Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The room tilted sideways.

The floor should have been steady beneath him, but Harry felt it sway like the deck of a ship in the middle of some black, groaning sea. The air pressed in close against his skin, feverish despite the bitter cold, and the moonlight, pale and silver like loose coins, seemed to flood the room in a kind of watery pallor.

Choose? Choose?

He stared up at Voldemort from where he was kneeling, dumbstruck, his neck throbbing with the rhythm of his heartbeat. His vision dissolved into a blur, colours and shapes smearing together until he could no longer tell what was floor, what was wall, what was his own hands braced against the floorboards. His lips parted again, uselessly.

Voldemort simply cocked his head at him, the motion catlike. “Choose,” he said again. “I am merciful enough not to get rid of both, but that is only if you pick for me. Keep stalling, and I will end both their undeservedly long lives.”

Harry blinked hard, as if that would clear the ringing in his skull.

Pick for him? How?

He tried to turn his head, but the weight of it was too much. The room kept bending sideways. The only thing holding him upright was his palms against the floor, now slick with sweat or blood or both—he didn’t know—and all he could feel was the pulse behind his eyes, too fast, too loud, louder than Voldemort’s voice even.

He couldn’t speak. He couldn’t speak.

He looked up at the Dark Lord, mouth open and soundless, begging for understanding. But the glint in Voldemort’s eyes was red. Not just in colour, but in intent, refined and ruthless, like a needle pressed against the thin skin of his thoughts. There was no mercy in it. No patience, either.

Choose. Choose.

It echoed again, deeper now, like a drum inside his head. The same word, curling through his mind, catching on his thoughts like a thorny vine. Choose. Choose. Choose.

His next breath dragged in unevenly and scoured his chest raw, but the air was not enough. He felt suffocated. He tried to find Nicholas and the woman, to ground himself in something real and solid, but their silhouettes were no more than a hazy shape somewhere to his right, or his left, he couldn’t tell anymore.

The room kept swaying and his mind kept sliding. He didn’t know what to do. His first instinct was to just scream. There was no version of this where he could choose one life over another. It didn’t matter what threat Voldemort hung over the command, what logic he layered into the offer—whether one death or two—because it was all the same thing in the end. Murder. Picking one would mean condemning the other, and Harry could no more do that than he could grow back the voice torn from his throat.

His fingers curled against the floor, as if to brace harder against the impossible weight ploughing down on him—but one hand faltered. The cut one. The one he’d held against the Dark Lord’s lips only hours ago. It screamed with pain now. His wrist twisted at the pressure, and before he could stop himself, he yanked the hand back to keep the wound from grinding against the floor. It was the barest twitch of movement, a reflex no different from drawing a breath.

He hadn’t meant it as anything.

But Voldemort’s eyes followed the motion, flashing with mirth, and his thin smile widened.

“Good,” he murmured.

No, no, no—

Harry wrenched the hand back, shaking his head wildly, heart racing, but Voldemort had already dissipated in a burst of shadow, faster than he could even blink.

With a sharp snap, the Dark Lord reappeared behind him in the centre of the array, swift and smooth, like a curtain swept aside by an invisible wind. The hem of his robes brushed over the chalked lines, his arm lashing out, the long sleeve sweeping past Harry’s cheek like an insidious ghost.

Harry opened his mouth again, but nothing came out. Not even a gasp. His throat was an empty, echoing pit. His arm rose up pointlessly, stupidly, as if he could reach out and intercept the spell before it leapt out of the wand, as if he could grasp the magic out of the air and bury it into himself instead.

No, he thought desperately. Please not because of me.

The curse burst forth anyway, fast and bright, a perfect stream of electric green slicing through the room.

It struck Nicholas in the chest, and he folded in on himself, crumpling to the floor beside his wife with a thud. The finality of it all, the way his lifeless eyes remained wide in shock, mouth agape, refused to register at first. Harry could only stare, completely frozen, as the woman’s scream pierced through his cotton-stuffed ears.

Behind him, Voldemort tensed, the chalk’s whirls and lines shivering across the floor. The wood seemed to hum with an unnatural vibration, before each stroke and rune burned itself out and vanished without a trace.

It was that spike of dark magic that snapped Harry out of his daze, the woman’s cries suddenly louder, harsher, cutting straight through him. Everything around him sharpened. He understood, suddenly and viscerally, what Voldemort had done. The ultimatum was a trap designed to twist his hesitation, his pain, his smallest gestures into consent, and even knowing that, the self‑hatred came all the same. He felt like a murderer, a killer, a monster.

I did that. I did that. I damned him the moment I threw Voldemort’s past in his face.

Harry watched with misty eyes as the woman crawled over to her husband, clutching futilely at his shoulders, shaking him, shrieking out a nickname Harry could barely decipher now that his ears were ringing again. He felt the awful urge to go to her, to help her. He pushed himself up on unsteady legs, ignoring the way every nerve in his body ached.

He took one step, two, and then a cold hand wrapped around his nape, fingers splayed lightly across the base of his skull, deliberately avoiding the weeping bite mark. Almost tenderly, he was pulled backwards, his spine meeting a hard chest.

Another spell left the tip of Voldemort’s wand, but this one wasn’t green. A soft orange shimmer streaked through the air, and the woman slumped beside her husband, collapsing into silence.

A stunner, Harry thought numbly. He stunned her. He stunned her after killing her husband.

You, or him?

Harry couldn’t breathe. His chest moved but no air filled it. His throat felt clogged with dust.

Me. This was all me. I may as well have killed him myself.

He blinked at the two of them on the floor. Their sprawled bodies blurred together, and belatedly, he realised there was water on his own face. It ran across his cheeks, hot against his skin, soaking into his dirtied collar. He didn’t know when he had started crying. He hadn’t noticed the tears were even his. Harry wasn’t a loud crier. He always muffled it.

As if in a trance, he raised his bloodied fingers to his cheek. They came away wet, covered in a filmy sheen. He looked back at Nicholas’s corpse, struggling to process the shape of what he had done—of what had been done through him.

More of that dampness spilled down his face before he could stop it.

The cold hand on his nape glided to his shoulder, fingers delicately tracing the jut of his collarbone. And then, gently, Harry was turned around, repositioned so that he was facing away from the sight.

“Enough,” Voldemort said soothingly, soft but final. “Do not look at it anymore.”

Harry’s vision swam, his lashes heavy with tears, distorting the sight of the man before him. He couldn’t tell what expression Voldemort wore—and it didn’t matter. None of it mattered now.

He rubbed at his eyes roughly, but it did nothing to scrub the weakness away. Frustration burned brighter than grief, a loathing that made his chest clench. He pressed both palms to his eyes now, shoulders shaking as he squeezed them shut, forcing the words through his head like a litany: don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry, not in front of him. Don’t—

Behind the blackness of his hands, it was easier to pretend there was nothing else. Easier to imagine he was floating in an empty dark, where no one could watch him break.

That illusion broke the instant he felt spidery fingers encircle his wrists. The pressure was soft, tender and uncharacteristically coaxing, peeling his hands away from his face. Harry’s eyes opened, wet and burning.

The Dark Lord was watching him. Watching closely. His fascinated gaze was fixed on the tears, tracking the salt-bright trails as they dripped down his jaw.

“I couldn’t draw these out of you until now,” Voldemort murmured. “Hm...” His head tilted, bird-like. “How easily you shed them for others. Is that really all it takes?”

He sounded genuinely curious, as if he truly couldn’t fathom how something so small had reduced his prisoner to this state. 

Harry bit the inside of his cheek hard enough to taste copper, begging his eyes to stop pouring out their betrayal. Nothing worked. His breaths still came out like gasps, and he hated knowing how pathetic he must look like this. Shakily, he moved to cover his face again, trying to shield himself from the humiliation of it all.

But Voldemort’s grip tightened. “No,” he muttered, displeased, brows furrowing. Without warning, he tugged Harry forward by the wrists, keeping them down with a firm grip, dragging him closer so he could get a clearer, better look. The suddenness of it made Harry stumble, breath hitching as he was forced into that terrible proximity.

Voldemort’s eyes roamed over him intently, unblinking, as though searching for every crack, every fracture, every seam of rage bleeding through. As though Harry’s anger, his brokenness, bared in tears, was the rarest thing he’d ever seen.

I hate you, Harry thought, gazing back at him with glassy eyes. I hate you so much I feel sick with it.

Voldemort’s lips twitched, perhaps reading the look on his face—or perhaps he’d already slithered into Harry’s mind and plucked the thought straight from its source. 

Harry wondered if the Dark Lord also picked up on how intolerable his closeness was, how much Harry despised being anywhere near him. He hadn’t noticed it before—or rather, he’d been too occupied with the killing that had just occurred—but Voldemort’s presence was no longer the mere chill of a cruel man. His skin radiated a kind of wintriness that didn’t belong to the living, a void-like temperature that seemed to eat the warmth from the air itself. But worse than the cold was his magic.

It stung.

Harry felt like he was standing amidst falling snow, the thrum of Voldemort’s presence jagged and misaligned, like something shattered and then clumsily reassembled. Harry’s own magic curled away from it in instinctive disgust. Being this close felt like pressing his face against a pane of frostbitten glass and realising, too late, that it was draining the heat out of him as well.

No wonder he wants my blood, Harry thought emptily. He feels horrid, even more so than before.

Voldemort’s gaze dropped to where he still had Harry’s wrists clasped, his fingertips absently circling a fragment in the glass bracelet. His face shuttered, the curiosity dimming, wonder transitioning into abhorrence as a nail dug into one of the crystals. For someone who’d smiled and called it exquisite work, he didn’t seem to like the sight of it now.

Harry sucked in a breath when the Dark Lord’s nail trailed up his thumb. Don’t cry, he told himself for the second time, but more kept rolling down his face, silent and warm, mocking his command with every drop.

It felt like an eternity before Voldemort finally sighed, grip loosening. 

Slowly, he released his wrists and stepped back, that meticulous mask of calculated calm returning to his face. “Remember this the next time you think to defy me,” he said. “Consider it your final warning.”

Harry staggered slightly now that nothing held him up, desperately trying to avoid looking at the bodies behind him. He used the back of his hand to wipe at his cheek, angry at the wetness, angrier still that it kept coming.

“Barty,” Voldemort called without raising his voice.

The door creaked open. Harry glanced behind Voldemort to find Barty approaching with a bowed head.

“My Lord,” he answered obediently, adopting the same hushed inflection one would use when trying not to intrude.

Voldemort turned his back on them.

“As I instructed,” he said flatly.

He’d clearly prepared all this in advance—everything from Nicholas and his wife to the aftermath. Barty didn’t waste a second before crossing over to Harry, hand closing around his arm in a grip that was meant to control without hurting. Harry didn’t resist. He couldn’t. Every part of him felt drained, like his bones had been scraped clean. He let himself be led, his feet moving because they had to, because stopping now would mean collapsing entirely.

But just as the doors began to close behind them, he looked back.

He wanted to see the man he’d gotten killed, wanted to commit his face to memory so he’d never forget what his reckless defiance had cost—only Voldemort’s figure blocked the way. The Dark Lord stood tall in the night-drenched shadows of the room, breathing slowly, seemingly unfazed by the corpses at his feet. But Harry noticed the faintest stiffness in his posture. He had a hand over his heart, like someone unsure whether he’d been wounded.

The doors shut before Harry could see anything else. 

On the other side, Voldemort reached into his robes and drew out the Philosopher’s Stone, the jewel glinting like a ruby in the moonlight, humming and buzzing with the weight of the thing he’d just forced into its confines. 

Barty said nothing as he led him down a myriad of corridors, and Harry was grateful for the silence. His temples pounded with a headache, the lights hanging overhead making it harder and harder to ignore how each glossy fixture reflected back a warped, too-bright version of the hallway. The floors were polished to a mirror’s shine, the walls papered in a deep, expensive green that soaked up the light instead of softening it. Every inch of the manor shone with quiet opulence, just as it had the first time Harry saw it in Tom Riddle’s memory. 

He found himself wondering, not for the first time, what had gone through Voldemort’s head when he decided to reclaim the place. Did he think he was owed some compensation? A grand estate in exchange for a childhood spent in a dreary London orphanage? Or maybe it was just spite. Emptying the house, erasing the man, wearing the blood-stained walls like a trophy—it seemed like the type of vindictive thing Voldemort would do.

Harry kept walking. He didn’t bother keeping track of how many turns they took. Every hallway looked like the last one.

Eventually, Barty opened a door and ushered him inside, humming a low tune underneath his breath. Harry stumbled in, not sure why he wasn’t being tossed back into the chamber, or shackled to the floor, or made to kneel until his legs gave out.

The moment he saw what awaited him beyond the threshold, a wary frown overtook his features. 

It was, for lack of a better word, a bathhouse. A wide pool of obsidian marble had been built directly into the centre of the floor, framed by shallow steps that disappeared beneath the surface. The air was warmer here, slightly humid, and mist rose from the water in slow spirals, ghosting upward like delicate, unfurling strands. The pool itself seemed impossibly black in the room’s dim glow, like a spill of depthless onyx—but Harry knew, with some instinctive certainty, that if he dipped his hand into it now and lifted a palmful to his eyes, the water would be clear.

His eyes scanned the space again, slower this time. It wasn’t only a place for bathing, it seemed.

Along the right wall stood a long table, stocked with cauldrons, burners, labelled jars, equipment, vials and other potion-making utensils. And beside all of it, placed like an afterthought, was an antique settee with carved legs and oak-dark upholstery. 

Harry looked at the pool again, then back at the table’s equipment, his thoughts dulled but still moving. He didn’t understand what this room was supposed to be. He didn’t understand why he was here. 

What was Voldemort planning now? Another experiment on his body? 

Behind him, Barty gestured toward the settee. “Sit,” he ordered lightly, still humming to himself.

Harry blinked, pulling himself out of his thoughts. He obeyed without a word, cautiously lowering himself onto the edge of the cushion.

Without speaking, Barty flicked his wand, and a quick charm passed through the air, brushing coldly over Harry’s front. He glanced down and saw the smudges and dried blood on his white shirt vanish in an instant, the fabric left spotless and creased as though it had been laundered just hours ago. It was the cleanest he’d been in, well, forever, but Harry had never felt dirtier than he did now.  

He waited for Barty to fix the mess on his wrist lest he get his sleeve bloody again, but the young man just turned to the table’s plethora of miniature bottles, skimming bony fingers over the sets. 

He paused on one in particular, fished the small bottle out, and stepped forward. Before Harry could so much as brace himself, the rim was pressed to his lips and tilted. The potion flowed down his throat, thick like syrup, laced with something medicinal that clung to the roof of his mouth.

He’d only gotten a sip—less than that, really—before Barty abruptly pulled away. 

It’s not enough, Harry thought sluggishly, swallowing. It doesn’t touch anything. It’s too shallow. I need more. A full goblet, a whole cup, I need—

He moved to reach for it, to take the bottle from Barty’s hand and drain it all in one go, but before he could make it halfway, Barty pressed him back into the settee with one firm hand against his shoulder. The heel of his palm caught the side of Harry’s neck, where the skin still pulsed with heat, and a shock of pain flared into the muscle of his shoulder. 

Harry gritted his teeth, fingers curling against the armrest. He tried to reach for more weakly, but Barty just tutted, applying more pressure to force him down.

“Don’t be stupid,” the Death Eater scolded, though he sounded more amused than annoyed. “If we’re going to reintroduce you to real food, the potion must be taken in smaller intervals than before.”

Dejected, Harry let himself fall back into the seat, though nothing in him relaxed. His body felt slightly distant, slightly off. Had Barty sedated it?

He didn’t know. The thought came and passed, without urgency. His eyelids began to droop. 

Across from him, Barty smiled faintly, as if he’d been waiting for the exact moment Harry would stop struggling.

“Sleep,” he said, his voice wrapped in satin, so soft and dreamy to Harry’s ears. “The Dark Lord will return soon. He will…” 

Barty’s gaze dropped to the side of his neck, pausing at the bitten and bruised skin above the collar of his shirt. His expression didn’t change, but there was a glint of calculation, as though reevaluating some quiet theory about the Dark Lord’s evolving appetites.

“…He said he will tend to everything else himself.”

The words swam in his head, half-formed, the meaning there but faraway, too slippery to catch. Harry let his eyes close again. He couldn’t summon the energy to care. Whatever Voldemort had planned for him, he no longer cared. 

It didn’t hurt.

That was Harry’s first thought as he walked barefoot down the black-soaked corridor, littered with broken fragments. They covered the floor like a glittering sweep of crushed constellations, its tiny edges biting into the soles of his feet like fangs, like teeth, like pins. His reflection flickered in every shard, fractured into a hundred versions of himself, all walking silently beside him.

And yet, it didn’t hurt.

It hadn’t hurt before, either. He remembered that distinctly, though a quieter part of him understood this was only a dream. 

The silver shrapnel crunched beneath his weight, each step carving deeper into the soft pads of his heels. Blood welled and spilled, painting splatters across the glass. The footprints he left behind glistened, red and vivid, but there was no sting, no sensation at all. His body moved through it as if uninhabited.

The hallway ahead seemed almost endless, its ceiling lost in the same shadows that cloaked its towering walls, but he knew this place. He’s visited it before. If he kept following this path, he’d find that same golden-eyed clone.

And he was right, of course. His replica was waiting for him. 

The mirror stood at the far end, exactly where he expected it to be, its frame arched like a cathedral window. A lightning-shaped tear still bisected its surface, as if the pane had been split and fused back together, imperfect and vibrating faintly with the memory of its break. From the edges and corners, flakes of glass peeled away, spinning in the air like silvery leaves before drifting languidly to the floor.

This is where all the fragments are coming from, he noted, rolling a particularly large shard beneath his foot. He looked up to find the robed figure doing the same, though there was nothing broken on its side. 

Harry blinked at his reflection. It blinked back.

He tilted his head. The reflection copied the motion perfectly.

“Are you me?” he asked it, curious.

“You are me,” came the correction, its voice whispery and hoarse, threaded through with echoes as though a hundred versions of him were speaking all at once.

“No corpse this time?” Harry asked, glancing down at its empty hands, now clean and devoid of the severed head.

The figure blinked again, like it was surprised by the question. And then it smiled. It was Harry’s mouth, Harry’s teeth, Harry’s face—and yet something about the curl of its lip felt malicious.

“Do you want to undo it?” it asked softly, those luminous eyes shining. “I can do it for you. I can do whatever you want. Your will is my will.”

Harry stared at it, transfixed by the way the shimmering shards seemed to be melting off its edges. 

 “Undo…” he repeated under his breath, taking a step closer.

The mirror’s surface undulated, like pondwater catching a breeze, and for a moment it no longer looked like glass at all. If he reached out now, if he pressed his hand to it, he was certain it would give beneath his touch, would let him slide through and join his twin on the other side.

The figure stepped closer too, slow and smooth, and suddenly they were nearly nose-to-nose, the only thing between them the mirror’s translucent veil.

Harry’s instincts screamed not to touch it. But he wanted to. Fiercely. There was a hypnotic warmth radiating from it, luring him in like a siren’s song. 

“You are my magic?” he guessed quietly.

It frowned at him. “We are not a separate thing,” it chided, voice hushed and sure. “You are your magic. You are me.”

Harry’s throat felt tight. “Then what is it you want?”

Why do you keep insistently pulling me down here?

The reflection’s smile didn’t falter. “To give you what you want.”

It didn’t ask what. It already knew. The image of Nicholas collapsing, the echoing sound of his body hitting the floor, replayed behind Harry’s eyes. He desperately wanted to unsee it, undo it. A man who’d done him no wrong, now dead because of him. The rush of guilt that flooded him felt all-consuming.  

The mirror rippled again. “It isn’t too late,” it murmured eagerly. “You’ve done it before—with the serpent and the star. Death is a door you already have the key to. Give me the lily in your hand, and I will fix it.”

Harry blinked down, startled, only just realising that he was holding something. A delicate lily, soft and spectral, its milk-white petals rimmed in light like he’d dipped it into morning dew.

He stared at it, bewildered. I didn’t pick this. How long have I been holding it?

The mirror glimmered again.

"Give it to me," it whispered, eyes brimming with desirous hunger.

Harry stepped forward without meaning to, hand rising slowly, palm out, flower trembling in his grip. He was so close now. His fingers were just about to pass through the glass when the world around him suddenly shattered. The mirror splintered into a thousand slivers, splicing the dream apart in a silent, brilliant explosion of white.

He woke with a jolt, his body recognising the wrongness before his mind could catch up. Everything felt damp—his skin, his clothes, his hair—and the sensation of weightless suspension made his stomach lurch with momentary panic.

His eyes flew open. 

He was lying flat on his back, tides lapping against his ribs, the bathhouse dimly lit and washed in tones of dark blue. The marble beneath him was sleek and warm, and he realised, distressingly, that he was in the water now. Someone had placed him there. 

His head rested against the upper lip of the pool, his neck angled awkwardly along the rim, while the rest of him sprawled limply across the descending steps, half-submerged. He was completely soaked through, clothes clinging to him like a second layering of skin, heavy and wet. His limbs ached, like they had been shifted and re-set without care. More shocking than the sudden change in placement, though, was seeing Nagini. 

She was seated a few feet to his left on the ledge, bare feet kicking cheerfully in the shallows, the hems of her too-big robe fanned out across the tiles. Water beaded along her legs, gleaming like the scales she’d once had. 

Harry shouldn’t have been so surprised by her presence, but he was. He’d seen her only in a dream before, but here, she was real. Changed, warped, remade. He’d done this to her, however unintentionally it had been.

She wiggled her toes, giggling happily as the water splashed up against her knees, and something about the sound clawed at him. It was the way her cheeks were flushed pink with warmth and play—it reminded him, with a sharp twist, of Locket. They both had that same rosy tinge, eyes bright with childlike naivety.

It hit him, absurdly, that she was also unsupervised. She was facing away from the two figures standing nearby, both murmuring in low, focused tones over the equipment table. Neither spared her—or Harry—a glance. Evidently, the Dark Lord had no interest in childcare. 

He pushed himself upright weakly, careful to avoid pressure on his braceleted wrist, wary of disturbing the wound. The movement sent ripples outward from his body, but he didn’t make any attempt to leave the pool. There was no reason to pretend he hadn’t been placed here for a purpose. 

How long have I been asleep for, he wondered. It felt like only an hour or two might have passed, but he couldn’t be sure. There were no windows in the bathhouse to check if it was still nighttime. 

His gaze moved to the nearby figures, snagging immediately on Voldemort—or what little of him was visible, with his back turned to the pool. Harry noted his robes were gone. In their place hung an ink-dark dress shirt, the sleeves rolled to his forearms, the collar open at the throat to expose a shred of pale skin. It was paired with loose-fitting black slacks, so at odds with the formal attire Harry was used to seeing him in.

His hair, he noticed, was damp at the ends, the strands curling around his nape as he leaned over the table to reach for something, droplets still drying along his neck.

Had he… showered?

Harry immediately banished the preposterous image of the Dark Lord standing beneath a steam-filled showerhead, shoving it to the furthest corner of his mind. He grimaced. Well… If Voldemort had gone through with the second part of that revolting, self‑devouring ritual, Harry could only pray he’d had the decency to wash up afterwards.

He shot the back of the Dark Lord’s head the most disgusted look he could manage in his feeble state, before focusing on Barty next, only now just realising the man was stirring the cauldron, his eyes flicking toward the bottles on occasion as though trying to anticipate Voldemort’s next step.

They were brewing something.

Harry couldn’t tell what—the scent in the air was strange, metallic and sweet in turns—but it was clear Voldemort wasn’t merely supervising. He was working. Harry had little choice but to watch him as he measured something in a long-necked vial. 

“Slow your turn,” Voldemort muttered without looking at his lieutenant. “It’s binding too quickly.”

Barty adjusted quickly, the ladle shifting to a narrower pattern.

“That’ll stall the activation?” he asked, eyes following the subtle sheen forming across the top of the liquid.

“It’ll keep the base from collapsing. The magic is starting to rise. Let it come up on its own. If you force it, it’ll react defensively.”

Barty nodded, a concentrated look on his face. “I see.”

Voldemort handed him the flask he’d measured. “Five drops of this,” he instructed, already picking up the next one, his fingers quick and deft.

Barty took it with care and did as told. Still, Harry saw something suspicious in his face. “I’d always read that you needed at least ten,” he said thoughtfully. “Otherwise the viscosity doesn’t hold.”

Voldemort set the flask down with a clink. “Then you read someone who didn’t understand the mechanism. This potion isn’t held by thickness—it’s held by balance. The ingredients have to recognise one another. If they compete or overpower the rest, they curdle.”

That made Barty frown. “An equilibrium?”

“In this case,” Voldemort replied, still not looking at him. “Were you not always so lauded in Potions, Barty? One of the highest NEWTs, if I recall?”

“Lauded in the category of Ministry-approved potioneering,” Barty replied dryly. “The darker applications of alchemy weren’t even whispered about when I was at the castle. I doubt Slughorn would’ve enjoyed overseeing a brew like this.”

Voldemort paused. He finally turned to face his subordinate, giving Harry a glimpse of the sharp line of his side profile through the haze of the steam. It felt surreal, almost hallucinatory, how smoothly they moved from Nicholas’s death to casual conversation—as if nothing at all had transpired just a handful of hours prior to this moment. 

Harry swallowed, heart dropping to the pit of his stomach as he remembered the woman’s scream.  Don’t think about it, he chided himself, shaking his head. Fix it later. Don’t think about it. Don’t…

“Horace Slughorn,” Voldemort repeated, like he was testing the flavour of the name. The sound of his clear, high-pitched voice pulled Harry out of his head and thrust him back into the present. 

“He liked to collect his talents, didn’t he?” 

Barty let out a short, knowing laugh. “He may as well have been a magpie. Slughorn only ever went for the shiny things.”

“A magpie,“ Voldemort said musingly. “Makes you wonder if any of his treasures flew back to peck at him.” 

Barty’s stirring faltered for a heartbeat before resuming its rhythm. “If they did, I imagine he deserved it,” he said, his voice careful, probing. “The man built his nest out of other people’s feathers.”

“Mm,” Voldemort said, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. His gaze remained on the cauldron. “Stir counterclockwise three times. Then let it rest.”

Barty obeyed instantly, shoulders straightening under the weight of instruction, though he appeared a little disappointed Voldemort hadn’t elaborated on the matter of his former professor. The silence that followed was filled only with the gentle sound of stirring and the boiling of the potion as it thickened.

Then—three short knocks.

Harry’s head jerked up, restless and tense. Nagini didn’t even flinch; she kept kicking her feet, sending little arcs of water into the air. He found himself watching her again, half expecting her to just slip forward and fall in. The Dark Lord certainly wouldn’t move to stop it, if the way he hadn’t even glanced in their direction was anything to go by.

Voldemort didn’t turn as the door creaked open. He crossed his hands behind his back laxly, gaze on the potion as though the interruption hadn’t occurred at all.

A young man stepped hesitantly through. He was blond-haired, bedecked in black, around Barty’s age, and just as pale. “My Lord,” he said with a bow, crystal-blue eyes darting to Barty next. “… Crouch,” he added stiffly, clearly not happy about having to extend the same respectful formality to him. His glower only deepened when Barty shot him a devilish smirk in return.

“Evan,” Voldemort greeted placidly, though his attention was still on the bubbling cauldron. 

Harry racked his brain to find out why the name sounded so familiar. An image of Regulus’s room came to mind, an unopened letter from an Evan Rosier he’d accidentally stumbled upon while playing hide-and-seek in Grimmauld Place. Back then, he’d been too small to make sense of the words, but he remembered the way Regulus had gently pried it from his hands before flinging it into the fireplace without so much as a glance back. The moment had stayed with him, mostly for its oddity. Now, he was almost certain the man standing a few meters away was the same sender. 

“I was… surprised when the elf told me you were here,” the man—Evan—said, looking around himself in confusion. His questioning eyes strayed to Harry—fully clothed, waist-deep in the water, holding onto the steps so as not to fall any deeper—before reluctantly returning to the Dark Lord.

 “Forgive me for visiting on such short notice. I would not have intruded if the matter didn’t demand your immediate attention.” 

“Don’t be so tense,” Voldemort murmured, even though nothing about him was reassuring enough to make that statement possible. “Few are as loyal as you. I know you wouldn’t abandon your post in France without reason. Report.”

Evan’s throat worked once before he did. “There’s been an escape from Nurmengard. The highest cell in the tower is in complete ruin. Blown to dust, according to witnesses.”

Voldemort finally raised his head. “The highest cell?” 

“Gellert Grindelwald’s,” Evan confirmed. “Already, the German and American Ministries are coordinating an international search party for him. My aunt, Vinda, has also gone missing. I have no doubt she aided in his escape.”

The flames beneath the cauldron crackled softly in the background. Voldemort glanced at Barty, who had gone still, ladle hovering in mid-air.

“When did this happen?” he asked.

“A week ago,” Evan answered carefully.

Voldemort’s brow furrowed, the briefest sign of displeasure. “And you were made aware only now?”

“They did an excellent job of repressing any news about it,” Evan replied. “I wouldn’t have known at all if one of their aurors hadn’t approached me just this morning. He carried a missive for you, my Lord.”

Voldemort sighed and turned away from the table, bare feet padding along the floors as he moved to the settee, placed right between the pool and the equipment table. He sat with unhurried grace, crossing one leg over the other, fingers steepling beneath his chin. “And what does this missive request?”

“They seek your aid,” Evan reported. “They want us to dedicate our aurors—specifically our best ones, James Potter and Sirius Black—to the search.”

The mention of his father made Harry go still. On the settee, Voldemort tapped the corner of his mouth, eyes distant and unreadable.

“But,” Evan added hastily, “I warned them not to expect much. Whatever threat Grindelwald poses, it isn’t our concern. This mess is not for us to manage.”

A slow, amused exhale escaped the Dark Lord. “Is that why you think they came to me?”

Evan blinked, unsure. “My Lord?”

Voldemort’s knowing smile curved wider. “Because they’re too painfully mediocre to handle the task themselves? No, that’s what they’d like us to believe.”

Voldemort tilted his head toward the table. Barty took the hint immediately; he cooled the fire and began pouring the brew into a shallow bowl. Around Harry, steam continued to rise in soft, wispy tendrils. Though he was straining his ears to not miss a single word, his eyes stayed on Nagini, fearful she might tip forward and drown. 

“The truth is,” Voldemort went on, lowering his clasped hands into his lap, “they already know I couldn’t care less whether Grindelwald claws his way out of obscurity or dies in it. The man’s a husk propped up by reputation. What he once was, he no longer is.”

Evan looked like he was hanging onto Voldemort’s every word, expression quizzical, eager to make sense of the broader chessboard. “Then why…” He trailed off. 

“Why come to me at all, if they know I don’t care?”

Evan nodded once, cautiously.

“Because indifference is the perfect cover,” Voldemort explained. “Mine specifically will make Gellert bold. He knows he’s safest here, under my rule, precisely because I’ve no reason to hunt him. Britain offers him invisibility—my disinterest is his protection.”

He leaned forward, eyes glinting a vitriolic red. “And they know it. They know he’ll run here. It’s the fastest refuge, the safest illusion. They’ll come bearing diplomacy, beg for jurisdiction under my approval, and when they catch him, they’ll parade him back to his prison like dutiful little servants of justice. Perhaps they’ll even ask for a dementor or two to really keep him in.”

“You believe he’s here?” Evan asked, brows rising to his hairline. 

“Somewhere here,” Voldemort said with a shrug, leaning back, unsteepling his fingers to perch his hands on the armrests. “It’s the one place that promises neglect instead of pursuit. I might have let him rot in peace…” His smile thinned. “…if I hadn’t recently learned he has something of mine.”

What could the former Dark Lord of Europe possibly have that’s yours? Harry wanted to bite out. The entire conversation was a load of nonsense to him. Mostly, he just felt insulted. Voldemort had done this at House Lestrange too; holding court with his followers like Harry was some insignificant, half-trained pet allowed to sit in the corner. Not dangerous enough to be cautious around, not important enough to even dismiss.

Barty, who had been standing at the table, finally spoke, curiosity winning over restraint. “If Grindelwald’s here, my Lord, would it not be better to act first? Before the Ministries can spin this into something it’s not?” 

Voldemort’s eyes slid to him. “And grant them the spectacle they want?” he asked. “No. They’d love nothing more than to see me involved—to make it our problem. The moment I lift a hand, he becomes a shared enemy, not theirs. I’ve no intention of lending them relevance… or entangling my regime in an international affair. The political fallout that would follow is not worth the hassle.” His gaze cut to Evan. “Reject their request. Let them think I’m uninterested.”

He rose, brushing a hand idly across the sleeve of his shirt as though dismissing the conversation itself. “In the meantime—” he sent Barty a look—“see to it that my schedule for the next two days is cleared. Keep it discreet. We will depart for Germany in an hour. I want to see Nurmengard for myself.”

Barty looked momentarily startled but nodded, already moving to obey.  

“And you,” Voldemort said, now speaking to Evan Rosier, “wait in the hall. I have another task for you.”

Evan inclined his head, before following Barty out the door. It swung behind them, shutting with a barely audible click, their footsteps disappearing down the hallway until all that was left in the bathhouse was a deafening silence. Even Nagini stopped kicking her toes, instead craning her neck back to stare up at the Dark Lord, eyes wide and expectant like she wanted a reward for staying silent so long. 

Much to her pouty dismay, she didn’t get it.

Voldemort came to a stop at the far end of the pool, extending a pale hand in a wordless command. From the equipment table, the bowl rose obediently into the air, levitating forward until it settled neatly into his palm. 

His fingers closed around its sides, and only then did he sweep his gaze over Harry—the first look he’d given him since the potion had been prepared. Their eyes met over the bowl, and slowly, Voldemort tipped the liquid into the pool.

The substance slid out in a single lustrous stream, something between silver and smoke, sinking into the black like light folding into shadow. It hit the surface with a splash, and where it touched, the water shone like a spray of glitter.

Nagini appeared utterly enchanted as she watched it dissolve. “Oooh,” she breathed, leaning forward, fingers twitching like she wanted to chase the opalescent magic.

“No,” Voldemort instantly scolded, his hard voice ripping through her amazement. 

She froze at once, shoulders hunching. Her small hands returned to her lap, like she wanted to be good, to be obedient, to stay still. The sudden change to meekness made Harry frown. 

The bowl, now emptied, fell from Voldemort’s hand with a muted splosh and floated to the far corner of the pool, its round belly bobbing with the current. His wand was already drawn, and without hesitation, he knelt, the tip dipping into the water as he murmured, “Ostende.” 

Harry’s brain stuttered. He knew that spell. Voldemort had used it on him when he’d tried to force his magic to the surface with ritual blades and runes. He’d succeeded then, had visualized the very essence of him, winding through a vial of blood like gilded threads in the dark.

Abruptly, Harry understood the pool was now the vial. No wonder Barty hadn’t healed him. Voldemort still wanted the blood flowing.

Before Harry could guess what new absurdity Voldemort was playing at, a tingling sensation raced up from his submerged wrist. It crawled to his shoulder, down his spine, branching through bone and breath. His chest tightened. The water around him started shifting, changing, wavering. 

The surface no longer appeared black, not truly. Beneath that layer of darkness, something began to stir. It was faint at first, then quivered with slow vitality, as though light itself were waking from sleep. For a moment, Harry was convinced it was starlight caught in the depths, a soft, trembling radiance so pale and fragile it might have vanished entirely if he dared blink. It glimmered and swayed, each small ripple sending subtle sparks through the pool’s heart, as if someone had melted the night sky and all its stars into a fluid.

And it was healing him. That unearthly sheen kept deepening as it spread, delightfully warm and soothing, just as efficient as it was beautiful. The magic spread up his arms, into his chest, into his joints. The old bruises faded quietly. The ache in his neck dimmed, then disappeared altogether, though Harry had a feeling the deep teeth indents still clotted with dried blood wouldn’t vanish until he properly washed it… 

But, at that moment, the bite was the last thing on his mind. He watched, wide-eyed, as the cut on his palm closed, the sting receding into nothingness. Even the raw skin around the glass shards in his wrist knitted itself clean.

He looked up, half in wonder, half in apprehension, seeking Voldemort’s expression for some kind of explanation.

But the Dark Lord’s eyes weren’t on him. They were pinned, sharp and searching, on Nagini.

Of course, Harry thought, more alert than ever. He’s waiting for her to change back.

His blood was in the water. His magic was unbound and unbarred. It should return her to her true form. Right now, scales should be coiling along her skin.

But Harry found himself wanting anything except that to happen. If she became serpentine again, Voldemort would have one less use for him. He’d be discarded faster than a rag. Voldemort had said it himself—that he’d kill him the moment he found a way to change her back. And now, after Harry had oh-so-helpfully demonstrated just how much the exchange leeched out of them both, there wasn’t a chance in hell he’d be spared. As soon she shifted again, Voldemort would draw another vial, perhaps try the transferal array again for good measure, and then, once convinced there was no other way to tear the magic out of him, he’d wash his hands of the matter altogether and be rid of him. 

Harry knew it was stupid to expect any other outcome from this. Voldemort wasn’t the sort to let someone go rummaging through his memories just for a brief thrill, no matter how… nice he found it. A rotten rarity, he’d called him, and like one, Harry thought bleakly, he’d be tossed aside the moment the novelty wore off.

Before he could second-guess himself, Harry made a snap decision. No, he commanded his magic. It twirled in the form of gold ribbons, almost hidden amongst the silver of the potion, both hues appearing like they’d been stirred into ink with how dark the marble made the water seem. He willed against his magic working on Nagini, and just like before, it heeded the order with a thrum. 

It didn’t recoil or darken; it simply refused her. The energy in the water lapped at Nagini’s skin, tender but impenetrable, wrapping her in light that would never pierce.

Nagini was still marvelling at the display, unaware. She kicked her feet again, eyes widening as the colours scattered through the air like sequins. To her, it was beautiful. Playful and harmless.

To Voldemort, it was a variable with an unpredicted result. A crease had formed between his brows, the only mar on his otherwise perfectly blank face. He hadn’t expected this.  

In one rapid motion, he rose and stepped into the pool, determined to investigate. The water reached his thighs and then higher, soaking into the shirt he still wore, the fabric plastering itself to the narrow taper of his frame, outlining the dip of his waist. His hair, still slightly damp from whatever bath or shower he had taken, fell in dark strands around his temples as he waded toward them. The sight was so human, so jarringly mundane, that Harry had to glance away, unsure if he was more unnerved by the man or the illusion of normalcy.

Voldemort stopped before Nagini, canting her chin up with two fingers. Her small face tilted obligingly, but there was hesitation and uncertainty behind her lashes. Voldemort studied her with cold scrutiny, as though waiting to see the transformation begin— for slits to return to her pupils, for her tongue to flicker forked from her mouth. 

When nothing happened, he scooped some water in his palm, bringing it to her lips. 

At first, Nagini only blinked, startled at what she was being ordered to consume. She stared at the glowing liquid with sudden suspicion and hostility. It had been pretty a few moments ago—something she could kick and splash and marvel at—but now, cradled in Voldemort’s palm, it must have appeared like a threat instead. Her small mouth pursed with distaste. She shook her head adamantly, glaring up at the Dark Lord with insulted eyes. 

“I don’t want it,” she snapped, voice high and affronted. She shoved his wrist away with both hands.

Voldemort’s glare intensified, obviously not used to being disobeyed. “… Drink.”

Nagini, unconvinced, began dragging her legs out of the water, clearly gearing up for a full escape. She’d managed to scoot only a few inches back before Voldemort sprang into action. With a swiftness too fast for Harry’s eyes to follow, he caught the back of her head with chilling ease, pulling her in so he could press his palm to her mouth, the liquid shimmering between his fingers as he tipped it forward. 

Predictably, Nagini kicked and flailed, sputtering miserably as he held her in place and forced her to choke down a mouthful. 

“Bleugh!” she shrieked, as if he’d fed her acid instead. One tiny foot caught his thigh with an audible slap, but Voldemort didn’t even budge or acknowledge the hit.

Harry, watching from the steps, blinked at the duo as well, lips parting with surprise. It was like witnessing some towering statue get scolded by a puppy…

After he was satisfied she’d had enough, Voldemort let her go and stepped back, shaking his hand to dispel any clinging wetness. He grimaced, but then his expression quickly smoothed out as he looked down at Nagini again, who was coughing dramatically, hands flapping, her whole face twisted in betrayal. 

Voldemort waited, patiently. 

But… nothing changed. Nagini remained exactly as she was, sniffling at the edge of the pool, small and furious and very much still a child. She let out a sob, spitting out whatever she could.  

Voldemort turned his head with that terrible care he used before violence, gaze falling on Harry like a pelted stone.

“Why isn’t it working?” he asked, very softly. 

Harry gaped at him, caught between fear and disbelief. “I can’t speak!” he yelled hoarsely. “How the actual hell do you expect me to—”

He froze, mind unwilling to believe it for a second. Slowly, cautiously, he poked his tongue out and went slightly cross-eyed to stare at the pink muscle.

“Muh fngh—” he tried, and then drew it back into his mouth, swallowing. “My tongue!” he gasped, too surprised to hold back his stupefied reaction. 

Nagini’s sniffles died down. She must have found him a tad amusing, because her former expression of betrayal had melted away, now replaced with curiosity. The same couldn’t be said for Voldemort. He looked moments from angrily dragging Harry back to the chamber. 

“Why isn’t it working?” he repeated, quieter.

Harry’s mind spun, heart bleating with panic. He had only seconds. “I—I don’t know,” he stammered, shrinking back, doing his best impression of shocked innocence. “I didn’t do anything—this time.”

To sell it, he lifted his wrists, palms up, the old wounds now gone. He peered up at Voldemort from under dark lashes, trying to don the guise of submission as convincingly as possible. Take them, he goaded with his gaze. Cut them. Feed her from the source if you don’t believe me…

Not that it would work. His magic wouldn’t allow it. Voldemort could drink and feel that familiar high, that addictive intoxication—but Nagini could drain the entire pool and still gain nothing. Clearly, Harry had more control over the selectivity of his magic than previously assumed. He had to wield that wisely if he was going to keep himself alive. 

Voldemort’s expression shuttered with irritation as he stared down at him, and for a dreadful second, Harry thought he’d guessed his deception… But then the Dark Lord’s gaze hardened back into its usual composure. 

Harry’s arms were still raised when Voldemort stepped closer, water breaking around his waist. To Harry’s utter astonishment, he took his wrists in both hands, the unexpected contact unravelling any modicum of rational thought. 

“All this magic in your blood,” Voldemort muttered as he leaned over him, pressing his fingertip into the tendon beneath his palm, eyeing the bracelet with unnerving intensity, “and yet, it refuses to mend what it so carelessly destroyed. Are you lying to me?”

Harry stiffened, trying hard not to snatch his wrists back and cower away. He kept his eyes level with Voldemort’s midriff, avoiding his gaze in fear of him creeping into his mind for an answer.  “I-I don’t know,” he said again, forcing the lump in his throat down. “I… really don’t know how to fix it this time...”

A subtle flicker—complication? restraint?—ghosted across Voldemort’s features before he schooled it back into impassivity. “Of course,” he murmured, voice barely more than breath. “You wouldn’t dare feed me lies, would you?”

Not after I just showed you how exactly I punish disobedience. 

His grip on Harry’s wrists stayed firm as he studied the bracelet again, the glass gleaming against his newly healed skin. He kept looking at it, like it meant something only he knew the value of… and hadn’t he done the same thing earlier too? Harry frowned. He did not like this concerning fixation the Dark Lord was developing…

Wordlessly, Voldemort lowered his hands back into the water. There was an odd gentleness to the way he did it, like one might set a lotus adrift and wait to see if it would sink or float.

“You wouldn’t lie,” Voldemort said again, softer this time, not to elicit reassurance but as if reminding Harry of an unbreakable rule. “Not to me.”

Now that he’d been released, his wrists fell into the water with a quiet sound, droplets leaping like silver insects across the pool’s phosphorescent surface. Harry glanced down at the place where his skin met the liquid, blinking slowly as a thought lodged itself into his mind with a sudden, breathless urgency.

Would the potion work on the bracelet too? Combined with his blood, would it allow him to finally shed this awful thing? 

His eyes dropped to his wrist. To the misshapen fragments embedded in him like a crystal star. His pulse kicked beneath them. Hope rose, unbidden and irrational. Maybe it could be undone. Maybe the magic in this pool would unmake it.

Voldemort had just turned on his heels to leave the pool when Harry lurched upright, the water sheeting off his frame, sending waves crashing against the tiled rim.

“Wait—!”

The word tumbled out of him before he could properly think it through, hoarse and frantic. His fingers closed around Voldemort’s bicep without permission, and in that single millisecond, time itself seemed to halt in place. 

Voldemort stilled. Harry could feel the way all his muscles went rigid beneath his palm.

Slowly, mechanically, the Dark Lord’s head turned until the full weight of his glare landed on the place where Harry’s hand touched his sleeve.

Harry let go at once. His heart clawed at his ribcage. The warmth drained from his face as he yanked his hand back, suddenly far too aware of the way the water pressed fabric to flesh, his clothes soaked thin and sticking to every bone, likely leaving very little to the imagination.

“I—” he faltered, face reddening. “Will it also…”

He looked down at his wrist. At the bracelet.

Voldemort followed his gaze. 

“No,” he said after a beat, voice dry. “Bellatrix did her work too well.”

It didn’t sound like a compliment, however. Harry’s shoulders dropped. The breath he’d been holding slipped from his lungs, and he sank back down into the water with a soft splash, seating himself numbly on the steps. Whatever hope he’d allowed to spark, it guttered now into nothing.

He expected Voldemort to vacate the pool—but instead, he remained exactly where he was, still turned toward him, watching.

Harry felt his gaze like a living thing, the way it moved from his wrist, climbing up his arm, passing over his collarbone, pausing right at his neck. 

“That, however,” Voldemort said, eyes narrowing on his throat like the sight of his own mark, the very evidence of his loss of control, repulsed him, “will be removed.”

Harry glanced down, following the line of his stare. The bite mark was still visible, ugly and bruised, wet but not submerged enough for the potion to reach it.

“Wash it,” Voldemort said. “I will send Evan to you shortly. Be done by then.”

Harry blinked, convinced he must have misheard him. He raised his head, water dripping down his back. His expression hovered somewhere between surprise and bewildered confusion.

“You’re… leaving?”

The words escaped before he could think better of them.

“You’re– You’re actually going to leave me here?” 

Voldemort tilted his head at him, one brow lifting. “Did you imagine I’d take you with me?” he asked, the condescension mild, practised, like he was genuinely trying to understand the stupidity of the question. “No, Harry. Believe it or not, I have far more pressing matters to attend to than your continued sulking. You’ve wasted enough of my time.”

Harry bit down on his newly grown tongue, hard enough to make it hurt, and turned his head sharply away. 

Voldemort didn’t miss the movement, nor the insult buried in it.

Harry didn’t even have to look at him to know the dismissal would infuriate him, and the next second proved him right.

A strangled gasp was ripped from him as Voldemort lunged forward, seizing his jaw in a bruising grip, the tips of his fingers digging mercilessly into either side of his cheekbones. His other palm came down on the column of his throat, and in one rapid motion, Harry was wrenched upright, hauled out of the water and forced to his feet with a splash and a stumble. He clutched at Voldemort’s forearms purely out of instinct, water flying from his sleeves, heart roaring in his ears.

“Look at me,” Voldemort spat, turning the blood in his veins to ice.

Harry’s eyes snapped up at once, his breath hitching, chest filled with disoriented fear. It took everything in him not to lash out, not to spit, not to bare his teeth like an animal cornered. But Voldemort’s grip, so firm, so invasively vicious, left absolutely no room for rebellion. He’d forced Harry’s head back at a painful angle, leaving him no choice but to meet the smouldering fury burning in the red of his eyes. 

“Do you think I do not see you?” Voldemort hissed, and his gaze seemed to glint under the weight of his contempt, like a fractured kaleidoscope of scarlets. “Do you imagine that turning away hides you from me?” His thumb pressed hard beneath Harry’s chin, forcing it higher. 

Am I beneath your notice, you vile creature? You deny me first your blood, and now your gaze? Look at me, look at me, only me—

The thought wasn’t his, but it sliced cleanly through his mind all the same. He knew Voldemort hadn’t meant to let it slip—Harry could feel it; that unguarded spill of emotion threatening to seep through this convoluted bond, the same one that kept dragging Harry into him whenever they were close like this—but the realisation barely had time to settle. The shock of being yanked around still left him reeling, acutely aware of the hand at his windpipe, the heat of Voldemort’s breath against his cheek, the danger in having provoked him again.

And over something as insignificantly small, as petty, as Harry not looking at him. 

“You will remain here,” the Dark Lord bit out, teeth at his earlobe like he wanted to remind Harry just how easy it would be to tear the flesh right off. “You will stay with Nagini. You will let her near you. You will not deny her closeness to the source she requires. You will not recoil, resist, or even think to test me again.” His fingers flexed around Harry’s throat with each command, like they wanted to crush him. “You will give me no reason to think you ungrateful for what you’ve been granted. And you will do nothing—nothing—to hinder her.”

The grip on his throat tightened, almost impeding his breathing, face so close to Harry’s he may as well have been hissing his orders right against his mouth. Harry shivered, squirming, but his captor didn’t waste a second before continuing.

“Do you understand?” Voldemort demanded. 

Harry clenched his teeth and nodded jerkily against his restraints, his own hands gripping the Dark Lord’s sleeve for balance. 

Voldemort held him for a moment longer, then released him with a shove, sending him crashing back into the water. He fell hard, the backs of his thighs knocking against the steps beneath him, arms flailing for purchase as the pool splashed frantically around him.

From above, Voldemort looked down at the still-visible bite mark peeking out from under his collar. It hadn’t been submerged, not yet. The flesh remained raw and untouched by the healing waters.

“Wash it,” he said again, the disgust in his voice plain now.

Without another word, the Dark Lord turned on his heels and strode out of the pool, moon-like ripples surging outward from his body in agitated waves. The last thing Harry saw was the shadowed silhouette of his back vanishing out the door, glittering water dripping from his hems, his pace clipped and swift.

The door slammed shut behind him, the sound echoing through the bathhouse with a finality that made Harry’s shoulders jolt. It was only then, in the tense silence, that Harry remembered they hadn’t been alone.

He whipped around, startled, nerves still frazzled from the Dark Lord’s unexpected outburst, and searched the pool’s edge for Nagini. His eyes landed on her several feet away from where he’d last seen her. 

She had… retreated. Nagini now sat cross-legged on the floor beside the settee. Her arms were folded tightly over her chest, one small eyebrow arched in undisguised judgment. She glanced toward the door her master had stormed out of, then meticulously dragged her gaze back to Harry, her frown deepening. The look she gave him was pointed, unimpressed, and very plainly accusatory.

Harry stared at her for a stunned moment, still catching his breath, unsure where the sudden jab of shame was coming from. He swept a palm over his nape self-consciously, water slathering over the skin, sluicing through the bite mark like a balm. 

Oh, right. 

That. 

He wanted it gone just as much as Voldemort did. The thought of leaving it there—leaving it visible—gnawed at him like a stubborn splinter. Bellatrix had already branded him. He wore her mark on his wrist. He didn’t want Voldemort’s as well, wrapped around his throat like a collar. 

Harry wasn’t his fucking pet, no matter how awfully he treated him like one.

Gritting his teeth, he cupped a palmful of water and began rubbing it harder, his shoulders sagging when the deep teeth indents sealed. Nearby, Nagini had stood up, holding onto the armrests for balance. It seemed she still couldn’t walk. Harry had half the mind to tell her to get down before she toppled over and hurt herself, but another worrying thought wormed its way into his head. 

… What would Voldemort do when he returned? When he inevitably saw that proximity to the source of the magic—Harry himself—had done nothing at all to coax Nagini back into her true form? Harry had absolutely no intention of aiding that transformation. Whatever she was now, it was preferable to the demonic beast Voldemort used to sic on anyone who even slightly displeased him. 

Still, as long as Voldemort believed her recovery hinged on keeping Harry close, it gave him a kind of leverage, however temporary. This was better than the alternative; that constant state of delirium he’d been left in for weeks, always teetering on the cusp of unconsciousness, sinking into either oblivion or dreams the moment a goblet touched his lips. He had no doubt they’d revert straight back into that exhausting routine the moment Voldemort decided this plan wasn’t working. And then…

And then Harry would go back to being his personal chalice, always ready to be emptied and drained. 

He shuddered at the memory. The way time vanished, the blur and haze of being cut, the numbness of it all. This was better, yes, but not by much.

Before he could ponder more on his depressing predicament, a pop sounded through the air, nearly propelling his heart out of his mouth. For a second, he’d thought Voldemort had come back to get mad at him some more. 

But no. No. Mercifully, it was just a house-elf. She appeared a few feet away, balancing a wide tray in her arms. Towels, a robe, and a fresh set of clothes were stacked neatly across it. Her wide eyes didn’t quite meet his as she bowed and stuttered, “For you, sir. Master be requiring you to finish. N-Now. The.. The other one waits outside.” 

Harry exhaled, heart still racing from surprise. He glanced at the door, to where Evan Rosier probably stood. 

I need to escape, he thought for the hundredth time. This is my only chance. I have to find a way out before he comes back. The only problem is—

The fucking band.

It was still around his ankle, and it was beginning to tingle with heat, as if warning him to get a move on.

A while later, Harry finished washing up and tugged on the plain black robes the elf had brought for him. They were short, falling awkwardly to mid-thigh, cinched at his waist with a belt that felt more decorative than useful. The trousers were just as loose, hanging off his hips like they’d been made for someone taller, broader, wider. Knowing this place, that probably had been the case. 

But he didn’t complain or wrinkle his nose over it. No point whining about tailoring here. Voldemort wasn’t exactly taking requests.

The robes weren’t stiff or coarse, at least. They slid easily over his skin, and after spending weeks in clothes that were ripped, bloodied, and reeking of sweat, they felt damn near luxurious in comparison. It also helped that he was clean again—the grime stripped from his hair, the sour ache in his bones eased, even his stomach no longer trying to eat itself. Loathe as he was to admit, whatever potion Voldemort had dumped into that bathwater had worked freakishly well. 

He adjusted the belt one last time, biting back a grimace. He looked like some idiot kid playing dress-up in Death Eater hand-me-downs; another nameless, inconsequential figure in the background of Voldemort’s lower ranks. Something perhaps done intentionally. With a quiet scoff, he slung the towel over his shoulder, raked a hand through his damp hair, and stepped out from behind the curtain.

A bubbling sound stopped him short. That, and a delighted “ooh!”

His attention jerked to the source, and with a spike of alarm, he realised Nagini was no longer on the floor where he’d last left her before going to change.

She must have found some absurd way to climb the settee, because she was standing atop it now, toes balanced dangerously on the edge, her arms outstretched toward the table where a collection of uncorked and empty bottles were scattered. With astonishing speed, she plucked several more out of their boxes, making pleased little “oooh” and “ahhh” sounds as she emptied them—one after the other—into the cauldron with concerning glee. Each splash threw up a puff of smoke and a flash of neon light, but she didn’t pause to look. Her hand found the ladle, and she plunged it deep into the mess without any discernible method or hesitation, giving her concoction a grand, swirling mix.

Harry gasped and strode toward her as fast as his legs would carry him, sloshing wet footprints over the floor. “No, no, no—stop that!”

If Snape’s classes had taught him anything, it was that potions were volatile, risky and magically reactive even without a flame. Clashing ingredients like this was bound to trigger a catastrophic explosion, and as much as Harry hated this manor, he wasn’t too keen on letting himself be buried under its debris. He reached for the ladle to get it away from her, gripping it tight, but Nagini only snarled and doubled down, wrapping her hands around it with a strength he didn’t realise someone so small could possess. 

”Mine!” she seethed, both fists clamping down on the handle. She pulled at it with all her might, glaring up at him with wide, furious eyes.

“You’ll get hurt,” Harry snapped back, breathing heavily, genuinely struggling to get it off her. “You don’t even know what this is! Stop it!”

“I said it’s mine!” she yelled again, teeth bared. 

Harry swore under his breath and yanked harder. Unlike Voldemort, he actually believed in teaching kids what was dangerous. Locket would have never fought him like this. Locket would’ve listened, or at least thrown a tantrum in the corner, not wrestled a cauldron of unknown magical junk like it was some precious, hard-earned prize.

“Let go!” he fired back at her. “Let go or I’ll—”

All at once, Nagini smirked and let go.

Harry’s own force swung the ladle straight back into the centre of his face with a loud crack.

“Agh—!”

The door burst open, banging into the wall. Harry barely managed to cover his broken nose in time, tears springing to his eyes as blood leaked between his fingers. 

Footsteps approached quickly. A wand touched the side of his cheek, followed by a bewildered voice hastily muttering,  “Episkey.”

The bone slotted itself back into place, though it just felt like someone had punched him all over again. Harry pulled his hands away, red smearing his palms, and glared at the culprit through watering eyes. “You really…”

Nagini had already turned her back to him, one leg hooked over the armrest for leverage as she greedily reached for another bottle, entirely unrepentant and unfazed about the damage she’d inflicted. 

He moved fast this time, sweeping her off the chair in one rough motion. Nagini shrieked and kicked wildly in his grasp, and Harry, with a grunt, was forced to tuck her under one arm, her back to his chest so his face wouldn’t be in close-hitting range. 

“Enough,” he hissed at her, locking her in with both biceps. Nagini stopped kicking and let herself go limp, but a low warning growl was emitting from her throat, rumbling all the way through her chest. She was still under the impression that she was something terrifying, something to be feared and obeyed at the first sign of displeasure. Harry, for his part, was not feeling particularly moved.

Spinning around, he turned toward Evan with the same venomous glare the four-year-old in his arms was now aiming at him.

“Well?” he asked with a scowl, adjusting her weight against his chest. “Where the hell does he want us?”

Evan blinked. He took in the sight—Harry bleeding, Nagini snarling, the cauldron still fizzling behind them—and said nothing. He simply raised his wand to Harry’s face, placing the tip right on his nose. Harry went cross-eyed to look at it as Evan tapped him, his cleaning charm vanishing the blood. 

Clearing his throat, Evan stepped aside and gestured for Harry to follow. “This way.”

With little choice in the matter, Harry did as told, but two steps out of the bathhouse and he had to screw his eyes shut, overcome at the sudden brightness pouring in through the long corridor windows. Judging by the high angle of the sun, it was well into the morning. The pool must have knocked him out proper. Harry hadn’t even noticed the shift in time—

Abruptly, he stopped walking, ignoring Nagini’s restless squirming. 

If he’d been asleep longer than he’d assumed, then when was Voldemort’s last vial? He hadn’t drawn anything before angrily storming out of the room, hadn’t even looked at him in that assessing way he usually did when deciding how much to take. And it wasn’t like he’d suddenly swapped his bloodlust out for herbal tea in the few short hours Harry had been unconscious. That man had actually left without anything.

“Ahem,” Evan grumbled, standing a few feet ahead, face severe with impatience.  

Reluctantly, Harry shuffled after him, his mind spinning. He wanted to believe it was a coincidence, a rare slip in Voldemort’s routine, but Voldemort didn’t slip. He didn’t forget things, least of all this. If he hadn’t taken any blood, it was because he’d chosen not to.

There’s something he doesn’t want you to see, a darker voice whispered at the back of his mind, slippery and quiet. Something recent. He already knows you’ve seen what’s behind his past. He’s hiding something new.

Evan turned another corner, still talking, but Harry tuned him out. His legs moved on autopilot, letting the words fade into a dull buzz in the background.

That would explain it, wouldn’t it? The sudden, and uncharacteristic, show of restraint. Now that Voldemort understood the trade—Harry’s blood for pieces of his past—there must be something he was guarding. But Harry struggled to figure out just what that could possibly be. He’d already seen the worst of him, hadn’t he? It was either this half-baked theory, or Voldemort had decided to put a stop on this idiotic exchange and was now purposely abstaining. 

Of all his jumbled explanations, this one made the most sense. Voldemort, preparing his body. Conditioning himself. Getting used to going without Harry so that, when the time came, he could kill him without suffering the effects.

Like a detox.

Well, at least trying to prepare for it. Harry hadn’t failed to notice the way he was much easier to anger. A single turn of his head and Voldemort had nearly dislocated his jaw just to make him look. 

At the reminder of that moment, Harry’s arm unconsciously tensed around the girl in his hold. Memories of the last few times Voldemort had fed replayed in quick succession behind his eyelids. He’d be vastly more clear-headed when no hunger was muddying his thoughts. After that bite, he’d switched back to his usual demeanour, masking the remnants of his outburst like he’d never lost control to begin with. The haze would lift, the tension would bleed off. That post-feeding calm always followed, no matter how violent things had been before. Like it reset him.

But now… now he was trying to go without?

Harry swallowed. He could almost hear the ticking of the clock in his head. How long before something else set Voldemort off? And how did he expect to go days without at least one vial—

“Are you even listening to me?” Evan demanded, stopping in his tracks.

Harry almost collided with him. He dug his bare feet into the floor just in time, his own glower returning. “What?” he asked hoarsely, his voice scratchy, tongue thick and heavy. Its week-long absence had it feeling uncomfortably foreign in his own mouth.

Evan sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I was just saying that the Dark Lord has requested Madam Malfoy’s presence here,” he said as they continued moving through the manor’s winding halls, voice faintly annoyed. 

Harry squinted at his back, thoroughly baffled. “Do you mean Narcissa?”

Evan nodded. “She has been tasked with arranging a proper wardrobe for…”

He glanced over his shoulder at the tiny menace dangling off Harry’s arm, who was now trying to chew on his sleeve. Evan’s frown grew, like he was unsure what pronoun to use for his Lord’s familiar. 

“…her.”

Harry adjusted his grip and hiked Nagini further up like a sack of flour. She immediately thumped him in the chest with her elbow, but he ignored her.

“Until then,” Evan continued tersely, stopping in front of a new set of doors, “you’re to remain in her rooms. He was very clear about this arrangement. No separation unless absolutely necessary. Narcissa is one of the rare few he’s even allowing here.”

Harry clenched his jaw. The fact Voldemort hadn’t even bothered getting clothes for Nagini until now made him feel stupidly annoyed. She had been running around in his oversized robe like it was some kind of lopsided dress, and only now, after days, did Voldemort decide it was worth addressing. And the fact he’d summoned Narcissa of all people–because clearly, when faced with a girl child, the only solution was to fetch the nearest available woman and hope for the best.

“In here,” Evan ordered briskly, pushing the doors open, letting Harry take the lead in.

Inside was furnished with the same decor as the rest of the manor. It looked like a normal bedroom, albeit pointlessly large and immaculately expensive.

A king-sized bed sat tucked into the far corner beneath a canopy, its velvet drapes pinned back, sheets pressed to a shine like they’d never actually been slept in before. Wardrobes lined the wall across from it, polished mahogany with ornate handles. A matching vanity stood like a shrine near the windows, and in the centre of the vast floor, which was laid with some kind of Persian rug so thick it muffled Harry’s footsteps when he strode further in, was a lounging area with two couches and a low coffee table. Its surface was already stacked with a mountain of glossy fruit; grapes, pomegranates, figs and strawberries heaped in porcelain bowls with gold trim. The sunlight slanting through the windows made their ripe skins glisten, looking rather succulent and tempting if the way Nagini’s intensified wriggling was anything to go by.

With a sigh, Harry set her down. She hit the floor on all fours and launched across the space toward the table with such rabid speed it made his eyebrows shoot up.

Evan, still standing in the doorway like a sentry, didn’t lift his hand from the knob. “Narcissa should be waiting in the drawing room right now. I’ll be escorting her here.”

Harry gave him a wary look.  

“In the meantime, do not attempt to leave this room,” Evan said sternly, like he was reading from a rulebook. “Your band is keyed to this area—and me. Try stepping so much as a foot beyond the doorway, and I’ll know. Don’t test it.”

Harry opened his mouth, probably to ask what would happen if he did anyway—but the door was already rudely slamming shut.

He rolled his eyes and turned back to the room, rubbing at his jaw like he could scrub the indignity of that dismissal off. He’d gotten used to the chamber, if only because being drugged made him numb to everything. He wasn’t used to… this. Coherence. Luxury. Being allowed to walk around in his manor, even if it was with extremely limited access. Uneasiness prickled at him. 

Be grateful, his survival instincts told him. Hell, he’ll probably expect some gratitude when he returns. Start practising how to swallow your pride now.

Harry’s gaze flicked around again. Deep green wallpaper. Oak furniture. A standing mirror in the corner that caught his reflection and flung it back at him. His pale face, his dishevelled and messy raven hair, the dark circles under both his eyes like bruises from an old fight. The last thing his gaze landed on was Nagini, perched on the floor now, shovelling strawberries into her mouth and chewing with contentment, unconcerned about what Harry got up to so long as she had a full belly.

Harry exhaled through his nose, then turned toward the door again. Maybe Evan had been bluffing. Maybe this was all an elaborate ruse—some experimental test on his obedience. Voldemort did love those. 

His hand reached for the knob before he could think better of it.

Almost instantly, heat seared around his ankle like someone had wrapped him in fiery iron. He yanked his foot back with a yelp and staggered away from the door, grabbing the top of the couch for balance.

Not a bluff, then, he thought bitterly. 

He glared at the stupid door before allowing his eyes to roam to the side, toward the windows. He stalked toward them, already planning what he’d do if they were sealed with the same curse—brace himself for the pain, try again anyway, maybe get some glass in the face for his efforts.

But, unexpectedly, nothing happened.

He touched the pane, fingertips tracing cool, smooth glass. The band didn’t spark at all.

His heartbeat sped up. Touching the window didn’t make the band burn, even though it was a potential route out of the room. He’d assumed before that the silver woven around his ankle was made up of some intricate spellwork bound to perimeter, set distances, but maybe… maybe it was exits instead? It had always flared when he tried to approach the entryway of the chamber. 

But the window…

The latch seemed to sparkle at him, no bothersome locks in sight. All he had to do was flick it up, push it open. His breath hitched, a tangled rush of fear and excitement pumping through him. Before he could test his budding theory out, a sound of movement from outside froze him mid-breath. 

He whipped around and almost tripped over his own feet. A second later he was halfway across the room, planting himself hard on the couch next to Nagini and grabbing the nearest fruit. He reached for one of the butter knives on the platter to act like he was midway into cutting the apple, but his band heated up, warning him not to touch anything that could be misused. Cursing, Harry threw it aside and picked up a tangerine instead, anxiously peeling it with his fingernails, pretending this had been his intention the whole time.

“—how do you expect me to work with her if you and the boy are present?”

Harry had no trouble recognising Narcissa Malfoy’s imperious voice, her words carrying that familiar frostbite of authority, underscored by the tap, tap, tap of her heels drawing steadily closer along the corridor. He broke the tangerine in half and offered it absently to Nagini, who was all too happy to snatch it out of his hands.

Evan’s reply came next, accompanied by a dry scoff. “Why? What’s wrong with us?”

The tapping paused, like she’d stopped walking to level her companion with a scathing look. Harry could picture the expression on Narcissa’s face without even seeing it. That slow, withering pause. The sheer volume of her disdain without ever needing to raise her voice.

“A girl requires her privacy,” she said pointedly. “I’ll need to remove her from his vicinity for a few minutes to properly measure her and ensure the attires fit. Or would you prefer I strip her down in there?”

Harry nearly dropped what he was holding.

Behind the walls separating them, Evan gave a short and unamused laugh. “Please. I don’t share Fenrir’s perverse tastes. Fine. You can use the spare room down the hall. But do not take too long. The Dark Lord left me with specific instructions—”

“Did he?” Narcissa’s voice turned silkier, shaded in sardonic mockery. “How loyal you are, Evan. As loyal as Barty, one might say.”

“Believe me,” Evan drawled, “if there’s a medal for loyalty going around, your lovely sister has already claimed it.” 

“Yes,” Narcissa said lightly. “Though unlike you, she actually managed to make time for the burial.” 

Evan didn’t reply right away. Harry could sense the stiffness in his silence, the sudden pressure between them.

“I had assignments,” he said at last, sounding uncomfortable. “You know that.”

The footsteps resumed, and Harry sank further into the couch, tension winding tighter in his chest. Whoever the funeral was for, it had meant something. Enough that even Evan, ever the loyal lapdog, had been expected to show. And hadn’t.

“I’m sure your duties were terribly pressing,” Narcissa replied noncommittally. “It’s not like the dead can complain, anyways.”

Evan was already halfway into sputtering out a response when the doorknob turned—he told me to get lost the last time we met, do you really think he wanted me there? Narcissa, are you listening?—but Narcissa couldn’t have appeared any less interested in his explanations. She stepped into the room, all coiffed blonde hair and fur trim, her perfume filling the air like a bouquet of expensive roses. 

“Where is she?” Narcissa asked calmly, already scanning the room. She took a few steps closer, heels slowing at the edge of the rug, purse dangling from her arm on a golden chain. 

Her eyes fell on the girl at Harry’s feet, and her expression did something strange. The perfected mask of calmness twitched, like Narcissa, very briefly, felt genuinely perturbed that a being she’d only ever seen in the skin of a serpent, menacingly coiled at the feet of the Dark Lord, was now humanoid, small, wide-eyed and nibbling on a tangerine slice. 

Harry sat up a little straighter. Something as simple as a new face after—how long had it been? Months now?—felt oddly momentous. 

“Hello,” he managed to say, voice gruff. “I…”

“Hello,” Narcissa interrupted before he could finish, curt and toneless. She didn’t seem shocked by his presence, or even concerned that he was here, of all places. And Harry didn’t expect her to be, but it unravelled something in him to know the world outside was still running its course, nobody none the wiser to his situation. Voldemort had fed them quite the lie, hadn’t he? 

That version of the truth they’d spun—about how he was mentoring him, nurturing his supposed talents—it must’ve been a good one. Polished enough that even people like her didn’t question it. Probably sipping tea and learning dark magic in some lavish study, if you asked the right people. No one would guess that he’d spent the last who-knows-how-long bleeding into wine cups like a livestock offering.

And some bullshit mentorship this was, he thought with a sneer, turning his head away to cross his arms, sinking back into the couch. Wouldn’t look too good, would it? If the truth got out. That not even loyalty guaranteed their safety. That it didn’t matter if he’d marked you, it wouldn’t stop him from ripping sons out of his followers' families if it suited his needs.

Behind Narcissa, Evan stood a polite distance away. “Let’s not dally now,” he interjected, lips still pursed with annoyance from their earlier exchange. “How long do you estimate this will take?” 

Narcissa regarded Nagini again, silent. Then, in a tone that sounded like she was addressing a wayward cat, she said, “Come here, Nagini.”

The girl didn’t budge. She quirked an offended brow, making her displeasure at being ordered around glaringly obvious.

Harry glanced between them, then sighed when neither relented in their staring contest. “You can’t call her like a pet,” he mumbled, sliding off the couch. “Here.”

He reached for Nagini, and this time she didn’t fight him. Peeling a fruit for her must have earned him a spot in her good graces. She took his help without a fuss, wrapping her hand around his index finger and allowing the palm he braced against her back. Wobbling slightly, she clutched at his calf as they took a few cautious steps forward.

After one or two stumbles, they finally reached Narcissa, who looked down at them both like she’d been asked to waste her efforts on tailoring a garden gnome instead. But Nagini didn’t balk under her judgemental stare. She tilted her head, narrowed her eyes, and gave the woman’s fur collar a curious once-over, as if she too were assessing her worth.

Whatever adequacy standards a four-year-old could possibly set, Narcissa must have met them, because soon Nagini was mechanically raising her arms, all while wearing the blankest expression Harry had ever seen on a child. 

Narcissa accepted that for the permission it was and bent down stiffly, gloved hands sliding beneath her armpits. She lifted her like one might something contagious, arms fully extended to keep as much distance as possible. 

“… I’ll be back,” Narcissa muttered quietly, voice grim and solemn. She turned and swept out of the room with the girl dangling in front of her, passing Evan with the kind of steel-backed determination that suggested she planned to get this over with as fast as humanly possible.

Evan gave her a pitying look before closing the door behind them. Evidently, babysitting had not been mentioned in his Death Eater training manual. The thought made Harry wonder just what Voldemort had told him before leaving, how he even went about justifying it. 

Yes, Evan… a most crucial assignment. You are to stand guard over the Potter boy and my snake-turned-child. Why? Because I, your Lord, am deeply invested in domestic arrangements now. Harry is here entirely of his own will, of course. Now cease asking me such silly questions and go fetch them. 

Then again, with the kind of fanatical devotion most of Voldemort’s followers adopted, he probably hadn’t even needed a justification to begin with. Orders were orders.

With nothing better to do, Harry flopped back down on the couch, letting out a long breath. The room felt noticeably quieter without Nagini in it, even though she hadn’t really been speaking to him.

Instead of sitting, Evan moved to take up a post behind the couch opposite from Harry, arms folded, eyes glued on him like an overgrown gargoyle. 

Harry didn’t bother returning his gaze, already knowing he’d be insufferably vigilant about ‘watching over him’ until Voldemort returned. He rubbed at his forehead, knuckling the headache forming between his brows. It was then he noticed one of the butter knives on the fruit platter was missing. 

He blinked. 

He hadn’t touched anything, wouldn’t have risked it. The band would’ve gone off if he had. Which left… her.

He glanced up at Evan, who was still busy glaring daggers at him like it was a full-time profession. 

“Say, does Nagini ever have… violent outbursts?” 

Evan raised a distrustful brow at him. “You think I’m just going to share that information with you?”

“Does she?” he pressed, a tinge of real concern sneaking into his tone. Narcissa could be in danger for all he knew.

Evan cocked his head like he was humouring a very stupid question. “Not that I know of.” He paused, expression contemplative now. “Though that swine Crouch did mention she was a handful—”

“Swine?” Harry echoed. That surprised him. He’d noticed they weren’t exactly on good terms, but he didn’t think Voldemort’s most lethal followers would resort to petty name-calling. This must be… personal. 

Harry perked up, his interest magnifying when he caught the way Evan’s face darkened, as if just the reminder of Barty had soured his mood. The young man didn’t answer, instead choosing to avoid the question altogether.

Harry drummed his fingers on his knee, wondering how best to wheedle details out of him. The more he knew about his jailers, the better prepared he was, no? 

“Well,” he said with a tragic and forlorn little sigh, gazing off into the distance like he was pondering something philosophical. “Can’t say I exactly agree with your assessment of him.” (He did. With every fiber of his being.) “Barty’s been lovely, really. A delight. Salt of the earth…” — tortured Travers for sport, got official clearance to turn the Cruciatus curse into a research project, then cheerfully mopped up the mess Voldemort left behind from murdering Nicholas — “…so I’m struggling to see the issue here. He’s a fantastic lad.”

“Kid,” Evan said between gritted teeth. “You have no idea what that two-faced son of a whore is capable of. He—” Evan breathed in to calm himself, clamping his mouth shut, no doubt realising he’d let too much emotion tumble out. 

Harry, for his part, picked at the hem of his top. “That’s odd,” he said thoughtfully, “he did say you lot used to be close.”

Harry hadn’t even had a proper conversation with Barty before, but he had a hunch he was in the right direction. If Evan and Regulus knew each other, probably from their time at school, it wasn’t far-fetched to guess Barty ran in the same circles. Same year. Same House. A gaggle of Slytherin boys who graduated straight into Voldemort’s ranks.

His words must have hit the right mark, because Evan’s mouth briefly tightened. 

“Mentioned you were quite the pair,” Harry went on casually, like this was all harmless musing. “It came up during one of our long bonding sessions.”

“Did he now,” Evan muttered.

“Mhm. He said you were something of a prodigy. Went on and on about your duelling instincts. How he respected them. How he thought you were wasted where you ended up, stationed so far away in France.” Harry added another weary sigh for good measure, then mumbled just loud enough for him to hear, “I got the impression he felt sorry for you, really.”

The look Evan gave him was no longer a glare. His face had softened with his confusion, expression now unguarded. “He… said those things about me?” 

Harry shrugged. “Yeah. He might’ve also mentioned something about you losing your edge...” 

“Oh, he’s one to bloody talk,” Evan spat, the glare returning.  

Harry turned his face away to hide the smirk pulling at the corners of his lips. There was something extraordinarily satisfying about poking at a hornet’s nest from a safe distance, even if the definition of “safe” here was debatable. 

He turned back to Evan, widening his eyes, donning that innocent ruse he’d had to feign in front of Voldemort. He let his voice drop to a whisper. “He didn’t lie to me, did he?”

“You want the story?” Evan asked gravely. 

“There’s a story?”

Evan stared at him for a long moment, clearly weighing the cost of indulging him. Then, with a huffed exhale, he looked toward the bed’s canopy like he needed a grand point in the horizon to focus on as he told his tale.

“There was a girl.”

Of course there was. 

Harry leaned back, nodding like he was hearing the tragedy of the decade.

“A cousin of mine, actually,” Evan said, and he’d just parted his lips, about to tell Harry something interesting, about to let him enjoy the rare experience of a threat-free chat that didn’t involve a wand at his throat—

—when the doors flew open, hard enough to make the hinges tremble. Narcissa burst in, strands coming loose from her bun like she’d sprinted all the way here. It was the most disgruntled Harry had ever seen someone as usually uptight as her.

“Evan,” she breathed out, leaning against the frame. “She’s gone.”

“Gone?” Evan said incredulously, straightening. “What do you mean gone?”

Narcissa pressed a hand to her chest, trying to steady her breathing. “I turned for a moment, stepped away to write down her measurements, and then when I looked back she had disappeared. I thought she might have just wandered into the next room, but she is nowhere. I cannot find her.”

The image of that missing knife jittered through Harry’s mind. He shot out of his seat, not even thinking twice before grabbing Evan by the arm. “She took a knife,” he said urgently, words spilling out in a stutter. “We need to find her. She might hurt someone.”

Evan’s gaze flicked down to Harry’s grip, then up. “I can’t let you leave—”

Harry interrupted with a hiss of frustration. “I can’t leave this place. Look at me!” He lifted his foot and waggled it vigorously. “The band keeps me glued either to this room or walking behind you like some stupid duckling. Let me help!”

At first, Harry thought he’d sneer at him, tell him to sit down and stay put while he left to look for her, but Narcissa stepped in. 

“Let him help,” she ordered, shooting Evan a scornful look. “We know next to nothing about the girl—and he’s the only one she even seems to remotely like. The Dark Lord assigned her to his care for a reason. Unless you abandoned your brain in France, you’d know three pairs of eyes are more helpful than one.”

Before Evan could get a word out, Narcissa turned, quickening her pace. “I’ll keep searching left, you two handle the right wing.” 

She left before Evan could form the rest of his protest, the tail of her coat flicking out of sight. 

Evan fisted his hands, a muscle in his jaw ticking as he glanced suspiciously between Harry and the door. Finally, after a second of indecisiveness, he skewered him with a cold look. “Fine, but you stay behind me. Sprint ahead and I swear I’ll hex you.” 

Harry would have rolled his eyes at the threat. Compared to the things Voldemort had done, Evan’s hexes probably felt like a tickle. But now wasn’t the time to score points. He followed him out of the room, straining his ears to see if there was a rustle, a voice, anything that might hint at where she’d run off to. 

They moved quickly, inspecting room after room to no avail, each one as silent as the last. By the time they’d reached a whole new floor, Harry had lost count of how many places they’d checked. Every door he yanked open revealed the same thing. An untouched sitting room, all velvet chairs and unlit candles. Empty. A storage room, crawling with piles of books. Empty. A guest bedroom, sheets pulled tight enough to gleam. Empty. There were far too many places for a kid to vanish into without a trace. 

A few paces ahead, Evan ducked into a bathroom, the floorboards creaking under his weight. Harry moved to join before the band decided to roast him for dinner, but a subtle glint in his peripheral made him halt. His gaze dropped to the floor where a stairwell had been buried into the ground, each wooden step leading steeply to an iron door. Chains were wound tightly across its sturdy frame, their metal catching what little light crept down that far. The whole thing looked like it belonged in a prison, not a manor. 

He took one curious step forward, foot brushing the first stair, cold air already curling up from the depths to kiss his ankles. 

Faster than he could blink, a hand whipped out and roughly grabbed him by the collar of his robe. Harry choked on a gasp as Evan threw him against the nearest wall, the motion so violent his shoulder collided with the frame of a painting, knocking it askew. 

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Evan demanded, his face flushed red with rage.  

Harry coughed, fumbling for an excuse. “What if she’s—”

“Of all the places in this house, she would never go there.”

Evan was already hauling him away from the stairwell, knuckles white around Harry’s arm, his grip vicelike. 

“She wouldn’t even be able to open it. No one opens it without leave. Ever.”

What the hell was behind that door? 

Evan finally released him, shoving Harry forward to keep him in his line of sight, though his anger didn’t ease at all. “We’ll look elsewhere,” he said sharply, then muttered under his breath, “Where the hell is that damned elf when you need her...” 

If you’d bothered to learn her name, we could have summoned her, Harry wanted to bite back. But he forced himself to be quiet. The tension in Evan’s posture confirmed to him that he’d almost trespassed into forbidden territory. Curiosity about that iron door burned in him, but he decided it wasn’t worth the risk of prying. He had a feeling the smallest question could set Evan off after he’d lost his temper that quickly. 

He rubbed his left shoulder, already feeling the bruise forming. Harry opened his mouth to ask if they should turn back, find Narcissa, but something tugged at the edge of his hearing. A small sound. A whine. A faint, muffled little gasp. It came from two rooms down, behind a door that looked no different from the others.

“There,” he said. The noise deepened the closer Harry got to it. He picked up speed and, without hesitating, kicked the door open, barreling into the room with Evan hot on his heels.

Inside was a drawing room, sparsely decorated save for the floo fireplace and a smattering of chairs. Harry ignored the pang in his chest at the ash in the holder. He tried not to imagine himself cupping a handful and just whisking himself away from this place. It wouldn’t be possible, not with Evan so close behind him. 

Instead, he redirected his attention to the cupboard sitting against the far wall, a tall thing with panelled doors and a mirror that reflected a warped version of their figures. 

The noises were definitely coming from inside of it. Harry crossed the room in three quick strides, hands closing around the brass handles, ready to drag her out and demand what the hell she thought she was doing running off like this—but the sight inside punched the words right out of him.

Nagini was wedged against the furthest corner, small body curled like that of a wounded animal. Her sleeves were bunched at her elbows, her arms wet with rivers of slick blood. The skin there wasn’t sliced so much as stripped—ribbons of it hanging loose, torn from the flesh beneath in messy, uneven lines. The knife quivered in her fist as she raked it down her forearm again in a jerky swipe, tearing up another flap of skin, lips moving in a frantic stream of mutters, too garbled to understand, half of it just broken parseltongue. Her eyes were shut so tight it looked painful—like she couldn’t bear to see what she was doing, but physically couldn’t make herself stop either.

For a moment, Harry could do nothing but gape at her. She hadn’t just stopped at her arms. Nagini’s legs, drawn up against her chest, were in a far more horrific state. Thin patches of skin had been peeled away, exposing red, weeping, violated flesh. Harry stood frozen as she cut herself again, struggling to understand what this, why any child would ever do this to themselves when the slightest graze usually sent them bawling—but then, all at once, he realised she was trying to shed, trying to scrape herself apart one painstakingly careful stroke at a time. 

That awful snake-logic was still ingrained inside her skull, even if her current body didn’t support it. No fresh skin to slide free of. No old, itchy layer to leave behind. All that instinct with nowhere to go except toward herself. As a child, of course this was the only conclusion she came to. 

Harry surged forward.

Evan tried to grab him but Harry batted his hand away, reaching for the knife. Nagini’s eyes shot open at the sudden influx of air and light. With a shriek, she slashed out. The blade nicked the side of his arm, but he didn’t relent. 

“Give it,” he ordered, ignoring that rush of pain. “I know you think this is going to make you feel more comfortable, but all you’re doing is hurting yourself. Give it.”

It was useless to try and reason with her, and that became apparent when Nagini screamed at him to leave her alone, blindly swinging the knife to keep him at bay. Harry leaned back just in time. Maybe it was some residual seeker reflexes that guided him, but the next time she tried to twist away, tried to slice her wrist again, Harry bolted forward, grabbing her hand, feeling the sting of several cuts beneath his fingers.

He wrenched the knife free and tossed it behind himself, hearing it clatter away under a chair. Now disarmed, Nagini fought him, desperate and panicked and looking increasingly more feral with each passing second, her nails clawing at his face as she tried to shove him off.

He hooked his arms around her and forcefully pulled her out, flattening her against his chest and locking her there. But the pressure only seemed to agitate the wounds further, her breaths hiccupping out of her in stilted sobs.

“Evan, you useless idiot,” Harry barked, pinning Nagini’s thrashing arms to her sides. “Use your wand!” 

Evan dropped beside them with wide eyes, instinct finally snapping him into motion. Healing charms spilled from him in short bursts of light, sealing the wounds on her arms and legs while Nagini wailed in his ear.

“Go away!” she shouted, using her teeth to bite at his shoulder now that all her other limbs were restrained. “Don’t touch me— I want ma!”

Harry grunted through the assault—and the realisation hit, sudden and ugly, that she didn’t mean mum. She wasn’t calling for some figment of a childhood that never existed. Ma wasn’t a mother. She meant Master.

Despite his own discomfort, Harry held her head against his shoulder, cradling her through each kick and scream. When he looked up, he saw Narcissa in the doorway like a statue, face drained of all colour. 

“You need to call him,” he said with a wince. Nagini’s sobs were coming faster. Her breaths were short. Her panic was spiralling. She did not know any of them, not really. Voldemort was the closest thing she had to something familiar. “Call him now.”

Narcissa blinked. “Yes, of course. Evan.”

“Okay, okay, wait,” Evan said, dragging a hand through his platinum hair. He gave the blood pooling on the floor and soaking into Harry’s clothes a disgusted look, but had otherwise regained his composure. Now that the shock had worn off, he worked much faster, healing the last wound on her knee before swiftly standing up. Evan shoved his sleeve up and dug his wand into the Mark on his forearm, mumbling a spell Harry couldn’t decipher over the sound of Nagini’s hysterical crying.

He tried to stand, to get her somewhere more comfortable, but she only fought harder, her fists pounding against his chest. Harry tightened his hold, guilt twisting through him when he noticed how terribly she shook. If he’d just allowed her to regain her body, she would have never resorted to… 

He swatted those thoughts aside. It didn’t matter now. 

Narcissa stepped in and helped him to his feet. “Her room,” she said firmly, leading him away, grimacing when Nagini let out another horrible scream. “We’ll take her there. Evan, how long until his lordship comes?”

“I don’t think he’s coming.”

Harry swivelled around to stare at him, Nagini still flailing in his arms. “What?”

Evan shook his head, lowering his wand. “Usually I get a signal if he intends to answer. There was nothing. I think he may have… dismissed it.”

There was a second of silence between them, filled only with the sound of Nagini’s hitching sobs. 

Narcissa cleared her throat. 

“I will send Lucius,” she announced, taking a step back. “Or Bella, if I find her first. He may just be occupied at the moment, but I am certain he will want to be informed of what has transpired, seeing as your Marks cannot relay messages. In the meantime, return to her room.”

How they got back to the other side of the manor remained unclear to Harry. Half of the trek involved him trying to get Nagini not to bite his shoulder any deeper than she already had, while the other half he spent still mulling over Evan’s words. How could he not come? 

The Dark Lord had full confidence Harry couldn’t escape if he’d left him here, so Evan’s summons would have had nothing to do with him. That meant Voldemort knew, to some extent, that if anything had happened—bad enough to require his presence—it must be related to Nagini. And yet he’d dismissed it anyway. 

Someone would reach him soon, though. Someone would tell him what happened, and then he would arrive. Harry told himself that multiple times while trying to keep Nagini from clawing her way out of his grip. Voldemort would show up, and then she might settle.

He had no idea what Voldemort would do once he arrived, probably something cold and authoritative rather than comforting, but at least Nagini would see him. She’d stop frantically calling out for her ma.

He’ll come, Harry repeated to himself. 

Harry set Nagini down on the bed as gently as he could. She had cried herself empty by the time they made it to her room, all her energy burned out, leaving her weak and sniffling. The screaming had stopped, but her breaths stuttered every few seconds, each inhale sharp enough to shake her shoulders. He almost preferred it when she had been fighting him. At least then she had somewhere to aim her panic.

Now, she was limp. She offered no resistance when he and Evan started peeling that blood-stained robe off her, her head tipping sideways as if even holding it up took too much effort. Her only movements were unintentional; the spasm in her chest, the frantic rise and fall of it as she mumbled ineligibly to herself. 

Harry dressed her as quickly as his hands would allow him, angling her arms into the sleeves of the white nightgown Narcissa had shoved against Evan’s chest before leaving to find her husband. It was a floating bit of silk, soft and tailored perfectly to her size. Harry zipped it up, even as Nagini cried the whole time. Choking sounds at first, then quieter ones that came from a place deep inside her, a place that did not recognise anything—or anyone—around her. 

Harry had seen pain before. He had seen terror. He had never seen anyone cry like this, every breath a gasp, as if she could not figure out how to properly fill her lungs. A panic attack, yes, he recognised it for what it was, and eventually, Evan had to spell her unconscious. She’d reached that awful point between suffocation and sobbing, and neither of them could offer anything to ease it. The one person she wanted was nowhere near this room.

Sleep was the only option—if it could even be called that. Her brows were drawn together, her eyelids flinching every so often, like the pain still chased her through whatever dreamless void she had been forced into.

Harry sat on the edge of the bed an hour later, staring at her. His arm throbbed where the knife had caught him, and while Evan had thrown a careless healing spell over his shoulder before stepping outside to speak with Narcissa, it had only stopped the bleeding. The wound still burned beneath his sleeve, a steady pulsing that accompanied the ache in his shoulder from being bitten—again. But he didn’t bother telling Evan he’d done a shit job, and simply tore a strip from Nagini’s old robe. He wrapped it around himself, tightened the knot with his teeth, and then went back to her side.

Any moment now, he told himself. Voldemort would arrive any moment now. Nagini had tried to scrape her own skin off. Even he would care about that. In some cold, private part of him, he would care. The door handle finally turned. Harry sat up straighter. 

Evan stepped inside.

“Narcissa has gone home,” he said, placing a stack of items on the nearest table. Dresses and stockings, by the look of them. “She left an entire collection of clothes for her. There are more trunks outside.”

Harry stared at the pile without interest. He felt something spark in his chest, something offended and bitter. “And your lord?” he asked, his voice coming out harsher than intended. “Is he coming?”

Evan’s expression flickered between irritation and discomfort, like he wanted to scold Harry for his tone but also knew now was not the moment. “No,” he replied. “He is not coming. Narcissa sent her sister to inform him. Bellatrix delivered the message and returned with orders to ensure the girl was healed. Nothing more. He will not be coming tonight.”

Harry let the words sink in. He could picture it easily: Bellatrix approaching him in some obscure corner of Germany and relaying the news, Voldemort standing there with that empty expression, taking in the words without reaction, then giving her a small flick of his hand to send her away, utterly unfazed. Perhaps even annoyed. 

Evan himself did not look disturbed by Voldemort’s lack of care either. He simply adjusted the blankets around Nagini, nodded once, then moved to take up post behind the couch again. This was his version of loyalty. Absolute, uncomplicated, blind. He appeared to be the gentler of Voldemort’s followers—and that was laughable, the bruise from earlier on Harry’s shoulder wasn’t very gentle—but even he did not bat an eye at Voldemort’s blatantly cruel indifference. In his mind, he’d already rationalised it. The Dark Lord had more pressing matters to attend to than the tantrums of a child. And besides, the child wasn’t actually his. Why should Voldemort care? 

Harry stared at Nagini again. Her breathing was steady now, thanks to the spell, but the crease between her brows remained.

Voldemort was not coming. Why had Harry ever expected anything else? Why had he let himself imagine even the smallest ounce of decency in a man like that. He was his father’s son, after all. Cold shoulder must’ve been hereditary, a trait left for him alongside the face. Voldemort could not soften for anyone, not even a child who had carved herself apart for a scrap of comfort in this foreign body. 

He stared at the floor for a while, eyes darting to the window only once. It was evening now, the sunset’s beams washing the room in hues of pink and fading orange. Soon, Harry told himself. Soon he’d be left alone long enough to try it, and then…

Harry peered down at Nagini. But what about her? 

Night fell quickly after that ordeal. 

Evan must have taken a potion to keep himself awake, because he didn’t budge from that self-appointed post even once, eyes alert and open, always pinned on Harry, always there in the corner, watching his every move.

Harry turned his back on him and settled beside Nagini, staring up at the crevices in the canopy bed, the carvings in the wood, the whirls and lines. He ended up falling asleep like that, but first, he let his fingers brush the underside of Nagini’s wrist. 

Don’t change her, he commanded that small, golden cord of magic that seeped out of him and into her. Calm her, but don’t change her. 

And when he slept, there was nothing to force him into viewing a memory. Magic, willingly given, never demanded anything back. It hadn’t with Locket, and it wouldn’t with her. 

Albus Dumbledore was hunched over a desk beneath an open window, candles dispersed around him in clusters, their warm golden glow a stark contrast to the cold moonlight dripping in through the glass behind him. A cool breeze snuck past the pane, fluttering the curtains, stirring the long white hair he’d tied loosely at his back. The flames shivered, but did not go out; he had charmed them to withstand any wind. They’d burn on their wax sticks for as long as he needed them to.

Briefly, his eyes darted to his inkpot and quill, both untouched. 

He had stopped writing hours ago. The letters lay in half-finished stacks around him, his office a disorganised mess of chaos. For a lack of anything better to do, his hands rested idly on the armrests now, attention pulled toward the black leather diary sitting innocently before him, those three familiar initials embossed in gold at the bottom. 

He did not touch it. He had no urge to write to it. What would be the point? The thing will be ash soon enough. He may not have basilisk venom—and would likely never get his hands on it—but fiendfyre could destroy a horcrux with the same brutal efficiency. It was, regrettably, the only option even available to him. Nothing else would affect such cursed, dark, frigid magic. 

The trouble, of course, was that this was not the only one. And until the others were found, unleashing a fire that could devour an entire city wasn’t very wise. Even in the most capable hands, fiendfyre was a living hunger. One misstep could spread ruin across miles. If he cast it, he wanted to cast it only once, with every fragment of the Dark Lord’s soul gathered and ready to be piled into its flames.

That was a faraway fantasy, however. As things currently stood, he’d only acquired this piece because it had been brought to him by Severus Snape. 

He glanced at the diary again, a complicated furrow on his brows. When Severus had dropped his memory of that night into the mercurial waters of his pensieve, he’d been shocked, yes, undoubtedly, but the more dominant emotion had been perplexity. 

He had watched the memory. The snake. The axe. The blade carving through her enormous body. The explosion of dark magic that had resulted afterwards, wisps of shadow raging like a storm, lashing out blindly until they twisted in a single direction. He had watched them pivot, drawn like a starving thing toward Lily’s boy, latching onto him because he had been the nearest living vessel, a body still whole enough, pure enough, for the shard of a soul still grasping madly at survival. Harry may have killed the mortal container that previously held it, but even magic like his could not destroy the horcrux itself. 

Only embrace it, apparently.

Albus had watched that memory and understood, acutely, what had happened. The trump card that had fallen into his hands. The key to this lock that had kept them all in chains for decades. Severus had no idea; he doubted his former student would have parted with the memory if he did. But Albus knew. He knew precisely what had occurred that night, and laughably enough, he was the only one who did.

Tom certainly didn’t know. If he did, he wouldn’t have shredded the boy’s hands soon after. 

Albus paused. 

Or maybe he would have. 

Now, Albus was hardly well-versed in predicting how dark wizards would treat their teenage horcruxes, but he doubted gentleness features high on Tom’s list of strategies. If he ever did find out, it would only make things worse, not better. He’d treat Harry less like a person and more like a vault—something to pry open, to exploit, to hollow out until all that remained was the part that belonged to him.

Given his temperament, he’d likely done far worse to him in the months since that night—but Albus’s knowledge of such matters was limited to Severus’s reports. And those came sparingly. When he’d asked him how he’d even recognised the diary in that whirlwind of events, the man only tapped those three initials in response, face as gloomy as ever.

“I didn’t know what it was,” Severus had admitted. “Or how it ended up with him. I just saw the name and took it… strange, don’t you think? That you’ve searched for twenty years, but Harry just miraculously finds one lying around Malfoy Manor? How did he even manage it?” 

“We won't know for sure until we ask him,” Albus had responded. “That is, if we find him.”

Severus hadn’t replied, the reminder of their failed search bringing a sour look to his face. He’d stood up, glanced at him awkwardly like he didn’t know how to deliver a socially acceptable farewell, and then promptly left. 

Albus sighed, leaning back in his seat. 

So ruined you are, Tom. So broken and blind you cannot recognise nor sense your own soul, even when it is right in front of you. I can only hope you have not killed him yet. 

And hope Albus did. Harry was the only path left. If there was any chance of finding the other horcruxes, any chance of even learning how many existed, it would be through the boy who carried the secret inside himself. Harry Potter must live. Albus would find him, and when he did, when he did…

The window creaked behind him.

Albus froze. The candle flames trembled, their teardrop shapes bending frantically for a fraction of a moment. Something misplaced the air behind him, something presence-heavy and unwelcome, pushing a chill across his spine.

He curled his hands into fists on the armrests. His heartbeat tripped when he heard a hum, followed by the faint rustle of a cloak sliding over the sill. The window shut a second later. He heard the latch settle, this brazen intruder already making themselves comfortable. 

A hand lightly brushed his shoulder.

He knew the shape of that touch. The familiarity of it struck him harder than the intrusion itself.

“Hello, Gellert,” he whispered, surprised by how hoarse his voice sounded. Age had worn his vocal cords down, but the ache rising in his throat also played its part. He had not spoken this name in years.

“Albus,” Gellert murmured in return, hushed.

Albus did not have to turn to know Gellert was leaning forward, staring down at him from behind the chair. He could feel the fingers on his shoulder tighten, holding him firm, keeping him down. Another hand settled against his neck, right at his pulse point; a warning not to be rash lest he wanted his throat cut. 

Against his better judgment, Albus let it happen. He noted the dry texture of the skin, the way the palm felt scarred, worn, brittle. It was much like his own, a hand weathered by age.

He heard a soft, breathy laugh above him. “You know, the last time we saw each other, you were surrounded by so many people.”

Albus remembered that too. The duel had ended with a flood of witches and wizards thundering past him, wands raised, their spells easily restraining Gellert now that the Elder Wand’s allegiance had been ripped from him. They had forced him to his knees for all to see, and Gellert had looked up once, just once, meeting Albus’s gaze across the crowds with a blood-stained grin, eyes shining and wide and so full of betrayed contempt.

“Now, however…” 

Albus did not reach for his wand. He did not reach for anything. He kept still while Gellert’s voice rasped through the room, a sound so rough it resembled gravel. 

“Now you are quite like me, aren’t you?” 

Gellert stepped away, retracting his hands. The shadow he cast over the desk slipped aside with him, and soon Albus was staring up at him as he moved to the opposite end of the desk, the light finally illuminating every gaunt angle of his face.

Albus’s first thought, oddly enough, was that Gellert had grown terribly ugly. Only traces remained of the beauty that had once dazzled him. The mouth that had promised him glory, power, comfort, love, was cracked dry and colourless. The eyes that had looked at him adoringly, hatefully, worthlessly, were now set deep in a hollowed skull. Even his body, drowning in a grey cloak, had been reduced to bone; the shoulders sharp as spear tips, the wrist jutting out when Gellert lifted a hand to play with the jar of lemon drops he always kept in the corner.

Albus dragged his attention away from that abnormally frail hand and focused it on Gellert’s face, framed by the same silver-grey hair as his own. 

 “In what way are we alike?”

“Are we not both fugitives?” Gellert asked right away, smiling. “Remember how eager they were to name your minister… now look at you.”

Albus regarded him genially. Fugitives, yes, but for rather different reasons. He had never started a global massacre, nor committed atrocities on an industrial scale. He had never worn the crown of a Dark Lord. 

“Time’s change,” he eventually replied, giving him a small shrug. Reacting with panic or violence would be useless here. Best just let him gloat until an opportunity to fight presented itself. 

Gellert raked his gaze over him, river-blue eyes sparkling with mirth. He took in the cramped room, the dark clothes he wore to blend unnoticeably into the shadows, the paleness of a face that hadn’t seen sunlight in a long time. Glee shone in his irises, the satisfaction there palpable. He was happy at the fact Albus did not live comfortably, always driven from one safehouse to another as Lord Voldemort’s men hunted him down like an animal. 

“Yes, indeed, times do change, don’t they? The name they’d sung praises for is now uttered only with caution.” Gellert studied him intently, as if reading a map that could lead him to treasure. “When they—when you—locked me away in my own prison and left me there to rot for decades, I often wondered how dearly I would make you pay for it.”

How unsurprising, Albus thought, but kept himself quiet. 

Gellert’s mouth morphed into a slight sneer. “Do you know what it is like, Albus, hearing your name through stone? Guards gossip, you see. I heard about your titles. Your Order of Merlin. Your accolades and achievements. They stood at my bars and spoke of you as if you were salvation itself.” He cocked his head at him, his penetrating gaze so unnervingly focused. “I used to think, how unfair, that they cheer for the man who chained me. How unfair, that they praise you for cleaning up a mess you helped create.”

Albus let him speak. There was nothing to say that would not pour oil on fire. A man left alone in a cell for almost a century now had more than enough time to cultivate a personal hell. Gellert had always needed a villain to blame. 

“But hatred feeds you only for a time,” Gellert said with a sigh, the anger easing like a tide pulling back. His voice became softer, lighter. “By… I think it was the twentieth year? Yes, by then, those bars had mellowed me out, ah. I stopped wishing you dead and started wanting you to come back, to visit me…” 

Gellert braced his palms against the desk’s surface, leaning over to stare into his eyes, the candlelight throwing shadowy shapes across his face. “You didn’t, of course. Heartless as you are.” 

Gellert calling him heartless. What’s that saying? Don’t throw no stones if you’re in a glass house?

Albus began tapping the armrest with his finger, making his ring knock against the wood. He needed to occupy himself, needed to disturb the air with a noise that wasn’t Gellert’s voice. 

“I had nothing left to say to you,” he replied, glancing at the diary. “What words did you want from me? An apology? I am not sorry. You were and remain a danger. Your kickstarted horrific amounts of bloodshed in both worlds. In fact, I will be penning a letter to a friend of mine now so the Aurors may come and collect y—”

Gellert’s hand shot forward and closed around his wrist. Albus gritted his teeth when nails punctured the skin, drawing a thin line of blood. The quill he’d picked up fell from his grip, hitting the diary before rolling off its leather edge. 

“And leak your own location while you’re at it?” Gellert taunted. 

“I am capable of hiding my trail,” Albus said, voice steady. “It would be no trouble for me to dip out of their radar, or just have it delivered anonymously.” 

Gellert looked at him pensively for a moment. “Perhaps,” he conceded with a nod of approval. “But what if I just kill you now, right here? Use your safehouse while your body decays on this chair?”   

Albus raised a brow. “If that is the reason you came,” he answered, letting his wrist go slack in Gellert’s hold. He met his eyes directly. “Make it quick, hm?” 

Gellert grinned, all teeth, then let him go, finally putting some much-needed distance between them. “I entertained the thought in Nurmengard,” he admitted. “But that’s not why I’m here.”

“A shame,” Albus said, massaging his wrist where the crescent indents throbbed. “If you will not do it, then I will find a way to see you returned to that cell.”

Gellert shook his head. “No, you will not. I have a better proposition for you.”

For a heartbeat, Albus could imagine him as he once was, golden-haired and beautiful, one hand tucked behind his back as he spun promises with silvered ease. His words were nearly identical to how they used to be, back when he was no more than a naive teenager, lured by the promise of Gellert’s grand visions. The ephemeral image of that young boy lasted only a second before dissolving into what stood before him now; a haggard creature, bitter and aged.

Albus raised a brow. “A proposition. From you. How very civilised.”

“You sound doubtful.”

“I am,” Albus said simply. “You break out of Nurmengard, cross continents, slip past every Auror in Europe, and the first thing you do is knock on my window to offer me a… proposition.” Albus fought to keep the scorn out of his voice. “Forgive me if I fail to see the logic in all this.”

Gellert’s smile tilted. “Who else would I visit first.”

“There is a long list of people you have wronged,” Albus hummed. “I am hardly the most forgiving.”

For some reason, that just made Gellert more amused. “You really don’t want to hear my offer?” 

“I’d like to know why you think I’d entertain any offer of yours at all.” Albus lifted his chin to hold his gaze. “You are a war criminal, Gellert, not a business partner.”

“A war criminal who knows things,” Gellert countered. “Things you do not. Things he does not.” His mouth curled around that last word. They both knew who he meant.

Albus felt something irritated spark in his chest at that. Gellert always did know where to press. 

He kept his tone bland and went back to laying his hands on the armrests. “Information is a poor currency when you have a history of twisting every truth placed in your hands. Do you really expect me to take you for your word?” 

“No,” Gellert said. “But I expect you to be curious. You always were. That curiosity dragged you to me once. It will keep you listening now.”

Albus’s patience dwindled. The diary on the desk felt heavier by the second, a black weight polluting the corner of his vision. Time wasted on Grindelwald was time Tom Riddle spent tightening his ruthless hold on the world. “Enough,” he said. “State what you want, or kill me and save us both the effort of another duel.”

That seemed to hit a nerve. Gellert’s eyes flashed with something cruel and awful, but the mask returned so fast it might’ve never slipped.

“Believe me, my dear Albus, if I meant to harm you, I would have done it already. I need your cooperation, not your corpse.”

Albus observed him. The longer he looked, the more he recognised the familiar cadence of manipulation buried beneath Gellert’s measured tone. The same charm that had convinced him, once, to forsake his own morals. Albus leaned back slightly, rubbing at his temple, weary of the performance. “I have no patience for any more riddles tonight. If you have something to say, say it.”

He made the mistake of glancing up, and nearly froze at the look in Gellert’s eyes, the blue in them lit with an emotion Albus couldn’t name, something suspended between hunger and awe—a rabid sort of greed.

“A memory,” Gellert breathed out at last. “I want a memory from you, Albus, my Albus…”

He leaned forward over the desk, inch by inch, until their faces hovered far too close. “I need, need, confirmation that what I saw was not a trick of my mind.” 

“… Saw?”

“It came back,” he whispered, voice nearly shaking. “I thought I’d never See anything again. Yes, I had dreams, brief snatches of the future, but they were so dark, so blurry, so convoluted… trapped within those magic-repressing wards, it was hard to tell if what I saw were hallucinations or visions. Half the time I couldn’t even recall my own past without wondering if I’d made it up. I was going mad in there, Albus. But, but.” 

His breathing quickened, the excitement creeping into his tone the way it once did when they were boys, poring over forbidden texts on long summer evenings.

“Just as I had resigned myself to that miserable fate you so kindly arranged for me,” he said, beaming with wonder, his head shaking slowly as though he still couldn’t believe what he was saying, “I finally saw something clear. It wasn’t hazy. It was clear.” 

Fool, Albus thought. Irredeemable fool.

Yet curiosity slid its cold, traitorous fingers into his flesh, lodging themselves there.

“What did you see?” he asked softly.

Gellert did not answer at once. His gaze unfocused slightly, as if he were peering through Albus rather than at him.

“There is a boy,” Gellert murmured, drawing back to grip the edge of the desk. His knuckles whitened around the wood. “A boy with blood that can undo it all. Fix it all. A force so old it made even my visions bow.” His tongue touched his lip. “His blood called to something in me. It dragged me out of that cell.” 

Albus swallowed. “Riddle?”

“No,” Gellert said, sharper and harsher than expected, eyes zeroing in on him again. “The blood I speak of was not his. That’s how I know the boy matters.”

Albus understood absolutely none of his nonsense. He let his confusion show, unsure what to even say here.

Gellert lifted a hand and pressed it to his forehead, as if steadying something fragile in his skull. “It was a hall,” he whispered. “Cold stone, tall columns, everything echoing. I could hear every breath in it, every sound, as if the walls were pressed right against my ears. I heard her first. The woman. Hair down to her waist, dark red, darker than yours ever was.” He frowned, like he was searching for the detail in the hectic labyrinth of his mind. “Dark clothes, dark sleeves, stained at the cuffs. She kept pushing the hair behind her shoulders and it kept slipping forward again. I remember that.”

So he saw Lily. Albus had a hunch he knew what moment he was narrating. It’s evidence currently lived in his pensieve, extracted from her mind when she’d come to him, over a year ago, to recast the memory charms, needing assurance that her secrets were protected. That when another’s presence slewed into the folds of her brain, it wouldn’t let them see just how much she harboured. 

Albus’s throat felt like it was slathered with dust when he asked, “And what was she doing?”

“She was on her hands and knees,” Gellert answered instantly, almost gleeful, a crooked grin splitting his lips. “Cleaning the blood from the floor. There was so much of it. Thick, vivid red pools. Ha, it was everywhere. Someone had bled a great deal.” He paused, gaze drifting to the diary on the desk. “Two arms’ worth, perhaps.”

”… You are talking in circles, Gellert. What does this woman have to do with anything?”

More accurately, what could you possibly want from Harry Potter’s mother? 

“And your student,” Gellert added, completely ignoring his question to continue his story. “Your young one. He was there as well.”

Albus kept his expression neutral.

“Yes,” Gellert said to himself, sounding utterly fascinated as his hands gestured wildly in the air, like he was trying to paint an abstract picture for him. “Yes, he sat on a chair. A coil of a snake around his shoulders, idly twirling a shard between his fingers as he watched her clean. He would tilt his head. Slow. Like this.” Gellert demonstrated jerkingly, a tremor in his shoulders, but it didn’t do much to help his case of not looking like a deranged lunatic. “He told her no wand. She had to use her hands and a cloth. Her boy had angered him, you see, so this was all punishment—”

“I never would have guessed,” Albus snapped, fixing the man looming over him with a flat stare. “Enough theatrics. You have described a woman, a pool of blood, and one of my students—mind you, your successor—observing her suffering. What of it. What connection do you expect me to divine from this?”

Gellert blinked, as if the question itself bewildered him. His fingers twitched. “You act as if I showed you nothing,” he muttered. “As if the most important part is not glaring at you.”

“Enlighten me,” Albus said, voice cool.

Gellert leaned forward again. His pupils were blown wide, smouldering and feverish. “Her eyes,” he whispered. “That is how I knew. Green. Emerald green. The exact shade I saw in the boy. His eyes, Albus. Green as fresh-cut leaves. Green like her.”

Albus felt his heartbeat twist. “So,” he said carefully, trying to sound bored, “you recognised a blood relation.”

“Yes,” Gellert hissed, delighted that Albus finally appeared to catch up. “Mother and son. Bound through blood.”

Albus forced his features into impassivity. “That still tells me nothing about why you’re here.”

Gellert tilted his head, watching him as though he were calculating where best to poke. His fingers drummed against the tabletop, light at first, then faster, restless.

“Because that vision was not the only one.”

Albus didn’t speak. He waited, knowing this was Gellert’s usual tactic; get him painfully curious, immerse him in his tales, bait him the way one dangles meat on a hook to entice the fishes. 

“That hall was not the first,” Gellert said, voice roughening. “It was not even the clearest. I saw him once before that.”

Gellert shoved a hand into his jar of lemon drops, the wrappers crinkling loudly in the quiet of his office. He drew out a handful, opening his palm right above the jar so they’d spill over the sides and fall back in. “He was somewhere else this time. A room in a house by the seaside. He was lying on bedsheets as white as snow.” Gellert’s eyes flicked up, twinkling. “Not sleeping, though. He was staring up at his ceiling, looking rather pale and pained. Bleeding again. He bleeds often, Albus. Every time I see him, blood follows. It’s like the future snarls around it.” His mouth curved, as if tasting something candied and sweet. “Everything becomes clearer when that blood appears. Everything sharpens around it.”

This was not what Albus expected. He straightened. “Where was he hurt?”

“I do not know,” Gellert snapped, annoyed by the question. A second later, he suddenly laughed. His smile was lecherous, this time. “But there was a terrible stain spreading right beneath his thighs, dark and wet. He was half-conscious, I think.”

Albus didn’t let himself linger on the location of the blood, fingers gripping the armrests tighter. It was becoming increasingly more difficult to muffle his disgust. 

“And then,” Gellert added, eyes brightening even more, “I saw we entered the room.”

Something inside him froze over, like a lake under a winter sky. “We,” he repeated.

“Yes,” Gellert said softly now. “You and I.” 

No. No, no, no.

Albus made himself to breathe through the unease crawling across his skin. Visions were fickle things. Gellert had once foreseen his own death by Credence Barebone, and how had that ended? The future was ever-changing. It twisted. It rewrote itself with every choice made. But if Gellert had seen them together in a memory that had not yet happened, if he had seen them at Harry’s side…

That meant Albus would reach the boy. It meant he would get to him before Tom finally broke him. It meant he would have the final piece needed to overturn Tom’s chess board entirely.

It also meant that somewhere, somehow, things had gone horribly wrong. What use was Tom’s fall if Albus himself was just going to set up a replacement? Allying with Gellert, though not nearly as cruel as Voldemort, was counterproductive. It was beyond absurd. It was—

Gellert must have seen the growing alarm on his face, because his own expression veered into something more comforting. “We tried to help him, if it eases your mind. But…” Gellert’s eyes went dark. “That little brat is so ungrateful. He didn’t take kindly to anyone’s hands on him. Nearly ruptured my eye with that punch he gave— will give. Albus, you must remind me to dodge when it happens. I am far too old to risk losing my eyesight.” 

Albus looked at him, really looked at him, and felt the old bile rise in his throat. History rewinded itself in sickening ways. He had stood beside this man once. Believed him once. He could not do it again.

The future had no business placing them shoulder to shoulder.

“You do know,” Albus said quietly, “that your visions have lied to you before?”

Gellert shook his head. “Not about this.”

“You foresaw my execution at the hands of my nephew,” Albus reminded him. “And yet here we are. I really don’t think you’re the most reliable prophet.” 

Gellert went silent. A thoughtful sort of silence. He stared at Albus, finally taking his hand out of his jar. He stepped back. Smiled. “I did warn you the cost for this charade would be steep,” he murmured, drawing out each word, and it took a second for Albus to remember that these were his own words, uttered in an Order meeting at Grimmauld Place nearly six years ago, back when he’d let Harry see him for the first time. 

“Gellert—” 

“I would pay it a hundred times,” Gellert cut him off. “That’s what the woman said to you. That’s how I found out you knew her.” 

Albus’s jaw clamped as he stared at Gellert across the desk. “A coincidence,” he deadpanned. “A guess. You dredge up fragments and expect me to leap.”

“I don’t blame you for your hesitance,” Gellert said soothingly, like Albus was the one that needed mollifying here. “Nobody has doubts about my visions more than me. They failed me once, in regards to you. That is why I am here. I want a memory, Albus. A confirmation that what I saw—what I see—is not just another fluke. You know this woman, I know you do, don’t lie to me. So I ask, again, do you have her memory of that hall? Of that blood?” 

Albus scrutinised him as one might a dangerous artefact, something deceptively inert that could detonate without warning. 

“You did not break out of Nurmengard for confirmation,” he said acidly. “And you did not come here for any other reason than selfishness. You want something from that boy. And you want it badly enough that you’re willing to work with me.” His voice hardened, defensive. “What is it?” 

Gellert’s smile returned, slow and unpleasant. “Ah. So you do have it.”

“What do you want,” Albus repeated, with more force.

Only then did Gellert answer. “Three drops of his blood. Just drops. He won’t feel it at all.”

“An exact number,” he said quietly. “Which tells me you are planning something.”

Gellert sighed, somehow managing to look both tired and aggravated. “Do you remember how difficult I was to fight?”

Albus pursed his lips, not liking this change in topic.

“How irritatingly ahead of you I always seemed…” Gellert smirked when he noticed his ire, pleased with himself. “How I knew where you would hit before your wand ever moved… how you and your insufferable band of saints walked three steps forward while I waited on the fourth.” He grinned wickedly. “I saw your plans while they were still forming.”

Albus’s gaze didn’t waver.

“Your friends are all dead now, by the way,” Gellert added lightly. “God bless, I checked.”

The words barely grazed him. He’d been there for every funeral and wake. This was no surprise to him.

“Now imagine that Sight,” Gellert continued, “turned outward. Focused on Tom Riddle.”

Albus did not rise to the bait, and just stared at him as blankly as he could.

“If I could predict you,” Gellert went on, cajoling, “I could predict him. He believes himself beyond consequences, and I admit, he runs a more ironclad campaign than I ever did—I mean, physically marking his followers so they have no choice but to be eternally loyal?—Ingenious. Most of mine, beside lovely Vinda, of course, didn’t even bother attempting to break me out.” 

Albus narrowed his eyes. He’s had enough of his buffoon. 

“But your student,” Gellert said quickly, realising he’s running on limited time. “Your little mistake you didn’t snip at the bud when you should have. He is currently indestructible. You’re fighting him blind. With me, though, you could know where to strike before he even realises he’s vulnerable. You could see his victories wilt before they bloom. Every hidden advantage lit up like a flare.” 

Tempting, so very tempting. But Albus was not swayed that easily. 

“Say I agree,” he said, voice cold. “Say I am reckless—desperate— enough to take your assistance. Despite everything you are. Despite everything you’ve done.” He leaned forward slightly. “What do you intend to do with your payment? These three drops?”

Gellert didn’t hesitate before blurting out his reply. “Nothing that harms anyone,” he vowed, looking serious all of a sudden. “You have my word.” 

Albus laughed before he could stop himself, incredulous. “You… not harming anyone?” 

Gellert scowled. “Unbelievable as it sounds, I am not deluded enough to think I can rebuild my cause. There is no audience left for that performance. Nurmengard cured me of ambition, so if it is my—what do you call it? My tyranny?—if it is that you fear, then I assure you, I am not interested in ruling anything, least of all a world that’s already scorned and buried my name.” He exhaled slowly. “Bind me if you wish. With oaths, with chains, with magic. I will sign every one. I will crawl into whatever cage you design and lock it behind myself.”

Albus watched him carefully, silent. 

“You learned vigilance from me,” Gellert pressed, staring into his eyes. “Use it. Write conditions and contracts into my very existence if it settles you. I will not defy them.”

The offer was calculated. Clever. Gellert was stripping his own claws in front of him because he knew exactly what Albus feared. This was not the same architect of chaos that he’d dueled decades ago, but greed still lurked in his eyes, reshaped rather than extinguished. He desired this blood because he wanted to know what it was, what it could do, and knowledge in his hands had always been the most dangerous thing in the room.

Albus thought of Lily. Of the ritual Severus had spoken about only in pieces, terrified of what it meant to name it fully. Magic like that… magic that existed outside consequence until it demanded payment… 

Even if it was bound to only one wielder, Harry himself, Albus had no illusions Gellert would want to misuse it. If the blood carried secrets, Gellert would prise open every one of them. What had he said? That blood could fix it all? Fix what, exactly? He wanted it for a purpose, and even if he insisted that purpose did not involve harming anyone, Albus knew better than to believe him. 

But…

He was no longer in a position to discard even poisoned tools.

Tom Riddle grew stronger by the day. Every hour that passed was another life at risk. If Gellert could see farther, if he could read the future like a diagram layered beneath the present, then Albus would be a fool to turn that advantageous weapon away just because it disgusted him.

Which, consequently, left him with only one other option. 

Albus stood up. If Gellert was dangerous, then he would just have to make him harmless. 

“I don’t believe you,” he said honestly. “But belief is not even required here. Only control.” Albus took out his wand; the Elder Wand that had been Gellert’s before.  

Gellert’s eyes tracked it like a predator. His adams apple bobbed like he was thirsty. 

“The very first thing you will swear,” Albus began, “is that you abandon any pursuit of immortality. Of the Hallows. Of every crooked path you once believed made your life weigh more than another’s.”

“And if I refuse that part?” Gellert asked probingly, without any real heat. 

“Then I kill you,” Albus replied, “and whatever future you saw with me dies in this room.” 

Albus did not miss the glitter in his eyes at that. He raised the wand, pointing at Gellert’s heart over the desk, allowing him to see just how quickly this could all end if he made the wrong move.

“You will swear never to use the boy’s blood to take a life—whether by your own hand, through another, or by twisting it into some spell, experiment, or ritual designed to do the killing for you.” Another oath formed itself in his mind, then another, knotting together like wire until Albus’s mouth couldn’t keep up with his mind. “You will swear to abandon the gathering of followers. That includes any formal movement, allegiance, cult, army or cause. There will be no second Nurmengard in Britain, no resurrection of flags, nothing. And if I find even a hint of Tom’s views or vanity in you, I will end this.” 

Gellert inclined his head faintly. “Very well. No army. Not here or there, or anyone in this world. I swear it.”

“And,” Albus said, glaring at him, “you will swear that if you uncover anything from that blood that endangers the boy, you will bring it to me before acting upon it. You will make no move to sabotage the goals I set, for if you do…”

Gellert inclined his head before he could finish. “I swear it, Albus. Be at ease now. My, you’ve grown brutal in your old age.” 

“Oh, we are nowhere near done. Sit, Gellert. There are several more vows we need to get through.” 

With a huff, Gellert dropped himself into the seat across his desk. 

Call him prideful, but Albus had the utmost confidence he could strangle any harmful intent at the root, cut it clean before it even sprouted. With enough binding magic, enough vows, enough oaths, he could leave no room for wrongdoing to even breathe. They’d be stacked so tightly Gellert himself would fear every step he took, so much so that even if he gave him Harry’s entire body to drain, it would be as useless as his three drops. 

Gellert hadn’t told him what he meant to do with them, and Albus wasn’t idiotic enough to think he would truthfully answer even if he pried, so he didn’t ask again. His concern in this matter wasn’t very high. That magic was bound to the soul. Gellert couldn’t weaponise it even if tried. He knew the risks—taking something magic did not give you would only harm the thief. 

Albus placed his wand tip on the desk, over a pile of parchment. With a slow pull, a thin silver chain trailed out from the tip, curling into a perfect circle, gleaming like a strand of liquid light.

He picked it up delicately, letting the chain dangle from the tip of his wand as he raised it between them. “It will sit against your skin,” he informed him. “And if you violate even one of these oaths—if you so much as entertain the idea of breaking them—this will kill you. Quickly, and without hesitation. The magic inside will know. Even if I no longer live, it will know.”

And stop you, goes unsaid. This necklace was not the bars of his former prison, but it would keep him caged all the same. 

Gellert watched it swing like a pendulum between them. Then, with a strange look of amusement, he leaned forward and let it drop around his neck. The clasp sealed itself with a tight, decisive click, shrinking until it closed around the width of his neck like a loose collar. 

“You always did adore your cages,” Gellert mused, drawing back to thumb at his newly-acquired shackle. 

Albus didn’t look away.

“That blood will obey only one soul,” he said, though he knew Gellert already understood this.  “It is loyal to the boy. As long as that remains true… nothing you try will work. No matter what you think it can fix.” 

Least of all with just three drops. 

Gellert leaned back in his seat, still testing the confines of the necklace. He didn’t reply, but his gaze on him felt heavier than before. 

Harry woke to something cold and moist pressing insistently against his mouth.

He frowned and turned his face away, half-asleep and still groggy, burrowing deeper into the covers. The cold followed. Something squished against his lips, then pushed harder.

“No,” he mumbled, swatting at the air, annoyed and upset at the disturbance. “Go away...”

The pressure didn’t stop.

He cracked one eye open and found Nagini hovering inches from his face, hair an unholy tangle of knots, eyes bright with purpose. A fistful of grapes was clenched in one hand as she tried, with impressive dedication, to shove one directly into his mouth.

Before he could form a single protest, it slipped past his lips, the juice bursting over his tongue when he bit down on instinct. It was a horrible betrayal by his own half-conscious jaw. He struggled to choke it down and jolted upright. “Augh—” Harry spluttered, thumping at his chest to help ease the way down. 

On the other side of the room, on the couch, Evan sat comfortably with a slice of toast in hand, spreading butter with infuriating leisure. The coffee table in front of him was crowded with plates and teacups and an almost comical amount of food—soft-boiled eggs, quartered oranges, slabs of honey-drizzled bread, even a bowl of sugared plums Harry suspected was all just for Nagini. Voldemort might’ve lacked basic empathy in every other area, but at least he’d instructed the house elf to keep her fed. 

“Morning, sunshine,” Evan called out cheerily, going for the jam next. “Glad to see you’re finally awake. She’s been trying to get you to join us for twenty minutes now.”

Harry coughed again, catching Nagini mid-offer as she presented another grape to him with intense sincerity. The sight alone made his stomach flip.

He barely had time to shove the blankets aside before the nausea slammed into him full force. He scrambled out of bed and staggered for the bathroom, hand slapping against the doorframe as he stumbled inside and went straight for the sink. 

The grape came back up first. Then everything else followed, harsh and sudden, his body revolting at the idea of something solid existing inside it. He braced his hands against the marble rim, retching until his ribs burned and his vision spotted. 

Behind the door, there was frantic knocking.

“Harry?” Nagini’s voice was impatient and irritated. “Harry, Harry, Harry. I want to come in. Open.”

“No, you don’t,” he croaked, spitting and gasping for air. “Stay out—”

More knocking. Harder now. 

Harry rinsed his mouth, splashed water over his face, and leaned against the wall until the room stopped swaying. His reflection was utterly horrid, so he didn’t stare at it for too long. He knew he looked worse than usual, which felt like an achievement considering the bar he had set for himself. 

When he finally opened the door, Nagini launched herself at him and grabbed his hand, legs still wobbly and unsteady. 

“You are ill,” she declared, giving the length of his body a long, hard look. 

“I’m fine…”

She scowled at him. “You lie.”

Before he could argue, she dragged him toward the table with an alarming amount of strength for someone who’d tried to scrape her own skin off less than twenty-four hours ago.

“Sit,” she ordered. “Ma says we must have manners at the table.”

I wonder what else your stupid ma has said about manners, Harry thought, reluctantly allowing her to guide him into the seat across from Evan. His eyes skittered to the window before returning to the Death Eater, who was fishing out a small bottle from his pocket. He tossed it lazily across the table, unsurprised when Harry caught it on reflex.

“Drink,” Evan said around a mouthful of toast. “Barty told me to make sure you took it.” 

Right. Giving him smaller doses of the potion so they could reintroduce his stomach to proper food. Harry almost forgot he was a human with human needs. He didn’t waste anymore time before untwisting the cap, downing the contents in one large gulp, part of him still marginally resentful that he wasn’t allowed more. If this drug withdrawal was anything at all like Voldemort’s for him, then he no longer blamed the guy for losing his marbles like that.

Nagini’s eyes narrowed as she watched him. “What’s that?” she asked, already suspicious.

“Medicine,” Harry replied quickly, setting it out of sight.

She considered him. “You should share.”

“You don’t need it.”

Her expression soured at that. “What if I’m sick?”

“… You’re not?” Harry ran his eyes over her, searching for any lingering injuries they might have missed the night before. “Are you?”

“No?” 

“Then you don’t need it?” he said with a frown. 

Nagini gave Harry a look that suggested she found him incredibly stupid and senseless, before turning back to her platter of grapes. “We must have manners,” she repeated, gingerly plucking a purple-skinned orb off the vine. She chewed it in small bites, trying to look prim and proper. She was clearly mimicking someone, though Harry didn’t want to know who.

He rested his elbows on his knees and scrubbed his hands over his face, feeling strangely tuckered out. His stomach still churned, but the potion was already calming it, spreading warmth through his chest and throat.

“What’s the plan today,” he managed to ask, exhaustion in every word.

Evan took a contemplative bite of his toast. “His lordship is returning soon.” He chewed appreciatively, the sound of his crunching annoyingly loud. “Mm. This is good.”

Harry sat up straighter and blurted out, “Today?” 

“This very afternoon,” Evan confirmed with a happy little hum, helping himself to another bite. 

That wasn’t what Harry wanted to hear. Sure, he’d forced himself to ask for Voldemort yesterday—but that was Nagini’s sake. She’d been falling apart, deliriously clawing at herself, and he hadn’t known what else to do. But she was fine now. Slept it off, somehow. Woke up cheerful and clingy, babbling about grapes and manners. 

Now Harry didn’t want him back at all. He slumped into the seat, profoundly dismayed at this awful turn of events. He glanced at the window again, hands clenching and unclenching the fabric of his trousers. With Evan guarding them like a hawk, how was he meant to get even a minute alone?

“Also,” Evan said, nodding toward the girl at Harry’s side. “You should probably do something about… that.”

Harry followed Evan’s gaze to where Nagini had abandoned her grapes and now stood practically in his lap, peering at his face like she expected him to start leaking from somewhere. Her hair was still tangled and poking up in different directions, a dash of jam staining her nightgown from where she must have fiddled with the breakfast table. 

“Do something?” Harry echoed, turning back to Evan. “She’s not a houseplant, Evan. I can’t just water her and move on.”

“You should—” Evan gestured vaguely, “—help her? I don’t know. I cannot aid you in this matter, but I doubt His Lordship wants to return to her looking like this.”

Harry blinked in shock when he realised what Evan meant. “I am not a nanny!” he yelled, miffed. He was a prisoner; there was a blatant difference between those two things. 

Evan shrugged, buttering another slice of toast with mechanical ease. “Neither am I.”

He didn’t look at Harry as he said it, but there was a stubborn set to his jaw that made his position clear; he wouldn’t be lifting a single finger beyond this point.

With a sigh, Harry stood, scooping Nagini up with him. Someone had to tend to her, and clearly, it wasn’t going to be Evan. He crossed the room to the line of wardrobes against the wall and opened one to find it already filled.

“Alright,” he muttered. “Let’s get you into something nicer for the day. What do you…”

Harry trailed off, suddenly remembering Locket. They used to start their day somewhat similarly. Harry, holding up garments in hopes he’d approve something; Locket, picky and disdainful and waving each one of them off with a displeased sneer. 

Nagini didn’t seem to be any better in this regard—and that was saying something, considering he’d once seen Locket throw himself down a flight of stairs just because Ron wouldn’t let him touch the kettle. She sat grumpily on the floor while Harry flicked through the hangers, rejecting everything he pulled out with a snooty squint. No, she didn’t like the texture. That one had too many buttons. The pink was the wrong shade. The lace made her neck itchy. Harry bit back an exasperated sigh with every complaint.

Eventually, she gave her grudging approval to a navy-blue dress with a high collar and frilly sleeves—far too formal for the day, in Harry’s opinion. The whole thing looked like it had been stolen straight from the closet of a spoiled pureblood heiress. Which made sense, considering the wardrobe was reeking of Narcissa’s influence from top to bottom.  

Nagini didn’t explain why she liked it, only that the metal clasps made a faint clinking noise when she moved, like tiny bells. She kept spinning in place, trying to make them ring louder. 

“You’re not a Christmas tree,” Harry informed her, but Nagini didn’t seem to care for any opinion that might conflict with her own. She gave the skirt another experimental twirl, hair flying, bells tinkling. 

“I like it,” she announced gravely, giving Harry a solemn nod. “You have done well.” 

Ugh, Harry thought. A line pulled straight out of Voldemort’s mouth. If he’d had any doubts about who she was trying to mimic, they no longer existed. 

“Gee, thanks,” he said, lifting her up again. Next she’ll be calling him ‘my faithful.’

By the time Evan ushered them to the study—likely where Voldemort wanted them waiting for him—the sky was already starting to darken. Nagini was dressed and cleaned and noticeably more well-adjusted, but Harry couldn’t tell if this was a genuine recovery, or the temporary energy spike of a well-fed child. Either way, it was jarring how quickly she’d switched from knifing skin off her own body to arguing with him about hem lengths and collar tightness. Harry didn’t know if he should be relieved at the shift, or deeply worried that she was repressing some residual… instincts. 

Being back in the study didn’t help with his own nerves either. The place hadn’t changed. Same shelves, same desk, same oppressive hush to the room that made the air feel humid and thick. His eyes wandered toward the wall where Voldemort had once slammed him, hip to hip, body held tight, the Dark Lord’s hands fisted deep in his hair as he bit and tore and stole from his unwilling, bloodied mouth—

Harry looked away quickly, a flush warming up his face. The best way, he thought, to deal with that—was by not dealing with it at all. He’d rather forget it happened, actually.

Nagini bounded up next to him, and Harry’s hand shot out to steady her shoulder before she could fall. Walking was still a struggle, but at least she was slowly learning, waddling her way here and there instead of crawling. She slapped something into his palm, and Harry looked down to find a comb. 

He didn’t need to ask where she’d got it from. God forbid Evan be a speck useful and do it himself. The man stood a few feet off, near the door, positioning himself so he’d be the first to greet Voldemort when he arrived—but not far enough to miss anything happening across the room.

Harry sent him an annoyed look before allowing Nagini to tug him over to the hearth, where a high-backed chair and a loveseat sat angled toward one another, a dainty side-table resting between them. Harry steered clear of that tall chair, already knowing it was the Dark Lord’s designated seat. He didn’t want to be near anything that might even carry a whiff of his scent. 

Nagini, thankfully, beelined for the loveseat, hoisting herself up with a grunt and a huff, before presenting her back to him expectantly. 

Harry gave her a flat look. “You could ask nicely.”

“Brush,” Nagini commanded simply, not even bothering to turn around. 

Harry rolled his eyes, but sat down behind her, dragging the comb carefully through the upper layers of her hair. It was long, black as tar, falling straight when tamed—though taming it was proving to be near impossible. Nagini had a terrible habit of turning her head every time he found a particularly nasty knot.

“Stay still,” Harry muttered, gently holding her by the shoulders to keep her facing away.

“I am still.”

“You keep turning your head,” he scolded. 

She made an indignant noise but didn’t argue further. He continued brushing, methodical now, easing through the worst of the tangles. 

Nearby, Evan was bouncing on the balls of his feet, gaze constantly flicking to the door in anticipation. “His Lordship will of course want to hear my report,” he said, voice as self-important as ever. “I’ll inform him that everything went smoothly under my care.”

“Everything?” Harry asked dryly, not looking up.

Evan cleared his throat. “Barring the incident yesterday.”

“And that doesn’t count because?”

“Because His Lordship hasn’t expressed concern,” Evan replied stiffly. “So I presume everything is within acceptable parameters.”

Harry pursed his lips. The brush slid through another knot. “Stay still.”

“I’m trying,” Nagini said hotly, rolling her shoulders. “It’s—ugh—it feels weird!”

Harry paused. She squirmed again as the bristles ran along her back. It must’ve been the uncomfortable sensation of the comb dragging down the knobs of her spine; skin that used to be scales. Her whole body was caught between shapes. Some part of her probably couldn’t process it.

He kept brushing anyway, a little gentler now, separating out a long section of hair with his fingers. His sleeve rolled down with the motion, which was, consequently, when Evan spoke up again.

“What the ever-loving fuck happened there?”

Harry looked up sharply.

Evan was staring at him. And not in idle curiosity—in horror and alarm. His expression hadn’t even been this bewildered when Nagini bled all over the floor yesterday, but now his brows had pulled tight, his mouth parted like he’d seen something truly unbelievable. 

Harry followed his gaze down, eyes passing over the makeshift bandage to land on his wrist. The bracelet was showing. Or what remained of it. Translucent crystalline shards spiralled all over the skin, rooted in him like glass vines, glinting in a starlike pattern. 

Shame struck before thought did. Harry jerked his sleeve back down, covering it again. Every reminder of the bracelet sent a new wave of humiliation cresting through him. He’s been branded permanently, and though it no longer hurt, though it was disgustingly, horrifically beautiful… Harry felt like he was the ugliest thing in the world wearing it. 

He avoided Evan’s searching gaze, and just mumbled “Bellatrix,” in lieu of an explanation, praying it would be enough to stave off any of his questions. She had a reputation among Voldemort’s ranks for her ruthlessness, so Evan shouldn’t be that floored by the evidence of her renowned capabilities. 

… Except he was. Usually, Bellatrix directed her avid love for torture at their enemies, not young boys sworn into their cause. Evan’s eyes lingered on the fabric covering his arm, as if the thing under it might burn through the cloth and keep growing. “Does the Dark Lord know?” he demanded, visibly rattled. 

Harry’s jaw tensed. Of course he knew. He let her do it. 

“I don’t think he cares,” he said honestly, the truth sitting bitter on his tongue. According to him she’d done her work too well, after all. Why Evan thought the Dark Lord knowing was even important made no sense to Harry. As if it would ever bother him. 

“I…” Evan started, looking uncomfortable now. “Well. That… makes sense.”

Harry stopped brushing Nagini’s hair. “Does it.” 

“If it was her,” Evan said, raising his hands in mock-surrender at the dark look on Harry’s face, “then yes, it tracks.”

At Harry’s unconvinced expression, Evan said, “I’m serious. Did Regulus ever tell you he used to be terrified of her?” 

Harry frowned. “No?”

Evan let out a short, amused laugh. “Of course not. Too proud to admit something like that. But he was. Completely. The Black sisters were a few years ahead of us—reigning queens of Slytherin and all—but not even familial ties could mellow Bellatrix out. She spent most of our first year calling us—Regulus, specifically—pathetic whimps that needed to toughen up. He’d always bolt in the opposite direction if he saw her in the common room.”

Harry raised a brow, scepticism creeping in. “And you weren’t scared of her?”

“Oh, I was,” Evan admitted, shrugging. “I just knew how to keep out of her way. Regulus always made the mistake of trying to be polite. It only encouraged her to be meaner.”

A slight snort escaped Harry. He disliked Bellatrix as she was now, so he couldn’t imagine how much worse that would have been if he’d met her at his own age. Probably a Draco variant, but more fanatic. More dedicated. More…

Capable, he grudgingly allowed. She and Barty had been taught the Dark Arts by Voldemort himself. She wouldn’t have been able to maim him so expertly if she lacked skill or competence. 

Evan, apparently content to carry the conversation alone, kept going. “Honestly, though,” he said, “I never understood why he focused so much on her. Bellatrix was… cruel, sure, but predictable. If she hexed you, you probably knew why. The real wild card back then was your godfather.”

“Um,” Harry said, automatically offended. “Don’t compare her to Siri—”

“Hey—hush. You didn’t know him back then,” Evan interrupted, wagging a finger in his direction. “He and your dad probably act like saints in front of you, but trust me. Sirius Black was— sorry, still is an asshole. He used to strut around like he owned every corridor in the castle, always three seconds away from cursing someone or snogging someone else’s girlfriend.” Evan scowled. “Mine, specifically." 

Harry couldn’t help it. The laugh that burst out was breathy and sudden, a small, startled huff that turned into something fuller. He looked over at Evan, genuinely delighted for once.

“That’s—that’s horrible,” Harry managed, trying to sound appropriately sympathetic, and failing terribly. He didn’t realise how hard he was smiling until a voice cut straight through the moment.

“So heartening,” came Barty’s crooning drawl. “My Lord, don’t they look happy?”

Harry froze.

The laugh died immediately in his throat. He turned his head to find Voldemort and Barty standing in the doorway, silent as ghosts, watching them unwaveringly. 

Harry had no idea how long they’d been standing there, how much they’d even heard, but Voldemort was eerily blank-faced, nothing in his expression, only that familiar flat-eyed quiet, his gaze locked so fully on Harry it was as if nothing else in the room existed.  

Harry blinked, thrown by the intensity of that hard stare, trying to decipher what it meant. His frozen smile—still lingering at the corners of his mouth—withered and dropped away, and only then did Harry understand that was what it was about. Voldemort had been looking at his mouth. He was staring because he’d never seen it take that shape before. Not like this. In all their time together, Harry had never laughed, never grinned, never looked anything but furious or afraid or blisteringly hateful. And now… well, now a genuine smile must have been an odd, unwelcome, offensive thing to see on the face of his captive. 

Harry looked away first, internally cursing himself. 

Sensing his arrival, Nagini gasped beside Harry, twisting around so fast the comb nearly fell from his hand. She was already moving to jump down and sprint toward him, but Voldemort tore his eyes away from Harry to send her a sharp command.   

“Stay put. Do not run in here.”

Though his voice wasn’t raised, Nagini stilled mid-motion, shrinking back down against Harry’s side with a pout.

He tried not to fidget as Voldemort stepped further into the room, all dark-robed and sharp-featured, eyes glimmering like garnets as he threw a offhanded spell at the hearth. It sprang to life, flames roaring, and the next thing Harry knew, Voldemort had causally strode over and seated himself on the high-backed chair opposite from him. He looked relaxed, elegant, but Harry didn’t miss the way his pupils were more dilated than usual, the black in them almost overpowering the red. 

Two days now, he thought to himself, mind racing. How much longer can he…

“You may leave now, Evan,” Voldemort said, draping his hands negligently over the armrests.

Evan blinked—perhaps expecting to deliver some kind of report—but recovered fast. He stepped back, gave a short bow, and stalked toward the door. He hesitated once, casting a hasty glance over his shoulder at Harry, but a nudge from Barty was all it took to have them both promptly leaving, the doors closing behind their figures. 

Harry turned back to Voldemort, still gripping the comb. Without any buffers, the air felt more charged. 

Then the elf appeared with a soft pop, startling him. Harry hadn’t seen her in a while—the same one from the bathhouse, he thought—though he still didn’t know her name. Guilt prickled at him for that, but it didn’t matter now. Her head was fearfully ducked as she approached, a tray in her hands with a porcelain teapot and two cups, one already full and steaming. There was, Harry noted with a tinge of surprise, also a bowl of fruit. 

Voldemort knew Harry couldn’t eat anything, so this must have been ordered for Nagini. Harry’s hand dropped to the base of her spine, keeping her wedged between them like a pillow, while the other clutched the comb. 

The elf set the tray down carefully on the side-table separating their seats, before taking several obedient steps back, her floppy ears pressed to her head. “I-Is master be requiring anything else?”

Voldemort didn’t answer her with words, and instead dismissed her with a wave of his hand. She vanished almost instantly, leaving behind the malty aroma of the tea. Black tea? Harry wondered, glancing at the tray. Or something more spiced? Voldemort seemed like the type to prefer bitter beverages…

Hm, no, actually. Harry’s eyes narrowed on him. He liked sweet things too. 

Next to him, Nagini was watching her master with unmasked elation, eyes wide as she soaked in every line and angle of him. Harry felt sorry for her, honestly. Voldemort couldn’t have appeared any less unconcerned; head tipped back, legs crossed, eyes half-lidded as he spared her an idle look. Languidly, he reached over to curl long fingers around the teacup, lifting it without hurry, letting the rising tendrils of steam flutter across his nose before he took a sip. 

Nagini, seeing his attention elsewhere, was quick to snatch a tangerine off the bowl. She shoved it into Harry’s hands, giving his wrist a meaningful shake. 

Swallowing, and feeling a little bizarre and silly, he began hesitantly peeling it for her. He knew, instinctively, that was some sort of test. The deliberate casualness, the quiet, the fact Voldemort hadn’t uttered a single word of command to him. He’d left with clear instructions to keep them together in hopes he’d get his snake back, but here she was; a child still. 

More importantly, he hadn’t mentioned anything about what Nagini had done to herself. Didn’t question Evan about it, either. 

“Here,” Harry whispered, handing the now peeled fruit to her. “Eat slowly.” 

She took it and rammed the whole thing into her mouth. 

Harry quickly swiped a napkin off the tray to clean the juice that had splattered all over her face, chin, and collar. Voldemort didn’t comment on it, only tapped one finger in a slow, thoughtful rhythm against the porcelain while he silently observed them. 

What does the hell does he want, Harry wondered, the hairs on the back of his neck sticking up from how unsettled he was. Blood? He could take that anytime… Or did he want Harry to offer it himself again? No, Voldemort had flown into a murderous rage the last time he’d tried that, taking it as an insult instead of submission.

Harry’s thoughts spun. He dabbed at Nagini’s face before breaking the tangerine in half and separating the slices, avoiding the side she’d bitten a large chunk out of. He held it out to her, Voldemort’s eyes boring into his forehead all the while. 

“Slowly,” he repeated. “It’s not going to run away.”

This time, mercifully, she listened. Harry had enough problems without her piling on more. Her cheeks bulged as she chewed in noisy satisfaction. Once a snake, sure, but at the moment, she resembled a particularly content squirrel. 

Harry chanced another glance at Voldemort and found him also watching her, but with a much stonier gaze. “I hear you two had an eventful time,” he said at last, not sounding the least bit interested. 

Harry fisted the peels. Why didn’t you come? he wanted to demand. She drenched an entire wardrobe with blood. 

Instead, he said, “… She called for you.”

Voldemort took another sip, holding the tea in his mouth for a second, savouring the taste. He swallowed, adam’s apple shifting, then raised his eyes to ask, “And you think I’ll come running just because a mindless child has beckoned me so?” 

A mindless—

Harry dug his fingernails into the peels. If that child was his familiar, and bleeding out, then of course—

“She is not my anything like this,” Voldemort interrupted dispassionately, the words too accurate, too aligned with the thought Harry hadn’t spoken aloud. “You made sure of that when you damaged her form.”

The walls of his brain felt like they were bristling under the chill of Legilimency’s exposure. He scrambled to shove his shields back into place—though it was a little too late for that now. Voldemort had already been there, rifling through his head like it was a magazine left open for his viewing. 

The sheer entitlement of it sent an angry wave of frustration through him. The fact he’d remained perfectly indifferent while he invaded his thoughts—like it was nothing, like Harry’s mind was just another room in his house—made it all the more maddening.

And— Damaged? 

This was the second time he was using that word in regards to her, like Harry had broken her—like this child was just some flawed clone, not Nagini herself. He couldn’t entirely blame him for it; it must have been strange to go from having a loyal companion to a… little girl. But that shouldn’t invalidate her worth. He’d spent decades with her, even if she remembered none of it in her current state. 

“But,” Voldemort said after a second, eyeing the child, “it seems I was right to keep her around you. She is regaining her truer instincts if she is trying to shed again.”

Is that how he viewed what was blatantly self-harm? That what she’d done to herself wasn’t mutilation, wasn’t a child, confused and half-feral and desperate—but progress? 

Harry stared at him, unable to school his expression in time. 

And Voldemort saw it. Of course he did.

The smile that played at his sensuous mouth was slight, measured, unmistakably pleased. He’d said it on purpose, every word shaped to bait a reaction. And now, having drawn it, he watched with open satisfaction as Harry’s teeth gritted. He liked seeing him disturbed. That flush of discomfort, that flare of defiance Harry couldn’t voice without handing the Dark Lord the perfect excuse to enact another punishment. Like a game of cat and mouse. 

And Harry was, unfortunately, a very reckless mouse. He glared at him across the table, but kept his lips sealed shut to block anything inflammatory from coming out. If Voldemort’s goal was to piss him off, he’d need to poke somewhere else. 

Nagini tugged on his sleeve for more fruit. Needing the distraction, Harry moved to reach for it, but pain stung up his arm in response. The pull of the wound, still half-healed, made him wince without meaning to. A foolish lapse.

Voldemort noticed it, his smile slowly fading, features dimming into that familiar detachment. 

Evan must have included that detail in the missive he’d sent. Harry hated it. Hated the way his pain was turned into something visible between them, especially now that he knew Voldemort derived so much glee from it. He plucked a nectarine from the bowl without comment and handed it over, pinning his hands under his thighs once she took it, hidden, out of sight, useless. 

After a moment of nothing but silence, Voldemort took another slow sip, lashes lowered. “Perhaps I ought to do something about your lack of foresight for danger.” He paused, eyes tracing the length of his sleeve-covered arm. “It would be a shame if anything were to happen before I could run the rest of my tests.”

Harry stiffened. He thought of himself cuffed against the wall, Voldemort carving runes into his arm. He thought of himself kept in a constant state of half-consciousness, always reliant on the contents of a goblet. Any tests Voldemort had in mind could only mean more pain, more time lost. 

Clenching his hands into fists, he dared ask, “Tests?”

Voldemort didn’t respond right away. He rested his elbow on the arm of the chair, head now supported by a fist and eyes cast downward at his cup. A pale forearm was exposed where his sleeve had slid down, ivory and veined, the wrist elegant, too refined for someone so capable of ruin. Even the firelight of the hearth gilded the high planes of his cheekbones, softening their sharpness, making him appear almost serene as he spun his tea. “Mm,” he said, watching the amber liquid slosh around the rim. “Don’t sound so frightened. This time I intend to study you both in tandem.”

Harry tried to wrap his mind around this, and couldn’t. 

“Her?” he blurted out, glancing down at Nagini. She was dozing off now, eyelids drooping, head swaying. The sound of their voices discussing uninteresting matters must have lulled her. 

At first he thought he wouldn’t get an answer. Voldemort didn’t look up. He sat entirely at ease, posture lazy, indulgent. He was deep in thought, tone distracted when he murmured, “You’re both unique biological irregularities, the only known intersections of death, magic, and persistence. Every interaction between you produces information and data.” He swirled the last of the tea at the bottom of the cup, the perfect image of thoughtfulness. “What fool wouldn’t record it?”

Nagini’s head now rested fully on Harry’s arm, fingers so loose around her half-finished fruit that he was surprised it didn’t just fall altogether. He pried it out of her hand, placing it on the tray, taking care not to jostle her. Voldemort’s lips thinned in displeasure as he noticed her slumber. 

“…Something I’ll have to leave for tomorrow, then,” he said, tone turning clipped. “Put her to bed and then return.”

The way he ordered it; like Harry was actually his own personal live-in nanny. The tone would have made him feel some spark of indignation, if it hadn’t hit him a second later that he was being sent off. 

Alone. 

Voldemort was already turning his gaze back toward the hearth, languid in movement, every shift of silk and muscle an unspoken command that the conversation was finished. The fire crackled gently, bright enough to paint ribbons of gold up the length of his reclined body.

Slowly, very slowly, Harry’s heart began to pound. He stood, lifting her in his arms with care, her head falling weightlessly into the crook of his neck. She didn’t stir as he moved away, past the desk, across the room, all the way to the door. He kept his gait slow, uneager, and stepped out, the wood creaking behind him. 

No one was waiting outside. Not Evan, not Barty, not even the elf. 

He swallowed thickly. Each breath felt too loud, too shaky in the quiet of the corridors. His legs moved without thought, memory guiding him through the familiar turns. Nagini didn’t even twitch in his arms. The band on his ankle remained dormant, silent.

The pounding of his heart became louder, more frantic, adrenaline pumping through his bloodstream with every second that passed. She didn’t weigh much, but his arms ached all the same by the time he reached her room. He shouldered the door open and dipped inside, quickening his pace.

The room was dim, but not fully dark. Moonlight illuminated the way to the bed, where he lowered Nagini with shaking hands.

I’m sorry, he thought while pulling the blankets over her. You’re safe here, but I’m not. 

She didn’t wake, only burrowed deeper into the sheets, nose wrinkling as her cheek brushed the pillow. 

Harry stood there for a second, heart throbbing so loudly he was half-convinced it’d wake her. Slowly, carefully, he backed away, unwilling to tear his eyes off her until he had to.

Then, at last, he turned toward the window. Just like before, the band didn’t react when he touched the latch. There wasn’t even a hint of resistance as Harry unlocked it and finally, finally pushed it open. 

A gust of wind swept in, cold and crisp, rushing over his face, ruffling through his hair and pushing it back from his temples. He leaned forward breathlessly and looked out.

The view from here was clearer than any dream he’d ever had about Riddle Manor. The house sat high atop its hill, monstrously-large and imposing, silhouetted against the horizon like a crown hammered into the land. Below, the grassy fields rolled out in perfect, manicured waves, ending at the black-metal fence that curled around the entire estate. Wrought iron. Narrow-tipped.

Sharp, but climbable.

He could do it. 

He could.

Harry hastily pulled a knee up onto the windowsill, hands braced, ready to climb out—

“What are you doing?” whispered a soft voice.

He spun around so fast the windowsill rammed harshly into the small of his back, jolting his spine straight. The cold air whipped against his shoulder blades, but it was nothing compared to the chill that shot through his chest when his eyes met the figure in the doorway.

Voldemort stood tall, his frame swallowed by the shadows, too far from the window for moonlight to reach him—but Harry needed no light to pinpoint the glow of those unnatural red eyes, a single strand of hair falling loose across them. The Dark Lord was staring at him, unmoving, with an expression as utterly empty as the dark. His arms hung slack at his sides, a pair of wire-rimmed frames held in one hand. 

He bought me my glasses, Harry realised, breath hitching, heart banging with panic against his ribcage. That’s what he meant about my foresight for danger. Glasses. He bought me glasses.  

This understanding hit him far too late, however. Voldemort dragged his gaze away from where Harry stood frozen, sweeping over the open window, then back to him, a cold, terrifying rage settling over his features as he pieced together what Harry had meant to do. 

“You were trying to escape,” Voldemort said quietly, fingers gripping the glasses so hard they shattered to bits, tiny prisms and shards slicing down to the floor in a soft, sparkling ruin. “… You were trying to leave.” 

Harry’s stomach plummeted so violently it felt like the floor had vanished from beneath him.

“You were trying to leave me,” Voldemort said again, like the possibility of this had never occured to him until now, until this precise, unforgivable moment.