Serpentine
Harry had three seconds to move before the snake plunged its teeth into his arm. Three seconds to pinpoint just where Hermione was in the dark. Three seconds to decide which direction to fling himself. He didn’t have the luxury of thinking through his next course of action.
The serpent was baring its teeth at him, and he needed to move now.
And then he was lunging, the sensation of the snake’s hot breath over his arm scalding as he narrowly avoided her sharp fangs.
His body hit the ground hard, splinters and broken glass embedding themselves into the palms of his hands. He ignored the pain, choosing instead to scramble to his feet to look for Hermione. His feet slid across the dirty floor, but he otherwise, managed to raise himself from the floor quickly.
He heard something crash behind him, and did not bother to look too closely at the room around him. He knew the space wasn’t necessarily big. Perhaps in the past, the room would have been more spacious and could have served as the perfect place to entertain large sets of guests, but not anymore. It was cluttered and full of strange knick-knacks that made Dumbledore’s old office pale in comparison.
It was a blessing that Harry had scoped the room out thoroughly when he had followed the imposter in earlier. Otherwise, he would have been in deeper trouble.
He had lost his glasses in the scuffle, and the world around him was a complete blur. The shadows were no longer clear, the world around him faint lines that Harry had no hope of distinguishing in the dark. It was all a mess of colors, the world a kaleidoscope of blacks, browns, and beiges that it did little to settle Harry’s nerves.
He bumped into several pieces of furniture as he moved, but he did not stop running. Barely biting back a curse when he jammed his hip into a dresser as he scrambled for a way out—the exit just at the other end; the light blazing out past the entrance the only thing Harry could actually make out.
“Harry!” He jolted, turning his head in the direction he had heard Hermione’s voice from, just several feet to his left. It was near where the light shined brightly, and Harry scuffled faster, ears perked for the sound of the serpent coiling its tail in the dark.
“Hermione, get out of here!” Harry barked, twisting to his right when he felt rather than heard the snake’s breath fan behind him. “That wasn’t Bagshot, its Voldemort’s bloody snake!”
He cursed when the snake slipped its tail around his ankle, coiling tightly around his leg and dropping him to the ground. Harry could faintly hear Hermione in the dark, her footsteps coming closer despite the clear warning in his tone.
She was supposed to run; to listen to reason!
Harry cried out when the snake twisted around him, its maw pressed dangerously close to his neck as it lifted him up in the air. Harry could feel its fangs digging into his neck, but the snake did not bite down as he had expected it too.
His fingers felt numb, shaking as he tried to reach for the wand tucked in his pocket. The shock of the snake ambushing him giving him little time to slip the familiar holly between his fingers to fight the serpent off.
Swallowing, Harry heard the snake hiss, an intelligible sound that Harry could have sworn sounded…pleased.
“Master will be pleassssed,” The snake crooned, and Harry had no time to properly respond to the statement before he felt something snag into his navel, his fingers twisting and jerking within the snake’s grip as he tried to fight it off. A sense of dread exploding within him when he realized just what the snake intended to do.
No!
Harry knew what that sensation meant, having felt it one too many times when slipping away with Ron and Hermione at his side after getting into far too many dangerous scrapes.
“Harry!” He heard Hermione call, and then the world faded. The tug of unfamiliar magic propelling him so quickly that Harry could scarcely take a breath, his eyes wide and frantic with fear as the snake apparated him away from Bathilda Bagshot’s home and into a place he had never been to before. He could not recognize the flash of green before his eyes, the splatter of silver and gold that danced along his vision as he tried to make sense of the world around him; nausea clawing up his throat as he tried to gather his bearings.
He landed roughly on the carpeted ground, his face slamming so hard on the floor that he cried out from the shot of pain it elicited. It felt like he’d been punched hard across the face, and Harry groaned when the serpent, still wrapped tightly around him, squeezed. His ribs felt like they were being crushed, smashed into fine powder, and Harry bit his lip hard enough to bleed.
“Master is not here, but he will be sssssson. I hope he will feed you to me,” The snake hissed, its tongue flickering against his cheek as Harry began to struggle; his hand reaching desperately for his wand, but finding that the serpent’s body was pressing his arm so tightly to his ribcage that he couldn’t draw away from the constriction.
Merlin.
Harry needed to escape before Voldemort arrived. He needed to do something. He felt his desperation eat away at him like fire on dry wood; a lit pyre rushing through his veins as he twisted and jerked, his legs kicking out uselessly before snake’s tail wrapped around his knees, and squeezed, robbing him of that simple movement as well.
“I will break your legs, little human. I am sure master will not mind very much if I do...” The threat was enough to stop his kicking, knowing full well that getting his legs broken would reduce his chances of escape significantly.
It ate at him to listen to the threat, to comply knowing that Voldemort was very likely on his way; but he needed to keep his wits about him. Harry couldn’t struggle properly if his legs were otherwise out of commission, and then, he still had his wand. He wasn’t completely defenseless.
Although, that thought was becoming more and more difficult to hold onto with each second that passed.
The snake was silent as it twisted her body around him, its scales smooth and shimmering a bright green from what little he could tell with his poor vision.
He was sorely tempted to say something; to promise the snake something in return for his mobility. But his mind was drawing blanks, his panic cutting through his rationality like a hot blade to butter the longer he waited for the man of the hour to appear.
“You smell like master…you even understand me as he does…don’t think I have not noticed, little human,” the snake spoke, and Harry jolted, his fingers reaching once more for his pocket in hopes that his wand would somehow appear between his hands.
“I wonder if you will taste as good as you smell. It has been so long since master has fed me someone so young…” Harry swallowed, his eyes squeezing shut when the serpent slid its tongue over his trembling cheek, the impulse to move away incredibly strong.
But he restrained it, well aware of the threat looming over his head.
And then the temperature in the room dropped several hundred degrees, his skin shivering when Harry felt before he saw Voldemort’s magic filter into the room.
It was thick, its consistency like molasses at the back of his tongue, as the powerful wizard slipped into the room and the snake’s tongue left his cheek.
“Nagini, you have done well,” Harry shuddered at the sound of Voldemort’s hiss, the sound melding seamlessly within the dark. It was water flowing over and between boulders, powerful waves crushing and consuming any and all submerged within its icy maw.
The man was just as frightening as he had been the first time Harry had witnessed him, if not more so, now. Before, Voldemort had been foolish enough to challenge him one-on-one rather than kill him on the spot. Harry doubted that the man would make the same mistake again—not with Nagini nearly squeezing the air right from his lungs.
He wasn’t sure if it was fortunate or rather unlucky that the snake didn’t just crush him. Deprive him of much needed air until he was blue in the face, and died in that manner than in the terrible ways Voldemort surely planned to kill him.
It made something vicious swirl in his gut, like battery acid splattering onto soft, nubile flesh.
“My massssster, can I eat him?” The snake was eager, its tone pleased as Voldemort, like a dark shadow, walked further into the room stopping only when his bare feet were inches from Harry’s face.
Harry had never been so uncomfortable and afraid in his life. Not even when Voldemort was being willed into being was he this frightened; his heart beating so fast that it could almost slip right out from his throat.
“No, precious. He is not for you to eat,” Harry felt his stomach protest, his panic swelling into greater heights at the patient and fond tone in the man’s voice. It wasn’t something Harry wanted to hear from a murderer—it made him seem too human.
Voldemort was anything but.
“Release the boy, Nagini,” Voldemort hissed, sibilant voice drawing another repulsed shudder from up Harry’s spine as the snake did as its master bid it. He felt its coils slip away, its muscles contracting as they passed over his shirt and trousers, like fine silk over skin. Harry could feel its face like a sharp blade at the back of his head, but made no move whatsoever to look back—staring stubbornly at Voldemort’s blurry feet as he tried to gather his bearings.
Once Harry felt Nagini slip entirely away, he shot his hand into his trousers, wrapping his trembling fingers around his wand before pointing it up at Voldemort’s form, twisting his body till his side rather than his stomach was pressed against the carpeted floor. Harry could only make out where his bright red eyes gazed at his own, dirty face and the paleness of his skin, but it was more than enough for Harry to know just where the man was.
Voldemort’s magic was a presence in and of itself. Practically alive as it twisted and thrashed around him like black smoke. Harry’s vision was shite, but that did not mean his magical senses were as dull. After spending countless days running in the country, he had sharpened his senses into a fine point.
Now it was just a matter of seeing if it was enough to get him out of this mess.
“Harry Potter, so glad you could join me,” The man intoned in English, and Harry bit into his cheek, before twisting from off the ground and scrambling as far as he could go without turning his gaze away from Voldemort.
The world around him was lines of bright green, silver, and gold—the colors blurring into one another at the corners of his eyes as he stared into Voldemort’s face. He moved as far as the room permitted, until his back pressed into the dresser drawer right behind him, the wood biting harshly into his back.
Voldemort, fortunately, did not follow.
“Speak for yourself,” Harry shot back, tucking away his panic as he watched Voldemort closely from the other side of the massive room. Voldemort was standing still, silent. His bright eyes making Harry’s stomach roil, his attention focused entirely on Voldemort despite the sound of Nagini’s body sliding on the ground.
Harry had no idea where the serpent was going off too, but that was the least of his concerns.
It was just him and Voldemort now, his wand and the distance between their bodies the only thing keeping Harry away from imminent death.
“I could think of a few things I’d rather be doing than being here with you,” Harry continued, his knuckles white with how tightly he was gripping his wand.
“You wound me,” Voldemort stated drily, his robes rustling when he began to move. “How will I ever recover.”
“Don’t.” Harry stated, snapping his gaze behind him for a second to ascertain just where he could move in the room
It was for a fraction of a second. Perhaps even shorter than a millisecond, but it was all the opening Voldemort needed.
Voldemort was on him faster than Harry could whisper a curse, a stupefy dying on his tongue when the man’s hand wrapped tightly around Harry’s throat. Harry could barely breathe, the man’s nails digging so harshly into the skin that cuts formed along his flesh like ugly, red lines.
Harry shot his hand out to wrench the man’s hand from his neck, scratching and clawing at the limb all while jabbing his wand hand into Voldemort’s ribs.
A whisper, and then Harry’s wand sailed in the air, torn away from his shaking fingers before he could tighten his grip on his wand.
“Now, perhaps you would be so kind as to have a seat. There is much to discuss,” Voldemort murmured, Harry’s eyes staring almost helplessly into Voldemort’s own bright red eyes as he struggled for breathe.
The man lifted him by the throat, belaying a strength Harry had not, in fact, expected gauging the man’s skeletal frame, before moving. Harry choked, his hands scratching at the man’s forearm desperately as Voldemort practically carried him by the throat to a formless object at the other end of the room.
His lungs were burning with his desperate need to breathe, his stomach fluttering with nausea and desperation as his vision began to darken at the corners. His mouth gaping like a fish as he choked.
It was single-handedly the worst feeling Harry had ever experienced. It was entirely too similar to the time the locket had tried to drown him in the lake when he had been reaching for Godric Gryffindor’s sword at the bottom.
Harry gasped when Voldemort suddenly released his neck, his body landing roughly on what felt like a chair, choking and sputtering deep breaths. His lungs heaved, his stomach turned, and Harry tried to fight down the desire to throw up the mushroom soup he’d eaten before he and Hermione had decided to visit Bathilda Bagshot’s home.
Harry hardly registered the moment Voldemort hissed something under his breath, the spell unrecognizable when his blood was rushing too quickly through his ears.
Jolting, Harry felt something wrap tightly around his wrists and ankles, the material oddly smooth as it dragged his arms easily to the armrests and bound his ankles to the legs of the chair. It didn’t feel like rope, but Harry could tell that it had to be some sort of binding.
Harry shot his gaze to his wrists, squinting through his bleary vision to make out what they were. They looked sort of like ribbons—like something a fancy pureblood witch would wear wrapped around her robes to keep the material from billowing out unpleasantly.
“Tell me, Harry. Just what have you been doing while on your little escapade?” Voldemort intoned, and Harry clenched his jaw once he managed to settle his breathing. If the man believed that Harry was going to willingly answer any of his questions, then the man was more insane than people thought.
Harry sneered, shooting the man the most acidic glare he could scrunch up despite the bright flush on his cheeks and the sweat dribbling down his forehead.
“Sod off. Like I’d answer anything you ask,” Harry snarled, craning his head to stare at Voldemort’s fuzzy face. He definitely regretted having lost his glasses. It put him on edge to not be able to see just what faces the man could possibly be making. “I’d rather die than answer to you.”
Harry needed to know whether the man was pleased or not. As useful as his magical senses were or as acute as his hearing was, he doubted he could quite predict the man with his vision impaired.
“…Death,” Voldemort murmured, his voice so high and soft that Harry almost missed the sound. The room fell into a hush after that, the only sound in the room Harry’s sharp breaths and the creaking of the chair every time he moved.
He tried to wrench his wrists repeatedly from his bindings, to push his legs out from where they were firmly tied on either side of the chair’s legs, but the ties refused to unwind.
“Do you wish to die, Harry James Potter?” Voldemort asked, his hand shooting out to grip onto Harry’s hair, his nails digging so painfully into his scalp that Harry winced, a startled crying leaving his lips when the connection between them began to thrum to life.
The agony was easily the worst thing Harry had ever experienced—the pain of Voldemort’s finger poking at his lightening scar at the Graveyard paling in comparison.
It exploded with agony, Harry’s screaming breaking the heavy silence that had fallen in the room. He struggled and shifted, his nails digging harshly into the armrest beneath his hands as he tried to fight off the knives that were repeatedly stabbing into his brain. His spine bent, the sharp pain shooting out from the focal point on his forehead, down and between each vertebrae, to the tips of his toes.
Harry felt like he was dying slowly. The sensation far worse than any torture curse Harry had ever had thrown at him.
“You would like that, wouldn’t you? A Gryffindor through and through,” Voldemort sneered, yanking Harry’s head further back by his hair to force his eyes to Voldemort’s.
Harry felt like his soul was being sucked right out from his eyes, the connection between their gazes so intense that the pain of his scar exploding on his forehead dimmed, fading to a twinge. Harry could see the different shades of vermilion in the man’s eyes, the flecks of burgundy and gold melding into one another.
Harry did not know when Voldemort’s face had gotten so close for him to see such subtle notes in the man’s eyes—to note the strange emotion swirling deep in the man’s gaze. It made something twist nervously inside at what this could mean, of what he could see.
Harry was blind as shite, but there was no mistaking the fact that there was no murder or malicious glee in those eyes.
There was something resembling hunger there…and curiosity. A dark, pervasive curiosity that erased all thought of the pain, replacing the agony with an all-consuming fear that cut Harry to the bone.
Nothing good could ever come out of a curious Dark Lord.
“F-fuck you,” Harry snarled, crying out when Voldemort tightened his grip on the boy’s head. Harry’s spine bent to accommodate the strange angle the man had forced him into, biting hard into his lip to silence another pained cry when Harry snapped his gaze away and the connection flared back to life.
Harry tasted blood on the back of his tongue, the metallic tang doing little to distract him from the wave of agony that spread from his forehead towards the base of his spine.
Merlin.
“But I will not kill you, Harry. My pet has shared something quite interesting with me as I traveled here,” Voldemort finally said, the agony pulsing through his brain stilling.
Dread shot through Harry’s veins, his eyes snapping back to Voldemort’s pale face at the revelation.
No.
He refused to be a pawn. He’d rather die than be used as some sort of weapon, if that was what the man planned.
“For how long have you been able to speak to snakes, Harry?” Voldemort inquired, his tone curious despite the rather firm grip he had on Harry’s head.
Harry sneered, spitting on the man’s face. Harry had no clue where Voldemort was going with this, but Harry refused to play along.
Harry felt him stiffen, the temperature in the room plummeting with the force of Voldemort’s ire.
Good.
Harry was not going to make this easy for him.
“Kill me,” Harry hissed, glaring stubbornly into Voldemort’s red eyes, noting the way his lips twisted into a leer, the venom in the man’s gaze enough to poison.
“Crucio.”
Harry screamed, his scar exploding with pain simultaneously as the curse began melt away at his bones. It felt like each of his fingers were being snapped, the nails ripped out from his fingers, individually and slowly. There was a jackhammer beating against each nob of his spine, cutting away at muscle and sinew to expose the bone to air.
Harry wanted to rip his head away from Voldemort’s tight grip, biting on his tongue to stop himself from screaming any more than he had already. He refused to give the man the satisfaction even if his mind felt like it was being ripped at the seams.
And just as Harry was ready to sever his tongue from how harshly he’d bitten on the appendage, Voldemort lifted the curse. Harry was trembling, his fingers jolting and twitching from the shockwaves of the torture curse flooding his veins.
Harry couldn’t stop himself from sagging into the chair, utterly spent. His head lolled over his shoulders, Voldemort’s grip on his hair the only thing keep it upright. And then Harry’s eyes caught Voldemort’s own gaze, noting fury and that damning curiosity still swirling in the man’s eyes. The distractor insufficient to tip the mine quite over the edge.
“Clever. But not quite clever enough…” Voldemort murmured, the anger slowly trickling away from his limbs before something predatory shot through the man’s gaze, the spark of emotion enough to draw a startled gasp from Harry’s lips.
Voldemort looked positively lethal.
Shite.
“Legilimens.”
And then Voldemort’s will forced its way through Harry’s mind, the magic enough to cut through any resistance Harry had managed to scramble together in the split second Voldemort shattered through his mind. Harry tried to blink, to turn his head away, but Voldemort’s firm grip on his hair did not allow him to move his head away, the compulsion in the man’s gaze so powerful that Snape’s could not compare in the least.
The man plowed through his mind like a wrecking ball crushing through abandoned buildings, swiftly and without mercy. Harry cried out when he continued to jerk within his bindings, the pain forming at the base of his head different than the pulsing of the torture curse.
Harry could see the memories of his scuffle with Nagini perfectly, could see Hermione and him taking the potion before setting off to Godric’s Hollow, as if he were living the memory all over again. Harry cried out when Voldemort pushed past the memories at the surface of his mind, delving deeper, going further into the past as he ripped through all the memories he had.
Harry was panicking, his desperation seeping through his bones when Voldemort watched with avid attention the moment Ron had slammed Godric Gryffindor’s sword into Voldemort’s locket, smashing the trinket into tiny pieces. Harry trembled when the man continued to watch, making note of the moment Dumbledore had appeared with his hand ravaged after destroying the ring, and then further. Harry was crying by the time Voldemort had seized on the connection of his horcruxes, the man’s fury growing more and more out of control until snapped at the scene where Harry stabbed the Basilisk’s fang into Tom Riddle’s diary.
And then Voldemort slipped away from his mind, his magic exploding with his fury like a thunderstorm tearing through cities. Harry could feel rather than see the way the magic choked him, the hatred, anger, and fear so potent in the air that Harry’s breaths sputtered.
It was the only warning Harry had before Voldemort pressed his wand against Harry’s throat, his adams apple bobbing nervously when Voldemort, rather than immediately attack him, only watched him behind his fury, the emotion slowly evaporating until there was absolutely nothing in his gaze.
The storm calmed.
Harry was terrified, noting a lucidity in the man’s gaze that Harry didn’t recall seeing when Voldemort had returned from his state of in-between.
Harry didn’t think the man capable of it, but it was there. And the unpredictability of it made his mouth incredibly dry.
“…Horcruxes. Parseltongue. Able to sense my Horcruxes.” Voldemort whispered, and Harry had to strain to hear him through the panic and his blood rushing through his veins when Voldemort teased his throat with his wand.
And then the man began to laugh, a sharp, wild sound that made Harry wince. It was so sudden and biting that Harry could only gape, Voldemort’s painful hold on his hair falling away as Voldemort straightened to his full height.
Voldemort laughed for what was an eternity and Harry could only watch, his mind absolutely silent as he witnessed the man lose it in front of him.
He’s bloody insane.
“…He was certainly clever, I’ll give him that much credit.” Voldemort finally said, reining in his mirth finally.
Harry frowned, brows furrowed with deep confusion.
Just what was he talking about—
“Harry James Potter,” Voldemort murmured, his hand slipping to cup Harry’s cheek within his palm. His hand like ice, cold enough to freeze even fire as it pressed softly against his cheek.
“How much did Dumbledore really tell you, Harry?” Voldemort asked, and Harry was thrown by the suddenness of the question.
Just what was the man getting at?
“Did he ever tell you anything of actual substance, Harry? Did he ever share with you the true reason why it had to be you that defeated me?” Voldemort’s tone was knowing, a mirth in the sound that made Harry clench his teeth in irritation.
Because Dumbledore never told him anything. The man was as cryptic as the Ravenclaw portrait. His words always carefully tailored, and his messages too complicated for even a genius to understand. It had been infuriating.
“His Golden boy bred for slaughter. And the old fool had the audacity to call me cruel,” Voldemort teased along Harry’s skin, as if he were petting a beloved pet rather than his most hated enemy. Harry did not know what to make of it, choosing to listen rather than say anything and interrupt the man’s tirade.
“You…” Voldemort hissed, his eyes flashing dangerously as he leant forward, his face so close to Harry’s own that Harry could feel the man’s breath pressing against his face, the scent of blood and dirt thick in Harry’s nose. “…are my horcrux. The one that never should have been, but was.”
Harry froze, his mind blanching completely.
“N-no,” Harry choked out, his limbs shaking with fear, his mind exploding with fear and shock.
“Yessss,” Voldemort crooned in parseltongue, his touch growing more firm when Harry began to shake, his eyes wide and his lips trembling with horrified realization.
I’m Voldemort’s horcrux.
The thought made something like ice settle within the marrow of his bones.
“Dumbledore never planned for you to live. He molded you into the perfect martyr, willing and determined to die for his cause. Your life was never yours, had never been, not since my soul was pressed between your pitiful ribs.”
Harry ignored the man’s words, incapable of stringing a single sentence.
I’m a bloody horcrux.
The words weighed heavy on his chest.
I have a piece of Voldemort writhing between my ribs—sullying and living inside me like some sort of parasite.
Harry felt bile gather at the back of his throat, hot and acidic. Tears gathered at the corners of his eyes, barely stopping himself from letting them fall as Voldemort’s bright eyes, the only thing Harry could see so clearly without the need of his glasses, gazed into his own.
What did it matter that the man could read his mind? Voldemort had already gathered all the information he needed, made all the inferences he could out of them.
Dumbledore had raised him like a pig to be killed, and Harry could not find it in himself to be angry at this. He just felt tired, resigned. His energy sucked right out of him.
Merlin, I’m—
“Do not worry, my Horcrux. I shall take good care of you. I do not abandon nor so callously discard my possessions,” Voldemort’s words were anything but comforting. Horror clawing up his throat as Harry renewed his desperate struggles against the restraints holding him down.
“Your death shall never come to pass, your soul is mine. As it has always been. Mine.”
Harry trembled, and finally let his tears trickle down his cheeks.
Red eyes the last thing Harry saw before Voldemort whispered something beneath his breath and darkness consumed him.