Frostbite
Endless white cut across Harry’s gaze, flurries of snow gliding through the air in an unknown dance. He stood still, his limbs frozen stiff as he watched the sun over the horizon; the trees unseen and the tufts of snow ignored as he tried to burn the image of the sun lowering from the sky into his mind.
It would be the last sunset he’d see, but this was his burden to bear.
He was the one that agreed to come, to give up his own life in exchange for the lives of his friends.
Though that did not stop the restless energy twisting his stomach into knots, or the doubts that reared their ugly head when he recalled just what lurked in the darkness waiting for him. He couldn’t help that even if he tried, even if he were the bravest man alive.
He was terrified at what this all would mean, of the outcome of his death. Because surely, if the rock did not keep him from meeting a permanent end, then the fate of Great Britain was lost. It was not an easy decision to make, but had to. He didn’t have a choice. His life for that of his friends; Voldemort had made himself quite clear when speaking directly into his head.
Almost as though Voldemort knew for a fact that Harry would come.
And perhaps, the man did know. Perhaps the connection had never been as one-sided as he believed? Maybe Voldemort had in fact been seeing the world through Harry’s eyes this entire time without Harry ever knowing this fact.
Harry shuddered, wrapping his arms tightly around himself to stave off the blistering cold air and the anxious energy thrumming through his veins.
The thought that Voldemort could have possibly been listening to every single conversation in his mind was enough to horrify him. To make him feel green with sickness because that would only mean that the monster had known all along how to get Harry within his grasp…
Maybe Dumbledore had been right when he had denied me the chance of attending the Order meetings.
Harry silenced those thoughts as easily as they’d come, shivering when a blurry ball of white pressed against his cheek, the touch like the gentle prod of a needle. There was no use dwelling on those thoughts, Harry knew. He could no more change the past than he could his fate at this precise second.
Not that it had been his to change, really…Harry thought, before dropping his arms to his sides and casting a glance to the open path through the Forbidden Forest. It was much too late now to change the decisions he had made, to turn back and tell his friends that he loved them with all his heart.
He had already snuck away from Ron and Hermione without a single mention, and it was time that he fulfilled his end of the bargain. Voldemort had, after all, summoned him with a carefully worded threat, the words searing through layers of emotion and thought, a sibilant promise echoing in his mind.
Your life or theirs. Choose.
Harry heaved a short breath, lungs unbearably tight as he forced himself to move. He didn’t know how long he stood there watching the sun slowly descend beneath the darkened earth. Didn’t know how long he watched the light blue deepen into royal purple and then, an oceanic blue. It could have easily been minutes or hours, time never did make sense to Harry after he had fled Hogwarts to sniff out Voldemort’s horcruxes.
His days of running had certainly put things into perspective.
A blink of an eye, and it would all change. Eons of waiting, and everything remained the same.
Harry pushed on with that burning thought in mind, ignoring the way his fingers trembled and his feet sank deep into the snow. He plunged himself into the darkened wood and didn’t look back to the open field at his back. He let the shadows of the hanging trees swallow him whole, and he didn’t think twice about where it was that he would go.
There was a clearing deep in the canopy, a place Harry had undercovered in his explorations of the place throughout his time at Hogwarts. It was the ideal place for a congregation of the kind Voldemort had, and it was where Harry’s feet led him.
Harry glanced up, to catch one more look of the sky as it descended into darkness, before flickering his gaze to the deep greens and darkened trunks at either side of him.
The Forbidden Forest was just as Harry remembered. Unchanged and seemingly untouched by the battle that had broken out earlier that day.
None of the trees were uprooted, the patches of dirt smooth and unmarred by an errant spell that could sever roots from the ground below. It was picturesque in its innocence, the towering trees over his head a reminder of just how small he was and how his choice never really was his to make in the first place.
Hermione. Ron. Remus. Sirius. Lily. James.
He would do this for them. Would stop the endless bloodshed and death, even if it meant his own.
His breath caught when he heard something snap in the darkness, just meters at his back. It was a slight sound, one that anyone would have ignored on a good day. But this was not a good day. This was war.
There could be enemies hidden within the folds of dirt, behind trees, and right above him. They could be anywhere and it would be a mistake to forget that. Even if Voldemort had ordered a cease fire.
But who would defy their Lord’s order? Who could have stepped away from the clearing without the Dark Lord knowing the wiser?
Harry didn’t know what to make of that.
“Who’s there?” Harry asked, his breath a puff of white smoke that tickled across his lips. He licked at the chapped skin in thought, a nervous gesture he could not restrain as he twirled around in search for the person hidden in the shadows.
Harry winced when his saliva smarted at the broken skin of his bottom lip, unable to recall just when he had hurt himself in the scuffle earlier that afternoon. But he quickly discarded the thought, ignoring the way his bottom lip throbbed painfully to survey his surroundings for the stranger. There was more to worry over than a little bruise and cut on his lip.
But there was nothing but dark trees, and flurries of snow cascading from above his head.
There was no answer to Harry’s question, absolute silence his companion as he tried to make sense of just what could have made the sound. It would be a mistake to ignore something like that, but after several long seconds of waiting for something to happen, Harry was forced to turn his attention back toward the clearing.
He was, after all, not in the Forbidden Forest for an evening stroll. He was there to see Voldemort and sacrifice himself. With only several minutes to spare before Voldemort would decide on whether he would return to Hogwarts and continue his terrorizing.
He couldn’t afford to stand around when his deadline was ticking on by, he knew for a fact that Voldemort would not take kindly to his dawdling. Hesitation would only hurt his friends, and Harry would never be able to forgive himself if his choices led to any possibly injury on their end.
It certainly wasn’t beneath the Dark Lord to murder everyone Harry held dear for being late, after all.
There was another snap, closer than the last, but Harry ignored it this time. He couldn’t afford to play with whoever lurked in the dark. He had somewhere to be…a Dark Lord to face. Lives to save, and a soul piece to rip from between his ribs.
“He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster…”
Harry froze, recognizing the voice instantly. There was only one other person, other than Harry, that could speak in Parseltongue. And it was with great reservation that Harry turned his head in the direction the voice had come. His heart beat rapidly in his chest as he slowly turned to face the man that would take his life.
But there was nothing. No Dark Lord taunting him with a lurid smile and swarming crimson eyes.
Harry could only see the shadows of the trees, the last sliver of light from the dying sun elongating the massive size of the greenery surrounding him. It hardly mattered that the world around him should have been white, that his legs were knee-deep in snow. Harry hardly registered that his breaths were visible, and that his fingers were ice-cold from walking through the darkness without a cloak or even a warming charm to keep him protected from the elements.
Voldemort was not there, but Harry knew he had heard him speak. There was no mistaking the sibilant words, the soft croon dancing along his ear drums as the syllables were spoken.
Harry had heard the Dark Lord. He heard Voldemort’s sibilant tongue twist to shape the vowels and the syllables, felt the way they made warm skin cold with dread. It could not have been in his head, the words did not ring or echo as they often did when the monster burrowed itself into his mind. It had been real.
There was no way Harry was wrong.
Squaring his shoulders, Harry surveyed the quiet space around him. He took in the darkness of the trees, watching as the last rays from the sun disappeared and swallowed him in absolute darkness. He didn’t know how long he remained there, but Harry refused to move. Refused to turn his back on the Dark Lord when he could possibly be there waiting for him to lower his guard.
It was certainly something Voldemort would do.
“And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.”
Harry yelped when he felt something cold wrap around the back of his neck, clawed fingers digging so harshly into the skin that Harry could only stiffen in the monster’s hold. He didn’t think to fight it in that instant, did not think to lift his wand and retaliate as he often did.
Harry had come to die. He had come to rip that vile piece of Voldemort’s soul from within him. But he had certainly not expected the Dark Lord to touch him.
“Fitting, is it not?” Voldemort said in perfect English, after a moment of complete silence.
Harry did not know how to respond for several seconds. His mind still reeling from the fact that Voldemort was here. That the monster, rather than wait for Harry to come to him, had instead come to Harry.
Harry had not expected that at all from the vain man. He was certain that Voldemort would never contemplate lowering his status as Lord to do something as…plebeian as this. It was comical, something that made strange amusement curl within the pit of Harry’s stomach.
“What is? That I will die here like all the muggles and wizards you’ve slain? Or that you’ve won?” Harry bit out, voice hoarse from disuse as he tried to make sense of the fact that Voldemort was touching him.
Without even a twinge of pain from his scar.
The agony that would come with the Dark Lord’s touch was notably absent, the promise of suffering and pain somehow silenced. It shouldn’t have made him as nervous as it did, but he couldn’t stop himself from shuddering underneath the man’s grip.
It was strange, unlike anything Harry had experienced before when in this man’s presence. He was used to pain and suffering, but this…nothingness was new. Harry wasn’t sure if he liked it or not, considering how often change led to more trouble than it was worth.
And it was with startling awareness that Harry finally forced himself to move, to pull away from the fingers that ensnared the back of his neck. Though, resisting Voldemort’s hold was near impossible. It felt as if there were a sticking charm holding their flesh bound together.
Harry yanked, but Voldemort’s hand followed as if he hadn’t struggled at all.
Shite.
Just as Harry was about to jab the man between the ribs, to punch blindly in the dark, he felt something lap at the tip of his fingers, like freshly cast magic. The touch distracting enough to make him pause, to consider just what the hell that was.
“Die? Come now, do not be so obtuse. There are far worse things than death, Harry.”
Harry shivered when Voldemort’s cold hand suddenly squeezed the nape of his neck, the nails catching on the skin and easily drawing blood from the rough treatment.
It felt as if death itself was gripping onto him, as if winter were burrowing deep into the folds of his skin to suck out all the warmth that lied underneath.
“Torture, then? Hardly original,” Harry scoffed, hyper aware of just how cold he felt. The tingling of his fingers had not stopped since it had begun, and it was growing more difficult to ignore the longer he remained rooted in place. But he didn’t want to look down, he didn’t want to see and distract himself from the fact that Voldemort was standing too closely behind him.
His fingers felt as though they’d been entirely encased in ice. The needle-like sensation penetrating deep into the skin, like tiny teeth dancing along each nerve ending.
“Death? Torture? It is not as simple as that…” Voldemort hissed, and Harry felt a weight press against his toes, slowly crawling up his shins until his knees felt like they might collapse.
What is this?
Harry gasped when his fingers then began to burn, his palms stiff as unbearable cold seized at the soft flesh, his knees nearly giving out when numbness began to penetrate the thick layer of his trousers.
Harry shot his gaze down, to make out just what it was that was happening. To see for himself that what he was feeling was not some trick of the mind.
What?
Harry’s stomach dropped, his mouth falling open in disbelief at what he was seeing.
The snow from the ground below was swallowing him whole. It was both white and crystalline at once, the hard shape of it fitting around the tips of his fingers and covering the palms of his hands like a glove.
Harry was being frozen alive.
Voldemort was freezing him alive.
Harry struggled, panic seizing his heart like a vice. His heart beat so quickly inside his chest that he was certain it might burst from right out of his rib cage. He had expected an Avada Kedavra. He had expected a Crucio before greeting his parents and Dumbledore on the other side.
But nothing like this.
No, never something like this.
“W-what are you–?” Harry’s voice came out weaker than he had intended, his tongue heavy as he watched the ice grow and spread. It was now sliding past his wrists and forearms, the snow sliding over his skin like an infection staining once pink flesh a deep black.
Harry could feel the ice as it wrapped tightly around his knees, moving further up his legs until it went past his thighs, the numbness stopping just short of where the zipper of his trousers began.
No.
“Ensuring that you can never fight me again. Your death, as much as it would please me, would only bring me closer to my own.”
Harry’s mouth parted to gasp when Voldemort’s hand fell away from his neck to slide past his pulse point and toward his trembling chin. Voldemort cupped it, and Harry flinched from the iciness. It was no better than the snow currently consuming him.
He wanted nothing more than to run, to fight the numbness sucking the life from him, but there was nowhere for him to go. The ice held him rooted in place.
He can’t!
“A horcrux…all this time. So very clever of the old fool to keep such a secret from me…”
Harry’s mouth parted to speak, but there were no words that he could speak. He closed his mouth when only a soft wheeze met the frigid air.
He knew.
How had Voldemort uncovered the truth? Where had Harry gone wrong? He was sure that he had kept his mind blank as soon as he learned just how intimately tied he was to the Dark Lord. Hell, he hadn’t known he was a horcrux until just that evening. There was no possible way that he could have uncovered such an insidious truth so quickly…
“But Voldemort knows all. Severus Snape has certainly been useful. My precious Nagini’s venom conveniently lowering his mental protections…”
Harry wanted to cry, horror more cutting than the ice slowly eating him alive.
This was an absolute nightmare.
“My horcrux..fighting so valiantly against the dark to only be a part of the darkness himself…”
“No!” Harry shouted, but his cry met deaf ears. Voldemort’s fingers were smoothing across his chin, and there was nothing that he could do but to allow him to do so. The ice had spread up to his neck, numbness following shortly after the agony of ice touching bare flesh. “Please, kill me!”
“Death will never take you from me. You are mine…”
Voldemort’s fingers dropped from Harry’s chin then, and it took everything within to stop himself from screaming when the ice began to cover his chin, slivers of crystal poking at his trembling lips.
“D-don’t do this. You don’t need to do–mnf!”
And then the ice was covering his mouth, ceasing all protests Harry could think to make.
“But I do, dearest Harry. I cannot leave you running amok, causing trouble for my men.”
Harry felt his vision blur before Voldemort appeared before his eyes, the gaunt reptilian face and bright red eyes almost incandescent beneath the sliver of moonlight that poked from behind the thick, black clouds above.
Voldemort then reached out to tease along Harry’s scar, a sharp nail touching at the clammy skin with a patient flick of his finger.
“You will remain forever at my side, to watch as I remake this world into one better suited for witches and wizards alike. You will be without nothing, and I assure you that with time, you will come to see things in a…”
Voldemort’s eyes flashed with something devious, and Harry felt his insides churn. The ice was now past his nose, and it would only be seconds before he was entirely trapped. Harry hoped that he didn’t look as frightened as he felt, that the tears that wanted to fall, in fact, did not.
Harry refused to give the monster the satisfaction of seeing him break.
Monster, he shouted the word vehemently in his mind. He hoped Voldemort could hear it, even if his mouth was unable to speak.
“…brand new light.”
And then Voldemort’s fingers slipped over his eyes, his fingers removing his glasses from his face.
“I will take great care of this. I do not think you will need this for quite some time.”
Harry glared at the blurred face of the Dark Lord, hoping that his anger translated easily to the monstrous man before the ice finally obstructed his vision, drowning him in complete darkness.
I will get out. Just you wait.
Harry trembled and struggled from within the ice prison, but his muscles refused to cooperate. His wand had somehow been pried from his holster, and there was absolutely nothing but the horrific darkness and cold.
He shook, but the ice never moved. It was like a second skin, a find layer of glass that refused to bend no matter how much he squirmed inside the prison.
“Oh, and Harry…” Voldemort spoke, his words an echo inside his head. Harry clenched his teeth to stop himself from cursing, wincing when the tiny pinpricks of hardened ice formed along the layer atop his skin and poked at his quivering flesh.
It was a reminder of just how powerful Voldemort was.
“I cannot promise that you’ll…come out intact. Frostbite can be quite cruel. But nothing Lord Voldemort cannot remedy…”
Harry’s throat clenched up with dread, horror slicing through his heart like a rusty blade.
No.