Chapter 10
Harry immediately went rigid at the question.
For a long moment, he simply stared, all possible words drying up in his mouth until he felt like hands were tightening around his throat.
He let out a sharp breath, mind racing, and squeezed his eyes shut to compose himself. Even when he was painfully aware that to do so was far too obvious a sign of weakness on his part.
"I-I-" for the love of everything, he really wished the Dark Lord would take a step back. He suddenly felt crowded, as if there wasn't enough air in the whole world, let alone this room.
This bloody room, suffocating with its memories good and bad. His gut had clenched with an anxiety that made him want to physically shiver, fraying at the edges. A lack of control he'd sworn not to let himself get into.
His stomach ached.
He refused to stand in front of Tom and tremble.
"Stop this." It was as much of plea as it could be, without actually being one.
"Tell me. Tell me that you don't love me."
"I don't love you."
Fingers traced, oh so tenderly, along his cheek and he could have flinched for it. He could feel the shakiness in Voldemort's normally steady hand too, and it made him feel sick.
"Open your eyes, Harry," Tom murmured. "And say it again to my face. Once more, like you really mean it."
He didn't want to. Would have dropped his head into the bastard's neck and shoulder right now, clutching onto his robes, just so that he could avoid looking him in the face. Seeing that expression again.
He opened his eyes, and Voldemort's gaze immediately ensnared him. Wouldn't let him go, holding him in place with the accuracy of shackles.
The pad of the other man's thumb slipped over his mouth, dragging his bottom lip parted for a moment as if to pry and coax the response out of him. His breath was stolen.
Grab the wrist and snap. Shove back hard. Bring his knee up into Voldemort's ribs, or his private parts. Headbutt. Pull back. Start shouting.
There were a million different things he could do with ruthless efficiency, and yet he was frozen.
The silence stretched, and the smallest hint of a smile crossed Tom's lips. Devastating. Victorious.
"It's irrelevant," Harry managed, then. "Of course I-" he gritted his teeth, studied Voldemort closely in turn, and straightened himself. "Of course I love you, Tom. But it changes nothing. I fucking well adore you. I also just honestly cannot stand to spend more than five minutes in your company without wanting to choke you to death with your own intestines. Love was never the issue here; you know that just as well as I do."
He reached out, placing his hand above Tom's heart, able to feel it hammering frantically in the man's chest through silken robes. Maybe that made him feel a little better. Calm, in a suspended sort of way.
The Dark Lord seemed to have frozen too, fingers stilling where they remained splayed against his cheek. Harry tilted his head slightly into the touch, just to watch Tom suppress a flinch in turn as the power swung between them.
With a man so well versed in lies as Voldemort, sometimes he thought the man didn't know what to do with the plain truth, untwisted and brutal.
"I want to kill you, Harry. I know I promised I would." The words were confessed like something very different; breathless, intimate. "I should do it now."
"You won't," Harry said, still holding the dark wizard's gaze. "You'll keep saving my life like you did in Paris."
The fingers moved against his cheek again, sliding to cup and examine. Touching him as if he were some priceless artefact in a museum.
"The heart is a useless thing," Voldemort murmured, dark eyes growing impossibly darker. "Cruel. Untamed."
Harry snorted and let his hand drop.
The Dark Lord let his fall too, though he didn't step back.
"So you understand how this changes nothing," Harry replied.
"So you'll understand why I'll never stop. You ruined me, Harry Potter. Now you just have it coming."
Harry's chest seized all over again.
"You say the sweetest things." He turned away, only for Voldemort to catch hold of his upper arm. It was all still so gentle, as if Tom's fingers were incapable of bruising and breaking. As if they had anything but promises of torment left.
He could have ripped away, so easily, from the grip. Maybe that was why the barest touch halted him.
"If you love me, why won't you fight for me?" For the tone, they may as well have been making small talk on the weather.
"If I ruin you, why won't you let me go?" Harry raised his brows before a pitiless smile twisted his lips. Equally soft as the fingers on his arm. "Or do I ruin you, because you cannot let me go? However much you desperately want to?"
Voldemort recoiled.
"You are poison."
Harry laughed at that, edged and without any real humour, shaking his head.
"And you're a monster," he said. "Oh, what a pair we make. It's almost funny. Now, I'm respectfully asking you to get out of my room."
Voldemort's eyes narrowed. Harry stared back at him, refusing to drop his gaze. Locking back everything that mattered, because it couldn't matter at all.
Then, unnervingly, the bastard smiled.
"Quite the pair indeed. Goodnight, Harry."
Harry eyed the door long after it had shut again.
His hands were trembling.
"My lord," Abraxas tossed a copy of that morning's Daily Prophet, along with the Witch Weekly and various other titles on his desk, face pinched. "I believe we have a problem."
Voldemort glanced his gaze cursorily over the articles, though he'd already read the news over his breakfast.
His and Harry's faces stared up at him, the promotional photos from the conference yesterday. Potter appeared half-blinded by the flash of cameras, but on the whole they looked good together.
But that probably only exacerbated the problem.
The front page of the Prophet covered the attack and the assassination during the conference yesterday, the pages after that followed with a summary of the current progress of the investigation as they had reported it.
He'd known he'd been able to count, to some extent, on their contacts in the paper.
It was after the first couple of pages of the prophet, and in the entire of Witch Weekly's spread of the situation, that the issue arose. The issue being speculation of his and Harry's homosexual relations, past and present.
It hadn't been unexpected, after Skeeter's question, but…
He needed another cup of tea.
"I'd noticed. They're not being subtle in their interest in the matter."
"I am already arranging another press conference – more security this time, of course – to address this question, particularly as we would need to do so anyway as the last one was interrupted. I have also had small gifts sent in apology to all those present who may have been inconvenienced in anyway by the attack," Malfoy said, flipping through his files.
"Excellent," he muttered, resisting the urge to rub his temples.
"Regarding Potter, I can have a flat rented for him to stay in as an alternative to here by the end of the day. I have already began making-"
Voldemort looked up. Of course, he knew perfectly well where Malfoy was going with this and it made his lips thin. Even if he understood, rather too well, the necessities.
"No."
Malfoy faltered, expression shuttering. It was something of a satisfaction to see the blond squirming before his scrutiny.
"My lord-" Abraxas started, with carefully concealed unease.
"No," he repeated, voice growing dangerously soft. Malfoy looked down at his files, and was quiet a long moment as he collected himself once more.
"What was your opinion of Miss Rowle, my lord? I believe she seems a suitable candidate. Strong bloodline. The family are eager to please-"
"Indeed."
Malfoy looked up again – evidently trying not to look too hopeful.
"You approved or her, my lord?"
"She is an adequate selection, for the purpose," he allowed.
Harry was many things, but even if he could have in some way compensated before for his position, for his gender, he certainly couldn't do so now. Carrying on with Harry, in anyway publicly would have been…foolish. He knew that.
Potter was head of the Order of the Phoenix, a terrorist organization. Punishment was demanded and any and all of their interactions would be picked for motive, for condemnation.
It was a scandal. It was utterly inappropriate, and more so for the filth of their both being male. Such things were not right for the proper society, and his reign was fragile enough already as all political kingdoms were and would forever be.
He could not afford mistakes. He had fought too hard for his throne to let it all slip out of his hands. Made too many sacrifices.
Moreover, Harry was wild. He'd seen his mistake now, from the years before.
Wild things always needed to be broken in and tamed before they could be used for domestic purposes. He'd put a tiger in a cage and expected it not to bite him.
Foolish.
But things were different now. They had to be.
"I will extend an invitation to Miss Rowle regarding the opening of the new Birmingham factories then," Malfoy said, jotting down a note. "And arrange some activities for the two of you. We will have to be careful, given the recent threats to your person, but we should begin letting the public see the two of you together."
"Arrange a duelling competition."
"My lord?" Malfoy's brow furrowed slightly.
"A festival. To take people's minds off current events," he clarified. "Including a duelling competition, performances, carnival. Something else for people to focus on so that they have less time to mind gossip and matters that don't concern them."
Malfoy stared at him, thoughtfully.
"And you believe the culprits behind all of this will come."
Voldemort twirled his wand in hand, leaning back more comfortably in his chair.
"That will be all, Abraxas. Send Black in."
"Are you alright, Harry?" Hermione asked.
Harry looked up, startled, and realized that he'd been staring at the same page for the last five minutes without reading a thing.
He forced a smile.
"I'm fine."
"You look like you haven't been sleeping," she worried.
"I'm fine," he repeated. Annoyingly, she didn't look convinced and he had no idea when or where she learnt to read him so well.
"Has something happened?"
He nearly sighed at her persistence, though it was touching. He'd always liked Hermione. She felt familiar to him, nice – which had been a great when his whole life had otherwise been turned upside down, and the majority of his closest friends were on the other side of the playing field.
He rubbed his eyes. Out of all the people left to him in the world, he probably trusted her and Minerva twice.
"The other day, at the conference, one of the assassins lost their mask." It seemed an easier topic, than Tom. Tom was not a topic he would bring up willingly with anyone, not even Lord bloody Voldemort himself. Hermione's eyes widened. Harry studied her, before looking down at his flexing fingers. "I…I felt like I recognized him."
Hermione set her pen down.
"What did he look like?" she asked. There was something in her tone that made Harry look up again, sharply.
"Do you know something about this?"
"Of course not," she replied. Harry continued to examine her for a moment. Something lurched, itching in the back of his mind.
He could feel a headache coming on.
"Red hair. Blue eyes. He looked a bit like Ignatius Prewett, but not," he said, perhaps poking for something. He didn't even know what.
"Maybe he's a relative," she suggested. "I'll look into it, for you?"
"Thanks."
They went back to their work.
He managed to organize a meeting with the Americans.
And yet…
It would have been easier to forget if not for that feeling; easier still, if it was the first time he got such a jarringly intense feeling of déjà vu.
"Harry, m'boy, may I have a word?"
Harry paused, surprised. He hadn't expected a man so high up and great as Albus Dumbledore to know his name, let alone to want to join him personally.
He hesitated, half suspicious and wishing he wasn't.
It was difficult enough, settling in and making new friends among the resistance when so many of them assumed him a spy, without having his guards up overly much.
Of course, he'd approached Dumbledore directly in regards to joining the resistance, simply because he didn't know who else to turn to. But, outside of that, he'd never really had any particular conversations with the man.
Oh, unlike a lot of the Slytherins against the wizened Transfiguration Professor, he'd always been in some way fond of the man. Not in any overt way – but he didn't dislike him. He seemed kindly, amusing. Though his bias towards Tom left much to be admired.
Certainly, he wasn't happy about going to Dumbledore, but nonetheless here it was…
He ducked into the side-room, posture stiff with injuries he'd sustained at a recent skirmish.
"Professor," he acknowledged, hesitantly.
"Please, there's no need for such formalities in such times." A hand was waved in his direction, as if to dismiss the title away. "Call me Albus."
"Albus," Harry repeated. He watched the man cautiously, waiting to find out what this was about. He was sure there was something. He could sort of guess, but he really hoped he was wrong.
"As you know, Lord Voldemort's forces are growing in number and power every passing day," the professor said gravely, with a gesture for him to sit down.
Harry felt oddly, distinctly, like a young boy summoned to the Headmaster's office.
Maybe, if he had been a Gryffindor, or in some way less naïve, maybe if he hadn't grown up with Tom Riddle…he would have been blind to where this conversation was leading. Innocent against battle tactics, able to follow with the comfort of a soldier.
"I can't," he interrupted, "I'm sorry."
Dumbledore's head tilted, fingers steepling beneath his chin. The normal twinkle was almost entirely absent.
Things had been getting worse.
"You don't know what I was going to say, surely?"
"We are lacking information," Harry murmured, blank-faced. "If you were looking for a double agent, by all accounts I would be the ideal person to turn to. I was friends with – with him."
Dumbledore was silent, which only convinced Harry that he was right about the cause behind this meeting.
"I am sorry that you feel that way. I understand that you are in a difficult position, and I apologize for the necessity of demanding further-"
"Do you?" Harry challenged, jaw clenching. "Do you understand? Really?"
Dumbledore gave a heavy sigh, the sound of a man aged far beyond his years.
"More than you realize, and more than I ever wanted to understand such betrayals," the man said quietly. Harry blinked, staring at him. Of course, he'd heard rumours, but…
"Is it true?" He was being indelicate. "You and…the Dark Lord."
Dumbledore's fingers pressed together more firmly, and the man fixed him with a look that made Harry want to shrink in shame for asking. Though maybe that said something, in itself.
"It's surprising how many times rumours are based in some element of truth," was all that his former Transfiguration Professor allowed. Harry swallowed.
"But you beat him," he said, softly.
"Victory is often more complicated than history would paint it," Dumbledore replied. "You will realize that with time. But, yes, I beat him."
Harry was sure his eyes were wide, childishly so – in a way not befitting a hardened soldier of his station, who'd killed already. Who'd done many things to be ashamed of.
"You'll often find, too," Dumbledore continued, looking kindly again, gentle. "That the most powerful weapons are those that require the greatest sacrifice. Those that are the hardest to bring ourselves to use, and wield."
And they were, cleverly, back to the beginning. Harry could admire his leader's conversation skills, certainly. He smiled, a little sadly.
"I still won't spy on him, sorry," he shrugged. "I would, if I could, but I can't. He knows me too well. He'd see through the deception in an instant."
Dumbledore's expression cleared, in some way – even as those blue eyes scrutinized him closely, with something odd. Undefinable.
It all started from there.
"No. You can forget about it, I'm not doing that."
Abraxas Malfoy considered himself a patient, controlled man, by all accounts.
Harry Potter, however, was getting on his very last nerve. The whole situation was a mess, and not one he had any intention of letting himself be dragged down by.
He'd worked hard to establish his lord's new image, in aiding the campaign and informing a successful relationship between lord and his public.
In that regard – Harry Potter was the nightmare of everyone in his field.
Not in the least, because the rebel was refusing to do any PR work not pertaining directly to the Paris poisonings, which left him with rather significant problems regarding his upcoming conference.
He liked the other man, despite everything, but it was true. Professionally, they were incompatible and his once-friend was a liability and inconvenience. An enemy.
He'd told him, he'd warned him, and yet here everything he imagined going wrong was happening.
He could already imagine the empire crumbling around him.
"Potter, it is in your best interests if these rumours regarding you and the Dark Lord are add-"
"No," Harry interrupted him again, flatly, without consideration. Looked at him, with no expression on his face.
Of course, he would need to be careful. His lord was, infuriatingly, still as obsessed with Potter as he'd ever been.
A lesser man would have gritted his teeth.
Maybe that was the worst part: despite all of his own loyalty, and all that he had ever done for the man, he knew that if his Lord was asked to choose between him and that traitor, that he would choose Harry instantly and without hesitation. Every single time.
"You realize this could mean social and political ruin for him, don't you?" he hissed, harshly. Potter's brows simply raised at that.
"I'm the Head of the Order of the Phoenix, sabotaging Tom is hardly against my aims. Of course, people thinking I'm fucking the enemy is inconvenient, but it's going to damage him a lot more than it will him."
It was a sign of his excellent breeding that Abraxas didn't go for the bastard's throat.
"I'm asking you, nicely. Don't make this difficult, Harry. For old time's sake." He leaned forward a little, voice silken. "We were friends-"
Harry cut him off again, this time with laughter. Malfoy's eyes pinched slightly.
It was even worse when he knew Potter's stubbornness, far too well.
He considered his options, clinically.
Of course, he couldn't organize Harry leaving, his lord would punish him for enabling Potter to slip free of his webs, but…
"You left once. Why don't you just do it again? Do not tell me you are pining after him again."
"Don't be ridiculous," Potter snapped.
He had a bad feeling.
Something had to be done. It would be nothing personal.
Accidents happened, after all.
And Harry Potter had a lot of enemies.