Reliquary
Harrymort + Reliquary
The silence around him was pervasive—his own ears ringing with the absence of sound as he stood before his parents’ grave. It was cold outside, but he didn’t pay the chill any mind as he tried to make sense of what his own life had become. The fading letters of his parents’ names on stone the only thing grounding him to this reality.
He should have never come here at all, but here he was, standing in the last place he should have been.
But he could not bear to spend another minute in the tent—Ron’s absence was like a physical blow to his gut, and Hermione’s sorrow-ridden eyes a painful reminder of what they had lost. He did not want to stomach another second knowing that the trio had suddenly become a duo, all because the locket currently burning into his ribs, had poisoned Ron’s mind.
Harry tried not to hold it against Ron—he knew what it was like. He practically lived it every day without having the trinket to keep him company. His own mind was its own prison—its own unbearable venom rotting him from the inside out.
But Ron at least could remove the burden. For Harry, there was no removing it. Voldemort’s presence was a sickness that burrowed itself deep into his soul; nothing short of removing his own flesh from his bones could bring Harry the relief he wanted.
Harry did not know how long he had been out there, but when he saw the last sliver of sunlight bleed into the earth, he knew it was time for him to leave. Hermione knew he had gone, but had promised her that he would return before night fell; the only reason she had let him go in the first place. Aside from the fact he may not have been entirely genuine about where exactly he was going.
He exhaled deeply, gathering his resolve for the bleakness that awaited him in the tent, before clutching his invisibility cloak more tightly around him.
He headed for the opening at the far end of the graveyard, his footsteps loud despite all his efforts to be silent. The place may have seemed empty—abandoned, by anyone else that stumbled upon it. But Harry knew better than to trust this.
Voldemort thrived in the shadows—his magic an abyss that swallowed all light that dared to shine too closely.
It would honestly not come as a surprise to see Death Eaters roaming this town. Everyone knew about Harry’s tragic past and his strong feelings for the parents that were stolen from him. If Voldemort knew Harry as well as the man claimed to, then he would definitely have this place riddled with troops.
It was very fortunate that Harry had an invisibility cloak. It certainly came in handy.
He paused when he noticed something glimmer to his right—the glow of light incandescent underneath the black of the sky above him. He turned to it, curious by what the light could be.
What he saw was a ruined chapel a short distance away.
Harry could see where the wooden roof had fallen into itself, where the door had splintered open from years of little care. But what he could see most clearly from where he stood was the bright light—its power coming from somewhere inside the edifice.
He stepped toward the chapel before he thought to stop himself. He should have been more suspicious, wearier of this temptation that hid behind its solid stone walls.
And normally, he would have been a little more careful.
But what harm could this do? He was safely hidden beneath his invisibility cloak, polyjuiced for good measure, and his wand firmly tucked between his fingers. He was prepared—mindful of the fact that if he wanted to come out of this alive that he would do well to be ready for anything that came his way.
This was as Hermione approved as it could get without actually acquiring her seal of approval. And although he wanted to be guilty for deceiving her into thinking he was simply taking a stroll through the forest rather than staring at his parents’ graves in Godric’s Hollow, he wasn’t. He needed this moment of respite, to gather his senses before they returned to the onerous task of destroying the trinket wrapped around his neck.
He was so caught in his musings that he had not realized he was a foot away from the rotting doors until the smell of it overcame his senses. It smelled of rotten wood and death—the pungent smell enough to make Harry’s lips quirk into a grimace.
He had expected rot—the bloody chapel looked ready to cave in at any second. But the smell of death caught him by surprise entirely. It smelled like the rats that would find their way into the nooks of the Dursley’s home, the creatures poisoned and dying in a place where no one could remove them.
He wondered if someone had died in there recently, if someone had come in and never returned to the world of the living.
The thought should have horrified him, should have propelled him out of the chapel post haste. And he wanted to, he truly did. But the light was glowing faintly from somewhere inside, so small that Harry had to squint through the shadows in the building to make it out. He had already come this far—it would be a bit of a waste if he backed off now.
It just sucked bollocks that it smelled so bad.
Harry steeled himself, taking in as much clean air as he could through his lungs, before stepping inside. He didn’t notice how tightly his fingers were clutching his wand—his knuckles white from the pressure.
The first thing he noticed when he entered was how small the space was. The nave was so narrow that it was only just big enough to fit a person. The benches were otherwise pressed against the walls to Harry’s left and right, surprisingly sturdy despite the abused state of the actual building.
The windows at either end of the building allowed moonlight to trickle inside, casting the place in a supernatural glow that likely would frighten any that had the misfortune of coming in here.
He definitely felt out of place.
It was creepy, the way the moon cast shadows over the benches. It made the room seem smaller than it already was—the shadows suffocating and oppressive as he stopped in front of the short nave to eye the altar at the end of it.
It was perhaps the nicest part of the place. The only area of the chapel that seemed to be untouched by time—the cloth at the table pristine as if someone had recently laid it on the table.
It looked more a sacrificial table than a place where peons would get on their knees to pray. It made Harry shift with discomfort at the possibility that someone else could be there with him, hidden within the thick shadows of the room. It made the stench of the room seem more reasonable—the likelihood that someone may have actually killed people air, more than possible.
It made his stomach turn.
He stepped carefully inside, looking around for the glow he had seen earlier when he had stood outside the doors. But there was no glow—no filtering light except for the moonlight at either side of him.
It made something like apprehension curl in his stomach, the thought that perhaps he had been lured inside setting his heart aflutter. He was at the center of the chapel, but he was tempted to just turn back—to turn his arse around and leave from where he had come.
But he did not, despite the whispers of unease begging him to. He didn’t despite the heat that burned him through the layers of his clothes—the locket seeming to come to life at that precise second.
It never bode well when the locket saw fit to come alive, and Harry could practically sense that shit was about to hit the fan.
“Harry Potter.” Harry jumped, stumbling in the dark to make out just who had called his name in the small space. He did not see anything at first, the shadows by the altar so thick that it would only make sense that he’d miss the shape of a person.
Harry did not say a word, choosing instead to back further away from the room to escape. The locket was burning something fierce, but he did not focus on the trinket, more caught up with the fact this person knew he was there, and knew who he was.
He still felt the invisibility cloak wrapped firmly around himself, so it couldn’t be that he had somehow lost the cloak when he had come inside.
Something strange was going on, and Harry wanted no part of it.
“It is quite the surprise to see you so close to home.” The voice hissed, the familiarity of the tone making dread lodge in his throat.
It couldn’t be—
“But it can be. You came here all on your own without a fuss.” Harry flinched at the iciness of his tone, the amusement there enough to have him stepping further back. He needed to get out. Somehow Voldemort was there in the dark with him—had lured him in like some stupid first year.
Harry could not quite make out the monster from the shadows, but there was no mistaking Voldemort’s voice. He did not need to move from he stood in the shadows, for Harry to know. The only saving grace Harry had was the fact that he had slowly inched closer to the entrance he had come in through. If he made a break for it, he was sure he would have enough time to get out.
He thought to apparate straight away, but he could feel the tingle of anti-apparation wards clinging to the stone walls. So he held his wand out instead, pointing at the outline of Voldemort’s body in the shadows.
“Leaving so soon? But you’ve only just arrived.” Voldemort crooned and Harry flinched when he hit a barrier he was sure had not been there when he walked in earlier. He turned his attention momentarily to glimpse at what could be blocking his path, noting with dread that there was no longer a door to come through.
Voldemort had laid down a solid stone wall where the rotting doors used to be.
Shit.
“And you’ve even brought company. My my, I have not felt its magic in years.” Harry hissed when the locket suddenly became so hot that it scalded him through his shirt. He tried to remove it, but the damn thing refused to budge.
Each time he tried to slip the thing over his head, it was as if some invisible force kept it from going no further than above his chin.
He huffed angrily, upset at himself for being so stupid to chase after a light he didn’t know the origins of. He knew better. He should have known better than the pursue it—sod it—he should have known better than to come to Godric’s Hollow at all.
It was a piss poor decision from his part, one that he was regretting immensely with each passing second as the man huffed out a short laugh at his expense.
It was high—the pitch of it enough to make Harry’s skin crawl.
“Why don’t you come join me, Harry? It really has been a long time since we have been…face to face.” Harry would rather be eaten by the Basilik than do what the man wanted.
Harry was still, taking in silent breaths as he turned his attention to the open windows at either side of him. Odds were that Voldemort had sealed those too, but Harry at least had to try. He moved slowly despite the heavy weight of Voldemort’s magic in the air, the fact such magical power was so easily hidden away a testament to the power that Voldemort held within his skeletal frame.
It was terrifying how Harry had not noticed it at all when he had first come in—it was like a tsunami preparing to strike a defenseless village. He should have at least felt something, noticed something was amiss before he had stupidly walked into the chapel. But there was no helping things now.
Harry was almost to the window before he felt the air shifted around him—the rippling of Voldemort’s magic the only warning he had before he was flung from the window, his grip slipping from his wand. He tried to reach for it, but he was flying so fast his cloak and glasses fell away too, lost in the dark.
He cried out when he landed harshly on the altar, his back bursting with shocks of pain.
Harry could barely see in front of him, his poor vision making the once clear outline of Voldemort’s body in the dark, a blur. The fact he could not see Voldemort made fear twist into his gut, his body twisting along with it in his efforts to break away from the powerful force that pinned him to the altar. He could feel each individual groove of the wood on his back, surprised and afraid at how it did not break from the impact.
It should have broken—crumpled to pieces under the weight of his own body and Voldemort’s power when he had landed. It made Harry suspicious—unsure and wary of the fact that as he had noted earlier, the table seemed to be the only thing pristine in the entire ruined chapel.
“Ah, so you have noticed.” Voldemort stated, before stepping out from the shadows, the red of his eyes and the pallor of his skin the only thing Harry could really make out without his glasses. It was both a blessing and a curse—he wasn’t sure if he wanted to be blinded or see what was coming.
Harry prepared himself for the worst, struggling despite the fruitlessness of the endeavor. He wished more than ever that he had his wand—his fingers itching for the familiar wood, settling for the cloth instead.
“It is a special moment, you see.” Voldemort stepped towards the altar, his tall frame making him seem more imposing than he already was already. Harry sneered at him, unwilling to be cowed by Voldemort’s presence.
“Special? Hardly.” Harry snarled when Voldemort finally stopped beside him, a predatory grin on his face as he took in the sight of Harry pinned onto the altar. It chilled Harry to the bone, but he did not let it show. He could not afford to show weakness when this moment was life or death—death more likely, since he wand was god knows where, and Voldemort had him pressed so hard into the table that he could not move a finger.
“You have returned that which had been stolen from me. And you have offered yourself, it is only fitting that you lay where muggles have stood on their knees to beg.” Harry swallowed when the dark lord reached out, his fingers pressing to Harry’s neck. They were cold, what Harry could imagine death felt like as they traced the tendon at the side of his neck before curling around the golden chain of the locket.
It heated up suddenly and Harry cried out, scalded through his shirt. He writhed as it pulsed a steady heat, a warmth spreading around him as he tried to fight the teeth-clenching agony. It felt like the locket was eating through his chest—an acid spreading from his ribs and through different networks of nerves in his frame.
Merlin.
He screamed again when the warmth became an inferno the longer the seconds progressed—he writhed and struggled, no longer trying to escape his confinement but trying to get Voldemort to stop. His touch was agony, the scar on his forehead now burning something fierce as he tried to make sense of what the bloody fuck was going on.
He was dizzy, his vision black at the edges.
He felt like he was about to pass out, but Voldemort, seeming to notice this, removed his hand from Harry’s throat. The burning immediately stopped, but the Locket still pulsed. A reminder of the pain that he had suffered and would suffer again.
“Monster.” Harry hissed, and Voldemort simply rose a hairless brow at him. The dark lord considered him for a moment, pressing the same fingers that had touched his neck seconds earlier under his chin. He looked oddly human in that instance, so human in fact that Harry tried not to think on the gesture. He was perturbed at the fact he was still alive—shocked in fact that Voldemort had even stopped torturing him at all.
“And you are the repository for the soul of a monster, Harry. You carry deep within those weak bones, in that delicate skin, a piece of my soul.” Harry stiffened, his shock eliciting another laugh from the man over him.
What?
“You’re lying.” Harry denied without consideration. He did not care that Voldemort had stopped laughing and had now crowded closer to him. It just couldn’t be true—he had to be speaking of the locket he wore on his chest.
There was simply no way that Harry had—
Harry swallowed down his bile when Voldemort again reached for his neck, his touch deceptively soft on his skin. If he wasn’t sure he’d choke on his vomit, he would have expelled the mushrooms soup he had eaten with Hermione earlier that afternoon.
“Oh? Then why do you hear my thoughts as if they were your own? See the world as I see it? Feel as I feel, Harry?” Voldemort purred, and Harry blanched at the implication.
Why did he have this connection with the dark lord that no one had?
The horcrux on his chest burned up once more, before Harry felt another pressure push him further into the altar by his shoulders.
The pressure felt oddly like—
“Are you frightened, Harry Potter? To know that you carry a piece of me inside you? That the reason you could feel pieces of me in this world is because you—“ Harry gasped when the fingers on his shoulders clenched, fear slicing through him as Voldemort watched him, his face twisting into an expression Harry could not understand.
The new hands were warm—a familiar heat burning through his shirt and into his flesh. He hissed, unable to turn his gaze away from Voldemort, who had stopped caressing his throat, and had stepped back to watch him.
“carry a piece of my soul.” Voldemort whispered, the presence above him letting out a pleased hum at Harry’s sharp gasp.
The tenor of that hum sounded familiar—a memory tugging at his mind, but he refused to acknowledge it. He didn’t want to know, didn’t want to be know that—
“I have seen your heart, Harry.” Harry trembled, a voice he had only ever heard in memories speaking above him. He opened his mouth to respond, trying to swallow down his mounting horror as realization washed over him.
“No, I-“ Harry tried, but the words died as soon as they had come. Distracted by the fingers on his shoulders, shaking when they loosened their brutal grip on his shoulders to slip into his wild hair.
“You are mine.” The voice crooned, the fingers in his hair gentle as they teased at the wisps near his ears.
“I have seen your dreams.” Harry tried not to look as frightened as he felt, but he knew he had failed miserably when the monstrous version of Voldemort smiled at him, his thin lips spread taut.
It was too much to take in at once.
“Do you not see, Harry? You were never alone. You have always had me, nestled deep into your beating heart.” Harry opened his mouth to protest, to deny and get the man to bloody shut up. But Voldemort’s hand suddenly snapped forward, seeming to know that Harry was about to speak, before digging his fingers harshly into Harry’s chin.
It made speech completely impossible.
“I have seen your fears. I have seen Dementors giving you the kiss, ripping our soul straight from your mouth. I have seen your fingers clenched so tightly they are white with your despair, your face contorted into the sweetest of pain at the end of my wand.” Harry flinched when Voldemort hissed the word soul, further crystalizing the reality that he had a monster living inside him.
He was a bloody Horcrux.
Harry spat then, his spit missing the man’s face entirely, but the action made him feel braver. Like he wasn’t breaking from the reality of the situation.
“Our little Horcrux.” Voldemort’s voice was reverent, as if he could hardly contain his glee. The other Voldemort—another memory of Tom Riddle—simply ran his fingers through his hair as if he were some pet, a chuckle the sound in the silence of the room.
Harry wanted to feel sick, the reality that he was laying out before them like some sacrifice, spreading panic through him like wildfire.
“You will want for nothing.” Voldemort’s touch was ice cold, a chill spreading through from where his fingers gripped tightly on his chin. “You will be cherished, as things that belong to me are.” Riddle spoke from behind him, his voice silky as his fingers scratched at Harry’s scalp, a pleasant feeling spreading through him.
He was utterly horrified.
“Never to be touched by the fingers of death.” But death was already touching him, Harry wanted to argue. Death was standing before him in the atrophied church, his power overwhelming in the dark.
“I have seen you, and you are mine.”
Voldemort’s magic washed through him, and the blackness at the corners of his eyes engulfed him completely.
He fought viciously against him, hanging tightly to his own magic to keep himself awake. To keep himself aware.
But it was too much, spreading too fast, and then he was adrift. The memory of Hermione’s haunted face the last thing he recalled before he saw no more.