesh, enough so for Potter to make a silent noise of pain, and he lowers his gaze, trying to find answers in the boy’s features.

“I didn’t know at first,” Harry Potter says; pleads. Voldemort’s gaze is hollow on him. His fingers loosen their grip. “Then- then- we opened the door and I found myself here. I knew immediately where I was. It’s- when you threw that spell at me in the Forest, when we duelled and talked about remorse- when the Horcrux in me died… I arrived there… but it didn’t die…”

“What are you saying?” Voldemort murmurs.

“The Horcrux in me, it didn’t die,” Harry says, his voice strained. “I thought I survived your spell because of it, but it’s not the case, it’s because I reunited the Hallows… Because I can’t enter Death’s Realm because of my soul, of our souls.”

Voldemort feels as if something is curling his skeletal fingers around his lungs. He despises it. “Our souls?”

“Only entire souls are allowed in my realm” it whispers. “Harry Potter bore more than he should have. Tom Riddle bore less than he should have.”

“It was not Aurors,” Voldemort then says. His voice is curiously empty. He would have thought it to be infuriated, to be screaming. It is only hollow, instead. “I thought them to have entrapped us in this House, for lack of a way to kill us.”

Harry shakes his head. “I told you it was not them,” he murmurs. “I- I think we died. No- I know we died.” The boy’s voice is brittle. It seems, Voldemort thinks, with this same hollowness that he can not make disappear, that even Harry Potter is frightened by the prospect of dying. “I thought- I thought that you flew away. When I woke up from the forest and you were not there… no Death Eater in sight… when no one could find you… I thought you had realized about the Horcruxes and flew away to hide.”

A sneer deforms Voldemort’s lips. “Lord Voldemort? Hide?”

Potter laughs. It rumbles against him. “Yes,” Harry says. “Now I realize I might have been wrong.” His voice fades to a murmur then, one barely audible. “You were killed in fact. I don’t know who- I don’t know when- but you were killed. Perhaps before you had the time to wake up – perhaps before you could realize it.”

Voldemort stays silent. He fears that his tongue is frozen in his mouth; for he tastes bile. He has been killed, he thinks; and the thought bears such pain that he sinks even further his fingers into Potter. Someone, someone had-

“I was killed too. That’s why I joined you in the House,” Harry whispers. He does not speak about Voldemort’s grip on him, nor does he try to escape from it. “It- it told me it was a rookie mistake- we were trying to capture Avery- someone hit me instead of him…”

Voldemort has always been one to be perfectly in control of his surroundings, one to bear knowledge others did not. To see it all crumble now-

“Death told me it couldn’t let me enter in the Realm- it couldn’t let me wander in Limbo- but we were so tightly intertwined that it needed for our souls to be repaired- for mine to be mine alone and yours to be whole.”

Voldemort understands then.

“Regret,” he murmurs to himself, disentangling from their embrace. “You spoke of it, Harry Potter. It was not the trust in your heart that reunited my soul- it was the growing of regret in mine.”

There is another silence; in which Harry Potter stares at him.

“You did feel remorse then…” Harry numbly says. Incredulity is written on his features, down to the slightest twitch of his lips. His smile is beaming.“You did.”

Voldemort curls his own in a sneer and stays silent. He does not like to think about it, nor the excruciating pain that he had felt in his chest, nor the easiness in which he had succumbed to weakness. Weakness it is, he knows, for him to stare at Harry Potter and want to own him entirely, to want to see his emotions written on his face, to want to gaze at the laughs that so often shake the boy.

There is no trace of Tom Riddle in the boy, he is starting to realize, and is not yet certain for the thought to bring him pleasure or disappointment.

“And now what?” Harry Potter murmurs.

But then, it speaks.

It had not disappeared, Voldemort realizes, merely stayed silent- and it was his own fear who had receded; his own terror, and not the presence of it, of death.

“You have a choice, Master,” it whispers, its terrible inflictions once again murmuring in Voldemort’s mind. “The same choice that had been bestowed upon you before. You can take the train with Tom Riddle. Or you can return alone to the land of the living.”

Voldemort’s fingers twitch.

He feels it again, then, this dread- this terror- one that will never leave him, he thinks- and he stares, wide-eyed, as Harry Potter blanches. He doesn’t want to die. He doesn’t want to die. For the first time in his life, Voldemort pleads.

No, no- not yet- not now- never-

Harry Potter’s eyes find him. They are desolated. They are guilty.

Terrible dread floods him. Harry Potter bites his lips, and Voldemort knows his words before Harry says them.

“I am sorry,” Harry murmurs. “But my friends need me.”

And he takes a step forward.

Fin.

Before you insult me, there is an Epilogue coming, I promise! 👀

It’s so very near the end! Thank you for following this story and giving me support 💗 Don’t hesitate to leave me a word on this, I so want to hear your returns about this (almost) ending!

(And no worries, I did not forget about the Parseltongue bit, it’ll be explained in the Epilogue! It fitted better like this !)

Also, I’m very curious to hear your theories about who killed Voldemort, and if someone will find it out before I say their name!

ps: every time im looking back at a part I see grammar mistakes ksksksk im sorry English is not my first language so I’m trying to fix them all but some elude me-