Chapter 7
(now)
His right eyelid twitches.
It is light, first and foremost, that wakes Voldemort. Insidious and yet nonetheless desirable, one rendered haughty by the delight it rises in hearts. One that, by every right, should cause him to fight it.
He does not, however. He keeps his eyes close, for there is something pleasurable in indulging in a second more, perhaps two, in the dizziness that comes with sleep. Something that makes him think of his reptilian friends leisurely sprawled under the occasional sun rays.
There is warmth, then.
A treacherous kind of warmth, one tenfold more insidious; for it crept not only on the flesh but managed to pass through it. A warmth, Voldemort knows, that still feels so alien to him.
He is a creature of cold blood, that he is certain, but still has difficulties realizing the consequences that inevitably lay with the fact. Notably this bitter-sweet craving for warmth.
~*~
(then)
Potter looks at him. His eyes speak of a thousand apologies, coated in that expressiveness that had always fascinated Voldemort.
“I’m sorry,” he says again. He shakes his head. “I’m sorry.”
~*~
(now)
Voldemort finally opens his eyes, then.
He keeps them wide open for a few seconds, riveted on the white ceiling that faces him. White, as every wall, as every corner of light, as the magic he both fears and craves. White, he thinks, bears so many connotations.
The very picture of health; perhaps wrongfully so. He remembers the white walls in St-Mungo’s; remembers the white walls of the Hospital Wing in Hogwarts (and as ever the name rings with another, linked so closely to it that it can only mean home) remembers the white walls of the Avery’s townhouse. But, most importantly than all, he remembers the dirty, white, walls of the orphanage. He remembers gazing at them, hearing the bombs fly over his head, and counting the days before his freedom.
It had been white at least, he vividly recalls, before he had destroyed it.
He remembers letting his gaze linger on those walls; and how he had thought of the pureness that such colour implied. One, he had thought, that was so frequently painted as the colour of goodness when it most often than not was used as a veil over the truth. White, he had thought, bore that same hypocritical sanctimony that laced every of Dumbledore’s words.
He had chosen truth instead, and to not hide behind carefully crafted masks.
It surprises Voldemort, then; to not be annoyed by its presence in his house. In his home.
He gazes at it, and feels none of the ill feelings the colour had ever caused in him.
He moves then. Swiftly, in that silent grace he had adopted so many years ago. Decades even, he thinks, and then, inevitably- feels frustration. Years did not matter.
Not anymore.
~*~
(then)
“I am the Master of Death,” Harry Potter says. His eyes burn with decisiveness. He looks nothing like the boy Voldemort had treated him as. His voice is firm, firmer than it ever had been, and when he speaks again, his whisper has nothing to envy to the soft threats Voldemort had given his followers. “I command you. You do not command me. You do not give me ultimatums. I give you my decision and you respect it.”
Voldemort’s lungs feel as if drenched in icy water. Each breath is akin to drowning, and it is drowning perhaps, he thinks, for his gaze cannot depart from the boy
~*~
(now)
Voldemort moves silently throughout the House.
He knows every inch of it; every dark corner. He could navigate it even if blind; for there is a sense of familiarity that links him to it. Something that will never fade. He knows it, perhaps, better than anyone else. Anyone else alive.
His eyes lodge themselves on a place on the couch. Junior is offered to his gaze, coiled tightly around a cushion, yellow eyes fixed on him. He smiles then; a faint stretch of his lips that he would deny should it be seen, and mechanically advance a hand. It is not really joy that animates him, nor affection, but Voldemort does not dwell on it.
Comfort perhaps, he thinks nonetheless, as his fingers absently stroke the white scales. It flares amusement in him, as it will perhaps forever do, to see such strong resemblances between them.
Voldemort might be devoid of scales, but the same coldness can be felt at his contact. Not, he thinks, that anyone else would – could – do so.
He watches as Junior slithers out of his forearm, goes back to his nap place. The cushion bears the trace of the serpent’s dubious affections, torn and bitten in places. It reminds Voldemort of the youthful energy of pets, and his thoughts dart to Bellatrix and her fondness for them.
Some memories, he had found, were engraved in his mind more vividly than ink could spread beneath the flesh.
~*~
(then)
“You choose to go back to them, then,” Death suddenly says. “You choose to disregard your bond with Tom Marvolo Riddle. You choose life.”
~*~
(now)
Voldemort waves his wand to pour himself a cup of coffee, and his gaze trails behind the closed glass of the window.
He makes no sound as he sips his coffee; having lately found to enjoy the bitterness of it. He thins his lips then, for he knows to have found many changes lately. Perhaps bigger than he ought to like; for Voldemort, and Tom Riddle before him, had always been creatures of habits.
It is difficult, he certainly knows, to force oneself to disregard such matters.
And yet, he thinks, never had he let mandatory obligations come in the way of his desires. It was, he had thought and still thinks, a far better testimony of character to see the reactions of one in undesirable situations. And undesirable situations, Voldemort had faced. Perhaps more than he ought to have, had he thought with more clarity, had he not let too many Horcruxes impair his judgement.
He laughs, then. A silent laugh that reveals the sharpness hidden in his mouth, the fangs that no longer are hidden behind a glamour.
He does not wear it here.
It is a rather strange feeling, to know the reason for one self’s mistakes and yet not wish to have rectified it. Should he find himself in the past, facing the same hardships his past self had faced, Voldemort knows he still would slice through his soul.
Even with knowing the consequences of such an act; he would. Perhaps not as many times, but Voldemort does not let self-delusion blind his gaze, he still would have secured his immortality with Horcruxes.
A fault of character certainly, he thinks as he sits, his gaze still riveted on the window, but not one that can be corrected. It can not be so, not when he thinks it to be admirable where others judge it monstrous.
It does not faze him. Here lays the difference between him and the masses; the singularity that elevated him above them.
What, if not this? He crosses his legs, and rests the now empty cup next to him. He wonders, sometimes, if nurture does prevail over nature, and if he would have been an entirely different man had he been born as either a Malfoy or a muggle. He wonders, with absentness, if he too would have been haughty in public only to crawl and kiss the robes of another; one that would hide his tainted legacy behind a respected name.
Voldemort knows that no. It fascinates him, yet, and confuses him all the same; for a man to have everything the world could offer and yet willingly bow. A fault of character again, and one that he judges far more harshly than the ones he is impaired by.
Weakness, he knows, is more common than not; and yet the constatation of such knowledge never cease to astonish him.
Weakness, he knows; is an ever-waiting parasite that lets nothing pass behind its gaze.
Nothing.
~*~
(then)
You do not choose him, it does not say, but the words linger nonetheless. Voldemort’s pulse races in his chest. He can not breathe. He can not think.
His mind goes further in his betrayal, commands his body.
His fingers jolt forward, an ill-fated attempt to hold the boy, to make him think, to make him reconsider-
An attempt to hold him in place, for he is not ready, he is not sure he could ever be, he can not be there alone, he can not be left there- not him, not in Death’s realm, and the terror is insidious and so cold.
But Harry Potter steps forward.
~*~
(now)
Voldemort does not know how many minutes pass, how many hours. He finds himself resisting the passage of time, for it no longer bears value to him. Information, certainly, but one to be disregarded for it no longer distanced him from Death.
For it no longer distanced him from Death.
The thought is, if not new, still as ecstatic as the first time. No longer had he to gaze at an invisible clock, one that reminded him of Death’s eternal presence.
Even Horcruxes had not been strong enough to deter it; for Voldemort to escape its grasp. He had died; and nevertheless, he had triumphed.
Voldemort’s head spins. It will never cease to do so. He wants to laugh; that glacial laugh that tears itself from his throat. He wants to laugh, for never had Voldemort had a desire fiercer than his wish to escape Death, the devourer of worlds, and he had. He had.
In a way, none before him had achieved.
It is so that Harry Potter finds him.
~*~
(then)
But Harry Potter steps forward.
But Harry Potter steps forward.
But Harry Potter steps forward.
~*~
(now)
“Good morning,” Harry says. His voice is still laced in that leisure brought by sleep, and when he opens his mouth again, it is to yawn. “Why causes you to be in such a cheerful mood?”
Voldemort’s lips stretch further.
He answers truthfully; for he benefits in nothing should he hide it.
“My victory,” he says, quietly, triumphantly. “My victory over Death.”
Harry rolls his eyes. The boy pushes a fist against his mouth to suppress another yawn, and walks past Voldemort to come to open the fridge. He bends then, just slightly so, to grab the milk; and his t-shirt rides up, enough so to reveal the tanned skin underneath it.
Voldemort’s eyes trail over the revealed flesh; silent, and yet burning enough that Harry Potter sighs.
“First,” Harry says; opening the milk’s bottle. “- it is not your victory, Tom. It is ours, thank you very much.” The boy tips the bottle to drink it then, in that distasteful, barbaric manner that renders Voldemort grateful that the milk belongs to the boy and the boy only. Harry rests the bottle, and licks his lips to catch the lingering drops of milk, before turning to face Voldemort. “Second,” he continues, as if nothing had occurred. “-by Merlin, can you think about anything else? It happened four months ago !”
“One hundred and twenty-four days,” Voldemort absent-mindedly corrects.
Harry Potter rolls once again his eyes. “Yes,” he pointedly says. “Excuse me; it happened one hundred and four months ago ! Don’t you have better preoccupations? More urgent, perhaps?”
Voldemort says nothing at first. His gaze speaks for him, trailing from the boy’s neck (and Voldemort knows, that the wizard that faces him bears little to no resemblance to the boy that had faced him in that graveyard; and yet thinks Harry Potter and thinks Boy-Who-Lived) to his collarbone; descending on the stomach only to go back to Harry Potter’s eyes.
Famous ones, he thinks, and yet that none had ever seen the way he did.
That none had witnessed widened by want, by avidity. That none had seen riveted on them, begging and commanding. That none had seen dilated, speaking far more loudly than words ever did.
“You are right. I do have more urgent imperatives,” Voldemort murmurs. “Ones needing my active consideration.”
He steps forward, and delight builds up in his chest, up, up, up, as he watches the boy’s cheeks flush a deep crimson.
“Not now!” Harry Potter half-heartedly tries to protest. He raises his hands but does not move, doing nothing concrete to stop Voldemort from approaching. “You know I have to go back to the Ministry-”
His protest fades with his words; swallowed as Voldemort’s lips find the skin of his throat. Harry makes a hushed sound, a whimper halfway between insincere protest and agreement; and his fingers claw at Voldemort’s back.
“You were saying?” Voldemort smoothly asks, an eyebrow lifted; pressed against the warmth of the boy. He laughs, quietly, when Harry Potter squirms and pinches his lips in a very telling silence. The boy murmurs something, too faint to be audible. Voldemort’s lips stretch. “I am afraid I did not quite catch this, Harry.”
Harry twists his neck to throw him a furious look. “Fewer words, more action, would you?”
Voldemort’s laugh rumble against the boy’s throat.
“Ah…How demanding,” he murmurs. “How authoritarian of you, Harry.”
A few months prior, Voldemort knows to have seen such as misplaced arrogance. He knows better now, know for it to rather be born out of desperate want. It flares something entirely different in him, something that he had found to not fade but grow, and grow, wide enough to devour him entirely.
Voldemort had thought his desire to claim the boy to disappear with time, satiated by the achievement of it; but he could not have been less right.
He relishes still in the heat that flushes the boy’s cheeks. In the delicious noises he makes, in the moans that escape his lips when pushed to the border, in his body squirming underneath him.
And forever will.
~*~
(Then.
And for the rest of their days.)
“I am sorry,” Harry murmurs. “But my friends need me.”
And he takes a step forward.
Voldemort’s blood freezes in his veins.
Something cold, he knows, but has yet to put a precise finger on it, that delights itself in entrapping him. Something, he knows, that resembles so much the bitterness that so often went in pair with hope, something that leaves him unable to do so little as breathe.
Of course, he thinks, and his surprise has no reason to exist, of course, Potter would choose otherwise. Why would he not?
The boy owes him nothing.
Voldemort does not want for it to change.
He, he thinks, with this mixture of misplaced pride and hurt that had guided him his entire life, should not have expected for it to be so.
Loneliness, he knows, is so seldomly born out of a true desire for it. It grows forced by the hands of others, shaped into accepted isolation by wounded egos.
He freezes still.
He remembers, painfully so, a feeling that he had pushed aside for many decades. He remembers expectation, rising hope, and it is his years of avoiding it that makes him feel all the more consumed by their after-effects. It is ingrained in every child, Voldemort factually knows, to hope for the better outcome. But it is nothing but this; childish hope, and years- no, decades- of learning better should not have been disregarded after a few months of desiring otherwise.
“Potter,” he says. His voice is quiet, for it is always, but bears no resemblance whatsoever with his usual silky whisper that does little to hide the threats underneath it. “Step forward.”
Step aside.
He laughs, almost. Of all the treacheries, the ones of one’s mind are always the harsher. Step aside, the voice in his mind whispers again, you foolish girl, step aside.
It is a boy, this time, that needs only a step to forge an entirely different destiny. A boy, and yet one that bears the same fire Lily Potter had hosted in her eyes. One that lets her live through him; a legacy that shall not be forgotten, one that can not, and this as much as Voldemort had tried to extinguish it.
Potter looks at him. His eyes speak of a thousand apologies, coated in that expressiveness that had always fascinated Voldemort. He cannot comprehend the choice of letting one’s thoughts be freely readable, the freedom such act signifies. It speaks of privilege, certainly, for all rebellious spirits possessed such.
Freely giving such a great part of oneself was only thought brave when the consequences were to be laughed at. It was foolishness otherwise, weakness. Voldemort can not remember being able to do so; at least not when he had not been yet himself, when he had been forced to crush the true extent of his spirit and had born a false name, one imposed upon himself.
It is the greater pride in his life, he is certain, to have been able to entirely disregard all the impositions that had been forced upon him. His blood, his name, his ill fortune, his poverty, his loneliness.
Potter thins his lips. His jaw is clutched as if to refrain himself from speaking, and this, Voldemort knows, is a far harsher task than all their duels had ever been. The boy was born with a loose tongue, one that spoke too freely, and fought so ardently to not be repressed.
“I’m sorry,” Potter says again. He shakes his head. “I’m sorry.”
“You choose to go back to them, then,” Death suddenly says. “You do not choose Tom Marvolo Riddle. You choose life.”
You do not choose him, it does not say, but the words linger nonetheless. Voldemort’s pulse races in his chest. He can not breathe. He can not think.
His mind goes further in his betrayal, commands his body.
His fingers jolt forward, an ill-fated attempt to hold the boy, to make him think, to make him reconsider-
An attempt to hold him in place, for he is not ready, he is not sure he could ever be, he can not be there alone, he can not be left there- not him, not in Death’s realm, and the terror is insidious and so cold.
But Harry Potter steps forward.
“No,” he says.
“No?”
No?
Harry Potter smiles. He has a bright smile. Brighter than Tom Riddle’s ever was, laced in honesty where his had been made of lies.
Voldemort’s thoughts are not coherent. He feels as if trapped in ice, in the tight coils of a serpent long enough to wrap itself around the entire world, and his heart tries so harshly to pass the barrier of his ribcage, of his flesh-
“No,” Harry Potter says again. It is quiet and yet so firm, whispered and yet screamed at the world. At Death itself. “My friends need me. They do. But Tom needs me too. And I won’t choose. I do not have to.”
The whisper of it is as placid as ever. “I do not understand.”
“You don’t?” Harry Potter murmurs. “It is very simple.”
Voldemort’s tongue is as plaster in his mouth.
“I am the Master of Death,” Harry Potter says. His eyes burn with decisiveness. He looks nothing like the boy Voldemort had treated him as. His voice is firm, firmer than it ever had been, and when he speaks again, his whisper has nothing to envy to the soft threats Voldemort has given his followers. “I command you. You do not command me. You do not give me ultimatums. I give you my decision and you respect it.”
Voldemort’s lungs feel as if drenched in icy water. Each breath is akin to drowning, and it is drowning perhaps, he thinks, for his gaze can not depart from the boy.
No.
It is not a boy that stands before him.
It is a wizard.
“I collected the Hallows,” Harry Potter continues. He still has the faintest traces of his smile on his features, lingering, as if his words were not slicing through the air. “You are bound to me, it is true. It would, by all means, signify that Voldemort, that Tom, does not have any legitimacy to order you. After all, he did not collect all of the hallows.”
Voldemort does not understand where the point of Harry is. He speaks the truth, when affirming himself as the Master of Death – Master, he says, and Voldemort can not help but freeze at the thought, at the desire that had held him his entire life, one he had forged himself around – but he does not see the point.
“Potter,” he says, forcing the word to pass the barrier of his lips. It burns, for his throat is sore, that painful soreness akin to as if something had clawed its way out of it.
Harry Potter fans his hand. It is dismissive, in such an insolent way, that Voldemort’s fingers twitch on his wand. Ever the arrogant one; Voldemort thinks; and the thought is so fleeting, so close to normality, that it succeeds in making the ice recede from his body.
“Potter,” he hisses again, harsher, colder.
“I have a point,” Harry says instead. “Tom did not collect the hallows.”
Potter marks a pause, and when he smiles, his smile bears such a strong resemblance to Voldemort’s own smiles that it renders Voldemort speechless. And then-
“Or did he?”
Voldemort halts-
He- what?
“Tom Riddle did not collect the hallows.” The voice says.
Harry Potter hums. His smile has not left his features.
He is mad, Voldemort thinks, manages to think, for his thoughts spin around his mind, so fleeting that holding them requires a power even greater than him. The fact is unpleasant to learn, and he denies it, tries to, but finds himself unable to enunciate words.
“Perhaps,” Harry says. “Perhaps. But listen. Someone here is quite convinced of a fact. One that I will evocate later, because there are a few that needs to be mentioned. Will you let me speak?”
Death is silent at first. Then. “Speak.”
“I was given the first hallow when I was-” Harry Potter recalls out loud, frowning. “-eleven or so. It was given to me by Dumbledore. You will agree, certainly, that it was mine? That Dumbledore gave it to my hands?”
“Yes.”
Where is Potter going- what is he saying-
“Then, the stone. I picked it up with my bare hands before being killed by Voldemort. It was thus my possession. The second Hallow was mine.”
“Yes.”
“It leaves me the third Hallow,” Potter says, beaming. His smile is triumphant, in a way that Voldemort can not comprehend. “I became its possessor when I disarmed Draco Malfoy; prior to the battle of Hogwarts. I thus had all of the Hallows’ ownership when I met Voldemort in the Forest. I was prepared for him to kill me.”
Voldemort’s lips thin into a line. He desires to speak, so fervently so, but finds for his words to elude him.
“Thus,” Potter says, triumphantly, “I was not the only one to collect them !”
Voldemort understands then.
He sees, with a clarity that occludes the rest, what Harry Potter had been trying to say. He sees.
“You foolish boy,” he whispers, he can not help but whisper- “You foolish, foolish, boy-”
“I was not the sole possessor of my body for a very long time,” Harry Potter says. He is breathless in his haste to speak, in his triumph, in his vigour. “I was not the sole possessor of my body when I collected the hallows! I was not alone!”
“What are you saying?”
“You know that I was Tom’s Horcrux! I was as much a part of him as he is a part of himself! I was Tom! I was Harry! Harry collected the Hallows ! Tom collected the Hallows !” Harry Potter is frantically laughing, is shouting. “He has as much claim on them that I have ! I might be the Master of Death but he is too ! Bloody hell, he is too!”
Voldemort’s head spins. He is unsure about whether to call the boy insane, to call him utterly mad, a frantic madness that even the Lestrange and the Black had escaped, a manic that makes the boy laugh, that makes him shout triumphantly at Death, that makes him bend rules that can not be bent-
“Tom Riddle is the Master of Death !” Harry Potter says, triumphantly, breathlessly, jabbing a finger at the Nothingness, at what could be death and what could not be it. “If I deserve the choice then so does he!”
Silence answers.
Silence that etiolates himself, seconds turning into minutes, that planes over them in such a way that Harry Potter’s smile slowly fades. It leaves him to breathe, chest heaving, cheeks reddened by his excitation, and the silence to meet it.
Voldemort had always been one to think. He had always been one to play consequences in his head, different outcomes that could happen, the sentences that would answer his. Always one to think and think, to let his mind wander in a precise direction, to prefer the constructed path to the one that eluded even the harsher directives.
And yet, today, he does not.
Today, he looks.
He lets his eyes wander where his mind could, trace the lines of Harry Potter’s features with his gaze. The boy had well entered adulthood this he knows, and bears the passage of the time harsher than any of his age would. The consequences, Voldemort knows, of a life lived, not one watched from afar.
“We will escape this,” Harry then says, promises to him. The boy is certain of himself, a self-faith that Voldemort can most certainly understand, share. Always. Or perhaps not today. Perhaps not in darker days, where he had been left a wraith, when he had gazed at himself and wondered if it was the life Fate had destined him to. He had not succumbed to it, however. He had won. He had survived. He had come back. Not merely once, but so many times that Voldemort could not count them. Was it such a difference with their current situation? Never before had he faced death with such proximity.
Voldemort does not answer. He looks instead, where the boy’s mouth thins with a concern he tries to hide, worry following the passage of seconds, and says nothing. Voldemort looks at the unkempt hair, the determination that shines within the boy’s gaze, one that speaks of harsh times and harsher hardships; the scar, his scar, that adorns the boy’s forehead.
“We will,” Potter says again, fervently, because he is not one to let the silence reign. “We will both get out of there. There is no ultimatum, no impossible choices. You were the one who kept telling me I was you, that the Horcrux was a part of me. You were right, no? Aren’t you the kind to be always right about magic?”
Voldemort’s lips curl. He does it absently, and yet finds himself not to mind.
“You flatter me,” he says. “I shall keep such compliment in mind when remembering Dumbledore.”
Potter throws him a pointed look. It is laced with barely hidden worry, and yet it is annoyance that reigns as empress.
“Don’t draw comparisons that I didn’t do myself. Though never Dumbledore nor I did say that you were not intelligent. It was how you used your talents-“ Potter marks a pause. He pinches his lips, and says in a sigh. “how you still use it that is so…”
Voldemort takes his time to answer. “Knowledge is not to be impaired by fear.”
“Knowledge,” Potter says with a sigh. “is only a strength when not used for nefarious uses. What good is it for then?”
It is soothing, in a sort, to see for both of them to still disagree on such issues. It brings familiarity; and with familiarity comes the comfort men often craved. “Nefarious uses so depends on the view one has on the word itself. For a thirsty man, would the waste of water for showering not be nefarious? And yet another would call it knowledge to learn how to build such installations.”
Harry Potter rolls his eyes. “You do this often, you know.”
Voldemort arches an eyebrow-
“Defend your biased principles with an analogy that bears absolutely not the same level of importance. You can not compare basic needs with morals. It is simply not the same.”
Voldemort tilts his head.
“How then would I bring sense to less enlightened minds?”
Potter jabs a finger at him, gasping. “You know then!”
“And why, pray tell, am I so ardently aware of?”
“You know!” Potter repeats, with an outrage that outshines his growing concern. “You know that you need treachery to bring people to your mindset!”
“No, Harry,” Voldemort murmurs. His amusement grows; stretches his smile in that toothy grin that resembles the adders of Albania. “Treachery is too harsh a word for merely bringing the truth.”
“Your truth,” Harry Potter mutters.
“My truth.” Voldemort inclines his head. “The truth.”
Harry Potter lifts an eyebrow. “Yes, surely,” he mockingly says. “Everyone knows you to be the epitome of truth and honesty.”
“I-“
“Very well.”
Voldemort halts.
Harry Potter freezes.
Their eyes find each other’s, an automatism that Voldemort would be wise not to dwell on. Potter’s are widened by concern, by hope. Voldemort’s are equally as wide, burning red.
“You,” Harry licks his lips. “You heard it too?”
Voldemort’s throat is sore. “Yes,” he says; and the word tears itself from said throat.
“Are you-” Harry hesitates. He bites his inner cheek, and when he speaks again, his voice is laced with caution. “Are you saying- are you saying Tom can come with me?”
Voldemort’s attention is too riveted on the silence to mind the name. He knows, in a way that irritates him nonetheless, for it to bear a different meaning for the boy. One that speaks less of constraints than humanity; and he is too wise to fight Harry Potter when the boy is the key to his survival.
“Are you saying,” Harry is asking, voice quivering. “-that you acceptit?”
Silence, again.
Voldemort is learning to loathe it.
But this one is less lasting than the other.
“Very well,” it says again.
So simple words; three syllables, each word colder than the previous one, so sharp in its iciness that its cuts through his chest, through his lungs, and yet Voldemort feels something he had never felt before.
Relief, he realizes.
It is surprising, how a little thing can grow in width and height. A flicker of hope that does not let the reality of things deter it; that holds and holds until it either morphs into disappointment or relief. And it is relief, it is, that it had changed into.
That burns in Voldemort’s chest, more vividly than anger and despair had ever done.
Harry Potter laughs.
It is not a cheerful laugh; but one of incredulity and hope.
Hope, which Voldemort is realizing, continues to serve him again and again.
“We can go then?” Harry asks, nearly begging. He laughs again, and this time mirth pierces through it, a delight so genuine it can not be linked to victory only. “We can be set free from here?”
“You shall depart under strict terms,” Death says. Its tone is as lacking in emotion as ever, and yet Harry Potter does not seem to mind. “If you are counted to be one, then you shall be judged as one. You will be accounted responsible for the acts of Tom Marvolo Riddle. If you will for both of you to join the realm of the living, you never shall be separated in judgement.”
Harry halts.
He bites his lips- and looks at him.
No.
The boy looks at him.
Something passes then.
Something that he would be in hardship to describe, words that could never be done justice by being spoken out loud. Something, he knows with certainty, that so seldomly comes in a lifetime. Even one as prolonged as his one could be. Something, and Voldemort does not need for it to be openly said to know it to be true, that might just determine his fate.
The boy is asking something of him.
Voldemort does not know how to react.
For the first time in his life, he doesn’t know. He does not know how to proceed, does not know what to think, what to say.
Something tells him that no lie could be given this time. Not when Death sees it all, flies over them as the invisible omen it is supposed to be, not when Harry Potter’s gaze pierce through worlds and words alike.
“Is it really so essential?” Harry asks him. His voice is quiet but not brittle. His smile tired but not irritated. “Would you really seek to destroy your soul when you could be granted a second opportunity? Would it be worth it?”
Voldemort is not certain what those new terms demand of him. It is this uncertainty that gnaws at him, perhaps even more than Death’s presence.
He can not be trapped again. This, he knows. But to ask of him to entirely disregard what made him who he was? To ask of him to gaze at the world and accept to be nothing for it? To ask of him to play, certainly what Harry hopes for, the perfect wizard and let bygones be bygones?
Harry must see something in his eyes then, something that his lips do not allow to pass, for his breath is heavy. “Is it really so vital to you?” the boy asks again. He shakes his head then; a strange movement of incomprehension and yet resignation. “This is not much that is asked of you, you know. To not perpetrate acts that would impair your soul. Our soul.”
All Magics, Voldemort knows, impair the soul.
It does not depend only on the caster for the side effects it causes.
“You spoke to me of many things,” Harry says again. His voice slices through the silence, harsh as a blade, and yet so softly spoken. “You spoke to me of things that could be implemented without violence. Without the wrong kind of violence,” he adds, with a laugh that is meant to dissolve the tension. It does not work. “Better education. Renewing some old traditions. Not hoarding knowledge. Does it matter so little in comparison to the war- this personality cult that you enjoy so much? Does it matter less for the world to change and more for a circle to venerate you?”
Harry Potter’s words grow heated.
Voldemort‘s thoughts do not. The boy speaks of things he has no understanding of; not when he still blindly believes in Dumbledore’s sanctimony; not when he is so little acquainted with the world he lives in. For all the old fool’s speeches about fraternity and equity, he knows for it to be nothing more but honey-coated lies.
The truth, Voldemort knows, is that raw power matter less than blood.
It did not mean that the latter is worthier than the former. It meant that in the minds of the wizarding society, it did. It meant that Tom Riddle had been praised and praised for his talent, proposed for illustrious internships, only to find himself refused again and again. It meant that it was well to speak about a mudblood’s brilliance but not to have one’s actions follow his words.
Nothing had changed. Nothing would.
But, Voldemort suddenly thinks, his eyes riveted on Harry Potter. Harry Potter is the son of a pureblood. Harry Potter is a war hero. Harry Potter has both a foot in the wizarding and the muggle world.
Tom Riddle had needed something else to be listened to.
Harry Potter did not.
Voldemort raises his eyes.
Harry still has his gaze riveted on him. He is silent, but he does not need to say anything for his thoughts to be revealed. His entire body is turned towards Voldemort, open, begging.
Harry Potter had always been the one to truly stand between him and his victory. Always the one to cast a shadow upon it, seconded by words of prophecy, and echoed by men mightier than the boy.
But it was not entirely true.
Harry Potter, Voldemort realizes there, stands at the crossroads. The boy, without realizing so, is as well the executioner as the redeemer, for he holds close in his palm the flame Voldemort had been chasing after his entire life.
Thus, he too steps forward.
“I will follow you,” Lord Voldemort curtly says; and it is nothing but the truth that echoes through the air. His murmur continuing to be carried by the wind. “I accept your terms, Harry. Give me this opportunity you promise me, and I will keep my word in not harming either of our souls. Either of our fates.”
Harry Potter’s smile is as bright as Voldemort’s words are firm.
“You will not regret it,” he promises. “You won’t.”
It is Voldemort’s turn to smile.
“I hope so, Harry,” he smoothly murmurs. “I just added another title to your achievements, after all. For whom would ever dare to cause a Dark Lord to retire?”
Harry smiles at him. His smiles are bright and beaming, lightened by relief. “It is less retirement than defeat.”
“Defeat has a subjectivity that will not be addressed today,” Voldemort says.
Harry laughs then, and gives him an affectionate nod.
“We would add hours to our departure,” he agrees. Then, licking his lips, a sigh heaving his chest. “Join me then.”
And Voldemort does.
He steps forward to be closer to the boy, close enough that Harry Potter waste no time circling his waist once again, in that way that makes his skin shiver and his pulse race, and Harry clears his throat.
“Open the way.” Harry marks a pause. “Please?”
And light blinds them once more.
~*~
(now)
Harry Potter’s head lays on his shoulder.
Voldemort passes an absent hand through its hair, his fingers stroking the dark strands. They are soft, perhaps softer than he had thought, especially knowing the unruliness of them. His movements are methodical, precise.
There is an owl next to them. It is watching them, its eyes eternally widened, but it is not its shape nor gaze that causes Voldemort to render it an equally scorching glare.
It is the letter that the animal holds.
Voldemort knows perfectly well what it says. He has dutifully read every newspaper since The Boy Who Lived’s reappearance, the mystery that coated it. No one, the journalists said, knew exactly why Harry Potter had vanished from the surface of the earth for two years and three months.
Voldemort had traced the letters with a finger and smiled. A cold smile, one that had curled the top left of his mouth and left him aching for something.
The animal tilts his head to the side.
Voldemort does not avert his gaze.
He can not move. At least, he can not move without waking the boy. Not when Harry has such a fancy for intertwining their bodies; interlacing his fingers with his, crocheting his waist with those long-tanned legs of his. The boy, Voldemort often thinks, resembles the pets Bellatrix had favoured.
Another stroke to Harry Potter’s hair, and the boy shiver in his sleep.
He is still warm, delightfully so, and Voldemort never ceases to wonder at the warmth that emanates from the boy. It causes him to chase it, crave it, in a way that grips at his heart and seizes it in a glacial, painful hold.
Harry, Voldemort knows, chases every hour of his days. The resurrection of one Boy Who Lived had been closely accompanied by the appearance of one Lord Gaunt, who had returned from Finland where he had supposedly been in hiding. Terrified, you see, of Lord Voldemort and the climax of terror he had brought upon the British Isles.
Voldemort’s lips stretch as he recalls his encounter with Shacklebot.
It had been enjoyable, to an extent, to see the caution in the Minister’s eyes fade into understanding – and if Voldemort was right, a slight disdain. It amused him; for he knew how such disdain (Lord Gaunt had cowardly flown away from the battleground) was ill-placed.
But what had been even more amusing, had been Harry’s alarmed glances. He had tried to temper the situation, loudly recalling that citizens had every right to flee a conflicted country, trying to shed light on Lord Gaunt’s accomplishments in Finland. Trying to swiftly change the subject of the conversation, applauding at each of Voldemort’s sentences.
Shacklebot had left the encounter confused and concerned about the boy, and Voldemort had never felt such amusement.
Lord Gaunt, then, had wasted no time to seek a place in the wizarding society, heavily supported by one Boy Who Lived. With such references, it had been an easy task than to join the board of directors of Hogwarts.
Voldemort’s fingers brush against Harry’s left cheek.
Hogwarts. Back home at least.
His lips curl.
He murmurs something then, something that can not be audible to any other than him, and the owl bursts into flames. It is quick, enough so that nothing remains after it, for the sole exception of the letter.
Voldemort raises a hand, and the letter too vanishes.
Harry moves against him. He yawns, and tries to raise his head.
“Fuck,” he half-whisper, half-complains. “Did I fell asleep?”
Voldemort says nothing. Instead, he tightens his grip against the boy, his fingers trailing after the exposed skin of his neck. He presses a kiss there, then, one that speaks better than any of his words about the affection that he feels, that never ceases to amaze him. He had judged Harry Potter as a foolish boy, ignorant of the ways of life, and seen that it was he who lacked in knowledge about vital matters.
He is certain that he does not love the boy. Love, he still believes, is nothing else but empty words, said to romanticize lust and affection. Love is a delusion of the senses. It is not Love that Voldemort feels.
It is possession. It is affection. It is admiration, certainly, for some of Harry’s features. It is desire, a desire for closeness of words and touches. It is appreciation, of the boy’s loosened tongue and his sharp wit, of his laugh and determination.
His lips run along the boy’s neck. Harry Potter gasps under the burning gaze of Lord Voldemort, and his resulting laugh is still as high-pitched and glacial as it ever was.
It is his words and thoughts that had tasted warmth and seen it to be irresistible.
~*~
My lord,
Lestrange had been successfully retrieved.
We await your orders.
Goyle.
The End!
what next, you ask?
Edit 20.05.22 :
I have a Tomarry settled in canon fanfic where Locket!Tom takes on a corporal form (available on ao3 under the name of L’Araignée)
and I’m currently working on a Tom sr/Merope consensual fic where they both try to climb the social ladder and learn to love each other in their quest for power! It’s called tHe Witch of Little Hangleton and you can find it on ao3 ❤️
lots of love