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Chapter Text

When Harry comes to in a dark room with no real idea of where he is, his body and mind freeze, immediately kicked into a loop of fear and pain and nononononotagain–

A bony hand covers his eyes and pushes his head back against an equally bony chest. 

“Stop.”

And the tension leaves his body so fast his head spins. Voldemort. The soft bed underneath and lukewarm form wrapped around him register now that his brain is knocked out of its panic spiral.

Voldemort is here; he is safe.

It’s funny how life works, he thinks as he slowly drifts back asleep.

—  —  —

He doesn’t handle it very well, the first day he and Voldemort spend apart.

When he wakes that morning, Voldemort is up and putting on robes much more elegant than any he’s worn since their capture. He’s going to meet with his Death Eaters – he says as much, but Harry had already guessed. No need to dress up and stand on ceremony with someone who’s seen you piss in a bucket.

Harry follows him silently to the library Floo. Voldemort grabs a handful of powder and looks as though he will leave just like that, but at the last minute he goes still.

Facing away from Harry, voice neutral and even, he says, “I will return.”

Harry nods, then makes some vague sound of assent when he realises Voldemort can’t see him. And then the Dark Lord is gone.

He should do one of the many things he’d thought of doing while they were in that cell. Write to Ron and Hermione or other friends and Order members. Go outside and enjoy the sunshine (well, what sunshine there is on a grey autumn day) and fresh air. Eat and drink whatever and as much as he likes.

He drops into a nearby chair and stares at the empty fireplace, hugging his legs to his chest.

*

It’s fine, he’s fine, Voldemort’s probably fine.

Probably.

Harry tries to remind himself that he’d known whenever Voldemort was being tortured – he could feel echoes through their connection. He would know if something was wrong. The only things he can feel through the bond are mild irritation (which Harry, having dealt with the Death Eaters before, can fully understand) and satisfaction (Nagini, his mind whispers).

Nothing to worry about there.

Harry starts plucking at the chair’s upholstery.

*

When Voldemort returns later that afternoon, he nearly trips over Harry as he exits the fireplace. 

To save the chair from his anxious destruction, Harry had eventually trekked to the kitchen and baked enough bread to feed an army. Channelling his stress into the dough had helped keep him somewhat calm, but he’s pretty sure he overworked a few loaves. That had occupied a few hours, but he’d been too wound up to eat anything, so he’d returned empty-stomached to the library to wait. 

And that’s where Voldemort finds him, seated on the hearth, dusted with flour and soot, halfheartedly pretending to read a book and about ready to storm Malfoy Manor or wherever the Death Eaters gather to make sure the Dark Lord is all right. 

Which – Harry squints up at him consideringly – he is. 

The look on Voldemort’s face is… actually quite funny, were Harry not as strung out as an addict kept from their substance of choice. He’d be more upset about that if Voldemort didn’t look as though their separation had strained him, too. 

“Welcome back,” Harry says as he dusts himself off. Might as well sweep the past few hours of losing his mind under the rug and ignore their many, many issues – they’ll be there whenever he’s forced to confront them.

Voldemort is on board for pretending they’re functioning human beings, thankfully. “I’ve brought Nagini.”

And so he has. The four-metre long snake, wrapped around the older man’s torso, peeks her head up from his shoulder at her name.

Harry only hopes his words come out in Parseltongue. “Hello there.”

She rears back slightly, apparently not expecting him to speak her language. “Hatchling. Master says I’m not to eat you anymore.”

“How kind of him,” he says dryly. She hisses in agreement, not catching the sarcasm. 

Voldemort unwinds her and sets her on the floor next to Harry. “I’ll leave you two to become acquainted,” he says as he heads towards the library door. “No biting.”

“You would bite Nagini?” she asks warily, coiling away from him. Dammit, Voldemort.

“I wouldn’t dare,” he attempts to reassure. “Your scales are, uh, much too beautiful for me to want to damage them.”

Appeased, she wriggles proudly. “Aren’t they?”

She shifts closer to him, butting her head into his hand. “You should express more appreciation for Nagini’s beautiful scales.”

He’s not entirely sure, but he thinks the giant murder snake is telling him to pet her. He rubs gently along Nagini’s chin and body, drawing contented noises from her. He murmurs some nonsense about how lovely her colouring is and she somehow manoeuvres the majority of her body into his lap and around him, praising him for his warmth. It’s, unexpectedly, really nice.

“Why,” Voldemort calls from the doorway, sounding just the tiniest bit perplexed. “Are there two dozen loaves of bread?”

Whoops.

Chapter Text

Harry knows his friends can only be put off for so long, and he does want to see them and reassure them he’s alive– 

(Not much more than alive these days, but given they’d spent months thinking he was dead, he doubts the nuances are going to change their initial enthusiasm.)

–but the idea of being around other people, even Ron and Hermione, makes him want to peel his skin off. And he is far more intimately aware of what that feels like these days, so he can say that with some authority.

The increasing frequency and desperation of their letters make him feel guilty, though, so he invites them to visit him and hopes for the best.

*

Voldemort follows him into the library where he’s set to meet with Ron and Hermione – he’d figured it might help her deal with being in the Dark Lord’s home if she were surrounded by books, and it’ll help Ron if Hermione is calmer.

At first, he thinks Voldemort will leave after grabbing a book. When the older man settles on the sitting area’s loveseat with a thick tome, Harry amends this to Voldemort deciding to wait with him, and is silently appreciative of the company. 

As the appointed time nears, Harry feels more and more tense, fidgeting and pacing in short bursts. He’s twisting the hem of his shirt in his hands and chewing on his lip so hard he’s shocked it isn’t bleeding yet, and finally he turns to Voldemort.

“Stay,” he says in a rush of breath.

The Dark Lord doesn’t glance up from his book. “Of course.”

And Harry feels air finally reach his lungs again, fingers and toes tingling from the sudden influx of oxygen.

*

The Harry who welcomes them to the Dark Lord’s library is brittle and on-edge, but he looks a far sight better than he had a week ago when he’d miraculously appeared, alive, in the Ministry of Magic after six months and seventeen days of being thought dead. The lack of blood spatter alone helps quite a bit.

The urge to run over and hug him breathless is overwhelming, but Hermione remembers how he’d flinched from her, so she tries to be content with greeting him warmly and keeping her distance. She’s rewarded for her patience when her friend comes closer and clasps her hands with his shaking ones. His eyes shutter when Ron goes to slap his back, but he relaxes slightly when instead Ron gently rests a hand on his shoulder. 

Their trio has been reunited against the odds. They all shed a few happy tears, laughing to find themselves alive and together once more.

When Harry moves to lead them over to the nearby sitting area, the mood dampens significantly.

“Uh, Harry?” Ron says, paling rapidly, hand unconsciously darting to his wand holster. “Why is Vo-Voldemort here?”

Old habits die hard – he’d never gotten completely comfortable saying the Dark Lord’s name. Voldemort smirks at him, a shark scenting blood in the water.

“Why, Mr. Weasley, anyone would think you weren’t happy to see me.”

“Don’t you start,” Harry says before turning back to Ron. “One, it’s his house, and two, I asked him to be here. Everyone, play nice.”

“Fat chance of that,” Ron mutters to her. She doesn't disagree but keeps that thought to herself.

The conversation is awkward and stilted at first. Voldemort’s presence leaves her and Ron understandably apprehensive, and Harry verbally skitters away from any reference to what happened to him while he was confined. It doesn’t help that Voldemort’s stares darken dangerously whenever she or Ron try to press for more.

Even once they start to fall into something resembling their former rapport, it’s clear that Harry is struggling. He has trouble focusing, and seems to get frustrated trying to put his thoughts into words occasionally. She wishes she could go over to him and physically reassure herself of his existence. It doesn’t seem like he returned as his whole self from whatever he's been through.

Hermione gets distracted watching his hands twist absently at the loveseat’s fabric. Harry follows her gaze down to his unconscious furniture destruction. His hands freeze and moments later he’s jumping up, practically vibrating with nervous energy.

“I made bread,” he says loudly. “Can I send some home with you?”

“You’re not staying here–” Ron starts. Harry sags a little, drawing back into himself, while Voldemort’s glare sharpens.

“That would be lovely, Harry. Thank you,” Hermione interrupts pointedly, digging an elbow into Ron’s side.

As he leaves, Harry hisses something over his shoulder in what she assumes is Parseltongue (frightening and fascinating in equal measure) that puts a wryly amused look on Voldemort’s face.

As soon as the door shuts behind Harry, all traces of amusement slide away, the man’s face going eerily blank and alien. 

“I trust, now that you’ve seen he’s safe, you will cease the daily messages. They upset him.”

“We spent months thinking he was dead,” Hermione says, disregarding the pang of guilt it gives her to think of Harry being hurt further. “We need to know he’s okay now.”

“Yeah, and now he’ll come home with us, so we won’t need to send any more messages.”

Oh, Merlin. “Ron–” she hisses. Read the bloody room.

“Harry’s our friend, he should be with us,” Ron insists. “With people who care about him.”

“Your friend has been changed by his experience – one that you cannot comprehend nor are you likely to learn the full extent of – and as such what he needs has changed,” Voldemort sneers. “It is not something you can provide.”

“Oh, and you can?” 

“Yes.”

“Because you care about Harry, do you?” Ron scoffs. “What, you’ve just been trying to murder him for years for his own good?”

Voldemort’s wand hand clenches and Hermione is ready to start casting shield charms. She tugs futilely at Ron’s sleeve. Usually it’s Harry she has to save from reckless self-endangerment.

“If you want what is best for him, I suggest you accept that he will be staying here. Indefinitely.” The even tone doesn’t disguise the implicit threat.

Ron opens his mouth to continue arguing, not sensing or not caring about the menacing magic beginning to fill the library. She fires off a quick silencing charm before he can get them killed, ignoring the betrayed look he gives her.

“We’ll need to check in with him every few days, then,” she says adamantly. “I want him to know we’re here for him. It’s still hard to believe he’s back.”

Voldemort’s murderous aura relents slowly as he looks at her consideringly. “...Very well. I’m sure we can come to some agreement.”

And none too soon, as Harry pushes open the door moments later and Voldemort’s attention is once again fixed to him as he crosses the room.

She surreptitiously cancels the silencing charm, hoping Ron won’t try to restart the argument.

“They’re a couple days old, but the preservation charms should be keeping them fairly fresh,” Harry says as he hands them each three paper-wrapped loaves of bread.

“Erm, thanks, mate,” Ron says, distracted from his objective by the unexpected bread bounty. He catches Hermione’s eye with a bewildered frown.

“Are you sure you can spare this many?” she asks. They’ll have to share them around – they certainly won’t go through six loaves before the preservation charm fails.

Harry flushes a deep pink, turning to hide his embarrassment and walking back to the loveseat. “Ah, yes. Absolutely. I still have twelve left.”

Still has twelve?  

“Oh, yeah, Mum bakes like that sometimes,” Ron says contemplatively. 

Voldemort hasn’t taken his eyes off Harry for a moment. His face is neutral, but his gaze holds something like fondness as he stares at her friend. That would be enough to permanently tilt her worldview – she hasn’t had nearly as many interactions with the dark wizard over the years as Harry has, but she doesn’t need to for it to be apparent that affection may as well be a separate planet for the man. But then he takes Harry’s hand to pull him into his lap, which causes Ron to choke on air. And instead of the rebuff or irritation she expects from Harry, he sighs contentedly, all of the tension in his shoulders draining out of him. 

She’s not sure how to feel that the most comfortable her friend has been since they’ve arrived is while seated in the lap of his nemesis. She’s not sure what to think of the smug, challenging look Voldemort shoots them over Harry’s head. And she’s especially not sure she likes what it means that the intense, obsessive cast to Voldemort’s face disappears once he’s in contact with Harry.

What she is sure of is that Harry won’t be leaving with them (if Voldemort is caging him, Harry’s holding the doors shut from the inside) and that, if she doesn’t get Ron out of there, he’s either going to try to duel for Harry’s honour or have a stroke. Neither option will be good for his continued health.

“Harry–” he hisses.

“Ron,” he says firmly. “I’m staying here.”

And Ron may be doing an excellent impression of an unstoppable force, but even he recognises that tone as Harry “immovable object” Potter preparing to be stubborn. He exhales heavily, sagging back into his seat. “If you’re sure, mate.”

*

The rest of the visit goes smoothly, though they get few details on the past several months, and it concludes with Hermione extracting a promise from Harry to write to them at least every four days.

After they’re back through the Floo and standing in their safe, Dark Lord-free apartment, she goes up on her toes to press a kiss to Ron’s cheek. Never mind that they’re living together – he still goes beet red and smiles dopily. 

“What was that for?”

“You do realise you just spent the better part of an hour arguing with Voldemort – you know, the evil Dark Lord whose name you can barely say – for Harry?” Hermione says, amused now that the danger has passed. “It was very dashing of you. Very Gryffindor, too.”

And very unnecessary, based on how Voldemort had looked at Harry, but she’s not sure Ron’s ready to have that conversation yet.

And it seems to hit him all at once that repeatedly provoking the (former? Unlikely) genocidal maniac was unwise, to say the least. His face turns the colour of skim milk and he drops his head into his hands.

“‘Mione,” he groans.

“There, there,” she says, patting him on the back. “You’re an idiot, Ron Weasley, but you’re my idiot. I wouldn’t have let anything happen.”

“My hero,” he deadpans.

She grins. “And don’t you forget it.”

Chapter Text

For much of the time he’d spent strapped to the examination table, Harry was unable to understand what the wixen around him were saying. Whether because of the pain, the trips back and forth across the line of consciousness, or the jargon being used, it amounted to white noise – the ambiance of his torment. 

There were exceptions, though. Moments when the Unspeakable would break his veneer of scientific detachment and the skin-crawling obsession would peek through. Covetous fingers tracing Harry’s facial features, a mouth whispering fervently possessive rubbish too close to his ear, the greedy weight of his gaze sliding across Harry’s body like a physical touch.

These moments frequent his dreams, now that they aren’t occupying his waking life. More nights than not, he gasps back into consciousness, holding back screams and trying to ground himself in the present.

Voldemort quickly learns the most efficient way to calm him down is to speak to him. He makes sure not to touch Harry while he does this, intuiting or reading from Harry’s body language how unwelcome physical contact would be. Harry has learned more about the Dark Arts and magical theory from Voldemort’s low, steady murmurs in the predawn darkness than he’d ever wanted to, but he can’t deny how effective it is. His brain may not be fully functioning, but it’s aware enough to recognise that if Voldemort is there, then the Unspeakable isn’t.

—

Harry is sitting in the library’s window seat one evening, Nagini curled up in his lap to the degree she can fit, when Voldemort drops a box of parchment scrolls onto the nearby reading table.

“What’s all this, then?” he asks.

“Research proposals and records from the Department of Mysteries pertaining to me,” Voldemort says with distaste. “Our Unspeakable was surrounded by like-minded peers, it seems.”

Harry stares, mildly horrified. “There are that many projects that wanted to use you as a subject?”

“These are the ones that did study me while we were detained,” Voldemort corrects. “There are others floating around the department, according to my ministry contacts. They’ll have to go unfulfilled, of course.”

The banked anger in his eyes dares anyone to say otherwise.

“I’ve always had a fondness for research,” he admits. “Being a subject under duress has not changed that. And some of their findings were interesting.”

Harry feels a bit ill at the detachment in Voldemort’s voice.

“And this,” he gestures at the dozens of scrolls cluttering the box. “Doesn’t hold a candle to the plethora of projects awaiting your ‘participation.’ Apparently you’ve been a matter of great interest to them for years. Our Unspeakable was simply the lucky one who got to you first.”

(“I have been waiting for years to examine you, Mr. Potter,” he’d said.)

Harry’s hands begin to shake.

“He was quite particular about you,” he says, glancing up at Harry. “Not willing to share his favourite toy, that one. His are the only records for any experiments on you, prolific as they are. The data on you could fill five boxes, easily.”

His breathing grows unsteady.

“I can’t say I blame him,” Voldemort continues, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms. “Were I more interested in the theoretical implications of life and death magic than its real-world applications, I can imagine there’s little I wouldn’t do to figure out your mysteries. I’m looking forward to reading the results–”

“Stop,” Harry gasps, curling in on himself. “Please.”

Silence, aside from the susurration of Nagini uncoiling from his lap and hissing in irritation at Voldemort for disturbing her resting place. A few moments pass as Harry shudders through half-conscious memories of clinical caresses and cutting spells and whispered words of praise, of how fascinating and such resilience. Then Voldemort’s long fingers are carding through Harry’s hair and pulling his head to rest against the older man’s chest. Close enough to hear the unnaturally slow heartbeat and use it to measure out his breaths.

Harry takes it as the apology Voldemort (probably) means it to be, if he were the type to ever give one.

—

Voldemort’s nightmares are much more rare, and much more destructive. Bed hangings, windows, floorboards, furniture, the ceiling – nothing save Nagini and Harry is safe from Voldemort’s magic’s attempts to protect the man from whatever horrors haunt him.

He’d wondered why such a devoted bibliophile didn’t have any books in his bedroom. Now he understands.

Through painful trial and error, he’s learned not to move or speak until Voldemort has pulled himself out of his head. As much as Harry would like to assist in grounding the other man as Voldemort does for him, that’s simply not how it works.

Once Voldemort’s magic determines there are no adversaries to defend against and the man lowers his guard, then Harry can act. He reaches a hand out to grasp Voldemort’s sleeve, in case skin contact isn’t wanted this time. 

Sometimes, Voldemort cannot settle and he leaves to go read or throw spells at things, occupying himself until morning comes and the light drives away the shadows in his mind.

More often, this leads to Voldemort crushing him bodily into the mattress and burying his face in the space between Harry’s neck and shoulder. 

“Stay,” Voldemort rasps. The damp heat of his breath causes Harry to twitch.

“Of course,” he says, gripping onto Voldemort’s shoulder.

As if there could be any other response.

Chapter Text

The next time Voldemort prepares to leave, he finds Harry angrily cutting up several loaves of the bread remaining from his baking spree. A variety of sliced vegetables, meats, and cheeses sit off to the side.

“Are you making sandwiches for my followers?” Voldemort asks, bemused.

Harry glares moodily at the lettuce he’s begun slapping onto the myriad sandwiches he is indeed putting together for the Death Eaters. “The bread will go bad soon.”

He has feelings about leaving food to spoil. Harry figures it’s tied to being essentially starved for most of his childhood. So, even though he hopes the recipients of these sandwiches choke on them, he’s going to ensure the bread gets eaten. After all, that same childhood had given him plenty of practice making food for people he didn’t like.

“I’m coming with you.”

Harry’s not too concerned Voldemort will refuse – they still fare better together – but he can feel his shoulders pulling together the longer the older wizard silently watches him.

Eventually, Voldemort gives a shallow nod. “If you insist. Bring the remaining loaves to distribute,” he says. “Just be certain Nagini doesn’t get into them.”

Harry flushes in embarrassment. How was he to know she had no idea what bread was – seriously, Voldemort, what the hell, who doesn’t eat bread – and mistook the oblong boules for eggs. Thankfully they’d figured it out before she consumed all of them, but removing three loaves from a snake’s digestive tract is not an experience he's keen to repeat.

As Voldemort turns to leave the kitchen, Harry says a quiet, “Thanks.” A brief pause is all the acknowledgement this gets, but that’s all the acknowledgement Harry needs.

*

Voldemort has used the meticulous documentation engaged in by the various Unspeakables who had collaborated to research him to create something of a to-do list. The time has come, he feels, to complete said to-do list, and he can’t deny his pleasure that Harry will attend the meeting to plan the attack.

The boy is perched on the arm of Voldemort’s chair, pretending to ignore the assembled Dark witches and wizards in favour of staring out a nearby window. Voldemort might believe the ruse if he couldn’t feel the tension thrumming through the boy when his back brushes against his arm. He catches the boy reacting to certain comments with some truly vicious side-eyed glares, too. 

Nagini occasionally hisses scathing commentary to the boy from where she’s lazily coiled around Voldemort’s shoulders and the back of his chair, drawing the occasional smirk or remark in turn and keeping him marginally calmer. 

His Death Eaters seem uncertain what to think about the Boy-Who-Lived speaking the serpent tongue, staring warily or casting glances from the corners of their eyes when they think he isn't watching. Though, to be fair, they seem equally uncertain as to how to react to the heaping pile of sandwiches placed before them on the table. At least, until Rabastan shrugs and starts to eat one; a few of the others slowly join in after he doesn’t die immediately.

He can tell when Harry catches on to the purpose of this meeting, as the illusion of disinterest falls away. The boy suddenly turns his whole body to face Voldemort, his stare intense.

“You’re planning a raid on the Department of Mysteries?” Harry asks tightly.

“Have you listened to a word that’s been said, Potter?” the littlest Malfoy sneers. Voldemort contains his surprise, but notes with absent interest that young Draco has far more personality when Harry is around. Something to keep an eye on.

The boy at his side ignores the taunt. “I’m coming with you.”

Bellatrix cackles angrily. “Absolutely not, we don’t have time to babysit ickle Gryffindors who think they’re mightier than they are.”

“Bellatrix,” Narcissa hisses quietly, gripping the armrests tight enough for her knuckles to whiten.

“My Lord, why is he here?” she continues, disregarding her sister’s attempts to glare her into submission. “Why are you allowing him to sit at your side at all? Let me show him his place, my Lord, let me take him apart-"

Voldemort holds up his hand and she practically trips over herself to shut up. “Bella, we discussed this previously.”

“Of course, my Lord, and I don’t intend it to seem like I’m questioning you, but Potter–”

“If that is not your intention, it would be wise for you to refrain from doing so.” He will not give her another warning.

Bellatrix goes red at the reprimand, glaring murderously at Harry, but her sister seizes the opportunity to distract the mad witch.

“I’m coming with you,” Harry repeats, ignoring the Black sisters’ muffled argument. No one else is voicing their opposition, but he can sense the discord filling the room.

He stares intently at Harry, who lets his determination and desire for closure, for vengeance, show in his eyes.

He had been there with Harry for every time he was returned to that cell, bruised, bloodied, unconscious, incoherent with pain or drugged – but never broken. While at first it was enjoyable to see his prophesied vanquisher suffer, at some point the shine wore off. The boy was his fated nemesis; no one else should be allowed to lay a hand on him. And, despite their years of animosity, Harry would care for Voldemort after his trips to the examination table. He’d deny it forever, but it did endear the boy to him – more than he could explain.

And then he’d figured out the boy was his horcrux, their soul connection strengthening with extended proximity and duress. He felt no need to fight his possessive instincts further after that.

So, if Harry wants to be present when they destroy the last of their captors, he will not deny him.

“You’re certain you wish to do this,” he says, rather than asks. Harry nods firmly.

“Harry Potter has as much right as any of you do to be present for this attack,” Voldemort declares to his followers, cowing any remaining dissent with a stern look. And that’s the end of the discussion.

*

The wizards and witches of the Department of Mysteries are not at all prepared when a half-dozen Death Eaters and their master descend upon them. 

Harry’s on edge for being back in this space; even if it’s not the same place they were held, the ambient magic shares similarities. He sticks close to Voldemort as he did when they made their escape, scarcely affected by the screams and spellfire around him.

A previously unnoticed wizard starts casting at Voldemort’s back as the Dark Lord gleefully makes several others regret ever meeting their Unspeakable. Harry’s fairly certain Voldemort has it under control, but the sectumsempra is past his lips and ripping through the opportunistic wizard’s throat before he can stop himself.

Voldemort turns and watches him intently, finishing off their two remaining enemies without fanfare in order to stare unabated. Harry’s not sure what he’s looking for, or what he himself is giving away through his face or his emotions. He’s not sure what he’s feeling at all, whether he’s numb to the thought of killing another now or if the pragmatism of it all took precedence.

Voldemort reaches a hand towards Harry’s face, clutching his chin and dragging a thumb across his cheek. He can feel something wet smearing – is he crying?

The hand comes away smudged with red. Ah, blood. That makes sense, given he’d practically decapitated someone.

He might be in shock.

But Voldemort is looking at him with pride and something like affection, and that has come to mean an awful lot to him in recent days, so he pushes everything else down to think on later. Or never.

A gleeful shriek echoes through the room, causing him to flinch. “Cousin! An excellent kill!”

He glances around and shrinks into himself when he finds everyone now looking at him, including Bellatrix, with her manic, ecstatic gaze.

…Is she shouting at him?

“Our Lord has managed to bring out the Black in you,” she shrills. He pulls a face at the ‘our Lord’ part. Their undefined togetherness aside, Voldemort was not, and never would be, his Lord.

Bellatrix rushes up to him, arms thrown wide, and Harry has the sudden, terrifying realisation that she intends to hug him. Before Harry’s fight-or-flight instincts can make a decision, Voldemort steps in.

“Crucio.”

Instantly, she’s on the ground, shrieking and screaming, thrashing about wildly, back bowing fit to snap. 

(There really isn’t much difference between happy-Bellatrix and in-pain-Bellatrix sound-wise, Harry thinks absently. Some of those shrieks sound pretty close to laughter.)

Voldemort holds the spell for half a minute, letting it go when Bellatrix’s screams take on a ragged edge. She drops like a rock as the pained tension leaves her, moaning piteously, though Harry is certain he sees a deranged grin cutting across her face. 

“You know the rules, Bella,” he says coldly. “No one is to touch him.”

“Yes, my Lord,” she rasps from her slump on the floor.

*

They’re almost to the atrium when Harry has a thought and stops walking.

“We should destroy it.” 

Voldemort comes to a halt a few steps ahead, turning back to ask, “‘It?’”

“The ministry. It’s so corrupt, and no one’s acknowledging that or working to change it, and we’re here, we should just raze it to the ground–”

“Slow down, my little anarchist,” Voldemort says, grabbing Harry by the collar and beginning to drag him to the exit. “These things take time and planning, whether it’s fixing broken institutions or bringing down a government.”

“Won’t fiendfyre take care of the latter pretty neatly?” Harry asks, wild-eyed.

“I’ll point out that Bella is currently looking at you like you hung the moon,” Voldemort interjects with a low, amused tone. “Are you certain you wish to pursue a course of action that pleases her?”

That brings Harry up short. He glances over and yeah, Bellatrix is staring at him with madly glittering eyes. Blergh. That’s horrifying.

“...Maybe you’re right.”

“Of course I am.”

*

Once they’re back from the ministry, Harry hands out the remaining loaves of bread to any Death Eater who wants one. Voldemort has to step in and pull Bella to the side when she keeps trying to take more than her share, just as intense in her new-found desire to be close to Harry as she is in all of her obsessions.

So he’s distracted when he hears a dull ‘thunk’ and an incensed shout. But he can determine quite quickly from Draco’s hands flapping about his forehead and the bread wobbling on the floor what must have happened. 

Harry coughs into his hand to disguise his laughter and Voldemort holds his impassive look, but internally he’s amused. Trust Harry to find it a reasonable sacrifice of food to hit the other boy in the head with a loaf of bread.

“Potter!” the young Malfoy cries, face blotchy with rage. The point of impact on his forehead is rapidly reddening and swelling.

“Whoops,” Harry says flatly, not an ounce of apology to be found. “My hand slipped.”

A sickly orange spell comes flying at Harry from the Malfoy corner of the room – his galleons would be on Narcissa if she didn’t have better self-preservation than that, which means it’s Lucius. Harry dodges the curse easily and manages to put a quelling hand on Voldemort’s wand before he can hex anyone into oblivion. No matter. He'll save the pureblood's punishment for later - once Harry is no longer present.

His Death Eaters are staring at them with expressions ranging from befuddlement to terror to, in Bellatrix’s case, some unholy love-child of rage, glee, and awe.

As the boy is walking past Draco on his way to the floo hall, Voldemort hears Harry mutter, “See, this is why people think you bought your way onto the quidditch team. Aside from the very obvious fact that you bought your way onto the quidditch team.”

Voldemort petrifies the blond boy before he can bodily attack Harry, sweeping out to the floo with Nagini before he releases the spell. Perhaps he should have Harry attend more meetings, if it means the youngest Malfoy will provide such frequent entertainment.

Chapter Text

Harry has bad days – where he will sit hunched in on himself, tucked in a corner of the library or the garden, staring blankly out at the world as he’s stuck in his head. But, given time, he will pull himself out of his funk.

Then, there are days where Harry can’t muster the will to live to leave the bed.

Voldemort has never been a gentle or affectionate being, even before he took his new name and started hacking off chunks of his soul in exchange for the closest approximation to immortality he could find as a teenager. He knows this about himself and doesn’t care to change it, even now that he’s determined to keep Harry Potter at his side.

So, on this particular day, he floo-calls the other two – Granger and Weasley – because outsourcing tedious tasks has to be one of his favourite parts of being in power.

They glare at him as though he’s responsible for Harry’s condition, but agree to keep the boy company while Voldemort is away. He doesn’t tell them he’s holding a meeting with his Death Eaters – he doesn’t think they’d be quite as understanding as Harry is, but that is decidedly not his concern.

—

He returns from his meeting to find the trio have relocated to the library – the girl likely couldn’t resist when given free rein over the space. Harry is tucked between the other two, still wrapped in a blanket and staring off into space with empty eyes, but the remains of tea and toast on the table in front of him means they at least were able to get him to eat something.

He leaves them be for now. There are some letters he’d best send if he wants to put certain plans into motion. And, if he’s correct, the rest of his day is about to be occupied.

—

It happens before another hour has passed. An unpleasantly familiar tug on their bond has him rising from behind his desk; the fear-filled shouts echoing down the hall lead him to apparate rather than walk. 

He rematerializes in the library to chaos. Harry’s friends are panicking, shouting and trying to get to the boy but are held at bay by a panicking Nagini, hissing and spitting and positioned defensively over a dead Harry Potter.

He sweeps over to the corpse, gathering it close and holding tightly as he has many times before.

“Come back, Harry,” he croons in parseltongue, mouth pressed against Harry’s ear. “You’re frightening your friends.”

He can feel the boy’s soul stir and anchors him as firmly as he can, attempting to coax him back to his body. He holds out a hand to a shaken Nagini, allowing her to coil up and around his shoulders to placate her.

Without looking away from Harry, he offers a casual, “He does this every so often.”

This statement earns him an incredulous pause.

“He does this every so often?!” Weasley explodes. 

“What does that mean? He’s dead. Is he not dead?” Granger is crying openly, but her mind is already working to rationalise what he’s said.

“He is and isn’t dead,” he replies, enjoying the chance to be vague and unhelpful. “His soul has drifted out of his body, but I can bring it back.”

“That seems like it might have been important information before now,” Weasley grits through his teeth. Granger is staring with horrified fascination at Harry’s body.

“I did tell you that what he needs has changed; that it’s not something you can provide,” he reminds them in a fit of pettiness. 

“No offence,” Weasley starts offensively. “But we thought you were–”

“–overstating your importance to Harry,” Granger jumps in.

“–being a manipulative prick when you said that,” the boy finishes.

Voldemort hums noncommittally. “Does that sound like something Lord Voldemort would do?”

That earns him matching glares. Ah, the simple pleasures.

“It typically takes hours for him to return, and I do need to focus,” he says, dismissing them. “I’m sure you know the way to the Floo by now.”

“What? We’re not going anywhere–” 

Granger once again weaponizes her elbows to control Weasley’s verbal outbursts. “There’s nothing we can do to help?”

“No,” he confirms. “And, for Harry’s sake and yours, you won’t want to distract me.”

The threat hangs in the air as the pair exchange a look, coming to a decision.

“Let us know as soon as he wakes up,” Granger insists. 

“We’ll be back tomorrow,” Weasley adds, puffing up and ready to fight if Voldemort refuses.

“Fine. Now, leave.” He doesn’t let the strain show, but he’s not used to dealing with nuisances while trying to moor Harry’s wayward soul, and he will kill them if they try to stay.

Thankfully, they go.

He exhales, then sets to looking after his two living horcruxes.

—

It’s several hours later when Harry wakes, his friends having departed to deal with the shock by themselves.

Voldemort is reading through a tome he’s been trying to get his hands on for weeks, and the satisfaction of finally acquiring the book is immense. Harry is curled up beside him, with Nagini coiled on top of him to enjoy the living warmth. The crackling fire is producing enough heat to be almost uncomfortable in addition to the thick quilt wrapped around the three of them, but it serves to ward off the damp chill brought about by the late autumn rain torrenting down outside.

“Welcome back to the land of the living,” Voldemort says, eyes still fixed on his book. The silence persists for another minute or so, though he knows Harry hasn’t fallen back asleep due to the occasional restless fidgeting.

“You gave Nagini quite the scare,” he continues. “Your little friends, too.”

Harry doesn’t take the obvious bait; he must not be fully back yet. He considers whether to fill the silence or go back to reading when Harry decides to speak.

“What’s going to happen now?” A voice, quiet and dull, rises from the mass of blankets.

“What do you mean?” Ah. Of course this was the cause of Harry’s dissociation.

“Voldemort,” Harry says flatly, sitting up slowly and staring, sombre, out the window. Nagini slides off his lap and slithers to sit in front of the fire, sensing the building storm.

Voldemort has known this conversation was coming since they left the ministry on that day weeks ago. He should be more prepared than he is.

“...We’ve taken our revenge on the Unspeakables,” he continues, pulling at the fabric covering the cushions beneath him. “We did what we set out to do."

He can feel his jaw clench. As if there’s so little keeping them together.

“But that doesn’t change the fact that we were in the middle of a war, before,” he gestures vaguely to encompass six and a half months of captivity. “That hasn’t gone away.”

“Hasn’t it?” 

Harry stands suddenly, taking a step away from the couch before spinning to glare at Voldemort. “No, and you know it hasn’t – you keep meeting with your bloody bigot cult.”

“Why Harry, Bella would be so hurt if she heard you say that. She prefers to call it a social club.” He’s not sure why he’s acting like this; it’s not going to make the conversation go away, much though he wishes it would.

“Stop it!” Harry shouts, looking at him with angry confusion colouring his face. “You’d let things end, just like that?”

He scoffs. “Of course not.”

“So you think I would.”

He hesitates, and Harry seizes on it.

“I was willing to fight you to the death before,” he says – a reminder Voldemort neither wants nor needs. “Because you are wrong about Muggles. That hasn’t changed, unless you have.”

Voldemort is silent for a moment, considering how best to win this argument, if Harry is determined to have it. “You obviously know some of my past; the good professor always was keen to share stories about me,” he says quietly, poisonously. “Can you blame me for my dislike of them?”

“I grew up with magic-hating Muggles, too,” Harry retorts. “I know how easy it is for them to hate us, all the casual, daily ways they can show it. But they’re not all like that. You can’t just kill people.” 

“I think you’ll find I can,” he says, sneering. “Don’t forget that you have blood on your hands too, Harry Potter.”

“I know,” Harry shouts again, breath catching, fists clenching. He continues in a quiet rush, “I know that. But there’s a huge difference between killing someone who’s about to hurt a person I care about–” and now it’s Voldemort’s breath hitching, weakness “–and an entire group of people who haven’t done anything yet, who don’t even know we exist.”

“That’s the only reason they haven’t tried to exterminate us yet,” Voldemort insists. “We need to act before they can.”

“Do you actually believe that?” 

Not really, but it’s a convenient excuse. “Yes.”

Harry continues on, disregarding that. “You want to change the magical world? Fine, I completely understand that. There are so many ways things could be better, if the people in power would even bother to try. But complete separation from the Muggle world? Treating Muggleborns as lesser-than? That’s how you kill any possible change or future for this world.”

“Such a passionate argument. Albus Dumbledore himself could hardly have done better.” His lip curls. Harry doesn’t have the benefit of hiding how he feels from Voldemort anymore.

“But what about you, Harry? Do you truly care?”

And Harry freezes. Slowly, he curls in on himself, shoulders hanging low, expression wonderfully distraught. 

“No,” he eventually chokes out, rubbing absently at his chest as if to soothe a phantom ache. “I don’t. I know I should – I remember caring, I know this is important…”

And he’s not sure if this lingering guilt, this sentiment, is a testament to Harry’s stubborn goodness or Dumbledore’s indoctrination. But he’s not certain he can prevail against it in this moment – a feeling that proves accurate with Harry’s next words.

“I don’t want to fight you,” he whispers tiredly. “But I will if I have to.”

For all that it's said quietly, the pronouncement sits heavy in the air between them.

And Voldemort realises that he will be the one demanding fiendfyre, seeking to burn the world down around them in an attempt to cauterise the wound before he bleeds out, if Harry were to leave him.

Harry is his, has been ever since they pulled each other through the hell of their time in that cell. He has spent a lifetime refusing to compromise on his plans, but if this is the cost of keeping the other at his side, he will pay it.

He reaches for the boy, gently gripping the hands still clenched into fists and pulling him closer, closer. Harry puts up resistance when his knees hit the edge of the loveseat, but only for a moment. One more quietly insistent tug and the boy tumbles into Voldemort’s lap like he belongs there, though tension still thrums through him like a plucked string.

“Stay,” Voldemort says with forced calm. “You’ll have a better chance of convincing me if you’re here.”

It’s not much of a capitulation, admittedly, but it’s apparently enough. All the air whooshes out of Harry in a rush and he sags forward, letting his forehead fall against Voldemort’s shoulder. 

“...Of course,” he says eventually, shakily. Voldemort silently exhales a breath he’d been holding and wraps an arm around Harry’s back, keeping him close.

A truce, rather than a definitive conclusion to the argument. He can work with that.

Chapter Text

They’re in the garden, trying the whole “being outside” thing that still feels strange after so long indoors. Voldemort’s property is surrounded by water on three sides (of course he essentially has a moat, the drama queen) and Harry has fond memories of sitting near the Black Lake at Hogwarts, so to the water they go. It’s peaceful, with the sun high in the sky and an early spring breeze ruffling his hair.

And then the light off the water catches his eye in just the wrong way, glaring and bright so there’s nowhere to hide, no welcoming shadows to soften reality, and fixed solely on him, much like the Unspeakable’s attention. One fucking ray of light reflected just so and he’s back on that table, and he’d stopped trying not to scream after the first few sessions because pride or not, dignity or not, he was still being flayed alive, carved open and pierced through for the edification of a madman, nothing would change that and screaming was at least something he could do, a way to express exactly how little he wanted to be there– 

A hand descends over his eyes, leaving him in blessed darkness.

“Breathe.”

As though he’d been waiting for permission, Harry heaves air into his lungs. He coughs at receiving too much oxygen too soon, slowing down as much as he can when his head is still spinning wildly. He reaches both hands up to clutch at Voldemort’s arm, holding it tight against his face.

“How long is this going to keep happening?” he asks tightly.

“I don’t have an answer for you,” Voldemort says.

“Why aren’t you like this, too?” It comes out as a dry sob.

“Would you prefer that I was?”

“No.”

Voldemort steps closer, resting his chin on Harry’s head. “I don’t experience most emotions as vividly as you do. I can faintly sense them through our connection; it would be overwhelming first-hand. I also have decades of experience in boxing up any emotions I don’t want or find useful.”

“Does that work?”

“For me, it does. I channel my frustrations into violence, as well,” he says blithely, like that’s not the biggest understatement ever.

There’s a weighted silence, then Voldemort says, “I could take the memories from you, if you wanted.”

He gives it a second or two of thought. “Would that fix me?”

“Perhaps, perhaps not. The human mind is complicated.”

“Then no.” It would be so much worse to experience the fear but not remember the cause. He’s not all that keen on having anyone invade his thoughts ever again, anyway. 

(His memories of that time – their experiences – are also what bind him and Voldemort together in this way. For all that he’s sick and tired of dealing with the after-effects of those months, he wouldn’t want to lose this closeness.)

Some previously unnoticed tension leaves Voldemort when Harry declines, easy to feel with the man pressed up against his back. He asked, even though he wanted Harry to say no? Harry feels a pleasant warmth in his chest.

"But thank you for the offer," he says, and means it.

—

Omake: Miette

As he gets better, Harry’s stress-baking sprees become more of a creative outlet, allowing him to make something delicious while keeping his hands busy and giving his mind time to work through any thoughts that might be weighing on it. He delights in trying new things and working out the intricacies and quirks of ingredients and methods. 

It also doubles as flipping the bird to Snape and his insistence that Harry had no talent or mind for the ‘delicate art of potion-making’ (or whatever). He has the skills and the work ethic and the passion; he just knows a losing battle when he sees one.

This afternoon, he’s attempting to perfect his canelé recipe in preparation for Ron’s birthday next week. He hasn’t managed it quite yet; according to Voldemort, the Death Eaters, who’ve been getting the rejects, hope he never does but keeps trying. Rabastan apparently made a joke about proposing to Harry as long as he’d cook for the man; Voldemort and Bellatrix took turns cursing him for it.

Ron had discovered the dessert during the Triwizard debacle as part of a bit of cultural exchange with the Beauxbatons students. Molly refused to make anything French because of her continued dislike of Fleur, and their few efforts to find the treat in Magical Britain had been disappointing, so Harry’s determined to make the best damn canelés he can or die trying.

Another consequence of his baking afternoons is bonding time with Nagini, who enjoys the warm kitchen atmosphere and occasional conversation. Her favourite place to lay is on the toasty floor stones right in front of the oven. This obviously leads to some careful manoeuvering when Harry has to put things in or take them out of the oven, or bodily shifting the giant snake out of the way, which she finds hilarious every single time.

On this day, Harry, hands already full of a precariously filled tray of baking moulds, decides to try something different.

“Nagini, could you please move out of the way so I can get by?” he says, nudging the sprawled snake gently on the side with his foot. 

She rears her head back with wide, betrayed eyes. “You kick Nagini?”

“What? No–”

She flails and rolls around dramatically. “You kick her like the football? Oh! Jail for hatchling!”

“...How do you know what a football is?” he asks, bewildered. “Nagini, wait–”

“Jail for hatchling for one. Thousand. Years,” Nagini cries with finality, shooting one more glower at Harry before slithering huffily out the cracked-open door. He sighs.

He just knows Voldemort’s going to laugh at him for this.

Chapter Text

For the first few days after The Talk – and Harry’s still a little surprised Voldemort didn’t kill him for challenging the man – they are quite literally in some form of physical contact every moment of the day. They can’t stand to be apart – it’s as bad as it was when they first escaped, if not worse. For all Harry’s bravado as he attempted to do the right thing, he’s not sure he would’ve survived if they’d gone back to being at war on opposing sides.

They fall asleep and wake up curled around each other; Harry ends up eating most meals seated in Voldemort’s lap, and he follows the man to his office and Death Eater meetings and research sessions in the library, perched on the arm of his chair or the cushion next to him, pressed together. Harry absently explains the process of baking biscuits and Voldemort pretends to listen so he can justify staying draped over Harry’s shoulders as he sifts flour and creams butter.

Nagini is living for this, wrapping herself around their entwined bodies any time they stay stationary long enough.

But eventually they return to their version of equilibrium and can bear to leave the other’s side for at least part of the day. They are, if anything, more stable now that they’ve both expressed (in their emotionally stunted ways) a desire to stay together as they are.

It’s... better. Good. (Great, actually.)

*

One day, a couple weeks on from The Talk, while sitting with Ron and Hermione in the library, he decides to discuss the situation. In the absence of his own ability to care about the world more broadly, he hopes he can rely on them to advise him.

“So, uh,” Harry begins, not at all ominously. “Before I say this, I want you to know that everything’s fine–”

“Oh no,” Ron groans.

“Harry James Potter, what did you do?”

“I just said it’s fine!”

“You prefaced something by saying it’s fine.” Hermione corrects. “Which means it’s not going to sound fine.”

The downside to having best friends, Harry thinks, is that sometimes they know you too well.

“C’mon, out with it.”

“I may have, uh, threatened to fight Voldemort,” he rushes out. “If he didn’t stop it with the anti-muggleborn nonsense.”

The other two freeze before exchanging a look.

“And, uh. How did that go over?” Ron says warily.

“He told me to stay,” Harry says, a little hoarse from the sudden lump of emotion in his throat. “That I could convince him if I stayed.”

“That’s it?” 

“I mean, we argued a bit, but he kind of folded like a cheap suit when I brought up fighting him.”

“You,” Hermione says tightly. “Are the most reckless person I’ve ever met, and I’m so proud of you.” And she throws her arms around his neck in a quick hug.

Ron pats his shoulder. “Well done, Har.”

The tension doesn’t fully leave him yet. “So… it’s okay? That I stay here?”

“Harry, we’d need a crowbar to separate you two, even if we wanted to,” Hermione says dryly. 

Ron looks confused but doesn’t ask. “I don’t understand it, but you’re good for each other. It’s still weird, though.”

Hermione adds, “If you want to stay here, and especially if you’re able to influence Voldemort for the better, why wouldn’t you?”

“I just…” He hesitates. “I can’t help thinking that Dumbledore would be disappointed–”

“Oh, to hell with Dumbledore!” she snaps, looking mortified even as she says it.

“Hermione!” Harry can’t help sounding both scandalised and impressed.

Ron stares at her and, in breathless awe, blurts out, “I love you.”

Hermione flushes a deep red. “I love you, too.” She mumbles out the words before regaining her fervour. “Albus Dumbledore was a great wizard, and I know you respected him and knew him better than we did, but he asked too much of you. And more often than not put you in danger’s way.”

“He did his best–” Harry says in a knee-jerk response to defend the man.

“No, mate, he didn’t,” Ron says with a stern look he must have learned from Molly. “Do you know how many students were almost murdered while Bill and Charlie were at Hogwarts? None. And there’s you, dealing with at least one attempt per year.”

“You’re barely an adult, Harry–” Hermione starts.

“I’m not some little kid–”

“I’m not saying that to dismiss you,” she cuts in with a pleading look. “You have survived through things few adults would have. But you shouldn’t’ve had to. Dumbledore should’ve protected you; instead, he repeatedly put a target on your back.”

“But, the prophecy meant it had to be me–”

“Even if that’s true,” she interrupts, her scepticism for divination colouring her voice. “He could’ve made sure you grew up with a family that cared about you.” He flinches. “Or kept the media away from you, at least while at Hogwarts. Or, if he really expected you to fight, he could’ve prepared you for that and given you all the information you might need. But he didn’t.”

Harry’s retort dies in his throat. There’s not really much he can say against that, is there?

“Maybe it’s not the way Professor Dumbledore wanted you to handle it,” she concedes quietly. “But you are handling it.”

“You have to adapt your strategy as things change,” Ron says. “Much as I don’t like the bastard, V-Voldemort seems pretty committed to keeping you alive and around. Might as well use that to your advantage.”

There’s a moment of silence where they all share a look at how strangely things have turned out.

Hermione breaks it to say, “This is not your burden to shoulder alone, no matter what anyone says.”

“And if people give you grief about it, you send them to us,” Ron adds, cracking his knuckles in an exaggerated, tough-guy way.

Harry wants to laugh at that, but he’s pretty sure it would come out as a sob with how damp his eyes have gotten.

“Whatever happens, Harry, whatever you choose – we’re on your side,” Hermione says earnestly, Ron nodding along. “Not the Ministry’s, not the Order’s – yours.”

And now he’s definitely crying. He has the best friends.

Hermione tears up too and throws herself into a hug with him, landing half on his lap and half on the couch. Then Ron’s got his long arms wrapped tight around both of them and Harry feels so, so loved. (And squashed. But he can ignore that for now.)

Chapter Text

Omake: First time Harry's soul slipped away?

It’s an unremarkable day in captivity, the first time it happens.

Potter had been dragged out what must have been a few hours ago, and tossed back in, limp but conscious, several minutes earlier. 

And then all of a sudden he just. Sags. Like a puppet with its strings cut.

Minutes pass. Voldemort stands there waiting for the brat to move or breathe or show any signs of life, and eventually his curiosity wins out. 

He reaches down to feel for a pulse, because his little nemesis looks dead for all intents and purposes, and that. That’s infuriating. He’s supposed to be the one to kill the brat, not some power-tripping, wannabe-academic toe-rag. When he touches the boy’s throat, it feels as though there’s a rope snapping taut between them - like the brat is on the end of a dragline caught in an undertow - in his mind.

It has been, to his count, seventy-three days since he woke up here. Aside from ignoring Potter, antagonising his captors, picking apart the wards, and the occasional torture session, he’s had a lot of time to think. For all that he prides himself on his intelligence, he’s been much more focused on action than contemplation since his return, so. He’s come to a few realisations in his time here.

Had he previously known about the mental connection between him and Harry Potter? Of course – he’d exploited it for his benefit two years ago. Had he seriously considered the nature of said connection and how it may have formed? Not really – after that baffling spell malfunction at his rebirth, he’d assumed it was all a result of the prophecy.

He’s so pleased that there’s no one around but a temporarily dead boy to witness him discovering what an idiot he’s been. It’s downright embarrassing.

“Get back here, you little shit,” he hisses, tugging viciously on the mental bond anchored in the boy. “If I have to suffer this stupidity, so do you.”

The listless body next to him gives no response, but the skin under his hand starts to warm back to a safe temperature for humans.

As soon as the brat starts breathing again, Voldemort retreats to a corner to have a minor existential crisis about the fact that he’s been trying to kill one of his horcruxes (an accidental horcrux, of all things) for eighteen years.

Well. Some of his plans will have to change to accommodate this new information.

— —

Omake: Death Eater POV: Bellatrix edition

Bellatrix loves Harry. As much as she'd once hated him, for taking her Lord away from her, she now loves him.

Her first love and priority will always be her Lord, obviously. Now that he’s no longer an obstacle, now that their intentions align – now that Harry has shown he’s willing to kill to protect her Lord – she can accept his place at her Lord’s side.

Her Lord might not emote much physically, but he’s not inclined to rein in his magic, and she’s always been sensitive. She’s relished in his rage, his hatred; she lets it feed her own, driving her to greater heights of carnage.

Since her Lord returned to her (again; he always comes back to her, he’s perfect), there’s been a change. And it’s clear, even to her, that Harry is the cause.

Her Lord’s magic has tied itself to Harry – loops and weaves around him like it can’t bear to part from the boy. And, rather than the caustic, seething, boiling tar of before – euphoric even as it burned her – his magic feels generative as well as destructive. She’d forgotten they were fighting to build a better world, rather than simply scorching this one to the ground to keep it from the mudbloods.

Her Lord seems settled into his skin in a way he hasn’t ever – not before he first disappeared; not even when she first was introduced to him, when he relied on charisma as much as violence. Less exciting? Perhaps. But her Lord no longer feels like he’s about to self-immolate in his quest for power and take them all with him. He has stepped ever so slightly back from the knife’s edge.

Bellatrix would follow her Lord wherever he might lead, even into death. But, all things being equal, she’d rather they both live: her to serve him, and him to share with her his light and power – the sun around whom she orbits.

And, for prolonging her time with her Lord, for keeping him from being consumed in the fires of his ambition – she loves Harry Potter.

Chapter Text

It’s April before Harry feels up to going to Sunday dinner at the Weasleys’. (Voldemort refuses to call it ‘The Burrow,’ even if he thinks its occupants are essentially vermin.) Granger and the youngest boy-Weasley have become semi-permanent fixtures at his house since their first visit months ago, and Harry occasionally attends Death Eater meetings, but the boy doesn’t socialise beyond that.

(Granger once confided to him that Harry wasn’t exactly a social butterfly under the best of circumstances, but that it was unusual for him to avoid the Weasley family. Voldemort had wondered why she’d invaded his study and shared this useless information with him. He’d frowned at her until she grabbed a book – likely her true reason for being there – and left.)

Before he leaves, Harry turns to him, looking a little pale but determined. “I don’t know how this will go, but I’m asking you not to come after me unless you can feel I’m really in trouble. I… I have to do this eventually, and I think if I don’t start now it’ll be too easy to avoid it until I’m too afraid to leave the house.”

Voldemort opens his mouth to say something, but changes tack before he can give voice to that thought. “I understand.”

Because he could push Harry to stay here, to wait for another day, another week, and Harry would most likely listen, because he doesn’t really want to go. But he doesn’t want Harry to stay a prisoner: not of this house nor his own mind. So he lets him go and trusts that he will return. (Caring is such a burden.)

They bid each other goodbye, and then Voldemort stares at the closed door until he hears the faint ‘pop’ of apparition. Then he stares some more – until he has control of the immediate urge to chase the boy down and drag him back here, never to leave again. What can he say, he’s capricious. Harry ought to appreciate his incredible restraint.

He settles into his study, ready to catch up on some correspondence and plotting that he’d neglected in favour of… Other things. (Harry-related things.) It’s fine, he has time now.

The third time he pushes too hard and puts his quill through parchment, he gives it up as a task for another day. One when Harry’s low-grade anxiety isn’t buzzing in the back of his mind.

He disregards the treatises and more dense theoretical texts he wants to read through, knowing even his prodigious mind will not absorb the information in this state and he’ll only grow more frustrated. So he turns to the reports from his inner circle – dull and dry as kindling, but requiring very little effort to read.

A spike of emotion comes through the bond, jarring Voldemort’s nerves and leaving him reacting as if he’d been attacked, ready to curse someone into oblivion. But of course, there’s no one there. And Harry has calmed back down to his baseline of ‘uncomfortable but not in danger.’ But now he’s hyperaware, waiting for another reactive bolt.

The restlessness becomes so objectionable that he eventually apparates away, calling Bella to him.

Perhaps now's the time to re-evaluate his ranks.

—

Harry returns just after 3 p.m., looking drained of energy but not unhappy. Nagini launches herself at the boy and wraps him up in her limbless embrace, hissing about the many new smells she finds on her hatchling.

Voldemort watches Harry look embarrassed but pleased by her nattering, and sets down the book he’d finally managed to read. (A novel, of all things. It was the most his attention span could handle while he was half-focused on Harry and whether he should… appear, suddenly, at the Weasley residence and. Escort Harry home.)

(…It’s not an attack if he doesn’t throw any offensive spells, nor a kidnapping if the kidnappee would appreciate being absconded with. And Harry would, though perhaps not in the moment.)

Harry trundles over, stumbling from exhaustion and Nagini’s not-insignificant mass, and flops onto the seat beside Voldemort. Nagini hisses crankily at being disturbed from her perch and moves to rest on the back of the couch.

“So,” Harry says, tilting his head to meet Voldemort’s eyes. “How many people did you kill today?”

“None,” Voldemort replies, possibly too quickly.

Harry narrows his eyes. “Are you sure?”

“Absolutely.” They aren’t dead nor at risk of it, but existence won’t be comfortable for the next few days. But that’s not what Harry asked, and he won’t volunteer the information.

Harry gives him a look for a few more seconds before relenting. “Well, that’s good. And you didn’t show up at the Burrow either, even when I’m sure you were feeling a lot of stuff coming from me. Very proud of you.”

(Harry can never know how close he’d been to doing just that.)

“I do have some self control,” he gripes without shame.

Harry hmms at him knowingly. “Sure you do.”

They sit in silence for a minute.

“If you’re waiting for me to ask you how it went, we’ll be stuck here forever.”

“Doesn’t that kind of count as asking me about it?” Harry asks archly.

“If you choose to interpret it that way, that’s your prerogative.” The boy’s getting better at reading between the lines, praise be.  

“It…” Harry’s brow furrows. “I knew it would be… a lot. I love them all, but the Weasleys and the rest. They can be overbearing.”

Harry starts pulling at the upholstery. He hasn’t done that in some time – an unfortunate regression. Voldemort passes the boy a pillow to fiddle with instead, and he hugs it close to his chest, tugging at the corners absently.

“There were so many of them, and they all wanted to hug me or slap me on the shoulder or be right beside me,” Harry says, looking uncomfortable even at the memory. “I was ready to claw my skin off before I even sat down. Then Ron and Hermione started shooing them off, which helped. But. I don’t think I can do that again anytime soon.”

Voldemort doesn’t let his self-congratulatory smugness show, but he takes a moment to enjoy a successful manipulation that would be undetectable as such. The best way to ensure Harry wants to stay here is to let him experience the unfiltered world outside, in all its overly loud, grating roughness.

“They had all sorts of questions, too – wanted to know what happened. To me. And why we aren’t at each other's throat anymore. And when I’d be leaving here,” Harry’s voice goes hushed and he swallows heavily. “They asked because they care, but I… I didn’t want to tell them. I don’t like to talk about. That time. At all.”

“Breathe, Harry.”

Harry leans into Voldemort’s side and pulls one of his arms around his shoulders, taking a few slow breaths.

“I don’t really know what I said. I’ll have to ask Ron and ‘Mione later,” and he hesitates briefly. “But I must’ve said something strange, because. They seem to think we’re. Uh. Together?” Harry laughs nervously, and Voldemort can’t help the sudden tightness in his shoulders. “Which…”

He doesn’t say anything.

“That’s so ridiculous, right? Just because we aren’t trying to kill each other anymore doesn’t mean we’re. Like that.”

His jaw tenses minutely.

“You’d never want that,” Harry says, eyes wide behind his glasses. “...Right?”

Voldemort hums noncommittally, pulling back from Harry. “If you’ll excuse me, I have a letter I need to write.”

“...What?”

“Bellatrix sends her love–”

“That’s not a no,” Harry says quietly, then again, louder. “Voldemort, that’s not a no.”

“Let’s talk about it later.” He gets up, intending to make a calculated retreat to his office and thoroughly lock the door.

“No,” Harry insists, grabbing his wrist. “Let’s talk about it now.”

“Harry…” he says warningly. It’s been a difficult day; he doesn’t want to test his self control further.

“Voldemort,” the boy retorts.

“Do not push me further.”

Harry gets that stubborn tilt to his jaw, determination flaring in his eyes. “Do you want …that with me?”

Voldemort’s self-control fractures. He shoves Harry back down onto the couch, caging him in with his hands on either side of the boy’s head. Harry stares up at him, speechless in shock. He leans down to press his mouth to Harry’s throat, tempted to bite.

“I want everything with you,” he hisses fiercely. “Any and every way I can have you, I want. I will never have enough of you, even if we were together for the rest of time. It wouldn’t be enough.”

He pulls back to look at Harry, unsurprised to find the boy flushed and frozen and staring wild-eyed.

“Do you understand?”

He barely waits for Harry to nod stiltedly before he sweeps out of the room. They both need some distance, and he needs to throw spells at things. Again.

—

Voldemort doesn’t return that night.

When Harry finishes relaying Voldemort’s confession (?) to Ron and Hermione the following day, they both stare at him in total silence with their mouths hanging open.

An emphatic “Wow” is Ron’s contribution.

“Oh, Harry…” Hermione adds with a heavy sigh.

“I dunno, I thought it was kind of…” he trails off and the next part is barely audible. “...Romantic.”

They still hear him. 

Ron slaps a hand to his forehead and drags it down his face, pulling at his skin, and adopts a thousand-yard stare, while Hermione snorts loudly and makes a shaking gesture with her hands clawed.

“Why are you like this,” she asks tightly (and rhetorically, he’s pretty sure).

“Of course you would,” Ron groans.

“Harry,” Hermione starts in a praying-for-patience tone, holding his hands and looking directly into his eyes. “A romantic confession would be promising to love you forever, or saying he wants to be with you no matter what, or something similar. That is the confession of someone who wants to wear your skin as a suit.”

Harry thinks about that. “Well… I mean, I’d probably grow my skin back? My healing factor’s ridiculous now.”

“That is not the point, Harry.” She looks like she wants to shake him again. Her eye might be twitching.

“Sorry, ‘Mione.”

“You’ve always been a bit intense, mate. I shouldn’t be surprised you’d go for someone equally, uh. Well, it’s a stretch, but let’s say passionate,” Ron says, staring at him in fond, mildly horrified exasperation.

“I suppose I shouldn’t have expected anything better from him…” Hermione says wryly.

Harry hesitates for a moment after the other two stop ribbing him, deciding if he actually wants to talk about this, before pressing on.

“For the longest time, no one wanted me. And even after I met you two, most people were interested in me for something I’d done or was expected to do,” he admits quietly, shifting uncomfortably. “I guess it’s just nice to have someone who swears they’ll always want me for me.”

And that makes them both look at him like a small, injured woodland creature, expressions anguished and pitying, and Hermione starts sniffling and Ron’s eyes look suspiciously misty.

“Oh no, don’t cry–” is all he gets out before he’s dogpiled into the couch. He pats awkwardly at his friends’ backs as they sob at varying volumes into his shoulders.

“Bloody hell,” Ron gasps a few minutes later, voice thick and wobbly. “Does this mean I’m going to have the Dark Lord as a brother-in-law?”

Harry blinks once, twice, three times for luck, and then starts laughing his head off in surprise. Hermione gets caught in a giggle fit and eventually even Ron joins in.

“Yeah, Ron, that’s definitely what this means. Want to be our flower girl?”

“As if I’d be anything but your best man,” Ron replies with a smug grin.

“Ah, sorry, Hermione called dibs. But don’t worry, you’ll look so fetching in a frock–” Harry laughs as Ron attempts to smother him with a pillow, Hermione watching on in amusement.

Good to know they’re alright with this. (Whatever ‘this’ is.)

—

“Finally stopped hiding?”

He waits to speak until Voldemort is far enough away from the Floo that he’d have to apparate to avoid Harry, which he hopes is too undignified a course of action for Voldemort to consider. Thankfully, it seems he’s right. 

“What are you doing awake at this hour?” It’s not quite a demand, but it’s sharper than a question. Voldemort’s still in a bit of a strop.

“Well, it turns out I’ve gotten used to sleeping in the same bed as a certain someone, and when they’re not there I can’t sleep,” Harry says mildly as he slowly walks over to where Voldemort’s standing motionless. It’s true, but it’s also manipulative as hell. He can see faint traces of Voldemort’s proud grin in the early dawn light sneaking through the windows.

“Are you saying you can’t live without me, Harry?” He sounds so damn smug.

“I’m saying I’d like to get some more rest before the day starts, if you’re done running away.” Voldemort snarls a bit at that, but before he can speak, Harry continues, “But first…”

And fast as he can, he darts his hands up and yanks on Voldemort’s robe to pull him down to Harry’s level, bumping their foreheads together and staring into the taller man’s eyes.

“You know when people are lying to you, right?” He is determined to see this through; he will be brave.

“Yes.”

“You would know if I was lying to you.”

“...I would.”

“Good. Now that we've established that: I’m here because I want to be. I stay because I want to,” he promises. “Not for anyone else’s benefit, not to try to control you – because this is where I want to be.”

Voldemort’s breath hitches.

“You meant it mockingly, but it's true: I’m not sure I could live without you now,” Harry admits. “Well, no… I probably could. But I don’t want to.”

“Harry–”

“I want you too, Vee,” he says, quiet but firm. Voldemort makes a wounded sound and grips onto Harry’s shoulders too tightly. It’s sure to leave bruises. “Looks like you’re stuck with me.”

Voldemort’s face goes blank for a moment before he leans down and latches onto Harry’s shoulder with his teeth.

“Ow! What the hell?” That bloody hurts.

And Voldemort doesn’t say anything in response, but through the bond Harry can feel a lot of ‘overwhelmed’ and a bright, thin thread of what he can only understand as ‘joy.’

So Harry doesn’t push the issue, just this once. He only wraps an arm around the other man’s back and feels his own small but spreading pool of contentment.

—

Maybe-canon-but-probably-not omake: Because no one has any chill whatsoever

“Okay, so you think it’s romantic that he would, like, literally sew you two together if he could. We’re going to ignore how weird that is for the moment.”

“Ronald…”

“But mate, he’s a giant, skeletal snake-man. You can’t honestly say you find him attractive.”

Harry mutters something under his breath that sounds a little too much like, “Oh, can’t I?” for his friends’ tastes.

“Is this some problematic holdover of your infatuation with the diary horcrux?” Hermione asks as Harry sputters and turns bright red.

“No!” he shouts. And, after a suspicious delay, “And I wasn’t ‘infatuated’ with the diary!”

Ron and Hermione both give him a look at that. Traitors.

“Psychologists would fight to the death for the chance to sort through all your issues, Harry.”

“Sy-ko-wha?”

“Good to know if I ever decide to hold gladiatorial contests,” Harry says dryly.

The topic of conversation dies out for a couple minutes before Ron turns back to Harry and looks him dead in the eye.

“So, given the chance – you would bang the snake-man?”

Hermione puts her head in her hands and regrets several life choices.

Harry sighs. “Like a screen door in a hurricane.”

Ron chokes on air. 

“Harry!”

“He asked!”

Chapter Text

On the morning of what looks to be Harry’s third day of laying in bed and listlessly staring at the wall, Voldemort returns after an early meeting and stares down at him. He can feel the weight of his gaze.

“Do you want me to call for your friends again?”

Harry shakes his head once. He doesn’t want to take their time when he’s such poor company.

“Are you able to walk?” 

He thinks about it. “...Not at this moment, no.” His voice is hoarse from disuse.

One side of Voldemort’s mouth quirks down, and he narrows his eyes. Then, he lifts Harry into his arms (in a bridal carry, of all things. Harry would have things to say about that if he could care) and starts walking towards the ensuite bathroom. Harry slumps, resting his head against the other man’s shoulder. It feels too heavy for his neck to support right now.

“Why Voldemort, this is all so sudden.” He tries to inject some humour into his tone, but it comes out devoid of inflection.

“I simply couldn't wait any longer,” Voldemort says, dry as bones and exactly what Harry was going for.

The older man waves his hand to start filling the bathtub and sets Harry on the counter, reaching for the hem of his oversized shirt.

“Oh, I see how it is. You just wanted to get my clothes off.”

Voldemort’s lips twitch. Victory. “Curses, you’ve found me out. I’m only here for your body.”

With his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, long, pale forearms stark against the dark fabric, Voldemort lowers Harry into the steaming bath. It’s almost too hot, but that just means he can feel it.

Harry lets himself slip under the water for a couple seconds to wet his hair, avoiding Voldemort’s disapproving glare when he surfaces. The other man tsks at him and starts working shampoo through his hair. The strong fingers pressing against his scalp feel heavenly, and he can’t stop himself from canting into those hands like a cat.

The silence is comfortable, but… “I thought I was getting better,” he says, quiet and monotone.

“...Recovery is not linear,” Voldemort replies. “Setbacks are to be expected. Tilt your head back,” he adds, pouring water over Harry’s hair to rinse out the suds.

As the other man lathers up a washcloth, Harry says, “You’re patient.” When Voldemort scoffs lightly, he amends, “With me.”

“Would you rather I weren’t?”

“No. I just… didn’t expect it.”

Voldemort is silent for long enough that Harry assumes he won’t answer. Which is fine. Harry’s not the only emotional minefield in this room, and he knows better than to push the other man on topics like this.

He’s also not up for a heavy conversation right now, either. They can come back to this later, when he’s feeling more alive. He closes his eyes as Voldemort washes his face, neck and shoulders, letting any tension seep out of him and drifting pleasantly.

As he rinses the soap from Harry’s upper body, Voldemort says, “I take care of what’s mine.”

Harry’s eyes slowly blink open. Oh. 

“I trust you can handle the rest?” he continues before Harry can say anything in response, handing him the soap-covered washcloth.

“...Yeah, I can.” Harry hesitates, before saying, “Tell me about your meeting.”

He’s not ready to be alone again.

Voldemort obliges, relating how Lucius Malfoy and Corban Yaxley were at each other’s throat over something foolish again and how his Death Eaters are more often than not merely violent, powerful children. Harry finishes bathing as Voldemort passes along Bellatrix’s love (ugh, why) and asks him to attend the next meeting once he’s recovered. According to Voldemort, Draco Malfoy is never as entertaining as he is when Harry’s there.

And that gets a smile out of Harry, small though it may be.

Chapter Text

It’s a good day in a string of good days, so Harry has gone with his sidekicks to Diagon Alley and for lunch at the Weasley warren. It’s gotten easier to let the boy leave his manor now that they’re clear on where they stand with each other (and now that he knows Harry will return, every time). 

Voldemort is having lunch with his inner circle at Malfoy Manor to discuss the tasks each of them is handling and the progress they have made. Now that Harry and his companions are not actively working against them, his plans are proceeding shockingly well. 

(He does not think often on the concessions he has made to appease his boy, as they were paltry things to give in exchange for what he has received. His Death Eaters were quick to fall in line once he’d made a few examples of those unwilling to accept the new direction.)

It’s as Corban and Lucius begin to snipe at each other, Bellatrix egging them on, that he feels it.

Harry’s episodes have a distinct flavour of panic-fear-stop to them. Voldemort has experienced many of these over their connection, and even more in person, so he’s made quite the study of how they feel. While the intensity and emotional balance vary, the core feeling remains the same.

So it’s simple for Voldemort to determine immediately that this is not one of those episodes.

This is pain.

Someone is hurting his boy.

The clash of shattering glass heralds broken windows, Voldemort’s magic surging to match his anger. It causes the fireplace to flare out into the room, and a few of his Death Eaters cower in fear at this outburst. All of this happens peripherally as Voldemort searches for Harry’s location through their bond and pulls, letting the tension guide him as he apparates blindly. 

With a great deal of pressure and a thunderous boom, Voldemort finds himself temporarily blinded by the brightness of a clear, summer afternoon.

"Get back!” someone shouts.

Turning towards the voice, he sees Harry's Weasley and Granger herding several people (many of them redheaded) away from Harry, who is on the ground.

Harry, who is still in pain.

Voldemort is before his boy in an instant. He ignores the clamour his arrival has created, intent on examining what is causing Harry pain. The boy’s face is pale and pinched, a film of sweat covering his brow. And no wonder, given how his left arm hangs limp and wrong at his side.  

He turns to the crowd of pale but defiant wixen, ready to make them pay with their blood for allowing his boy to come to harm. Harry stands abruptly, teeth clenched from the movement, and grabs Voldemort’s arm, turning him away from the bystanders.

“Vee, I’m okay–”

“You are not,” he hisses.

“–it’s just a dislocated shoulder–”

“Just a dislocated shoulder!” he hears one of the others standing nearby say, incredulity colouring their voice. Voldemort cannot help but agree.

“–I fell off a broom, it happens, it’s no big deal,” Harry adds.

“Mate, stop talking!” Harry’s Weasley whispers sharply.

Voldemort fixes his eyes on the Weasley and Granger, knowing Harry will downplay the situation. “Explain.” 

Harry tsks next to him, muttering, “You’re overreacting.”

The two hesitate, glancing at each other. He snaps, “Now.”

“It’s what he said,” Weasley says. “We were playing pick-up quidditch and Harry fell–”

“–because he was acting reckless–”

“‘Mione!” Harry cries, betrayed.

“And landed on his side, hard,” Weasley concludes.

He senses no lies (from either of them), so he turns back to where Harry should be. Of course, he is not there. Instead, he is now standing–

“Do not–” Voldemort snarls, echoed by the youngest boy-Weasley.

“Don’t you fucking–”

“Ronald!”

“But Harry–!” Weasley gestures at his injured friend, who is casually preparing to shove his shoulder back into its socket against a tree trunk.

“Harry!” the Weasley matriarch shouts in consternation.

Harry looks owlishly back at everyone staring at him. “What? It’s fine, I’ve done this before.”

That makes an assortment of Weasleys and Granger start to run to the boy before Voldemort throws out a hand to stop them. Surprisingly, they listen. He takes a few measured steps towards the warily staring boy.

“Harry Potter,” Voldemort says, deadly and quiet. “If you so much as try to put your shoulder back without a healer’s assistance, I will tell Nagini.”

Harry stares at him in horror. “You wouldn’t dare.”

“Try me.”

Harry scowls up at him. “Fine, if you’re going to be a snitch.”

(Voldemort is later informed by the Weasley and Granger that he earned the Weasley matriarch’s approval that day for looking after Harry, and for kicking a garden gnome that scuttled across his path as they were leaving. He’s not sure what to do with this information.)

—

They return in the evening from Malfoy Manor, where Narcissa (who was trained as a healer, much to his injured Death Eaters’ delight) is able to reset the bone and heal most of the tissue damage. She advised Harry not to exert himself too much or attempt to carry anything with his left arm for a few days and sent him home with several pain relief potions. Voldemort can already tell he’ll have to enforce the orders to rest and medicate from the stubborn twist to Harry’s face.

“You said this has happened before,” he says with false lightness as they’re getting ready for bed.

Harry tenses, cursing when that jostles his still-tender shoulder. “I did.”

“Explain.”

“If it’s all the same, I’d rather not.”

“It isn’t, and that wasn’t a request. Speak.”

Harry stares mutinously off to the side, but eventually he begins.

“It was my uncle,” he says, quiet and terse. “He had a habit of grabbing my arm. One time, he was a little rougher than usual and my shoulder popped out. So I popped it back in.” Harry waves the hand on his uninjured arm where he’d clearly like to shrug. “It took a couple days, but the rest healed on its own.”

There are… several elements of that ludicrous bit of understatement with which Voldemort takes issue. And if Harry will not share more details with him, he will be asking the Weasley, Granger, and Severus about his boy’s childhood residence. He’ll be paying these muggles a visit.

“I see,” Voldemort hums, setting his rage to the side for a moment. “Shall I assist you?”

Harry ceases his one-armed struggles with his shirt, sagging a bit in defeat. “Yes, please.”

With Voldemort’s help, Harry is swiftly undressed and in a pair of loose pyjama bottoms, not bothering with trying to put another shirt on. It’s still such a novelty, to be gentle, to offer care to someone. To Harry. He can’t fathom treating anyone else this way.

When he goes to pull away, Harry grabs his hand and presses a kiss to his knuckles. “Thanks,” he says with a small smile.

There is little he wouldn’t do for this boy.

—

It takes a couple weeks to gather the necessary information and act on it, but Voldemort can be patient when the outcome merits it. And this certainly does.

His bloody self-satisfaction must show on his face, as Harry immediately confronts him. 

(Harry wasn’t supposed to be back for another hour at least. That’s why Voldemort had chosen this day to act.)

“You’re looking awfully pleased with yourself,” he says, looking away from the view out the window and narrowing his eyes at Voldemort. “Did your minions finally succeed at something?”

Voldemort smiles with teeth. “Simply basking in the satisfaction of a well-executed plan.”

“Uh huh,” Harry says flatly. “Did you kill them?” 

“Kill who?”

“Don’t give me that. Ron and Hermione told me you were asking about the Dursleys.”

If their loyalty were to anyone other than Harry, he’d feed those two rats to Nagini.

“Does it matter if I did?” he replies. Shame is for mere mortals.

Harry’s lips thin, looking severely unimpressed. “Y’know what, I don’t want to know.”

Voldemort doesn’t believe that for a second, but he’ll wait until his boy’s curiosity gets the better of him. “Then I shan't burden you with the knowledge.”

He smugly ignores the irritated look this earns him.

—

Later that night, as they’re curled around each other under the covers, Harry quietly asks, “Did they suffer?”

Voldemort isn’t entirely certain what the boy wants to hear – whether his slightly skewed moral compass has decided to point north today. But it doesn’t matter; he will give the boy the truth. “Tremendously.”

Harry is silent for several moments. Voldemort wonders what’s going through his mind, but the boy is facing away from him. The hushed reply, when it comes, surprises him.

“Good.”

Voldemort presses his mouth to the crown of Harry’s head, hiding a triumphant grin in his boy’s hair.

Chapter Text

Voldemort has bad days of his own, sometimes. It’s more difficult for Harry to distinguish them at first, given how similar they are to what he took to be Voldemort’s baseline of omnidirectional rage and hatred. As he gets to know the older man better – as he sees how unexpectedly kind Voldemort can be – Harry learns these reversions to Voldemort’s pre-captivity moods are the bad days.

—

Voldemort left early this morning for some meeting with his Death Eaters – more than just the Inner Circle, as he would’ve likely invited Harry along for that. Harry’s not expecting a visit today, so when the floo ignites he jumps in his seat. As he makes his way over, he hears the crisp tones of Narcissa Malfoy calling for him.

Kneeling on the hearth, he says, “Hullo, Mrs. Malfoy. What can I do for you?”

They’ve been on friendlier terms since she healed his shoulder, but they’re still not the kind of acquaintances who floo-call on a whim. 

“Ah, Mr. Potter. I’m glad to see you’re well,” she greets him with more relief than he can explain. “I wondered if you might be in need of medical attention.”

Harry blinks. “Uh, thanks for your concern, I guess, but why would I?”

Narcissa’s brow furrows slightly. “The Dark Lord was… displeased, shall we say, with some of his followers and left the meeting abruptly. I wondered if you might have had another accident.”

Or perhaps he took his mood out on you, she somehow communicates with eyebrows alone. He really needs to learn how to do that. But not now – he has more pressing concerns.

“He left?”

“Yes, over an hour ago–”

“Hello, my Harrykins!” Bellatrix shouts through the floo. Narcissa’s face in the flames looks upwards in askance at her sister’s conduct.

“Hi, Bella,” he replies wearily. 

“Look after our Lord for me~” she trills.

“Still not my lord, but I will, Bella,” Harry corrects uselessly, before giving Narcissa a small smile. “Thanks for the heads-up, Mrs. Malfoy.”  

With a dignified nod, she ends the call.

Now to look for a grouchy dark lord. Wonderful.

The search doesn’t take long, as he finds Nagini laying despondently on the floor near the door to Voldemort’s study.

“He locked you out?”  

“Hatchling, Master is so mean to Nagini,” she bemoans, flicking her tail in irritation. “He shuts her away and won’t let Nagini sit on his shoulders or sleep near the fire. Such cruelty cannot be borne.”

Huh. If he’s avoiding even Nagini… That’s a bad sign. Harry probably won’t be welcome, but he’s determined to try.

“Poor Nagini,” Harry says in amused commiseration. “I’ll talk to him.”

“Tell Master Nagini requires four rabbits in apology,” she advises sullenly before slithering off.

Harry makes a mental note to summon a few rabbits for her to keep the peace. He doesn’t want to be caught between a pissed-off Voldemort and a sulking giant snake if he can avoid it.

He knocks on the door, waiting for a response, before entering when the silence stretches. Voldemort is sitting hunched at his desk, in darkness save for the glowing embers remaining in the fireplace. The red of the man’s eyes catches the coal light, burning as they glare at Harry.

“Get out,” Voldemort hisses, vitriol dripping from the words.

“Hmm, nope, not doing that.”

A sickly yellow curse strikes the wall bare millimetres from Harry’s head. Maybe he should take that as a flashing neon sign to leave, but if Voldemort actually wanted him gone, he would’ve made sure the curse hit.

The glare remains fixed on Harry as he crosses the room, but no further spells are thrown. Testing his luck further, he rests against the edge of the desk, his thigh pressed to Voldemort’s. He can feel the agitation spilling off the man in pulsing, jagged waves; he can almost hear the creak of Voldemort’s rigid posture as he shifts in his seat.

“Hey,” he says, keeping his voice low and even. “You don’t have to talk, if you don’t want to. And I’ll leave if you tell me to again. But…”

He reaches out slowly, watching Voldemort practically vibrate with the tension running through him, to rest his hand against the man’s cheek. With an audible exhale, Voldemort leans so heavily into it that Harry almost tips over, not prepared to support that much weight so quickly. He draws Voldemort’s head forward to rest against his chest, gently kneading at the knotted muscles of the other man’s neck. 

Voldemort remains stiff against Harry, and his breathing is heavy, almost ragged, with the force of whatever he’s keeping bottled up. It takes a few minutes, but the man eventually calms down enough to speak.

“Sometimes the urge to destroy everything and everyone around me is overwhelming,” he says, voice strained. “I long to eradicate this world and start anew, since magic is the only thing worth saving.”

Harry hums neutrally in response, not sure if Voldemort wants a conversation or to drain whatever wound is festering inside him.

So it figures that he takes issue with Harry’s non-response.

“Oh?” Voldemort says, thick with condescension. “The Light’s little saviour won’t deign to castigate me?” 

“Are you trying to pick a fight?” Harry asks exasperatedly, digging his knuckle into Voldemort’s back in response, making the man curse and his shoulders unwind a little. “I’ll remind you that I was in favour of burning down the ministry,” he says. “Still am.”

Voldemort huffs a tight laugh. “Noted.”

Harry lets a few moments pass before asking, “Why did you think I'd be upset with you for feeling this way? Your penchant for destruction isn't exactly a secret.” 

Voldemort hesitates briefly. “You remain unpredictable. I suppose I keep waiting for your kindness to run out.”

He can feel frustration flare up but he lets it pass. They both have enough trust and intimacy issues between them to fill a Gringotts vault. Words can only do so much, but a reminder of his devotion isn’t amiss.

“I’m yours, Vee. I’m not going anywhere, even if you are a grumpy misanthrope sometimes.”

“Grumpy–”

“Even if you’re a prickly, cantankerous old goat–” Harry sing-songs, grinning widely.

“Never refer to me as ‘old goat’–” Voldemort hisses, outraged. 

Harry wraps his arms around Voldemort’s neck, keeping his head pinned against Harry’s chest as he rails. He leans down and presses a kiss against the top of the man’s bald, scaly head, smiling when he immediately stops flailing and hissing.

“I don’t want you to become someone else entirely,” he says, lips brushing against Voldemort’s skin. “You’ve been angry for so long, it wouldn’t be fair of me to expect that part of you to disappear. I get angry with the world, too,” he admits. “Probably not with the same intensity or, uh, follow-through as you, but I do.”

Voldemort huffs another laugh, his arms coming up to wrap around Harry’s waist and pull them closer together.

“I want to see this world change for the better. I think you do as well, even if we don't always agree on what that means.” He starts to trace abstract designs on Voldemort’s back, keeping the touch light. “And for us to get there, we’ll need some of that rage, I think – but not so much you burn yourself up.” 

“Yet you’re fine with burning the Ministry of Magic,” the older man asks wryly, muffled against Harry’s chest.

“I encourage burning down the ministry,” he corrects. “But only if I get to be there for it.”

That finally gets a full laugh out of the man, and the release of tension leaves him sagging against Harry.

“I get that you’re used to being alone, aside from Nagini, and I’m not demanding you come to me for everything,” Harry adds, quietly earnest. “But you don’t have to hide your darker moods from me. If I can help, I want to."

“I will… endeavour to remember that.”

They stay wrapped around each other for a few more minutes before Voldemort leans back in his seat.

“Also, Nagini says you owe her four rabbits.”

“That extortionist–”

Chapter Text

From the warm, early autumn sunlight reaching across the floor, it’s late. Much later than they usually sleep. As often happens, he and Voldemort have migrated across the bed during the night to meet somewhere in the middle, seeking each other out unconsciously. 

Harry slowly becomes aware of the pleasantly heated pulse in his lower stomach, the way his hips are pushing forward languidly, seeking out the friction of the solid form pressed against him.

(He’d heard the discussions in the dorm, in the Quidditch locker room – even, disturbingly, Dudley and his friends through the wall of his room. For some reason, most of the other boys around him felt the need to talk about sex stuff and jerking off near constantly from around third year. He never got the appeal in the same way the rest did. He imagined it might have to do with different priorities; after all, no one else had at least one person out to kill them every year, nor the intense scrutiny he did. 

Lust had never really been something he had to confront all that often. But the complete absence of desire he’d experienced since they’d been captured was unusual all the same. He almost doesn’t recognise the feeling for what it is.)

Belatedly, Harry realises what’s happening, and he jolts up with a gasp. 

Ignoring Voldemort’s displeased grumbling, he looks down his body, and there it is, tenting his sleep shorts.

Harry whoops, punching a fist into the air like he’s just caught the snitch instead of woken up with morning wood. He can’t help it – it’s been nearly a year and a half since he last had an erection, and yes, he’s been keeping track.

A creaky chuckle makes him flush a bit, but the grin doesn’t leave his face. 

“Please, don’t stop on my account,” Voldemort’s sleep-thick voice rasps as he tugs Harry back down to lie against him.

“But, don’t you have a meeting–”

“It can wait. This likely won’t.” 

He hesitates. “Are you sure? This is… It’s not–”

“Harry, I told you before: I want everything with you,” Voldemort says. “Are you doubting me?”

“No, I just–” 

An intense shudder rocks through him as Voldemort presses his fingers into Harry’s back on either side of his spine, long nails scratching lightly as his hand slides slowly down to rest over his tailbone. 

“If you would prefer that I leave, then I will oblige,” Voldemort says. “But I want to stay.”

The heat that had banked slightly in his excitement over his body’s state burns a little hotter, spreading from low in his belly and high on his cheeks at this pronouncement and the accompanying look. “Okay.”

He’s not sure how to go about this – he’s never been in this situation before, and his inclination to leap before he looks is running up against just how badly he wants this. 

Tentatively, he pushes up against the jut of Voldemort’s hip. The pressure on his erection sends bolts of sensation through him and he groans low in his throat, repeating the motion again, and again, Voldemort’s pleased hum spurring him on.

Then, as seems to be inevitable for him even now, if more rarely, the words and touches of their captors seep into Harry’s mind. His hips stutter and then still.

“Talk, please,” he whispers.

“What would you like me to say?”

It’s different, this is different, he wants Voldemort to touch him. Voldemort had asked (in his way) first. And still, as he wakes fully, Harry can feel unpleasant thoughts and memories at the fringes of his awareness, waiting to intrude and ruin this moment.

Against his better judgement, but working with the few thoughts he can string together, he gasps out, “Anything.”

While minute, he can feel the energy in the room shift. 

“Look at me,” Voldemort says, a command softened just the slightest by the intimacy of their position. He looks at Voldemort reluctantly.

“Are you lying here in our bed, thinking of someone else?” Harry goes to deny it, but Voldemort cuts him off in a low, almost dangerous tone. “Do not lie to me, Harry. Think only of me – let me own your thoughts.”

Harry shivers at the way those words trip down his spine, lingering at the base and spreading out along his skin like electricity. How far they’ve come, that such a statement is exactly what he needs – what he wants – to hear in this moment. His hips begin to move again, encouraged by the sense of security he feels pressed up against this man.

“Let me touch you.” 

They’re pressed together nearly head to toe; Harry is pushing his aroused cock against Voldemort; it’s still an exhilarating demand.

“Please,” Harry sighs. 

One of Voldemort’s hands wraps around his hip, helping to guide the motion of his grind, fingers gripping into the flesh of his arse. Harry rocks against Voldemort, chasing the delicious friction as he groans and pants damply against the other man’s chest.

“That’s it, take what you need, darling,” Voldemort croons in a low, heated voice.

Harry would be embarrassed about the noises he’s making, but the way Voldemort curses and shudders on hearing them coaxes the fire in his blood even higher. He grabs Voldemort’s shoulder and pulls, and with disorienting speed Harry finds himself on his back with Voldemort pressing him down into the bed. Thrusting up against the firm line of Voldemort’s thigh tucked between his legs, Harry lets his arousal take over his thoughts, trusting the man to act as a bulwark against the world beyond their bed.

Voldemort’s hands clutch at Harry’s hips, fingers flexing and likely leaving bruises as he murmurs possessive, filthy encouragement into Harry’s ear. He is safe, he is a marvel, he is Voldemort’s, he can let go, give in–

“If you let me, I would give you the world,” Voldemort hisses against his ear. “My soul, my own–”

It’s the last thing he hears before he tips over the edge with a sharp cry.

Panting and gasping as he comes down from his peak, Harry tucks his face into Voldemort’s shoulder, pressed between the mattress and the other man’s body. Voldemort rests his nearly nonexistent lips on Harry’s ear, not quite a kiss but more than an additional point of skin contact.

A tingle of magic sweeps along his skin and the mess coating the inside of his shorts disappears. Harry exhales a deep, satisfied sigh, chancing a look up at Voldemort – who is staring back at him with a look of contentment edged with keen hunger.

“Do you…?” Harry asks, nudging a knee between Voldemort’s legs to press against his cock, only for the other man to catch his ankle in a long-fingered hand first.

“That is unnecessary.”

“But I want to,” he insists. “Unless you don’t–”

“This body does not experience physical arousal often,” Voldemort explains, stroking his fingers up and down the ankle he holds captive. “Rest assured I enjoyed that very much, darling.”

Harry accepts this – it would do no good to push – but he still feels the imbalance starkly. So, before the uncertainty can eat at him, he cups Voldemort’s jaw in his hands, draws his head close and presses a firm kiss to his lipless mouth. 

Voldemort inhales sharply, hand going vice-tight on Harry’s leg. Harry darts his tongue out to give a light, inviting lick to Voldemort’s mouth, and then he finds himself pinned back against the bed, the other man kissing him rather insistently. After a minute, Voldemort hesitates, seems like he’ll pull away, so Harry slides his hands around to the back of Voldemort’s head and nips at his mouth.

Voldemort never makes it to his Death Eater meeting.