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Chapter Text

Harry watched in despondent apathy as England passed by the window of his uncle’s car. London had blurred into small towns and countryside long ago and Little Winging lay not far away. He had tuned out his uncle’s grumbling, noting that the man certainly seemed disturbed by the Order’s warning at Station 9 ¾ but his reaction was more infuriated than cowed. Harry couldn’t possibly care less.

Harry stared blankly ahead, drawn to the repetitive echoes in his subconscious calling out for his attention. Insane laughter filled his mind and he closed his eyes, trying to meditate. Clear your mind, you imbecilic child! Harry’s eyes snapped open in horror and he breathed deeply through his nose, trying to calm his shaky nerves.

Finally, after hours of torturous silence interspersed with his uncle’s mutters, Vernon Dudley’s belching car pulled into the driveway of No. Four Privet Drive. Harry carefully stepped out of the vehicle and glanced at the withering house. From the overgrown lawn to the chipping weather boards, it was obvious the house attends had been abandoned since his last summer holiday – a fact that no doubt deeply disgusted his relatives.

“Now the windows won’t be washed and you’ll be allowed to live off our life and blood willy nilly,” Uncle Vernon muttered harshly under his breath, grinding his teeth with frustration. Harry assumed the man was still agonising that he couldn’t exploit his nephew for domestic slavery.

Harry gingerly took Hedwig’s cage out of the car, smiling softly at the sound of her chirping as she braced herself against the movement. His trunk followed behind Hedwig, thankfully charmed with a potent featherweight charm prior to leaving Hogwarts, especially considering Vernon didn’t lift a finger to aid his young charge.

Once the duo slipped into the front entrance, the door slammed shut with a dramatic bang and Harry was pressed against the wall by his uncle’s beefy fist. Harry felt every muscle in his being tense, shocked by his uncle’s sudden violent actions.

"You leave that ruddy bird in your damn room, you hear me? No fucking noise, no fucking bird shit – I don’t want a goddamn peep out of either of you, you hear?” Vernon snarled venomously, spittle splattering both Harry and Hedwig with ferocity.

“Yes, sir,” Harry answered compliantly, eyes unfocused as they held steady over his uncle’s shoulder. He breathed in and fought to quiet his thoughts, reminding his muscles to relax and focus on the magical energy just buzzing on his fingertips. Never make eye contact. Clear your mind! Harry understood now with cold clarity.

“That’s better, you little shit,” Vernon gloated victoriously, pleased with his nephew’s submissiveness. “Now those blokes you call friends aren’t going to find out about anything, you hear? Nothing. You clean the goddamn house, you wash the fucking sheets, you tidy the fucking garden, and no one hears a damn thing.”

Harry finally turned his attention to his uncle with little interest, normally bright green eyes dulled and hands twitching as he refrained from wiping the spit globs on his cheek. “I don’t need to say anything, Uncle Vernon, because they’re always watching,” Harry crooned softly. Harry didn’t need make empty threats – not when it came to this.

Vernon let go of Harry as if burnt, clenching his fists with barely suppressed rage and trembling in purple faced fury.

“Go to your room,” the man gritted out, beady eyes darting around the entrance hall in paranoia.

Harry ducked his head demurely and dragged his belonging up the stairs.

Harry had lived in No. Four Privet Drive long enough to know the habits of the neighbourhood. Dusk approached with a heavy haze and vehicles drove in from the city centre, lining up along the street and turning into their respective driveways like a sixties movie set. Suited men piled out of the cars and walked straight into their houses, downtrodden souls with little to live for other than their well-groomed yards, iron pressed ties and mortgaged middle-class sedans.

It had been two nights spent poorly at No. Four Privet Drive since his homecoming, as he oft thought to himself with bitter amusement. Having to do nothing at his relative’s house was once a dream but it had now become an overbearing curse, his mind churning with the need to do something lest he fall into his dark thoughts. Harry spent the days focusing on clearing his mind, obsessively meditating until he nearly passed out from exhaustion and hunger. At six pm sharp each evening, Harry sat at the window and watched the ritual of returning workers with dissatisfaction, not quite understanding why he fought so hard to protect these hollow shells of people.

Harry bid his time, knowing that a member of the Order watched him just outside his view (if that tingling sensation of being watched was anything to go by), and he silently plotted to break free.

It had been seven days since Harry returned to the Dursleys' and almost three weeks since the Ministry debacle. Sirius’ loss was felt like a missing limb, cauterised poorly and weeping from infection. Harry couldn’t even think the man’s name without feeling physical pain sweep his being, ripping his breath away and cramping his chest in vice-like agony.

Harry had sent Hedwig to the Burrow that morning, declaring that she was too bored and too restrained at his relative’s house and wouldn’t they please take care of her? A few galleons for bird food and treats he had sent along with Hedwig would surely be appreciated though unnecessary and Harry didn’t expect a response; Dumbledore insisted on a communication embargo while Harry lay shipwrecked in Suburban Hell.

The sun had set a few hours before and the heat finally began to abate, Little Winging sighing a collective breath of relief. Windows were thrown open to enjoy the cool breeze down the street, but Harry kept his re-barred window tightly shut. His dim bedroom light had been left off for a few hours now and he quietly mediated in peace, clear your mind clear your mind, as he waited for his little wrist watch from childhood to chime.

At exactly nine o’clock, his digital watch beeped as programmed and Harry jumped up from his position on the floor. An invisibility cloak was quickly curled around Harry’s shoulders and he slipped through his bedroom door, wandlessly unlocked with brutal force half a second before. Four seconds past nine o’clock, he descended the staircase silently and seven seconds past nine, he had slipped through the front door.

With a fair bit more concentration than the alohamora, Harry wandlessly cast a noiseless charm on his sneakers, wand tucked carefully in the folds of his robes, and sprinted down the road to freedom.

Harry breathed a sigh of relief as the sun rose on the platform of Little Whinging’s train station. The morning train clattered noisily into the station and he rose from his cramped position on the gritty tiles. Carefully wrapped in his invisibility cloak, he snuck past the Monday morning flock attempting to bustle their way onto the commuter train and he pulled himself onto the high luggage racks with a loftiness acquired by years of Quidditch training and a pinch of Harry Hunting.

The train to London was painfully uncomfortable, but Harry had learned to enjoy less and was out of the opening doors in a flash once the bulk of the crowd has disembarked. Finding the Leaky Cauldron was a chore but getting in was easy as the early morning wizarding drunks stumbled through the muggle entrance and allowed Harry an opportunity to slip in sight unseen. Once inside, he carefully whispered past the bar and, in what felt like seconds, stood in the great entrance hall of Gringotts Bank.

Getting the goblins’ attention while invisible was a little more difficult but approaching a teller and waving a vault key in the air (with seemingly no hand attached) appeared to do the trick.

The key was snatched out of the air and the offending goblin sneered in his general direction, jerking his head in a ‘come here’ motion. Harry obediently followed the scowling creature past the guards and into the gated entrance of the vault carts.

Once sure he could disrobe the cloak without causing a scene, Harry carefully pulled off his Invisibility Cloak and nodded thankfully at the goblin. It merely sneered coldly once more in response and handed him off to the nearest escort. A few muttered words and the teller goblin toddled off, eventually returning with a goblin that Harry recalled from his first visit to Gringotts.

“Mr. Potter,” growled the new goblin. “I will be your escort. I am – “

“Griphook, yes. We met a few years ago,” Harry interrupted politely, extending his hand to shake.

Griphook merely bared pointy teeth at the proffered appendage and gestured towards the rickety wooden bucket that was to be their ride into the bank’s depth. Harry acquiesced, withdrawing his hand quickly and climbing into the cart.

The ride was shorter but more vicious than he recalled from his experience with Hagrid and he wondered if the vaults were moved regularly. Though, to be honest, Harry really didn’t care much as long as he could access his gold when needed.

The ride came to a shuddering halt in front of large, dragon-smelted iron door. The pair climbed out the cart, which abruptly shot off without notice.

“Mr. Griphook,” Harry whispered with soft deference, waiting for his escort to turn to him in response before continuing. “May I request conversion of galleons to muggle pounds?”

The goblin grinned, or rather a frightening mockery of one, and nodded. “For a fee,” it intoned lecherously.

“Of course,” Harry agreed instantly, not wanted to contradict the creature’s ferocious gold lust inspired by bank fees.

Upon opening the doors to his vault, Harry was once again reminded that he held the fortune of House Potter in his fingertips. Piles of gold, silver, and jewels leaned to and fro, as if carelessly dropped there by generations before. A thought struck him – and though tasteless, his gut encouraged him to speak.

“Mr. Griphook, would you know if my parents or the Potter family… Left a will?”

Griphook slowly turned to face Harry in the vault, still standing as guard by the iron doors, and narrowed beady eyes at his charge.

“You received notice of vive voce, announcement of the wills, last year and past week past did you not?” Griphook growled impatiently.

Harry blinked in surprise, the goblin’s sudden announcement shocking him slightly out of his numb stupor. “No, Mr. Griphook. I’m afraid I did not and have not received correspondence from this bank before,” he answered carefully and precisely, not sure what the goblin meant.

Griphook glared at him, both wizard and goblin sizing the other up for a tense moment, then he growled irritably and waved Harry off. “Finish your deeds, then we speak, Mr. Potter.”

Harry nodded and went back to collecting galleons in silence.

Less than a quarter hour later saw Harry sitting in a dark, dank meeting room in the depths of Gringotts Bank, sitting at the edge of a decaying wood table. Griphook and an unintroduced goblin of stature muttered angrily in the corner of the room, leaving Harry to quietly meditate. He had become much better at slipping into the mindset of Occlumency, somehow advancing much faster while away from Hogwarts. Though, to be fair, Harry knew it probably had to do with the fact his mind wasn’t being broken into on a constant basis. It also helped that he found his conscious shielding away from the more treacherous thoughts in his mind, reminding him of –

“Mr. Potter,” the unknown goblin suddenly announced. Harry pulled himself out of his haze and tiredly nodded at the goblin to continue. “I am Reinfeng, head administrator of Wills, Wishes and Trusts at Gringotts.”

“Thank you for meeting me today,” Harry replied softly, hoping his poorly groomed etiquette skills would appease the sour faced creature.

The goblin harrumphed, obviously unimpressed. “Griphook has informed me of your lack of communication from Gringotts. We find this highly concerning, considering Griphook is the administrator of your family estate as well as your personal trust. Griphook has been sending you quarterly reports since you reopened the Potter Vault five years ago.”

Harry felt his jaw fall open, gaping stupidly at the goblin in incomprehension.

“You must understand Gringotts takes customer security very seriously,” Reinfeng murmured dangerously and Harry nodded quickly in agreeance. “Griphook has informed me that you responded to the vive voce invitation last year and the week last, but merely declined attending or sending a representative to the reading of the wills, thus abolishing your right to inherit.”

Harry tipped his head in confusion, eyes narrowing in thought. This seemed to irritate the goblins even more.

“Do you understand?” Griphook queried accusingly.

“No,” Harry answered weakly, ashamed of his lack of understanding of wizarding culture. A wisp of disgust curled in Harry’s stomach as he realised how completely out of touch he was with his own heritage.

“This heir is mongrel,” Reinfeng snapped at Griphook, whose hand shot up to silence his companion.

“He is a child still,” Griphook responded ferociously and Reinfeng bitterly shut his mouth, looking away.

“We will cease attempts to communicate with you via owl regarding important, private documents,” Griphook informed Harry firmly. “But we will continue with basic, falsified versions of the bank statement you should have been receiving as to not alert your interceptor. We will retain all statements and letters of true reflections of your accounts and activities onsite and will provide these to you only upon request. Do you agree?”

Harry nodded once more and sighed silently, already tiring of this conversation with the demanding bankers.

“Vive voce means reading of wills, of which the heir of an estate or estates has the right of requesting upon fifteen years of age and, should the inheritor accept the estates, they will be declared an emancipated minor and adult in the eyes of Wizarding Law,” Griphook explained, a shadow of contempt dominating his sharp features. “Declining to attend forfeits rights to any contents of the will.

“You were alerted of the collective Potter will reading a year ago, nearly to this date, but obviously this was not received by you and a falsified response was given to decline. A missive was sent to you more than a week ago and once more a falsified response of declination was provided.” Griphook’s expression became even more shadowed and bitter. “It must have been a particularly powerful wizard or witch, or especially sly, to have deceived us into believing the responses to be valid,” Griphook added quietly in a tone that spoke of grave danger for the counterfeiter should the goblins find them.

Harry stared at the goblin in numb shock.

“In the case of the Potter will, this will not affect your inheritance as your failure to attend merely meant your inheritance was placed in a trust for future Potter generations, only to be distributed to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry should the last of the Potter line become deceased without an heir. The Black will, however, would have seen your inheritance lost.”

“Black… Will?” Harry choked out suddenly, his heart stopping for a moment and then returning to life with a war-drum tempo.

“Yes,” Griphook stated ruthlessly, clearly tiring of the conversation. “Vive voce of Heir Sirius Orion Arcturus Black will commence in four days.”

Harry began to tremble and clamped his hands down on either elbow, crossing his arms across his chest in an attempt to contain himself.

“I,” Harry began and stopped as his voice cracked. “I would like to attend. Please,” he added helplessly.

“Your attendance has been marked,” Griphook stated shortly, rising from his seat instantly.

“But – but what if the person intercepting my mail comes too?” Harry asked quickly.

Griphook and Reinfeng, who had hung back in the shadows until now, looked at one another appraisingly.

“We could read the will today on a special condition release,” Reinfeng began slowly. “For a fee, you see.” The proffered smirk was slimier than Harry had ever seen but he held onto the offer like a lifeline.

“Of course, anything,” Harry begged while gripping the table hard enough to drive splinters into his nails, suddenly feeling more emotion in that moment than he had in nearly a month. 

Harry was desperate to hear the words of his godfather, to hear final words instead of watching him fall wordlessly, laughingly through the Veil. Gold and money and estate be damned – Harry had a feeling that he was invited to hear the vive voce as Sirius mentioned him directly and a hollow, broken part of his soul would give anything to be able to hear Sirius’ address once more.

“We will arrange for the appointment in two hours, Mr. Potter,” Griphook answered firmly. “The fees will be charged to your account.”

“Two hours,” Harry agreed breathlessly and then he was whisked out of the room, a handful of galleons instantly converted into more pounds than he’d ever seen, and sent to fend for himself in Diagon Alley as he awaited the Last Will and Testament of Sirius Black.

Chapter Text

Harry spent a fair while of his free time slinking under his cloak through the shadowy streets of Knockturn Alley. Though his travels into London and time spent at the bank had seen the morning turn into early afternoon, the shady storefronts were only just beginning to stir and open for the day’s trading.

A particularly damp, dark corner of the alley was taken over an apocathary which, unlike its Diagon Alley’s counterpart, certainly did not advertise its contents or sales. Harry snuck into the shop as best as he could but was outed by a loud chiming spell on the door, alerting the shop keeper of his entrance. Realising the attendant would know of his presence whether under the cloak or not and knowing he must keep his family heirloom a secret, Harry quickly whipped the cloak off and tucked it into his satchel.

Harry lifted the hood of his outer robes over his head to shadow his face and did his best to stay small and unnoticed, roaming the shelves of the deserted store with careful disinterest. He slowly passed shelf after shelf of dusty bottles, cramped writing on the jars too slanted and tight to read without getting far too close for comfort.

“How may I help you, lad?” A rough Irish brogue broke through Harry’s concentration, the accent harsh and clipping in the dead silence of the store.

Harry slowly turned to face the shopkeeper, a small, greying man in his late fifties. The man’s wrinkled face was accentuated by pursed lips and squinting eyes.

“Polyjuice, one hour,” rasped Harry, voice still rough and sore from days without speaking.

“Aye, round the left, there,” the man gestured with a nod. “An’ ‘ow much?”

“Two dozen doses,” Harry replied quietly, disturbed by the man’s voice echoing in the spacious store.

“Now, lad, tha’ seems like a fair amount fer someone so little. I won’ be sellin’ ta no boys neither, ya hear?”

“Two dozen doses, Polyjuice, one hour,” Harry repeated calmly, facing the attendant straight  on but angling his exposed back away from the front door. “For my master,” he added softly on a strange intuition that encouraged him to play the apprentice. The keeper’s loud voice gave him a bad feeling, as if he was speaking loud enough for another to hear, but Harry couldn’t leave without his order. Everything he’d planned for depended on this moment.

The little man sized him up, clearly irritated by being treated dismissively but seemingly appeased by the thought of Harry being an apprentice. Finally, after moment of painful indecision, the shopkeeper acquiesced and gestured for Harry to follow him.

Harry was led to a dim little corner of the store and the shopkeeper slid behind a large desk. “Two dozen doses, ya say? Aye, ‘ave enough for tha’,” he muttered, writing down the request in an enormous accounting book. “Two ‘undred and eighty galleon, then.”

Harry stood quietly before the man.

“Come on, then!” The man barked, gesturing for Harry to move.

“One fifty,” Harry responded firmly.

“Aye, ‘old on ‘ere boy,” the shopkeeper warned with sudden shrewdness, clawed hands griping the end of the desk and leaning over to stick his wrinkled mug close to Harry’s hooded face. “You expectin’ me to sell ter a minor and then get pushed ‘round? Yer a bloody little –”

“One fifty,” Harry interrupted, “And I’ll come back next fortnight for another round if my master approves.”

Harry was grateful for his years of sneaking around and experience with stressful situations, because he wasn’t sure where he pulled that answer out of but it certainly seemed to work.

“Aye?” The shopkeeper murmured, leaning back on his haunches and appraising Harry.

“Yes,” Harry responded quietly.

“One fifty, with an oath to return,” the shopkeeper demanded.

“One fifty, and I’ll return if I’m told to,” Harry answered chillily.

The shopkeeper harrumphed and then laughed. “You wee little lad certainly know how to bargain, aye? Fine, fine, business is slow these days anyway,” he muttered as he began to wander off for the ingredients.

Harry held back a snort. With the rise in black magic seeping out of the woodwork over the past month since Voldemort’s public resurrection, Harry was sure business in Knockturn was booming.

“Two dozen bloody doses o’ Polyjuice. Anything else, lad?” The shopkeeper barked as he returned from the depth of the store, bringing with him a decisively fresher bell jar of Polyjuice than that on display, though it was pretty difficult to tell with the pus-coloured, chunky potion.

“Two dozen vials,” Harry requested patiently.

The man cackled and procured the vials, handing them over the desk. “Ten galleon for the vials. Strange wee boy, ain’t ya? Where yer master bein’, anyway?”

Harry tilted his head at the man’s questions and tossed a bag of galleons at him. The man caught the bag with surprising deftness and counted as Harry deposited his purchase in his bag.

“One ‘undred and sixty gallons,” the shopkeeper announced, ticking a box in his book. Turning towards Harry, he snarled, “Now get out.”

Harry couldn’t move fast enough.

For the rest of his time in Diagon Alley, Harry completed his Hogwarts shopping. While he had yet to receive his letter informing him of his OWLS (and subsequent NEWT courses), he figured it would be beneficial to purchase all the books for the course classes offered and do a bit of extracurricular reading. Fortunately, the shopkeepers knew the curriculum requirements and book requests far before students as Harry only needed to mention he was a sixth year (and a flash of his face helped here and there) and suddenly a pile of school supplies was being rung up at the till.

As Harry was quickly realising, he would need to stop depending on Hermione as a fountain of knowledge. He couldn’t bare it if he forced her to come along another one of his quests through guilt and fear for his wellbeing. Harry swallowed a lump of guilt at the back of his throat as he recalled Hermione barely breathing in the hospital wing, medi-witches and wizards fluttering around her as they tried to heal the horrors of the Department of Mysteries.

At last, Harrys finally wrapped up the last of his shopping, bidding adieu to Madam Malkin of Madam Malkin’s Robes For All Occasions, sure to thank her profusely for the self-tailoring robes, slacks and shirts. Though he knew instinctively that he wouldn’t grow much bigger than his current petite frame (and mentally cursing years of poor nutrition the entire time), he couldn’t convince the woman that he was not on the edge of a growth spurt like his peers. However, the self-tailoring attire was a nice touch to an admittedly bland wardrobe and, with a bit of luck, he wouldn’t need to return until well after graduating Hogwarts. 

As the minutes counted down on two hours, Harry returned to Gringotts with a growing pit of dread in his stomach. Hearing the last words of Sirius seemed so vital in the moment, but as it loomed closer Harry found himself clenching his nails into his fists and hunching on his way to the bank under his thick, undetectable cloak.

Reinfeng and Griphook were awaiting his arrival at the main entrance and seemed to instinctively be aware of Harry’s invisible presence as they quickly joined step beside him and escorted him to the large entrance doors of the meeting rooms.

Once the trio was safely tucked away from prying eyes, Harry removed his cloak and tucked it into his almost full expanding knapsack, quickly removing it from the line of sight of the goblins. He certainly didn’t trust the salacious glint in their eyes upon seeing the ancient artefact.

“Sit, Mr. Potter,” Griphook barked, causing Harry to drop obediently into the nearest seat. Griphook and Reinfeng moved to sit directly across him at the long meeting desk. Two large pieces of parchment lay before the goblins, the slanted words undecipherable from Harry’s position. Griphook stood and cleared his throat, ignoring Harry’s obvious tremors.

“Black or Potter?” Griphook asked bluntly, as if asking if he preferred coffee or tea. Harry swallowed, not ready to hear either.

“Could – would it be possible to request a copy of the Potter will to read later?” He asked with trepidation. “For a fee, of course,” he added upon noticing Griphook’s dark smirk.

“Of course, Heir Potter. Heir Black’s will is holographic and though Reinfeng has verified its validity, we cannot allow a copy of the man’s writing to be distributed. However, the Potter Will was written by myself approximately seventeen years ago to this date, so you may receive a transcript for your records. Your acceptance of Heir James Potter and Heiress Lily Potter’s Will has been noted and a copy will be provided to you,” Griphook agreed, snapping his fingers. One of the large, worn document on the table rolled up and disappeared with a flash.  

“We gather here today to read the final Will and Testament of Heir Sirius Orion Arcturus Black,” Griphook began without warning, jumping straight in. Harry felt his shoulders droop as a wave of despair hit his chest violently.

“I, Sirius Orion Arcturus Black, Heir to the Ancient and Most Noble House of Black and member of the Sacred Twenty-Eight, hereby decree the following: All of my titles, political seats, assets, belongings, estates, vaults, heirlooms, and shares are hereby bequeathed in name, right and ownership to my godson, Harry James Potter.”

Harry gaped openly at Griphook in pure shock, who seemed overall bored with the entire situation and droned on in his gravelly voice.

“In the event Harry James Potter is unable to accept any or all of the willed, the aforementioned are to be converted into a trust for the Education, Welfare and Protection of Werewolves. The trust is to be managed by Lupin Remus, whom shall be the sole beneficiary until he nominates those he sees fit to share the responsibilities and benefits of said trust.” At this, Griphook appeared to have eaten a particularly sour lemon, but he continued without pause.

“In the event anyone other than Harry James Potter is invited to hear this Will and Testament, I request all remaining leave bar Harry Potter himself and those Harry requests to retain as counsel for the following.” Griphook then looked up at Harry, who nodded at Reinfeng and gestured for Griphook to continue.

“Harry, my dearest pup and godson,” Griphook began, but Harry had stopped hearing the goblin’s voice. Sirius was suddenly in his hear, whispering the words that seeped into his soul, filling it with a warmth he hadn’t felt in an era. “I love you like a son. While I would love you alone for the fact you are the product of my best friends, you are so much more than that. You believed in me when you knew nothing of me, you trusted my judgement and loved me faultlessly. You have the compassion and intelligence of your mother, the cheek and curiosity of your father, and the brave lion heart of your parents combined.

“For some reason, I am not here and for that I wish nothing more than you hold you one more time, ruffle your hair and call you Little Prongs. But in the eventuality that I could not be here for you, and should you be receiving this message prior to your sixteenth birthday, I wished to leave an opportunity for you to decide upon. It is an important matter that I wished to discuss with you in person but would still like to you extend now that I am no longer with you. 

“The Black family no longer has a direct Heir, something that you know very well I could care less for. But as the final Heir to a dying family of a most Noblest and Ancientest and bestest House (at this, Harry snorted), I have been given one gift by my ancestral-hood – the ability to blood adopt.”

At this, Reinfeng gasped uncharacteristically and even Griphook seemed to balk. Griphook shook himself and read on, eyes squinting and pulling the parchment closer as he read with concentration.

“You are unfamiliar with pureblood culture and custom, so to give you a brief introduction in something that is more understood by oral lore than in book and deeply important to our civilisation, please consider the following before you agree.

“Blood adoption by an ancient dark family is in itself ancient blood magic; not necessarily bad nor good but rather simply strong blood magic. Blood magic has been deemed evil in many ways, but from your own experience you know how beautiful and powerful it can be. You will not only become a Black in name, but in blood and magic. And you will become partially my son. You will always be James and Lily’s boy, but you’ll be mine too and afforded all the protections granted by my name.

“Think it over, learn, and seek council, pup. I have charmed a vial of my blood and left it in my personal vault in the eventuality I could not be here today to ask you this myself. I hereby give the goblin Griphook express permission to complete the ceremony in the event you agree. I have arranged for you to meet with a pureblood etiquette governess for the month prior your sixteenth birthday – go to her, seek knowledge and understanding of my offer as this magic is rarely found in textbooks. The spell and blood will expire on midnight of your sixteenth birthday as you will come to magical maturity. Blood magic in this form will no longer work after this age.

“I love you Harry. Though I can’t be with you now, I will always be with you in spirit, whether or not you decide to go forward with this. Remember that I will always be on the other side of the mirror, of life’s thin veil, ready to welcome you when it’s time. Now it’s my time and, to be honest, I can’t wait to see Lily and James once more.”

The train back to Little Whinging went by in a flash. Harry clutched his bag and note from Gringotts, confirming details of their next meeting to go over the enormous estates that encompassed the House of Black and House of Potter. The goblins had gleefully informed Harry that Sirius’ upcoming vive voce would be cancelled; a letter of the cancellation would be disbursed promptly, announcing that the single benefactor of the will had claimed the inheritance in private and the document would be sealed in Gringott’s private records away from prying eyes. Harry got the feeling that the goblins were also on the hunt for the interceptor of his letters and the glint in their eyes promised true pain to the witch or wizard who dared interfere with their business.

A letter had also been owled to the governess Sirius wrote of, requesting an audience at her earliest convenience. Harry numbly recalled that he was to return to Gringotts as soon as possible to receive his confidential reply.

Once the train pulled into the grotty station of Little Whinging, the hour was nearing six and Harry hurried to Privet Drive. The Order patrol shift change was every three hours and he knew that for those few precious seconds, he could sneak in under his cloak just behind his large uncle as the man returned from the day’s work.

Once safely in his room, Harry’s mind switched off, his brain unbearably full and overloaded to painful numbness from the day’s events. Harry sat by his window at six pm sharp and watched blankly as the hours passed, the deep hues of a violent sunset slowly extinguish into darkness.

The next morning, Harry awoke at the crack of dawn and he set about organising his belongings. Unlike years before, Harry was allowed to keep his trunk in his room rather than stuffed in the cupboard under the stairs and he pulled out everything he owned to lay on the floor. Candies, socks, broken quills, scraps of parchment and everything a teenage boy owned under the sun (sans Dean and Seamus’ collection of … entertainment) lay scattered in his room haphazardly and he frowned at the odd collection of junk.

Harry stuffed a plastic bag with rubbish and sorted his clothing, grateful that he could finally throw away the last of Dudley’s hand-me-downs. He carefully organised his trunk, which he had bought from a catalogue at the end of fourth year upon Hermione’s encouragement. Seeing Mad Eye Moody’s truck (or, rather, his imposter’s) had inspired him to have a trunk of his own that could become a mobile house. Harry would never agree to sleeping in his trunk (the thought made him feel claustrophobically sick) but at least he could organise his belongings into one featherlight portable box.

Harry carefully cleaned and organised the trunk’s little library, putting away his fifth year and new sixth year texts. Potion ingredients were stored away, various clothes hung up to prevent wrinkles and others folded, his Quidditch gear wiped and carefully sorted – Harry winced. He wondered if the Frog Woman had destroyed his Firebolt. The thought made this stomach clench and he shielded away from the idea, focusing once more on the soothing motions of tidying his belongings.

At last, Harry was organised. Thankfully he had a very small wardrobe and collection of school supplies, which made up the entirety of his worldly possessions. Not anymore, Harry realised with a jolt as he recalled yesterday’s events. Merlin, he truly owned more than he would ever need use for. Harry pushed the thought away with a frown.

Harry had purchased a small satchel backpack with expanding features (the usefulness never ended) while in Diagon Alley and he lifted his truck, tucking the mouth of the satchel around its edges and trying to squish the much larger trunk into the little bag. At last, he gave one final heave and his truck was swallowed into the depths of the small backpack.

He wandered around his room and tided, banishing dust, Hedwig’s feathers, and uneaten meals with a wave of his hand. Once the room was appropriately clean, and not looking so much like a hovel, Harry sat on the floor with his knapsack and waited for the rest of the household to wake up.

Getting Dudley Dursley to listen was not as easy as it looked. The boy had grown into something of a mammoth over the past year and was nearly as wide as he was tall. Harry, being the shortest student of his year and scrawnier than even a few third years, looked down at the dumb boy from the top of the stairs and frowned.

Dudley was certainly not the sharpest of the bunch and it showed, with small, emotionless eyes staring dully ahead and a mouth perpetually hung open in stupendous stupidity. He stood awkwardly, slightly bent from boxing, his muscles clearly swollen and straining from what Harry assumed to be a rather nasty steroid habit.

Harry snuck down the top of the stairs just after Dudley entered the house an hour before dinner. It was nearly six o’clock and Harry needed the boy’s attention quickly seeing as explaining what he needed was going to be no short work.

“Psst,” Harry hissed down the stairs, “Dudley! Up here.”

His cousin turned to him slowly, looking up the darkened staircase. Harry beckoned his cousin and backed up the stairs slowly, gesturing the boy to follow him with each step. Dudley looked frightened, but also a bit intrigued, and warily followed his cousin back into the little bedroom.

Harry carefully snapped the door shut and Dudley was suddenly crowding his space.

“Listen, Harry, if you think you can do your freaky magic stuff on me, then you have another thing coming! I’ll punch your living daylights out before you can do that stuff to me,” Dudley was muttering angrily, acting like a trapped animal in a corner, about to fight his way out.

“It’s not that,” Harry sighed, slipping under Dudley’s enormous fist in a smooth movement. “I have a deal I want to make with you.”

Dudley slowly considering this, leaning back on his haunches and appraising his younger cousin, though Harry figured the boy was thinking at a glacial pace as he failed to respond.

Harry forged on. “I can’t be here anymore. I have things I need to do. But there are people who expect me to be here, to stay and be good until the end of summer. They’re watching,” Harry explained, watching his cousin shrink under the thought of being watched by his kind.

“They need to see evidence that I’m here at least once a day. No one can come near the house, even my kind, unless they mean no harm,” Harry continued quickly, seeing that Dudley was following, if just.

“You need someone to pretend you’re here?” Dudley asked, confused.

“Yes, good,” Harry approved. “But I need something a little more. Once a night, at six o’clock, I sit at the bedroom window and look out. Then I’ll move around the room and do some stuff. But for the rest of the day, I stay still and don’t do anything so the watchers know they won’t see me for the rest of the day.”

Dudley seemed perplexed. “You don’t do nothin’?” He asked, dumbfounded.

“I meditate,” Harry answered shortly, hoping to get to the point. “What I need you do to is pretend to be me for an hour a night.”

Dudley seemed to be unimpressed and made a motion to push Harry aside and leave the room, but Harry slyly whispered, “For a fee, of course,” making the brute stop in his tracks.

Dudley turned his beady eyes to his cousin. “How much?” He grunted out, eyes roving around the bedroom as he looked for a hidden stash of cash.

“I’ll tell you where the money is once I show you how you’re going to do it,” Harry responded calmly, watching his cousin’s reaction with guarded eyes. While Harry knew it was painfully immoral, he wordlessly weaved a bit of wandless compulsion onto Dudley, worried that the bully would just knock him over and turn over the room looking for the reward.

“Oh fine, whatever,” Dudley agreed, rolling his eyes, and Harry stifled a sigh of relief.

“We’ll do the first test tonight, to see if you can handle it,” Harry murmured, glancing at the time on the little digital watch on his wrist. He led Dudley over to the desk, carefully positioned as far away from the window as possible, and pulled out the only desk drawer. Twenty vials of putrid liquid clinked together as they rolled into view. Harry unstoppered one and picked up a short, black hair from a pile in the drawer and dropped it into the vial.

The liquid hissed, bubbled and oozed, but thankfully didn’t splash over the vial lip. Dudley peered into the bottle suspiciously, looking at the slightly smoking ivory-turned-gold potion and pursed his lips in thought.

“You drink this, spend a few minutes at the bedroom window, totter around the room for an hour, then you’re done. Once a night. One hundred pounds per night,” Harry stated firmly.

Dudley looked at his cousin in surprise. “A hundred pounds per night? But… but there must be…” He turned to count the vials and Harry huffed out a laugh.

“Twenty. Two thousand pounds. If you follow through, that is,” Harry crooned.

Dudley’s head whipped around to look at his cousin in awe. “Did you steal that money?” He asked excitedly.

Harry rolled his eyes. “Dudley, I know that you think my parents were unemployed drunks who died in a car crash, but that’s basically the furthest thing from the truth. Even if they were unemployed drunks who died in a car crash, they also happened to be extremely wealthy, well off drunks with a family fortune.”

Dudley looked at his cousin in complete confusion. “But dad says you’re living off us for free like an urchin–”

“Yes, I know what Uncle Vernon says,” Harry cut him off ruthlessly, bitterness swelling in the back of his throat. “But from what I understand, and if my bank statements are to be believed, my family trust has been transferring money into your mother’s bank account since the moment I was deposited on your doorstep. Don’t you wonder why I wasn’t immediately taken to the nearest fire station or orphanage?”

Dudley’s mouth opened in surprise and his chubby cheeks trembled as his mouth worked, but no words came out.

“Every time you do this, you will be able to withdraw one hundred pounds from my bank account. I set up a joint bank account that I’ll top up daily; I’ll provide you the details after this first test. If you do as I ask, I’ll know. I’ll top of the account. If you choose to withdraw every couple of days, that’s fine. The money will be accessible at any time for you, but it will only be there if you do as I ask.” Harry emphasised once more, staring apathetically at his cousin as he waited for an answer.

“Hundred ‘n’ fifty pounds,” Dudley announced, clearly figuring he could shake down his cousin a little harder.

“No,” Harry bluntly stated in a chilling tone. “You get what I offer. And just remember, you do this for me and I’ll be in your debt. I am set up to become quite possibly the richest person in Britain on my sixteenth birthday. We have a lifetime ahead of us for you to call on that debt,” Harry said, a tone of finality ringing in this voice (and thanking Professor McGonagall for that particular skill).

“Now it’s almost six. Drink this, or don’t. It’s up to you if you want to take a once in a lifetime deal,” Harry stated, holding up the vial of golden liquid as if he couldn’t care less. The trick with Dudley was to always, always have the upper hand – the boy responded to power, not empathy.

Dudley quickly grabbed the vial in his beefy hand and downed it, gagging but not spilling a drop. He looked at Harry with a puzzled expression on his face and, like Harry had seen over the years before, his skin began to twist and bubble as he shifted into another form. To his merit, Dudley didn’t cry or moan or even scream – he merely stared at Harry with frightened tiny eyes, motivated by greed.

Harry realised he probably should have tested the potion before forcing it upon his muggle cousin, especially considering where he purchased it from. Oh well, Harry thought with a bit of cruelty as his cousin shook and changed form. Waste not, want not.

After a few agonising minutes of transformation, Harry was finally looking straight at a mirror image of himself. For the first time, Harry realised what other people saw when they looked at him. He was small, but not exactly proportionally so. He looked stunted, from what he assumed was years of poor nutrition and being trapped in a dark cupboard under the stairs. Both of his parents were quite tall, so his short stature of 164 cm was obvious as some of his proportions appeared to be made for a larger body. Pale, sallow skin wrapped around his too thin body, his bones sticking out in obvious protrusion, even underneath all those layers of Dudley’s clothes.

Tight, wiry muscles laced his body, making him look like a wildling left to hunt for his own, away from civilisation and slowly starving to death. His hair was messy beyond belief, making him look wind swept and wild but not in a devil-may-care way. Bright green eyes peered back at himself, a jarring shade of jade green that reminded him of a certain spell. The thought made him cringe.

All in all, Harry processed the image he projected and realised why it was so easy for the Daily Prophet to characterise him as an insane attention seeker – and for the wizarding and witching public to accept it so quickly – as he looked even more mad than Professor Trelawney and Luna Lovegood combined.

Sighing, Harry nodded to Dudley and figured he could dwell on his despairing appearance at a later date. Harry pulled off his glasses and handed them to Dudley, encouraging the boy to put them on. Hesitantly, Dudley agreed and perched the thick lenses on the bridge of his nose, blinking as his weak vision came into focus. Harry suppressed an exasperated groan – his eyes seemed distorted and much bigger than natural behind those round frames. Merlin, he was such a mess.

“Good, you look spot on,” Harry finally spoke, breaking the silence. Dudley seemed perplexed, obviously unsure of what he looked like at all. Harry figured it would be best to not explain Polyjuice to Dudley lest the boy suffer a panic attack, though Harry reasoned that his cousin should have figured it out seeing as he’d shrunk a fair few inches and lost nearly a couple dozen stone.

“Don’t let Vernon or Petunia know about this, don’t let them see you or hear you or even get suspicious,” Harry whispered quickly, gesturing for his cousin to sit in the chair by the window. “Look out the window, watch the people come home,” he continued, guiding his slightly trembling cousin through the steps. “Keep calm, Dudley, you’re doing fine.”

A few tense minutes later, Harry allowed Dudley to retreat from the window.

“What do you do for an hour?” Dudley whispered conspiratorially.

“I read, make the bed, stretch – I generally make a scene for the watchers without trying to look like I am,” Harry answered honestly.

Dudley sat down on the bed as he looked down at his cousin, who sat across the room with his back braced against the wall and legs sprawled out before him. “It’s kind of… Perverted, you know?” Dudley whispered back, clearly disturbed at the thought of being watched by unseen eyes.

“Yeah, kind of,” Harry answered softly, staring at a blurry image of a small spider spinning a web in the corner of the ceiling. “But that’s my life.”

“I don’t feel well,” Dudley whispered back, shifting and rubbing his arms – or rather, Harry’s.

“How so?” Harry asked, returning to focus on his cousin as best he could without his glasses.

“I’m really hungry, and my stomach hurts and my body just aches… And my head really hurts,” Dudley elaborated quietly, fidgeting uncomfortably.

“Yeah, well, again,” Harry answered in dark humour. “That’s my life.”

After that, the boys fell into a heavy silence. Dudley stood every so often and walked around to study the room and stretch his legs, but often returned to sit on the bed after a few minutes.

“Seriously, this sucks,” Dudley finally announced, his voice a little too loud for comfort.

Harry rolled his eyes and cracked his neck, checking the time on his digital watch. “You have another fifteen minutes. You’re doing fine,” Harry whispered shortly.

“Will… Will I ever go back to being me?” Dudley asked, his voice much quieter and a little shaky. Harry frowned at the odd sound of his own voice sounding so weak and helpless. 

“Of course,” Harry answered, suddenly feeling a little empathetic for his cousin’s plight and confusion. Just because his own life was a living hell, interspersed with insane adventures and painfully heavy obligations, didn’t exactly mean he could thrust the same madness on another and expect them to handle it as well as him. Well… Considering what he did to Professor Dumbledore’s office not too long ago, Harry realised that he wasn’t handling his own life very well either.

“You’ll only be in this form for an hour each night,” Harry explained softly. “Then you’ll be you again. Simple.”

Dudley appeared mollified by Harry’s answer and returned to fiddling with his fingers. “So,” the boy began, looking as if he had finally been broken by the boredom and needed to talk, if only to his crazy younger cousin. “What happened to you?”

Harry squinted at Dudley, not sure what expression the boy was sporting as the distance from Harry’s eyes blurred most of the boy’s features. “What are you talking about?” Harry asked guardedly.

“When… When you first started going to… That place,” Dudley began painfully slowly, as if unsure how to start the conversation. “You used to come back pretty happy. But… Then you came back a couple years ago, freaking out about that guy Cedric or whatever his name was. And this year you look… Dead,” Dudley ended weakly, looking down at his fidgeting fingers.

Harry didn’t answer but looked ahead at his cousin with guarded confusion, lips pursed in contemplation. “What’s it to you?” He finally asked, voice sharp and critical.

“Nothing!” Dudley barked, then shrunk in on himself at the sudden noise of his outburst. “It’s just weird. If I could do the stuff you could, I would be pretty happy, I think,” the boy admitted quietly, almost inaudibly.

Harry stared at Dudley in open surprise. Dudley scowled and looked away. “Don’t look at me like that,” the older boy snapped, albeit quietly. “If you thought for your whole life that you were better than someone; faster, stronger, better at making friends… And then one day, you found out that this person has all this power at their fingertips and is better than you’ll ever be, and they don’t even talk to you anymore because you aren’t even a threat or someone they think about after all those years, it kind of fucking sucks,” Dudley said harshly, voice cracking.

Harry looked down at the floor, not understanding where this was coming from. For years, he had loathed Dudley, but once he had discovered he was a wizard, he had been elated. He recalled the feeling of knowing he could transcend his muggle family and once he turned seventeen, he wouldn’t have to even remember they existed. Dudley thrived on power, knowing where he was on  the totem pole of the household. And, in a way, even Uncle Vernon feared Harry (especially after the Aunt Marge incident), so Harry realised he would appear to be ‘on top’ in Dudley’s eyes.

“It’s not that I hate you,” Harry slowly whispered, sounding out each word as he spoke. “And it’s not like I just decided one day that you’re scum and I’ll never think of you again, though I can’t say the same for your parents.” At this Dudley sneered but Harry forged on. “I wish I could enjoy what I have, this gift. And, to be honest, it’s in you as well. But it’s dormant. We call your kind Muggles, people without magical control.” Dudley flinched at the word and Harry roll his eyes at the dramatics.

“But everything has a bit of magic in it,” Harry whispered softly. “Even you. Muggles have children all the time and sometimes those children are magical, like my friend Hermione. I’m not sure why – though I guess there’s books and stuff about it. But I’ve been… Destined to sacrifice. I guess the closest analogy I can think of that you’ll understand, muggle analogy that is, is Jesus.”

At this, Dudley scoffed. “You think you’re Jesus?” He laughed depreciatingly.

“No,” Harry answered honestly. “But just listen. Jesus was prophesised to lead the people, yeah? To fight the sins of mankind and free everyone from hell. I just found out that there’s this prophesy about me. In my world, we have people called Seers who tell pieces of the future. Sometimes it comes true the way we think it will, sometimes it’s a little different than we thought the answer was, but it always happens. The prophesy about me says that I’m supposed to fight a horrible, powerful man. I guess you could say he’s the devil in this analogy. He wants all people like you dead, muggles and people who fight for muggles, or sinners in his twisted view. Sinning just by existing. I’m supposed to be the one to defeat him or die trying. Basically, I’m destined to be his only real competition. It’s kind of hard to focus on you or hate you when I have this crazy asshole who is pretty much the wizarding version of Hitler and a league of his freaky Nazi followers trying to hunt me down day in and day out.”

Dudley was stunned for a moment then his expression turned dark and frightened. “Will they come here too?” He asked, fearfully.

Harry sighed. “They can’t find us here,” he answered. “My mother died fighting this man. She sacrificed herself to save me, which enacted a protection called a ‘blood ward’. This ward has been placed around the house of my familial blood, from what I understand, so we’re basically hidden from magical kind. Ironically, the magic you guys loathe is the only thing keeping you from being murdered.”

“Is that why those people are watching you?” Dudley asked suddenly, showing a little more intelligence than Harry originally thought his cousin capable of.

“They’re supposed to be protecting me, but I think it’s more about keeping me hidden in one place so they don’t have to worry about their ‘Chosen One’ dying before he can face the Dark Lord,” Harry murmured darkly.

“I’m sorry,” Dudley whispered.

The apology took Harry by such surprise that he could only gape openly at his cousin, a boy he had always assumed had literally the empathy of a rock. Before Harry could say anything, Dudley began to shake and twitch, the warning signs of the Polyjuice wearing off.

“Come here!” Harry whispered desperately. “You can’t let them see you change!”

Dudley stood and tottered over to Harry in a darkened section of the bedroom, shadowed by a large bookcase. After a few stressful moments of shapeshifting, Dudley was back to his normal giant self, once more filling out his clothes and towering over Harry.

Harry nodded at his cousin as his glasses were returned.

“Here, take your first payment in cash,” Harry whispered, shoving crumpled notes into Dudley's hand.

Dudley stared at the cash with amazement. “Thanks, Harry,” he whispered back, brusque but genuine.

“Don’t mention it – seriously,” Harry added, giving his cousin the most piercing look he could muster. “Here’s the bank account details,” he continued as he gave his cousin a folded note. “Just do as we practiced, don’t come out before you’ve changed, and don’t let anyone see you transform. The money will be in the account each day if you do as I say. And if Petunia or Vernon ask where I am during the day, just say that my kind have sentenced me to parole for the summer days – they’ll believe it straight away. If they catch you going into my room, just say that you’ve learnt some new pranks and are going to test them on me.”

Dudley nodded, eyes cast on the floor.

“And seriously, Dudley,” Harry whispered. “Thank you.”

Dudley looked up and smiled softly, a look Harry had never seen on his normally brutish cousin before, and Harry realised with dawning hope that this might actually work.

Chapter Text

Harry mounted the hand mirror Sirius gave him to the wall of his bedroom with despair. Leaving the mirror at No. Four Private Drive felt tantamount to abandonment. The construction grade double sided tape nicked from Uncle Vernon’s rusting tool shed held steadfast on the wall; Harry was sure any attempt to remove it would strip the wall of its horrid wallpaper. After nearly an hour of wandlessly trying to cast a notice-me-not charm on the mirror, Harry finally felt the magic take place and he collapsed on his thin mattress, more ready than ever to leave his prison cell.

At four seconds to nine, Harry cast his best attempt at a wandless Alohomora on the door. It quietly unbolted from the outside and he slipped past the frame, thankful his door could open and close out of view of the window. Cloak covering his frame and a noiseless, weightless charm muffling his feet, he was down the stairs in a flash and out the front door, taking advantage of the Order’s few moments of distraction during patrol change.

He knew Mad Eye Moody would want to take the three am to six am charge, as those hours seemed to be some strange opportunity for witches and wizards to commit their bizarre crimes (it reminded him of the ‘witching hour’ from the Roald Dahl story books of his childhood) so he was safe from constant vigilance! during this hour.

Once he passed the wards, the strange bubble of weight he had become accustomed to noticing and feeling over the summer, Harry began to sprint down Private Drive once more. His knapsack floated weightlessly on his back and his shoes made no noise in the late hours around the neighbourhood. A few open windows blared the evening news and a dog barked in the distance; Harry took comfort in the distracting noise. 

Once he had run for a good fifteen minutes, and stopped to crouch and reclaim his breath, Harry pulled out a small vial of Polyjuice potion from his pocket. He had kept four for himself, knowing that his own glamour charms wouldn’t be up to scratch if done wandlessly, and tipped a brown, greasy strand of hair from Dudley’s head in the concoction. Unlike earlier, this potion seemed to roil and boil angrily, spitting and spilling slightly over the edges as it mixed with Dudley’s DNA.

The Polyjuice finally ended in a smelly potion remarkably similar to Gregory Goyle’s. Pinching his nose, Harry tipped the nasty substance down his throat and was surprised to find that, while it looked and smelt like Goyle’s in second year, it was bitter but not nearly as putrid and had a soft, nearly absent aftertaste. Shrugging mentally, he braced himself for the transformation and shuddered uncomfortably as the potion took effect.

Once he had finally finished transforming into his obese cousin (and ever more grateful for Madam Malkin’s self-tailoring robes), Harry stashed away his invisibility cloak and raised his wand in the air. A few stressful minutes later in which Harry wasn’t sure if he could even summon his transportation in his new muggle form, a roaring noise alerted Harry of the oncoming Knight Bus.

An enormous beast of a bus stopped with alarming alacrity at his feet, the smoke belching, purple three-decker humming with magical energy. Two small doors swung open to the face of Stan Shunpike leaning over the railing to peer out into the night.

“’Ello!” Chirped Stan, who studied him critically.

“Hello,” Harry answered politely, carefully swallowing his surprise at hearing Dudley’s deep voice echoing out of his chest. “Are you heading into London this evening?”

Stan burst into laughter and waved the boy in. “Aye, boy, we’re ‘heading inta London’,” he chuckled alongside Ernie, making Harry blush uncomfortably. “Eleven sickles, that is.”

Harry handed over the money obediently. “Highbury Fields, Islington, if you please,” he requested. A ticket was quickly shoved into his hands and Harry dashed to take a seat on a nearby bed before the Knight Bus took off.

It appeared not being Harry Potter saved him the chatter of the talkative conductor and grunts of the concentrating driver, Ernie. Stan chose to natter on to some rather green looking passenger, who held a mug of hot chocolate in his shaking hands and wore a good portion of the sloshing beverage on his lapels.

Holding onto the side bracing of the bus, Harry watched patiently as the bus zipped to and fro through busy downtown London, arriving in the bustling city within moments of departing Surrey. He was once again grateful for his never-mind-the-weather Quidditch training, for the sharp movements would have nauseated him in any other state. He was lulled into a state of meditation, glad to be mostly invisible to the other passengers despite his enormous size in the skin of Dudley Dursley.

The great purple bus finally heaved to a stop outside of muggle London’s Highbury Field park and Harry unsteadily dismounted from the vehicle. With a nod from the conductor and driver, the Knight Bus shot off into the night, leaving Harry alone in a dimly lit street alongside a darkened city park. Once he was in the shadows and sure no prying eyes watched him in the night, he wrapped the invisibility cloak around his shoulders and walked the few remaining blocks to the entrance of No. 12 Grimmauld Place.

Grimmauld Place was both what he remembered and not. After sneaking in the front door as quietly as possible while under his cloak, he sidestepped the troll leg umbrella stand and tiptoed past the fluttering curtains of Walburga Black’s portrait. He had honestly expected the Order of the Phoenix to still be exploiting the safe house as headquarters. But silence met his ears and dust covered the entrance carpet where it normally was cleared by the passing of multiple feet.

Harry realised with a start that Grimmauld Place was indeed his now. He had originally come to seek Sirius’ mirror and then continue on, hiding from the Order during his break to freedom. But since the house now technically belonged to him, and he had never explicitly given permission for Dumbledore or the Order to use the house, he supposed they were momentarily blocked from entering despite knowing the Fidelius’d house address. While he once would have considered that the Order refrained from entering the house out of respect until permission was granted, he was slowly coming to understand that Dumbledore did what he thought best, what he considered for the greater good, and those on his side obeyed no matter the cost nor toll.

The thought weighed heavily on Harry’s conscience.

Harry jumped suddenly as his skin began to bubble and shift, realising with a start that an hour had already passed since leaving the streets of Surrey. He leant against the wall in the hallway, bracing himself against the rough transition into his own form while safety hidden under his cloak. Once his bones and flesh had ceased shifting, Harry carefully made his way up the staircase, having no interest in going down to the kitchens and chancing an encounter with the sullen Kreacher.

The monstrous little house elf is probably still rejoicing the death of his master, Harry thought bitterly as he climbed the stairs to the highest floor of the house.

It never ceased to enrage Harry that Kreacher still lived while Sirius was gone. That the little creature held together with hatred and bigotry roamed the earth while Sirius had simply disappeared, not a body to bury nor a funeral to be had.

The thought shocked Harry so deeply that he froze on the stairs mid-step.

A funeral.

Had there been a funeral? Why hadn’t he considered this before? Even just a symbolic goodbye. A burial without a casket.

Harry felt the walls closing in on him, the shrunken elven heads leering closer and closer with every passing second.

A funeral.

Did the Order host a funeral? Would he have even been invited, especially considering he was the sole reason Sirius had died? The reason brave and gentle Neville had his face and father’s wand smashed, why innocent Luna was hunted and stunned, why his adopted brother Ron was confunded and then lashed by those horrible brains and little sister Ginny had smashed her ankle, why his pseudo sister was Hermione cursed so darkly by Dolohov that she had to be treated with unending potions day in and day out lest she fall dead at a moment’s notice.

Hermione’s begging words of reason, desperate to get Harry to think logically before running to Sirius’ help, played over and over in his mind.

Harry collapsed on the stairs, leaning against the wall and holding his head in his hands. The memories flashed behind his eyelids as he pressed the palms of his hands into his eyes, emotions in turmoil over the pain and horror he had brought upon his friends and his last remaining family. Watching Bellatrix curse Sirius through the veil once more brought a broken sob to his lips, begging his mind to please stop stop stop.

Harry awoke in the last place he would have expected. He lay on his stomach in a ridiculously comfortable four poster bed and he craned his neck to look up at the obnoxious gold and red trimmings decorating the room. Muggle pinup posters were tacked haphazardly to each wall, including a couple posters of Betty Boop, a character Harry recalled from his earlier childhood. Though she certainly looked a fair bit naughtier in these posters than he had seen on the telly.

Quidditch flyers were Spell-O tapped carelessly between the suggestive posters, unfamiliar characters zooming around on brooms and silently cheering as goals were scored and snitches were caught. A wooden dresser was pressed against a decorated wall, overflowing with silk shirts and boxers. A built-in closet door peaked open, displaying carefully hung leather jackets and decorative trousers from a bygone era. A mirror was even tacked to the ceiling, showing full view the bed and making Harry blush a mottled red the implications.

Ignoring the room and its strange decorations, Harry turned back to the bed and breathed in deeply the scent of the plush comforter, the heavy duvet still smelling strong of his godfather even after all this time.

Unlike the ugly memories from before, Harry suddenly was reminded of a simpler time when Sirius used to come by the Potter house as an infant. The memories were slippery and difficult to grasp at best, so he simply absorbed the emotions and felt a warmth spread across his chest, enjoying the brief recluse. For a moment, Harry felt loved and he grasped onto the emotion tightly, ignoring reality and snuggling deeper into the comforter.

“Does the Harry Potter want dinner in the kitchens?” Came an unexpected, harsh voice.

Harry jumped in shock and whipped his head around, spectacle-less eyes attempting to focus on the blurry shape of Kreacher. His first reaction was to scream at the little creature the way Sirius had, just months ago, but the words stuck fast in his throat. He looked at the tiny, withering beast as best he could without his glasses and saw a miserable, hunched creature facing the door. It was clear that Kreacher had brought him here during his breakdown on the stairs and still expected cruel treatment. Hermione’s protests rang loudly in his ear, He’s a person, Harry! Listen to me! It’s not right!

For once, Harry listened to her despite every instinct screaming at him to beat the little monster senseless.

“Yes please,” Harry croaked. “Thank you.”

Both knew it wasn’t for the suggestion of food, but Kreacher merely ignored his peace offering and snapped his fingers, disappearing into the depths of Grimmauld Place. Harry sighed and let his head fall back into the pillow. It was going to be a very long summer indeed.

Harry slowly made his way down to the kitchen after ensuring his invisibility cloak was safe and his satchel untouched. The stairs groaned unhappily as he lightly stepped down the stairs and he wondered if the ancestral home of Black was miserable to be owned by a half-blood.

Once making his way into the room, Harry sighed at the sight before him. A bowl of barely passable gruel and a glass of brown water had been placed on kitchen table. Kreacher sat in the corner of the room, grumbling as he knitted what appeared to be a tiny winter coat.

“Thank you, Kreacher,” Harry ventured, sitting down at the table.

Kreacher looked up at the boy with such surprise that even Harry heard the cracking of his neck. “Filthy half-blood,” Kreacher murmured in distaste as he returned to his knitting.

It was obvious though, from Kreacher’s appearance and stature, that Sirius’ death had affected even him. Harry spooned the nasty concoction into his mouth, hoping not to offend the house elf by his slight grimace of disgust. On the contrary, it seemed to entertain the elf more.

After eating what little he could stomach, Harry walked his bowl of gruel and untouched water to the sink, washed the dishes, and placed them on an overly ornate rack to dry. He returned to the kitchen table and sat in silence. A grandfather clock chimed eleven o’clock somewhere in the house and Harry looked down at his twisting fingers, wishing he knew how to start a conversation with a racist elf.

“Kreacher knows Harry Potter is new master,” Kreacher grumbled while continuing his knitting, pearling violently.

Harry looked up in surprise. The little elf had never initiated a conversation before other than to insult, but it was clear he couldn’t hold back expressing his disgust.

“I’ll set you free, if you’d like,” Harry offered. In a flash, Kreacher had dropped his knitting and was howling silently in horror, maw gaping and eyes wide open, hands clawing at his ears as he knelt pitifully on the floor.

“No!” Harry whispered hoarsely, standing quickly from the table. “You don’t have to be free, Kreacher, only if you want!”

Kreacher ceased his horrific display of despair, slowly rising from his position on the floor. “Kreacher can stay?” The elf ventured fearfully.

“Of course, Kreacher,” Harry answered softly, returning to his seat. “I’d never make you leave. After all, you belong in the house more than I ever could. This is your home. I can only hope this will become mine too one day.”

The answer seemed to shock Kreacher to the bone and the elf stared at Harry in awed silence.

Harry felt himself soften at the evil git. The little creature seemed devastated at having lost everyone, even Sirius, and Harry couldn’t bear to let him destroy himself in the madness of solitude.

“I don’t want the Order here, anymore,” Harry admitted into the silence. He wasn’t sure what made him say it, but it came tumbling out of his mouth in embarrassing honesty.

Kreacher appraised the boy for a while. “Kreacher knows how to stop the mudblood and traitors coming into the house,” he stated, beady eyes daring Harry to challenge him.

Harry sighed at the terminology but accepted the gesture with grace. “That would be great, Kreacher. I just want this place to be… Brought back, I guess. To its formal glory. But better than ever. Want to help me?”

Without warning, Kreacher burst into tears and ran across the room towards the table, briefly terrifying Harry, and embraced Harry’s leg. The little elf gripped the pant leg with fervour, burying his face into Harry while he sobbed into the fabric helplessly.

Harry patted Kreacher’s back soothingly, though a little sickened by the feeling of the sobbing elf blowing his nose into his trousers, and pondered what exactly he had gotten himself into.

The next day, Harry was invited down to a large English breakfast complete with sweetened tea and strawberry jam for his scones. It surprised Harry to no end that simply being nice to Kreacher resulted in such a turnaround but, then again, the elf was completely insane and Harry wouldn’t dare mention it for fear of insulting the elf’s sensibilities.

Over breakfast, Harry discovered that Kreacher’s knowledge of wizardry and witchery was far more expansive than even a few established professors at Hogwarts. Kreacher had led Harry into the library after breakfast (and thoroughly washing his hands), an enormous study with a fair few dangerous books trying to draw him close to their sides. Kreacher gripped Harry’s hand as he led the boy past the compulsed tomes and sat him down in the centre of the room.

“Master needs to become with the wards,” Kreacher explained, though this only confused Harry more.

“One with the wards?” Harry asked, deferring to the elf’s knowledge and experience.

Kreacher scowled and dropped a heavy tome in his lap, making Harry cough at the sudden puff of dust wafting into his face.

“Master will read. Master knows less than a mudblood. Shameful,” the elf scolded harshly, wagging a finger at Harry’s watering eyes.

“But I –”

“Shameful!” Interrupted the elf in a loud voice. “No talky until finished reading!”

Harry stared at the house elf as if slapped, holding the tome close to his chest. “But –”

Kreacher suddenly drew a large wooden spoon out of thin air and shook it at Harry warningly. “Shameful.” The elf’s eyes narrowed and Harry realised the creature wouldn’t hold back on whacking him with the utensil.

Harry opened the book and began to read.

After being forced to read four ridiculously large tomes in less than eleven hours straight, Harry felt like his brain was about to explode. Kreacher fed him all kinds of ‘study food’, as the elf liked to claim. Strawberries, nuts and even peppermint tea was plied into his mouth as he absorbed the heavy text regarding Fidelius Charms.

Harry had a much greater appreciation for warding as a whole. And curse breaking. Merlin, he thought, Bill must be a genius.

While the texts were difficult to understand at first, the theories became significantly easier to process once Kreacher explained the terminology. To the elf’s credit, he never left Harry’s side with the exception of bringing more snacks or allowing a five-minute study break. Harry realised that Hermione would kill for this power and study ethic; he vowed to never let the two get onto speaking terms.

“Now Master Harry be writing an essays,” Kreacher announced. Harry whipped his head around and looked at Kreacher, appalled. “The promptsies being on the paper.” A piece of parchment was thrust into Harry’s face and he groaned with the horrified realisation that Kreacher was completely serious.

Chapter Text

Harry was finally released from Kreacher’s filthy gaze on the fifth day of his stay at Grimmauld Place. He had been checking Sirius’ mirror nightly and confirmed that Dudley was indeed following through with their deal. Harry would send an owl each morning to Gringotts to confirm a deposit of one hundred pounds into his muggle bank account, a possibility that still perplexed him for its simplistic nature, and would patiently await for the next round of academic torture Kreacher decided to thrust on him.

Gringotts sent back a missive on the fourth morning, notifying him of a response from the governess. Unlike the current false owl mail the goblins were sending his interceptor (though all parties were fairly sure it was Dumbledore, to Harry’s despair), this mail was addressed to The Master of the House, The Black Ancestral Home. This seemed to work as intended and even Kreacher had cackled at the Slytherin-ness of it all.

Kreacher had finally left Harry to his studies, now believing the boy would read and take notes as deemed appropriate. Kreacher had been polishing a large goblet obsessively, eyes glittering at the Black Crest engraved in the pure silver and gold inlays, when Harry had come across him during a study break. Harry told Kreacher that he was welcome to choose three items of his desire in the house for his personal collection (a number that felt too small, but appropriate enough to not offend the Black-fanatical elf) and had been treated to another round of sobbing appreciation.

Their relationship had improved even more after that and Harry was still shocked how just a little kindness won the support and fierce loyalty of such a creature. He wished belatedly that Sirius had just tried a bit harder, just acted a little kinder. He noticed the dark look Kreacher wore when Harry was escorted to Sirius’ room each night and felt a rift grow a little wider in his heart. It was part of the same rift born when he saw those memories of his father torturing a young, defenceless Snape.

It blackened his heart a little each time.

While Harry was interested in meeting the governess that Sirius recommended, he was beginning to feel a little uncomfortable with the thought of leaving the house. Dudley was still pretending to be Other Harry and he hoped The Order bought the charade, but Harry didn’t want to jinx his luck by showing his face around Gringotts or Diagon Alley unless completely necessary. Besides, Kreacher knew more than enough about pureblood etiquette and the house elf managed to squeeze in a few lessons between Harry’s studies of the house wards.

A month into his stay at House Black and one day before his birthday, Harry was dressed rather fashionably (though about three decades behind) by Kreacher. The house elf stuffed his young charge into one of Sirius’ charcoal silk shirts and black linen trousers, now tailored to fit his much smaller frame. His self-tailoring robes were hidden in the depths of his trunk and Kreacher took the opportunity to dress Harry in a heavy set of over-robes despite the sweltering summer heat.

Harry allowed himself to be carefully groomed by Kreacher for about half an hour before begging for relief, insistent that he was to be late to Gringotts. Kreacher had been taken aback and Harry realised that wizards and witches weren’t the only ones intimidated by the goblin folk.

“Why won’t you tell me the ceremonial words, Kreacher?” Harry asked curiously.

“Master Harry will know,” Kreacher answered resolutely. “And if Master Harry does not, it is not to be.”

Despite the words, Harry found comfort. He would rather be Sirius’ blood son because it was meant to be than because of hours of training. It held the scent of cheek, of Marauder mischief, that drew Harry to the challenge.

Two minutes to departure, Harry looked down at his frame and smiled at the care Kreacher had put into stitching the clothes to fit just right.

“Kreacher, you really are the best, you know that, right?” Harry asked Kreacher playfully, a small smile quirking the edges of his lips.

Kreacher merely sneered, a look that Harry was slowly becoming to realise was a classic Kreacher diversion, and stretched out his hand.

“Master Harry’s not to be missing the meetings!” The elf demanded and Harry nodded, taking the tiny appendage.

With a crack, Harry and Kreacher appeared outside the bank five minutes to opening. At the early morning hour, not even seven-am, not a soul could be seen wandering the streets of Diagon Alley. Diagon Alley had been a recent target of Death Eater attacks in the past few days and the stench of foul smoke still wafted around the narrow alleys, a singeing reminder of Voldemort’s rather public return.

Griphook cracked open a small portal just a few feet away from the main entrance doors of Gringotts, a secret entrance that would never be noticed without being open, and Harry and Kreacher snuck into the bank.

Once inside and settled in the same meeting room where Harry heard the reading of Sirius’ will, Harry finally relaxed. Though he had seventeen hours to his birthday, Harry felt comfortable with his decision.

“Have you seen the governess, as Heir Black requested?” Griphook began formally, not bothering with pleasantries.

“I have not,” Harry responded respectfully. “But I have received the guidance and care of an ancestral elf of the House of Black. I have come to my decision.”

Griphook sneered at Kreacher coldly and bit back, “That is hardly an impartial source.”

Harry smiled at the attack, hardly offended, and responded kindly, “I also doubt a pureblood etiquette governess, no matter how highly recommended by my godfather, would be any less impartial. I will commit to see her once the inheritance has been accepted, though.”

Kreacher rose a triumphant, invisible eyebrow at Griphook, but shrunk back once the goblin’s glare was levelled on the house elf.

“As you wish, wizardling,” the goblin responded coldly, clearly uninterested in the reasoning behind Harry’s decision. “We will begin at the reading of the rights.”

Reinfeng then entered the room and gestured for Harry and Kreacher to follow him. Once everyone had settled in a room Harry recognised as a ritual room, he was asked to remove his outer robes. Harry obliged and stood in a circle of salt in the dark room, lit only by a few ceremonial candles.

“Harry James Potter, do you agree to the adoption and acceptance of the last Heir and Son of the House of Black?” Griphook asked deeply, eyes glowing in the near dark.

“I do,” Harry answered firmly.

Griphook nodded, then began to chant in Latin. Harry wished he could understand, but even Kreacher, who seemed to know the language like a second tongue, appeared lost by the ancient words.

Reinfeng held out his hand and Harry produced his arm, rolling back the silk sleeve to reveal a lightly scarred forearm. Reinfeng accepted a dagger from Griphook, who continued to chant in his haunting, gravelly voice, and Reinfeng slashed the air above Harry’s wrist with the dagger.

Harry closed his eyes as the dagger failed to touch his wrist and yet slit deep into the flesh. Blood poured from the wound and he bit his lip, a soft whine of pain the only recognition of the agonising wound.

“Do you accept Sirius Orion Arcturus Black, Heir to the Ancient and Most Noble House of Black and member of the Sacred Twenty Eight, as your father?” Griphook asked suddenly, switching from incoherent Latin to English effortlessly.

“Yes,” gasped Harry as his blood poured onto the floor.

“Do you accept the laws of his people, of his family, of his honour?” Griphook pressed.

“I do,” Harry sobbed as his head began to spin wildly.

“Do you accept the responsibility and weight from which his title stands and agree to act fairly, honestly, and in good faith to the traditions of the House of Black?” Griphook asked at last.

“Yes, I do,” Harry answered breathlessly, eyes rolling and head lolling as he began to hedge death.

“Then you shall be,” Griphook answered resolutely.

Without notice, Harry’s mouth was yanked open and the vial of Sirius’ blood was poured down Harry’s mouth. A tiny hand massaged his throat and Harry swallowed, horrified at the pungent copper smell and disgust of drinking his godfather’s blood.

After that, all Harry knew was pain.

Harry awoke in a sweat soaked bed, body trembling with echoes of agony. It was Sirius’ four poster bed, but the room had been cleared of the suggestive posters, wicked mirrors, and victorious sports flyers. Even the gold and red tinsel cluttering the ceiling had been removed and instead the room lay bare. Harry’s eyes focused on the nearest beside table, looking for his glasses, when he realised with a start that he didn’t even need them.

The thought haunted him. Had he changed?

Harry sat up quickly and immediately regretted the motion. His body cried out in pain, his muscles protesting from hours of clenching and shifting. Harry wasn’t sure what had happened – this was definitely not something he had planned for with Kreacher.

As if summoned, Kreacher apparated into the bedroom and froze upon seeing Harry awake. With sudden watery eyes, the elf launched himself at Harry and the boy caught the sobbing elf, doing his best to console the inconsolable.

“Kreacher, I’m okay, really, please don’t cry,” Harry crooned, a little taken aback by the slightly softer, velveteen voice coming through his lips.

Kreacher only wailed louder and Harry resolved to hug the elf until the sobbing died down. Once the alarming noise had softly turned into sniffles, and Kreacher had mostly composed himself (but refused to be removed from Harry’s arms), did Harry get a chance to speak.

“Kreacher, what happened?” Harry enquired softly, still stroking the back of the shaking elf.

“Master Harrys been having the worst reaction ever,” the elf answered wobbily. Harry could almost hear the tears gathering in Kreacher’s eyes and he sighed.

“How so?” Harry pressed, hopeful that the elf would elaborate. Seeing as he had received no training beforehand regarding blood adoption, Harry wasn’t even sure if this wasn’t meant to be part of the process.

“The goblins thinking you have something nasty insides you, making the transition worst,” the elf answered, finally pulling away and placing two hands on Harry’s face, looking deep into his master’s eyes.

Something Kreacher saw shocked the elf, as he pulled away and turned even greyer than his normally waxen complexion. Harry watched the elf’s face in careful observance, the ashen expression a mixture of disbelief and shock, as he was seeing a ghost.

“What is it Kreacher?” Harry asked quietly, fearfully.

“Master Regulus…” The elf murmured, and then squeaked in surprise and disapparated without a moment’s notice.

Harry’s eyebrows drew together in confusion. Regulus – wasn’t that Sirius’ younger brother? He carefully crawled out of bed, still wary of his worn muscles. Two pale, petite feet met his sight and Harry started. His old feet had been small but not this delicate nor pale. He lifted his hands to his face and looked at the unblemished palms and fingers. I must not tell lies still lay scarred into the flesh of his left hand, yet against the pale, soft hands it appeared more apparent than ever.

Harry cursed loudly, not having expected something of this magnitude to occur from agreeing to the blood adoption. How the hell was I supposed to know? Harry reasoned darkly, but still unable to place the blame on Kreacher as he knew he could have researched the Black library himself prior to the ceremony.

Harry limped towards the built-in closet despite his protesting muscles and opened the largest door, knowing an enormous mirror hung on the other side. The sight that met his eyes made him jump.

At first, Harry thought he was looking at a painting instead of a mirror, but realised with startling clarity that the reflection was him. A petite, well portioned, pale boy came into focus. Wavy black hair, tamed by the slightest curl, brushed the edges of his shoulders. His previously long-ish face was sculpted into an aristocratic shape, rounded and jaw line sharp, cheekbones high and well defined. Harry’s once gangly limbs had adjusted to his size and he had grown a few centimetres, raising him closer to his age group despite still being on the small side. Harry was amazed to see toned arms and a fit form, not just a scrawny, wiry frame.

The most shocking difference was his eyes, which had changed into a softer, wider almond shape and lined with thick, long eyelashes. The beginnings of bushy eyebrows had been effortlessly wrangled into thin brows, defined by a strong slant and hooded eyes, making him look vaguely bored – Harry now realised it was a staple expression on most Blacks he’d met. Once purely green irises were now outlined by a dark charcoal on the edge of the iris and a bright silver ring around the pupil, expanding into the centre of the iris and flecking his eyes with silver and green.

Overall, Harry was completely flabbergasted to realise that he had indeed inherited the soft side of the Black genes while retaining a few major characteristics of his own. He was… cute. Effeminate. It was upsetting. Harry didn’t understand why he didn’t receive Sirius’ height or shoulder width or devilishly good looks – instead, he looked small, like a delicate doll. Not handsome. Beautiful. Harry scowled. Typical, just typical. Couldn’t let me have this either? He berated the universe bitterly.

Harry lifted a lock of hair to study his forehead and was shocked to see that his infamous scar had almost completely disappeared. Where the welt of a cursed scar used to be, the thin outline of a lightning bolt traced the upper right side of his forehead and though it was pronounced on his pale skin, it was no longer a furious, throbbing red. Harry noticed that, for the first time in years, he felt calm. He felt like nothing could obtrude or interfere the sudden peace in his head.

That was, of course, until Kreacher returned towing Griphook in his wake.

It took two hours for Harry to finally stop raging and understand what Griphook was implying.

“You mean to say,” Harry started cautiously. “That I am a host to part of the Dark Lord (a near beating by saying “Voldemort” had taught him to keep his mouth respectful around the goblin and elf) and the blood adoption challenged the soul piece’s right to host itself in my body?”

The elf and goblin nodded regally, though the impact was ruined when both turned to stare and sneer at one another.

“So I’ve been carrying around a part of the Dark Lord for years,” Harry elaborated, on the edge of hysterics.

At the corresponding nod, he laughed a little manically in faux humour.

“Does anyone else know about this?” Harry asked, still shaking in hysteria.

“I assume Dumbledore, who has been privy to your most intimate life story,” Griphook responded apathetically. “You still carry the soul shard, however it is no longer challenging your body and mind as the inheritance has accepted the soul shard as part of you. Had the soul piece been larger or stronger, you probably would have been turned into a vessel for its possession, and had it been any weaker the inheritance would have vanquished it.”

A sudden memory of Ginny laying on the floor of the Chamber of Secrets, pale and dying as a young Tom Riddle sucked the life from her cooling body, came to mind. Of Professor Quirrell possessed by the demonic face stuck to the back of his head.

“How – how can I get rid of it?” Harry whispered.

“There’s no way to tell without asking Dumbledore or the Dark Lord himself,” Griphook answered with candour.

This did not help Harry’s plight.

Griphook sighed dramatically and stood to leave. “I will respect your privacy in this topic, especially as I cannot discuss this matter with any other parties as this is part of the highly confidential inheritance adoption. However, Heir Potter-Black, this is pure black magic. Magics we dare not speak of in the confines of our own homes, nor write in any books you will find except in the darkest of libraries in Britain. Had this parasite remained tacked to your soul without a mutual resolution, it would have affected all those around you at some point or another. I would not be surprised if this is the reason you have suffered so greatly since the Dark Lord’s return. Be glad that is has been mostly neutralised. Good day,” the goblin stated, ending his brief monologue.

After Griphook had left with little fanfare, Kreacher sat on the bed next to Harry for a few minutes in silence.

 “Master Harry being sick in bed for many days,” Kreacher whispered conspiratorially. “It would overcomes you, possess you, and sometimes I caught a whiffsies of the magic and it reminded me of something Master Regulus… Master Regulus gave me something… Something that reeked of the thing in your head, Masters Harry.”

At this, Harry gaped at Kreacher and tumbled out of the bed. “Show me, Kreacher.”

The elf grabbed Harry’s hand, eyes wide, and disapperated to the kitchen. Harry blinked in brief disorientation as Kreacher retrieved the item from his cupboard. Finally, the elf returned holding an object at arm’s length, body trembling with hatred. He placed it on the kitchen table and Harry discovered it was a large golden locket with an “S” carved on the face.

“Master Regulus gave this to me to destroys, died so Kreacher could leave, but Kreacher could not,” Kreacher admitted through tears, pulling on his ears. “Kreacher tried everything, but evil locket still here. Kreacher puts in fire, Kreacher puts in acid, Kreacher stabs with dagger, Kreacher drops from the highest building. Nothing, Masters Harry, nothing!”

Harry leaned forward to touch the locket, then snatched his hand back in surprise before he could touch its face. It felt similar to the diary he had encountered in second year, a boiling hatred and sadistic magic pulsing from the locket’s aura. Something about the locket tingled the back of his skull, the magic both familiar and nearly… Welcome. It made a shudder of something inexplicable rack through Harry’s frame.

Unwilling to discuss openly in front of the locket for fear that it was as sentient as the diary, Harry silently gestured for Kreacher follow him out of the kitchen. Once safely away, Harry breached a sigh of relief.

“That’s definitely a horcrux, Kreacher,” Harry whispered, lips carefully sounding out the unfamiliar word Griphook had used earlier. “It felt the same as the diary and even my scar at times. It’s dangerous. We need a Basilisk Fang – that’s what destroyed the diary.”

Kreacher pondered on the implications. “Can you finds the fang?” He whispered back, fearful of the horcrux hearing.

“I think so,” Harry agreed quietly. “At Hogwarts, we killed a basilisk in second year in Slytherin’s chamber. I can find it again and steal a fang to kill the damned thing.”

In that moment, he saw Kreacher provide the proudest, most genuinely glittering smile he had ever seen from the mopey elf. Kreacher reached out and hugged Harry’s pant leg, stroking the muscle and muttering something about ‘the bestest master’. Disturbed by the sight of Kreacher’s dark happiness, Harry smiled down at the little creature uneasily.

“For now, hide the locket, keep it away from sight and sound. I wouldn’t be surprised if the damn thing is sentient, like the diary... We’ll need to make sure that the house is warded against intruders, too, if we’ll be keeping pieces of the Dark Lord’s soul around the house,” Harry instructed, face softening at the elf’s eager nods and patting his head gently before the elf disappeared with a loud crack.

Harry’s summer passed by quicker than he expected.

Dudley had sent him an owl (to his complete shock and awe) to inform him that Dumbledore had sent pseudo-Harry a letter. Luckily, Harry had sent a new batch of Polyjuice just in time as Dudley had no other means of communicating with his cousin. The House of Black had an owlery, something Harry had never known before, and he had a choice of bad tempered barn owls or falcons that looked meaner than sin. Kreacher had shown off the falcons, lovingly sharpening their talons to a fine needlepoint and stroking their dark feathers as their piercing eyes followed Harry predatorily, as if he looked like a nice evening snack. Harry chose a scowling barn owl.

Dumbledore wanted to take ‘Harry’ on a fieldtrip. Writing back, Harry convinced Dudley to agree and noted that he was already upset with Dumbledore anyway, so Dudley could play a sulky teenager and get away with it. To his relief, Dudley agreed and a few days later Harry received a letter informing him of the adventure Dudley had received while travelling with Dumbledore.

Clearly, Dudley had been impressed by side-along apparition (though completely nauseated to the point of vomiting in public) and had enjoyed the wondrous displays of magic. Harry wished he could keep Dudley on reserve to hand off to Dumbledore for his mysterious missions so that Harry could continue on with his own valuable research. Why Harry would think it mattered to convince an old Potions Master to return to Hogwarts, he wasn’t sure. The whole situation seemed beyond ridiculous.

A piece of Harry felt a twinge treasonous at brushing Dumbledore off with such ease, but a much larger part of him loathed the headmaster for hiding something as important as horcruxes after promising to keep no more secrets. Oh, and the fact he had one in his head probably should have come up sometime in the last six or so years. Harry now knew that the horcrux was partially why Snape’s Break-Your-Mind Occlumency lessons had gone so poorly. And why Dumbledore spent the last year ignoring and hiding from him. The man clearly knew of its existence, that was for certain. But god-forbid the man ever tells the truth straight up, Harry thought darkly. Much better to make me think that I’m going totally, undeniably insane.

Harry found himself insurmountably irritated with the wizened old wizard.

Besides, if Dumbledore genuinely didn’t notice that Dudley Dursley was pretending to be Harry Potter, then Dumbledore could eat an entire patch of boiled cabbages for all he cared.

In the meantime, Harry had discovered how to adjust the Fidelius Charm of Grimmauld Place. Dumbledore, the sneaky bastard, had told Other Harry that he was now the owner of Grimmauld Place (but made no mention of a will) and was convinced that summoning Kreacher would prove ownership. Thankfully, Kreacher had the insight to successfully play the part of hateful, miserable house elf and ‘obeyed’ Other Harry’s orders.

Kreacher had returned in a tizzy and luckily he and Harry were just prepared enough to adjust the wards on the spot. It took a fair bit of effort and all their collective magical reserves, but the memory of the location of the house was successfully removed at last from all those given the address by the secret keeper. Only through Harry’s newly minted Black blood was he able to remove the power of the current Secret Keeper and transfer the right unto himself instead. This was verified when the little scrap of paper in the entrance hall with the address written on it by Dumbledore himself burst into a neon green, heatless flame and disintegrated into ash in less than a second.

Harry felt strange having to remind Kreacher the address of the house, but also incredibly safer since the elf, who had lived in the house for the past six hundred years, couldn’t remember its location. Especially considering he wasn’t sure if Bellatrix Lestrange or Narcissa Malfoy (both nee Black) knew of the ancestral house’s address and Kreacher referring to them as Miss Bella and Miss Cissy gave him the creeps. He was immensely thankful they hadn’t decided to make Kreacher the secret keeper during the madness of the transfer.

All in all, Harry hoped the new development only brought Dumbledore more stress.

Kreacher kept Harry occupied by forcing his attendance at the pureblood culture lessons Sirius had arranged prior to his death while he was busy ‘working’ at Hogwarts Kitchens, which was more like showing his face on occasion at the school before apparating back to Grimmauld Place. Though he would never admit to Kreacher’s face, these lessons provided useful to understand the enormous sticks shoved up most of his pureblood classmates’ arses as he now realised the intricacies of each interaction.

Or, rather, Harry didn’t understand but did his best to adjust – which was stressful after weeks of endless lessons and tuition. To his unsurprised discovery, the governess was a beautiful woman who was clearly breathtakingly enthralled with Sirius and devastated by his death. It seemed the old dog had begun a little love affair, privy to no one, after settling in the ancestral Black House. Luckily, she seemed to assume that Harry was Sirius’ long lost son (though it helped looking like a tiny carbon copy of a Black heir) and kept their lessons secret out of respect for the fallen Black.

Another fortunate perk of Harry’s new appearance included being able to pass by completely unnoticed in Diagon Alley, hidden in plain sight. He knew that he should enjoy it while he could, since returning to Hogwarts would undoubtedly see the cat out of the bag.

Harry’s newly healthy body didn’t stop Kreacher from fussing over Harry’s wellbeing constantly. Harry had grown comfortable in his new form (though the knowledge of a soul shard living in him still gave him occasional nightmares) and Kreacher kept him well fed on homecooked meals, treacle tart and (thank Merlin) non-brown water. Kreacher’s announcement that he could indeed practice wand magic while in the Fidelius’d house was an awesome discovery until he realised that the house elf was going to still force him to practice wandless, wordless magic so he could defeat ‘that bad man’. Kreacher even constantly hounded him to complete his summer Hogwarts lessons, even in classes he couldn’t take due to his OWLS.

Harry’s NEWT letter arrived at Dudley’s, who forwarded it on to Harry with the emergency owl Harry had stationed at No. Four Private drive. Dudley also reported that he politely declined an invitation to join Ron and Hermione for the rest of the summer at the Burrow.

It humoured Harry briefly to consider the looks on his closest friends’ faces as they received the declination to escape No. Four Private Drive, but it also caused him pain. He wished he could speak to Hermione about the blood adoption, sure she would understand in moments what he studied for weeks. He wanted Ron’s pureblood experience but also genuine interest, to speak openly and frankly about the troubles he was going through.

Harry couldn’t bare it, though. Couldn’t leave his much-needed tutorage now that Voldemort was officially back, especially since Dumbledore’s attempts to ‘teach’ Other Harry were basically as helpful as watching muggle telly (if Dudley’s descriptive letters were anything to go by). He couldn’t let Ron and Hermione in on more secrets that were guaranteed to put them in harm’s way – at least, not while he couldn’t be there to protect them.

So Harry thanked Dudley for his work, added a few extra hundred pounds to the bank deposit in appreciation, and returned to his studies.

Chapter Text

On one of the last days of Harry’s summer freedom, he mailed Dudley to thank him for his service and excused him from their contract. Though the boy was a few thousand pounds richer now than the beginning of the summer, Harry knew his cousin didn’t have to agree to half the things he had during the holidays. But Harry had long figured out that his cousin enjoyed the experience and intrigue. Harry was surprised to note that he had gotten much closer to his estranged cousin and the boy had warmed up considerably, maturing quickly over the summer while under the pressure of being Other Harry.

Harry had then sent a letter to Hermione explaining that he was going to enjoy a few days of freedom away from the Dursley household. Unfortunately he had to resort to muggle post, seeing as he had sent Hedwig to stay with Ron and didn’t want to tip anyone off by using a Black owl. He wrote of sneaking out of No. Four Private Drive and claimed he would spent the next couple days wandering muggle London while put up at a dingy motel.

Harry didn’t receive a response, as all letters addressed to “Harry Potter” disappeared into a large black hole that stunk suspiciously of Albus Dumbledore, but Harry knew that Hermione would tell Ron and they would probably understand. Even though Hermione would fret and wring her wrists over Harry’s lack of protection, Ron would undoubtedly fight for Harry’s right for freedom from his relatives and a bit of privacy before the start of term. Harry couldn’t write down his summer activities on parchment, knowing the messages would be intercepted once more even when sent by Muggle mail, so he waited patiently to tell them of his adventurous summer once on the Hogwarts Express.

Two days to the end of summer, Harry left the office of his governess after his last lesson, exhausted by her tears and well wishes. She had taken exceptionally to Harry, which he knew was entirely based on his intense inheritance of Black features, from silvery eyes (though thankfully mostly green) to the thick, wavy black hair. It was creepy, though, for the woman to stroke his head and croon at him, especially considering he was half her age and the ‘son’ of her deceased lover. His governess was an odd but likeable character that he realised, with some surprise, he would miss. Especially since they were able to quietly mourn the loss of a loved one in companionship during their private lessons.

Harry had slowly adjusted to his godfather’s death, the healing process slow but steady. And yet Harry wasn’t ready to deal with a governess sitting in his lap, going on about how much of an amazing man Sirius was while running her hands through his hair – to be honest, he didn’t think he would ever be ready for something like that. Harry was also pretty sure that the woman doing so basically broke every rule of pureblood propriety she’d practically beaten into him over the summer.

On his way out of his last lesson, Harry slipped under his invisibility cloak, more comfortable in the secrecy even though he was rarely recognised in Diagon Alley these days, when he saw a flash of blond hair.

Harry recognised the white-blond colour in an instant. A Malfoy. Harry immediately thought of Lucius Malfoy, but he recalled that the Death Eater was holidaying in Azkaban for the foreseeable future. Harry smiled darkly at the thought. So, not Lucius – Draco.

Harry snuck behind Malfoy and tailed the boy as the went down into the depths of Knockturn Alley. They passed the Weasley twins’ joke shop not long ago and Harry felt a small shiver trickle down the back of his neck, feeling the desolate aura of the shopping district more than ever as the country sunk into deep despair over Voldemort’s return. Finally, Malfoy disappeared into the dirty entrance Borgin and Burkes. Harry crouched below the window, trying desperately to hear through the warded glass panes.

A muffled conversation later, Harry realised that Draco Malfoy was on a mission from Voldemort. Trying to fix something just out of the line of sight of Harry’s spying. What was the sixteen-year-old boy doing, carrying out the whims of a dark lord? Though, Harry noted bitterly, if Voldemort told Malfoy to do something, it wasn’t like the boy could politely decline.

Finally, Malfoy showed something to Borgin in a threatening manner, something on his arm that made the shopkeeper bow his head in deference to the sixteen-year old. Harry felt his skin crawl. The Mark.

What the hell is happening? Harry thought, panicked. Who the hell marks a child still in school?  Harry realised with a start that he was being ridiculously stupid. A psychotic wacko who murders babies and splits his soul into a million tiny pieces, that’s who, he thought caustically.

Malfoy finally ended his meeting with the ashen Borgin, stepping out of the shop. Harry caught sight of the boy’s face and blanched at Malfoy’s sickly features. He had certainly changed during the summer, nearing six feet in height. He had grown into his aristocratic features and had transformed from a pointy brat to a shockingly handsome Heir Malfoy over the summer (the thought disturbing Harry the moment he had it).

But Malfoy had thinned considerably, more than just a little lost baby fat, and his skin stretched taut over his sallow face as he sneered at no one in particular. His hair was messier than he thought a Malfoy capable of, a little greasy and windswept. His hooded, silver eyes darted to look around the alley and Harry was immensely grateful he had brought his invisibility cloak with him. After an eternity passed, Malfoy took off down the street, shoulders hunched and footsteps rapidly echoing away into the darkness.

After Malfoy was long gone, Harry cast a wandless, wordless Notice Me Not charm on his being and carefully took off the invisibility cloak once he could see no human-shaped shadows nor feel any presences in the alleyway. He tucked it into his knapsack quickly and carefully smoothed down his ruffled hair and robes, pressing the creases out with ease. Once he looked presentable, he cast a quick finite and strolled into Borgin and Burkes with a confident stride.

Harry had never been more grateful for his new looks and pureblood training, for Borgin turned to scowl at him and immediately balked. Harry walked the length of the shelves slowly, pointedly avoiding the Hand of Glory, and stopped to look down his nose at a display of taxidermied pixies.

“’Ello, there,” Borgin murmured in what Harry was sure the man thought was a welcoming tone. “What’cha looking fer today, young man?”

Harry looked up through his eyelashes at the greasy, poorly-groomed man. He smiled softly, a little disarming twitch of the corner of his lips (the one his governess had insisted he practiced daily and claimed it increased his intrigue), and looked around the shop with a raised eyebrow.

Borgin seemed encouraged by Harry’s behaviour as he scurried around the store to stand by his elbow. Though the man was fairly short by average standards, he still stood over Harry by a few centimetres and the stench of dark magic clinging to his unwashed clothes had Harry barely supressing a flare of his nostrils.

“You likin’ tha jewellery?” Borgin asked encouragingly, waving his hand at a few rings and earrings beside the pixies.

Harry hummed in response, pursing his lips. Turning on his heel, Harry wandered by the place Malfoy had stood minutes before and swept his eyes over the shelved products. There was a rather intricate cursed necklace, a few trinkets worth more as paperweights than their intended purpose, and an enormous armoire. But nothing stood out that would warrant Voldemort’s attention.

“Tha’s not fer sale,” Borgin suddenly announced coldly, jerking his head at the armoire.

Harry slowly turned his head to Borgin, pinning the shopkeeper with an unimpressed, hooded gaze. “I have no need for haunted armoires nor cursed jewellery,” Harry answered softly, barely above a whisper.

Borgin paled slightly, mannerisms changing from greasy salesman to overly defensive shop owner in a heartbeat.

“I don’ sell nothin’ tha’ my customers ain’ got a licence fer, boy,” Borgin growled.

Harry laughed lightly, tilting his head at Borgin respectfully. “Oh course, good sir. I never intended to imply otherwise,” he agreed. “I am looking for something a little more… Rare,” Harry continued, walking past the armoire, trying to seem uninterested in the large wooden cabinet.

Harry passed his hand over a few broaches on display with long-extinct house emblems carved into the fine gold, careful to keep an airgap of a few centimetres. The jewellery shivered, as if trying to reach out and snap into Harry’s outstretched palm like a magnet. Harry withdrew his caress and turned amused eyes on the store owner, clasping his hands behind his back to hide the curling of his fingers, which twitched painfully from the exposure to raw dark magic.

“It seems that you do not have what I am looking for,” Harry whispered, eyes roaming the stock with disinterest.

“Wha’ exactly are ye looking fer?” Borgin asked quickly, a greedy glint in his eyes at the thought of a special order.

“I’m not sure, exactly,” Harry answered with candour. “But I will know when I feel it.”

Harry realised with a start that he was subconsciously speaking of horcruxes. Though he reasoned that this implication was the furthest thing from the shopkeeper’s mind. It wasn’t exactly a hot topic to discuss, even in the depths of Knockturn Alley.

Borgin’s eyes narrowed in thought. “We do have a backroom for more… Delicate stock,” Borgin began slowly, studying Harry’s face for a reaction.

“Perhaps next time,” Harry cut him off lightly, hiding his growing apprehension behind a mask of boredom. There was no way he was following Borgin into any backroom without backup. That and he hardly doubted Lord Voldemort kept his horcruxes in the dank back room of a dusty Knockturn shop. “Thank you for your time,” Harry intoned lowly, nodding his head slightly but never breaking eye contact with the shopkeeper.

Borgin nodded frantically, seeing that Harry was about to leave, and scurried to the door to hold it open. “Please do keep our store in mind, Mister…?” Borgin trailed off, blatantly fishing for more information on Harry.

Harry smiled coolly at the shop owner and dipped his head once more in thinly disguised derision. “Heir Black, Mr. Borgin,” he acquiesced politely, and took off down the cobbled stone path of Knockturn Alley before he could notice the look of shock on the shopkeeper’s face.

Harry sat on a wooden bench on the magical side of Station 9 ¾ half an hour before the train was set to depart. Kreacher had wrung his hands in despair at leaving Harry alone by himself to wait for the train but Harry shooed the house elf away and promised to seek him out once he had settled at Hogwarts. Harry was pleased that Dumbledore had tried to manipulate Other Harry into sending the distraught house elf away from Grimmauld Place for his own purposes, for now Harry had his close confident with him at the school.

Despite the weirdness of the elf, Harry had grown to adore the creature and his bizarre, sometimes innocently unaware, evil personality. While it was strange to think that his little elf had grown up in one of the darkest magical houses in wizarding Britain, it explained the elf’s twisted moral guide and habit of performing ridiculously black magic and a cleaning charm in the same breath. 

Harry wondered what Dobby thought of his newfound friend. Though he seriously doubted the elf would be unhappy that he had technically ‘freed’ another house elf from years of abandoned servitude at the inaccessible House of Black. Harry couldn’t wait to be back in the walls of Hogwarts, especially now that the horrible frog woman Dolores Umbridge was banished back to the ministry and no longer skulked the halls of the ancient castle.

Harry had kept up to date with the recent movements of the newly elected Minister and upheaval at the Ministry. Despite his apprehension, his only source of news was the Daily Prophet, of which the editors had done such an about face regarding Harry Potter’s reputation that he was immensely surprised the magical community wasn’t still suffering severe whiplash. Harry was disgusted to discover that the frog woman had kept her position. It appeared the ministry was undeniably more corrupt than even he originally thought.

Harry was pulled from his thoughts by a loud wave of chattering coming from the other side of the station. Dozens of wizarding families had begun to pile into the station from both the muggle entrance and the apparition points, filling the hall quickly and swamping the few early students who sat quietly reading their books or chatting amongst friends. Arriving early seemed to be a muggle tradition, as witches and wizards took their speedy travelling methods for granted and thus were often late to all occasions.

Standing and stretching his legs, Harry chuckled at the sight of fire-engine red hair pop through the muggle entrance. The multiple bobbing heads of red were promptly herded through the station by the barking of a fierce, plump woman who pushed a trolley of trunks through the throngs of families with determination. A head of wildly curly brunette hair followed a safe distance away.

Harry stepped forward to greet the Weasleys. Once within speaking distance, Harry called out to Ron.

The boy had grown immensely over the summer and Harry gaped as a tall, gangly boy whipped around at the sound of his best friend’s voice. Ron and Harry sized once another up, the taller boy clearly taken aback as well by Harry’s new appearance.

“Ron,” Harry greeted while grinning, stepping up to his best friend. He was quickly met with a wand in his face and surrounded by a gaggle of tense redheads. Harry froze and stared at his friend in surprise; surely he would recognise Harry even despite all the changes?

“What spell did you use to knock out the troll in first year?” Ron asked guardedly, never lowering his wand. Hermione peaked over his shoulder, looking at Harry with a concerned expression.

Harry rolled his eyes. “Win-gardium Lev-ee-oh-sah,” he pronounced with great emphasis in the way Hermione had taught them. Harry then mimed the falling of a club with his hand with a whistle and made an explosion sound, like the cartoons from his childhood, to mimic the impact and troll falling down.

Ron’s lip twitched, but he didn’t give up. “What did you witness in Snape’s pensive?” He pressed.

Harry frowned slightly, but dutifully answered, “The Marauders bullying him.”

“Harry!” Squealed Hermione, launching past Ron and enveloping Harry tight hug. “Oh, my god. We missed you so much! What on earth happened to you? You look so different – like, Ron grew like a bean stalk and I know I’ve changed a bit, but you look like an entirely different person! And you’ve even grown a few centimetres, and you look like you’ve finally eaten a full meal, and –”

Harry attempted a few weak protests during her tirade but hugged her back with force, burying his head in her shoulder and finally relaxing tense muscles. He was incredibly happy that Hermione had seemingly forgiven him for last year’s debacle and the cold shoulder over the summer.

“Merlin, Hermione, don’t go crushing him now,” Ron boomed, yanking Harry out of Hermione’s hold. The taller boy briefly hugged Harry as well and murmured, “Great to see you, mate. We really missed you.”

Harry was then yanked into the arms of Ginny, who hugged him tightly and whispered in his ear, “You’re telling us everything this year – not just Hermione and Ron.” Harry nodded with aplomb, knowing Ginny could easily drag the truth out of him just by threatening him with her infamous Bat Boogey hex.

Harry was finally released into the hold of Mrs. Weasley, who alternated between fiercely berating the black-haired boy for going AWOL at the end of summer and hugging him within an inch of his life. Mr. Weasley took pity on Harry and pulled him from his wife’s motherly attentions, clasping the boy on the shoulder and welcoming him back to the wizarding world.

Harry blushed as his eyes watered and he laughed as he looked at his adopted family getting ready to depart. Hermione was already going off about her study schedule for the upcoming NEWT year and Ron was groaning in despair but giving the oblivious girl a few adoring looks when her back was turned. Molly fussed over Ginny, to the younger girl’s total embarrassment, and Arthur loaded the trunks into the side of the train’s carriage. He hadn’t realised how dearly he missed their company until now.

Just as the rowdy group began to board the train at the final boarding whistle, Harry turned to say goodbye to Mr. and Mrs. Weasley and caught sight of Draco Malfoy. The boy stood next to his mother, a once regal woman who now looked as thin and sallow as her son, and the blond boy was passing his eyes over the station coldly. Malfoy did a quick double-take and stared at Harry with unguarded shock, surprising Harry when the boy’s normal mask of indifference dropped for a long moment. Mrs. Malfoy caught her son’s line of sight and grew ashen once she spotted the much-changed Harry.

They know, a little voice whispered in Harry’s mind. The idea upset him immediately and he ducked his head, moving to hide behind Ron’s tall frame to avoid the Malfoys’ attention and say his goodbyes to the Weasley parents. Once boarded and settled on the train in an empty compartment with the youngest Weasley siblings and Hermione, Harry chanced a glance back at the station and was incredibly unsettled by the sight of Mrs. Malfoy, now standing by herself and a wide berth given to her by the other parents, staring straight at him through the train window. Hooded grey eyes, a signature trait of the Black family, focused on him with intensity that cut into his soul. Harry had never been happier to hear the conductor’s sharp departure whistle and he ducked his head to hide from the unsettling woman. Even as the train pulled out of the station, Harry could feel the weight of Mrs. Malfoy’s piercing gaze following him into the distance.

After a few moments of confusion on the train as students found their respective friend groups, Neville and Luna located their carriage and expressed their own surprise at Harry’s new appearance.

“Gosh, Harry, you like just like a photo Gran has of Regulus Black,” Neville exclaimed once the compartment door was magically sealed and warded from snooping students.

Harry looked at Neville in surprise. “Your Gran has a photo of Regulus?” He asked incredulously. Despite the comparison already made by Kreacher, Harry had yet to see a photo of the young man who, from what Harry could gather, had met a rather gruesome, unfortunate end at a young age. Trying to get details, let alone photos, of Regulus Black out of Kreacher proved to be harder than extracting blood from a stone as it seemed the topic was severely traumatising to the old house elf.

“Who is Regulus Black?” Hermione asked, frowning.

“Well, Gran’s cousin Harfang married into the Black family and Gran’s super big on tradition and keeps photos of all extended family,” Neville answered Harry directly. “She even makes me memorise all the names and faces, even though the whole Black line is dead,” Neville answered miserably, pursing his lips at the thought. Suddenly, he seemed to realise his faux pas and began to stutter out an apology.

“Neville,” Harry soothed, holding up a hand to stop the boy’s bumbling. “It’s okay, I know you didn’t mean it like that. This summer was really… Long, I guess you could say. I’m coming to terms with his death and am grieving the way I should be,” Harry elaborated, smiling softly at his gentle giant of a friend.

Neville’s eyes filled with tears, but he smiled wetly at Harry’s kind words.

Hermione reached over and grabbed Harry’s hand (an action which made Ron turn a suspicious shade a red) and she smiled at the smaller boy. “You’ve really changed, huh?” She asked wondrously, as if this new and improved Harry was too good to be true.

“Of course he’s changed,” Luna chirped happily, making the group turn to her in surprise. “He’s partaken in the flesh and blood of tradition.”

Hermione’s eyebrows drew together in confusion, but Ginny, Ron and Neville all seemed to understand the implication immediately.

“No,” Ginny breathed, looking at Harry with awe. “Wait – I can see it now. I don’t know how we didn’t see it before!”

Neville nodded, eyes wide and wringing his wrists nervously. Ron merely stared at Harry with his mouth wide open.

“Ron, close your mouth before you catch flies,” Hermione snapped, her tone making Ron shut his jaw with an audible clicking of teeth. “You all need to explain right now. Who is Regulus Black and what is this tradition of flesh and blood?” She demanded angrily, upset at being left out.

“Not tradition of flesh and blood, but flesh and blood of tradition,” Luna unhelpfully corrected, then airily went back to her upside-down copy of The Quibbler when Hermione turned furious eyes on the evasive girl.

“There’s this thing,” Ginny cut in, shifting closer to Luna to protect the girl from Hermione’s wrath. “In pureblood families. If you are the last of the main branch of the pureblood family, with no heir to continue the name, you can adopt an heir. The heir will become part of the family, including in flesh and blood. Their previous identity is basically abolished, unless the heir comes from another pureblood family, in which case some characteristics remain.”

“Just pureblood families?” Hermione asked sceptically, seemingly irritated by the elitism of the act.

“Most pureblood families choose a side of magic,” Neville contributed suddenly, looking far away into the English countryside as it flew by the window. “The Black family has traditionally been deeply entrenched in dark magic, for example, in the same way the Potters, Dumbledores and Longbottoms are entrenched in light magic. Only a few families, such as the House of Nott or House of Greengrass, have chosen somewhat neutral territory, or grey magic, committing to neither side and remaining mostly neutral in wars over the years. In many ways, it’s just as dangerous to not choose a side as it is to choose one.”

“And what does this have to do with anything?” Hermione asked, perplexed at the sudden pureblood history lesson.

Taking pity on her, Harry cut in and quickly explained what his friends were dancing around. “Each established house must have an Heir, Hermione. A few centuries ago, it was very fashionable for ancient houses to entrench their magic in a ‘side’, which changed their appearance and personalities. Have you wondered why most dark magic households are cynical, bitter people? Or why most light magic families are carefree, almost to the point of irritation?” Harry watched the cogs turning in Hermione’s head and smiled at his ridiculously clever friend.

“The magic often became infused in pureblood families after generations of practice and probably one too many rituals,” Harry continued, once he was sure Hermione was following along and ever more grateful for his pureblood training. “In a bid to protect their future generations, these families chose to weave a gift into their children, ensuring that should the family die out, the last living of the family could choose the option to adopt a wizard into the family and basically change their DNA using a blood ritual.

“It’s basically choosing a champion to protect the line. The magic binds to that person, gives them the responsibilities and duties of an inborn Heir of the house, and that person is required to live up to the traditions of that house. It’s called the Champion’s Gift. In many pureblood fairy tales, it’s referred to as the flesh and blood of tradition,” Harry finally ended, watching Hermione’s eyes sharpen as she ingested the new information.

“Sirius gave you the gift,” Hermione whispered, looking him over with wide eyes.

Harry nodded and smiled at Hermione disarmingly, not wanting to scare her off. “Regulus was Sirius’ younger brother, who I guess I take after in looks more than Sirius. I accepted the blood right before I really understood what I was getting into. It turns out that my blood is largely partial to light magic, which is unsurprising considering I am the heir to the Potter line, even if my blood was ‘diluted’,” at this, he added sarcastic quotation marks, “By my mum’s muggleborn blood. Blending that with the Black line could have been incredibly dangerous, as light and dark magic don’t generally mix well. But Sirius was always different than his family – he was more light than dark, but as he was a Black, his magic was more grey than light. I guess I’m lucky that it was Sirius’ blood I accepted before knowing any of this.”

Hermione looked up at the heavens as if searching for an answer and waved her hands in the air helplessly. “Why, Harry? Why the hell does the most bizarre shit happen to you?” She finally burst out, surprising everyone in the compartment with her uncharacteristic swearing.

Everyone burst into laughter, easing the tension of the room.

“You have to admit, you’re simply gorgeous,” Ginny butt in once the laughter had died down.

Harry looked at Ginny, scrunching his face is scepticism. “Gorgeous? I look like a bloody idiot, that’s what,” he grumbled. “I really hope I’ve just not gone through puberty in this form yet.” Though the odds of that seemed highly unlikely, Harry didn’t bother mentioning, as accepting the blood adoption sped both his body and magic up to that of an ‘of age’ wizard.

“No, not really,” Luna cut in, eyes suddenly focused on Harry intensely. “Aristocratic,” she emphasised and Ginny agreed enthusiastically, making Harry shift closer to Neville at the sudden leers.

“Though still a little squirt,” Ron laughed out tactlessly, ruffling Harry’s hair in response to the scathing glare he received.

“Besides,” Harry cut in loudly, trying to distract Ron from making any more short jokes at his expense. “There’s something else we need to discuss, but not here.” He pulled a gold galleon from his pocket and held it out pointedly, not trusting the eyes or ears lurking on the train despite their warding.

The group nodded in understanding and quickly began discussing other topics. Ron waxed lyrical about George and Fred’s new joke shop, insisting that the twins were going to make a fortune, especially now that everyone needed a good laugh these days.

Ginny and Luna chatted amongst themselves with Neville interjecting every so often. Harry smiled privately at the pink blush on Neville’s cheeks as Luna informed him of the glowing gold dimpsies she noticed fluttering around his ears, apparently the hallmark of a good gardener.

Harry could almost taste the romantic tension in the air between Ron and Hermione as the two bickered about the new school year, fuelled by Ginny’s knowing teasing. Harry sighed and curled up against the window, watching the green rolling hills pass by and relaxing into the sound of his friends chattering.

Only half an hour into the train ride, Ginny jumped up and announced loudly, “I’m off to find Dean! Don’t expect me back for the rest of the ride.” She winked at Hermione, who only laughed at the cheek of the younger girl, and flounced out of the compartment. Ron turned an unattractive shade of red and muttered darkly about beating Dean into pulp.

“Oh, please,” Hermione scoffed. “She’s hardly incapable of looking after herself, Ron. Especially with six older brothers.”

Ron seemed marginally mollified by this and settled down.

“However, we do have the prefect’s meeting to attend, so get up,” Hermione added, standing up to gather her things and gesturing for Ron to follow her.

At Harry’s surprised expression, Hermione gasped and grabbed Harry’s hands once more. “Oh, Harry,” she gushed. “I’m so sorry! I completely forgot to tell you – Ron and I made prefect again this year!”

It was obvious from Hermione’s tense expression that she expected Harry to lose the plot at her declaration. Harry felt a twinge of self-loathing at the fact his best friends looked scared of his reaction, though it was warranted by his completely obscene behaviour the year before.

Harry smiled happily at Hermione, reaching out to give her a hug. “Of course you did! They’d be insane to choose anyone else,” he responded with heartfelt warmth. He clapped Ron on the shoulder and shooed the two surprised looking teens out of the compartment.

“You’ve shaken your wrackspurts this summer,” Luna observed out of the blue.

Harry turned to the blonde girl and smiled kindly. “Thanks for noticing, Luna. I feel a lot better.”

Luna smiled charmingly up at Harry and went back to her conversation with Neville, who gazed at the girl with stars in his eyes.

Feeling a little uncomfortable staying in the compartment until Ron and Hermione returned, Harry excused himself to go find the lunch trolley. He had already eaten an overly enthusiastic lunch of shepherd’s pie and dessert (packet a little too lovingly by the fanatical Black elf), but the thought of watching Neville pine over an oblivious Luna was not exactly his cup of tea so he decided to stretch his legs. Harry strolled down the length of the carriage and was relieved when the students failed to recognise him, eyes passing over him without seeing as he strolled past their carriages.

Harry had never been to the rear of the train before but had heard that there was a nice outdoor lookout. He realised that the front of the train was mostly composed of upper years and as he neared the rear, it was filled to the brim with nervous firsties and agitated second years, looking glum at having to share the space with their younger peers. Harry had never considered the power structure as he had always followed his friends to the compartments and found himself fascinated by this strange phenomenon.

Harry finally found the back of the train, a small carriage deserted bar a few studying Ravenclaws with their heads close together, who thankfully didn’t look up nor even seem to notice when he entered the carriage. He opened the door to the back deck and was stunned speechless by what he saw. The small platform was only a little over a meter deep and a couple of meters long. The edge was lined with an ornate, iron wrought railing and a well-polished wood banister. The wind whipped around the edges of the train, stirring and swirling as the train cut north through cool English air.

Harry felt a small happy noise pulled from his lips, a surprisingly genuine laugh of amazement perhaps for the first time in nearly a year. Harry reached out to the railing, stumbling under the strength of the wind and he gripped the top tightly, pulling his body against the cool iron and hands curling over the smooth wood bannister. Harry closed his eyes, enjoying the feeling of the swirling wind whip up his hair and leaned his body into the force. His robes flapped loudly in his ears and Harry was amazed by the similarity to the sensation of flying. He had never quite appreciated how unnaturally fast the train moved through the countryside on its way to Hogwarts and he opened his eyes to take in the stunning sight.

The wind dipped in temperature quickly as the sun began to hang low in the horizon. The sky lay awash with violent hues of gold, red and orange – a sight he rarely saw since moving into the Black ancestral house. He watched with awe, cheeks pink from the cold wind but unable to look away from the vibrant sunset. He failed to hear the sound of the carriage door opening and closing over the roar of the wind, still struck dumb by the peace of the landscape before him. But Harry definitely noticed the two hands landing on the barrier on either side of his curled figure, boxing him against the railing.

Harry spun around quickly, wand in his hand and spell on the tip of his lips when he caught side of his ambusher. Draco Malfoy pressed Harry viciously against the railing, trapping Harry and catching his wrist with the practiced speed of Sneaker reflexes. Malfoy leered over the smaller boy, silver eyes alight and reflecting the hues of the sunset.

For one heart-stopping moment, Harry thought he saw Voldemort in those eyes. They flashed red in the glow of dying light and Harry froze, body trembling and eyes wide. He couldn’t move, couldn’t think, couldn’t make his body obey and fight. 

Then the moment of mind-stopping terror had passed and Harry realised he was completely disarmed, his back bent over the railing of a rapidly moving train by his childhood nemesis while frozen in some bizarre PTSD flashback to the Ministry. A nemesis who now proudly carried The Mark and had enveloped Harry’s wand and hand in his much larger one.

Malfoy stared at him with glinting eyes, crowding his space and Harry held his breath, stunned at his inability to think of a spell let alone physically defend himself. Malfoy leaned down and studied Harry’s face, so close that Harry could feel the heat of the boy’s breath on his cheek. This definitely isn’t appropriate, Harry thought to himself, helplessly blushing as he recalled the last two months of pureblood etiquette training.

“What have you done?” The Malfoy heir whispered against the side of Harry’s face, his head cocking as he changed his perspective to study Harry’s expression from a new angle as if he were a bizarre specimen that he didn’t quite understand.

Harry tried desperately to stop trembling, but the combination of the cold and the uncontrollable flashbacks to his encounter with Death Eaters (facing Lucius Malfoy down in the Hall of Prophecies) only a few months before had him frozen in position like a mouse trapped by a viper.

“What are you talking about?” Harry finally forced out, voice rasping and hoarse, as he stared blankly straight ahead in a desperate attempt to avoid Malfoy’s hypnotising eyes.

Malfoy leaned even closer and ran his nose down the length of Harry’s jaw, nuzzling the soft, pale skin between his chin and neck. Harry grabbed the lapels of Malfoy’s robes in surprise, hands burying into the soft, tailored fabric. Harry’s wand was suddenly gone, taken effortlessly by Malfoy’s hand, and an arm was wrapped around Harry’s waist, bringing him even more impossibly closer to the blond. Harry was pressed even harder into the railing as another hand wrapped around the base of Harry’s head, roughly pulling at the delicate strands of hair. Harry let out a cry of pain as his head was yanked back, exposing the column of his throat to Malfoy’s inspection.

Malfoy’s nose was against his neck instantly, inhaling deeply, and then was replaced by a hot, open-mouthed kiss moments after. Harry felt his eyes roll into the back of his head, his mind immediately numbed save for focusing solely on the heat of Malfoy’s mouth, a roaring noise vibrating in his ears stunning him mute.

Teeth nipped up his throat and finally enclosed on his open mouth in a painfully heated kiss. Harry whined low in his throat, not sure what the hell was happening but knowing enough to realise that he was completely and totally whipped, relaxing submissively into the taller boy’s grip. Malfoy moaned agreeably to Harry’s suddenly limp frame, running sharp nails over the boy’s skull and tugging painfully on Harry’s hair, soothing and punishing. Harry pulled on the boy’s robes, trying to bring Malfoy closer and bracing himself against the solid heat of the taller boy.

Suddenly, Malfoy was off him and Harry’s hands were yanked out of the taller boy’s robes in a violent motion. Harry stared up at the panting blond, his own breath loud and stuttering and the war drumbeat in his eardrums fading marginally. Malfoy’s hands were braced once more on the railing, still trapping Harry in his frame. Harry gripped the iron wrought barrier behind him as the train shifted and bucked. Harry stared up at Malfoy’s swirling grey eyes, mouth still gaping open in shock and pleasure and feeling like a bucket of ice was being dropped over his head as the situation finally caught up in his sluggish mind.

“You kissed me,” Harry stated loudly, flabbergasted. He blushed brightly at the accusation, not sure why his stupid mouth had decided to blurt that out.

“No,” Malfoy contradicted wildly. “I didn’t.” He looked so confident that Harry was sure for a second that he must have daydreamed the entire thing.

“Wait, no!” Harry protested, his mind slowly kicking into gear. “You actually kissed me. What the hell, Malfoy?”

“Get over here,” Malfoy growled, grabbing Harry’s wrist and yanking him towards the carriage door.

“No! Let me go,” Harry protested fiercely, trying to yank his wrist back from Malfoy’s iron grip and trying not to fall over in the billowing wind.

The taller boy merely rolled his eyes, opening the carriage door with ease and threw the smaller boy through the opening, who stumbled and toppled to the carpeted floor from the force.

“Get. Out. Now,” Malfoy snarled at the group of studying Ravenclaws. They vanished so quickly, Harry would have thought they had apparated if the train wasn’t warded against such things.

“What on earth are you doing, Malf –” Harry started scolding, scandalised as he scrambled to get up from the carriage floor.

Harry was pushed back onto the floor harshly and Malfoy was suddenly on top of him, pinning him down. “I didn’t kiss you,” the boy growled, voice deep and dangerous. Muscled forearms rested on either side of Harry’s head and Malfoy hovered over his frame with knees braced beside his waist, making Harry feel even more claustrophobic in the tiny carriage.

Furious at how insane Malfoy was acting and tired of being pushed around like a plushie toy, Harry snarled. “Yes, you did, you completely psychotic piece of –”

Malfoy’s mouth was on his lips, hard and demanding and somehow soft and if Harry thought his mind was blank before, it was nothing compared to the total brain freeze he was experiencing now. Harry’s hands decided to develop a mind of their own and wove their way into soft, white-blond locks, holding that face against his like a lifeline. A warm, large hand wrapped around the back of Harry’s neck and tilted his head, allowing Malfoy to deepen the kiss.

The war drumbeat returned with a vengeance, drumming filling his ears, but this time it was slower. His entire being focused on the sensation of Malfoy’s tongue teasing his lips open, of the hard-muscled body pressing him into the train carpet (ew, a dazed voice said in the back of Harry’s mind), of the strange taste on Malfoy’s tongue and scent in his nose that was driving him absolutely insane.

Harry felt his hands pulling off Malfoy’s outer robes and he distantly agreed with their actions while he focused on whatever Malfoy was doing with his tongue that made his eyes cross and toes curl helplessly. Once the robe was opened and mostly pulled off Malfoy’s frame, Harry’s hands continued their quest by tugging on the soft, silk shirt tucked into Malfoy’s trousers, pulling it out with little effort. His hands were suddenly under Malfoy’s shirt and roaming the highly toned expanse of the taller boy’s muscles, nails dragging down the taunt back.

Large hands wrapped around Harry’s hips, pulling him clean off the floor. Harry couldn’t agree more, wrapping his legs around Malfoy’s waist and arching helplessly as Malfoy ground down against him. His mouth broke free of Malfoy’s punishing kiss and he threw his head back, releasing a helpless whine at the sensation and eyes rolling back in his head in untamed pleasure.

“Draco!” Screeched a horrid voice, cutting through Harry’s jumbled thoughts in an instant.

Harry gasped and tilted his head back to the sight of an enraged Pansy Parkinson standing in the doorway of the carriage, upside down from Harry’s perspective, her eyes sparkling with dangerous horror.

“Fuck!” Malfoy suddenly barked, letting go of Harry as if burnt and jumping quickly to his feet.

Harry was dropped to the floor gracelessly, completely disoriented and insanely turned on. He looked up with hooded, unfocused eyes at the boy before him, propping himself up on his elbows and trying desperately to clear the cobwebs from his head so he could understand what the fuck was happening.

Harry opened his mouth and found he couldn’t speak, the drumbeat still filling his ears and shaking his body. He looked at Malfoy helplessly, unsure what to do.

Malfoy braced himself against one of the carriage’s booth tables and panted, looking directly at him with undisguised confusion. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, face twisting.

“You fucking piece of shit,” Malfoy finally growled, startling Harry to his core. “You piece shit!” He screamed, and slammed a clenched fist on the table’s surface.

Harry scooted back, suddenly aware that he was unarmed and Malfoy had his wand. He begged his body to stop shaking in anger, confusion, dread, to no avail. He wasn’t sure why this was happening or what was fuelling the madness filling his mind and body and he felt his eyes fill up with tears against his will.

This wasn’t supposed to happen. This year was supposed to be easy. Harry couldn’t handle another year of complete and utter insanity. Not again! Harry’s mind wailed wildly.

“Fuck you!” Malfoy screamed, taking out Harry’s wand from his robe pocket and throwing it at Harry, who flinched at the movement but managed to catch it with an impressive display of reflexes before it hit his face. Malfoy ran past him, making a break for the carriage door, and Harry tried to scramble back from the hysterical boy. In his effort to escape, Malfoy’s boot clipped his face and Harry let out a cry of pain as he heard his nose snap under the pressure.

Malfoy didn’t look back, instead grabbing a stunned Pansy by the arm and slamming the carriage door behind themselves in their quick escape.

Harry laid his head down on the floor, stunned by the sudden silence and was left staring apathetically at the blood pooling on the carpet by his face. The sun had finally set and darkness descended on the empty carriage, casting shadows on Harry’s hunched frame.

Chapter Text

Harry had fallen asleep in the little carriage, exhausted beyond belief by the day’s events. He hadn’t needed to interact with so many people since the beginning of the summer and he was remarkably worn out by the freak incident with Malfoy. That’s what he had decided to refer it as – The Incident. Typical Death Eater scum, Harry thought with dark humour as he awoke from a foul, nightmare-plagued nap. The train was stopped, indicating that it had arrived at Hogwarts, but there wasn’t the usual hustle and bustle of students so he assumed that he had missed the carriages to the school.

To be honest, Harry couldn’t care less. If this was the tone of the school year already, Harry didn’t want to disembark. Between Sirius’ death, the reading of the will, his Black inheritance, finding out he was hosting a horcrux for Lord Voldemort and that the monster couldn’t be killed until all of his slimy, god-knows-what soul pieces were located and destroyed – by a basilisk fang no less… That Harry would probably need to die in order for Voldemort to finally bite the dust. Fuck. Harry didn’t have the energy.

His wallowing self-pity was interrupted by the carriage door opening with a bang. Harry sat up and met the concerned eyes of Nymphadora Tonks.

“Wotcher, Harry!” Tonks chirped, clearly pleased to see the young wizard.

“Hey, Tonks,” Harry replied kindly, unsteadily rising to his feet.

“Lumos,” Tonks chanted, bringing light into the shadowy carriage. “Merlin, Harry! What on earth happened to your face?” She whispered, making her younger charge wince.

“Just an encounter,” Harry responded softly, looking down at the brown blood dried to the carpet in shame.

Tonks placed a finger under Harry’s chin and lifted his face up to study his features. He looked at her shyly through thick eyelashes, hoping she wouldn’t guess what he had done to himself over the summer.

“I’m not stupid, Harry,” Tonks whispered as if she read his mind, looking down at Harry’s newly acquired features. “Welcome to the family.” She then grabbed him and hugged him with the warmth of an older sister. After a few moments, Harry relaxed and wrapped his arms around Tonk’s thin frame.

A sob ripped out of Harry’s chest and Tonks stroked his hair gently. He hugged her tightly and they swayed for brief moment, both enjoying the comfort of the other’s touch.

“It’s okay, Harry,” Tonks whispered. “I miss him too. You didn’t have to do this, you know.”

Harry nodded in her shoulder and then winced as his broken nose shifted, cracking soundly.

Tonks tutted as she drew Harry away and studied him at arm’s length. “Oh, Harry. You really do get yourself into the oddest of situations,” she scolded without heat, drawing a weak smile from her young charge.

“I don’t get it, Tonks. I really could do with a calm year,” he admitted softly.

“I know, sweetheart,” Tonks answered kindly, genuine understanding in her voice that warmed Harry’s heart. “Let’s go and get you cleaned up. Professor Snape will be waiting for you by now.”

Before he could protest, Harry was whisked off the train by Tonks, who appeared more sullen and thin since he last saw her. It looks like the summer was rough on everyone, Harry thought to himself. As they walked up the path to Hogwart’s entrance gates, Tonks was mostly silent, walking the unsteady path with pursed lips and shadowed eyes. Before the path took the last corner to expose the entrance gates, Harry grabbed Tonks’ arm to stop her. She turned to him, expression surprised as if she had forgotten Harry was following her.

“Would… Would you mind if I contacted you sometime?” Harry enquired softly, feet shifting uncomfortably on the mossy forest floor.

“Of course, Harry,” Tonks breathed, suddenly looking alert. “If you promise that I can contact you anytime, that is,” she added with a cheeky smile. The expression was so completely typical of Tonks that Harry felt himself tearing up. He brushed his eyes with the back of his hand in embarrassment, pulling a watery laugh from Tonks and she hugged Harry once more. The pair then composed themselves after a few moments and braved the last corner of the footpath to Hogwarts. 

A shadowy figure waited for their arrival, dark and disturbing behind the enormous iron wrought gates. Harry cringed, curling in on himself. While he didn’t particularly hate Snape, despite his deserved emotions of betrayal at the beginning of the summer, he also didn’t want to be left alone with the man for any extended period of time. Or at all, to be honest.

“Wait,” Tonks suddenly announced, holding Harry back. She pointed her wand at Harry’s face and before he could protest, a quick “Episkey!” was thrown in his face. His nose made a rather loud snapping sound and he groaned in relief as the cartilage realigned itself.

“Dramatic, Auror Tonks,” Snape intoned caustically through the silence, piercing Tonks with a glare.

Tonks merely smirked in response, pushing Harry towards the gates. A small doorway opened, instead of the entire set of gates as Harry had expected, and Harry was pulled through aggressively by Snape.

“As always, Nymphadora, you are excused,” Snape sneered, sounding less than pleased to be dumped with Harry Potter on the first day of school.

“Wotcher, Harry,” Tonks crowed, sounding much happier than when she had first found Harry, and disapparated with an ear-splitting crack!

Harry refrained from flinching at the loud noise and supressed the wave of insults that washed into his mouth like an ocean wave. Why hadn’t Hagrid come to collect him? Why was this measly, greasy, backstabbing – Harry shook his head. He couldn’t let himself get caught up in these rollercoaster emotions again, not when it killed his godfather a few months ago. Against his instincts to rip Snape a new one, he kept his lips tightly shut against the onslaught and cleared his mind, a concept that was becoming incredibly easy since the battle of souls ended with Voldemort’s horcrux kicked to the proverbial kerb.

“Hmph,” Snape hummed in disgust, looking down his hooked nose at Harry. Harry ducked his head in response, carefully studying the heavy scuffs on his new Oxfords that Kreacher had forced onto his feet that morning. Harry had pitched a fit about an obscene pair of suede Chelsea boots that Kreacher adored (Harry has the vague feeling that Kreacher is trying to turn Harry into a virtual carbon copy of a Black Heir) and had finally got it into the elf’s head that he does not like suede. Trying to explain that he preferred muggle sneakers over Italian leather Oxfords seemed like way too much of an effort after winning the small battle with the elf. It felt like a lifetime ago.

Kreacher was going to be extremely distraught by the large scratches. The poor house elf had polished them only yesterday. Harry felt bad for the creature despite the hell he’d gone through today; he’d need to get his overworked companion a gift.

Snape seemed irritated by the boy’s lack of attitude and jerked his head towards Hogwarts, escorting the boy in silence. Harry spent the time thinking of a gift that would most satisfy his monstrous, evil little house elf.

They finally approached the entrance of the massive castle and Harry looked up in fondness, smiling at the sight of his much-missed home. His heart leapt a little at looking at the steeples, the torches and the overall glow of the castle against the backdrop of the Milky Way.

Just as he looked up, Snape had turned to address Harry with a sneer (Harry doubted the man knew how to speak to people in anything other than scathing hatred) when he caught Harry’s face exposed to the light of the torches littering the castle entrance. Snape’s hand shot forward, grabbing Harry’s chin before he could retreat, and studied the boy’s features with appalled shock.

“You stupid, stupid boy,” Snape breathed in awe, yanking Harry’s neck into painful angles as he looked at Harry’s face from every angle. Harry knew pulling away would only bring more pain, so he closed his eyes patiently and waited for the professor to observe his fill.

Finally, his chin was released with a painful push and Snape stepped back to take in Harry’s full form.

“God, you look just like Regulus,” Snape murmured. Harry resisted rolling his eyes (wizards couldn’t help but state the obvious) and counted the pebbles on the path before him, lips sealed tightly.

“You even act like him,” Snape whispered once more and Harry raised his eyes to pin Snape with an unimpressed glare, though he’d forgotten that the man would have gone to school with Regulus. Harry wished Snape wasn’t such a dickhead – he has many questions about Regulus that no one, especially Kreacher, seemed capable of answering while Snape would have gone to school and been in Slytherin with the boy. Surely he’d know something about the missing man.

The professor laughed disbelievingly. “James Potter’s son, willingly becoming a Black. What would your parents think?” He whispered in scathing derision. The hatred in his voice was obvious but Harry realised, for possibly the first time, it wasn’t directed at him but rather his long-lost father.

“What does it matter?” Harry whispered softly, staring at his professor in exhaustion. He didn’t want to have to deal with this nonsense; not now, not ever. “They’re dead, aren’t they?” He pressed sardonically, a pinch rhetorical and a little too cruel.

Snape reared back as if slapped. The silence between them grew heavy as Snape considered the boy before him with a scowl.

“Get a move on, brat,” Snape barked, finally breaking the staring contest and walking up the final steps to the castle doors.

Harry smiled darkly at his professor’s turned back and followed him home.

Walking into the Great Hall was just as dramatic as Harry wished it wouldn’t be. The heavy doors opened upon Snape’s command and the duo were exposed to the curiosity of every face in the hall. Harry studiously ignored the Slytherin table and walked quickly towards the concerned faces of his friends. Upon approaching the table, Hermione gasped and Ron looked a little green.

Fuck, Harry thought to himself. Was he still covered in blood? Did Episkey not clear blood?

Upon settling down to the shocked, growing whispers of those around him, Hermione quickly whipped out her want and murmured a cleaning spell that banished the blood covering his lower face.

“Thanks, Hermione,” Harry whispered into the growing noise of gossip. She smiled at him despite the tears glimmering in her eyes and he wished dearly that he could have gone straight to bed instead of making a scene in front of the entire school, again.

“What happened, Harry?” Ron whispered back with righteous anger lighting his eyes. Hermione nodded in agreeance with Ron’s enquiry, seeming like she was ready to beat whoever had hurt him by hand.

Harry dared not to look at the Slytherin table, knowing for sure that Malfoy would be boasting to his friends about how he had seduced the Golden Boy and then kicked his face in. A light blush covered his cheeks, horrified by his actions and not understanding what had happened on the train. Merlin, his life was a depressing mess.

“I’ll tell you later, during the meeting,” Harry promised hollowly, pouring himself a glass of water and ignoring the dessert piled high on the plates around him. The conversation in the Great Hall had quickly turned into a deafening roar and despite the fact he had not eaten since Kreacher’s packed lunch, Harry couldn’t face swallowing a bite. Not when every person in Hogwarts had seen his great entrance, covered in blood and looking like a direct descendant of the House of Black. If Tonks and Snape and even his friends had caught on immediately, there was no way this wasn’t going to be on the front page of the Daily Prophet tomorrow morning.

Harry couldn’t handle looking up at the Head Table either, knowing full well that Dumbledore was looking at him with disappointment. Despite the fact that Harry had just enjoyed one of the best summers in his entire life, had learned more about defeating Voldemort than in five years of ‘Dumbledore lessons’, had grieved Sirius’ death in the best way he knew possible, and had come into his magical own, he knew Dumbledore would still manage to turn this around into some horrible betrayal of trust. He didn’t have the energy nor headspace to deal with the old man’s manipulations.

Harry politely ignored Hermione’s attempts to make him eat and he sat at the table in silence, quietly playing with the gold galleon he procured from his pocket. Once Dumbledore rose to give his welcoming speech, the heavier than ever gossiping quickly died out. Harry wasn’t sure what Dumbledore said, for he’d tuned out the man’s words exhaustedly. Once everyone stood, he pocketed the galleon and rose to join his classmates.

Hermione muttered on as she ushered the first years to the Gryffindor tower, trying as she always did to decipher the nonsensical words at the end of Dumbledore’s speech. Harry didn’t have the heart to tell her that while Dumbledore may be the most powerful wizard alive, and the best dueller in the past handful of centuries, he was also completely off his rocker. If even her sharp mind couldn’t understand what he meant, the old man was probably just losing his mind.

Once in the Gryffindor Tower, Harry excused himself and collapsed on his four poster bed, wishing dearly that he was in Sirius’ room in Grimmauld Place instead.

The next morning, Harry felt a fair bit better. He was dressed in one of Sirius’ dark green shirts and charcoal cotton trousers, carefully tailored to his frame by Kreacher not too long before, and he wrapped the black robes he had purchased at Madam Malkin’s over the summer around his frame. Just as he finished dressing, Ron woke with a snort and stumbled out of his bed, feeling out blindly for the bathrooms.

Smiling at his best friend’s antics, Harry called out to Ron. “I’ll be at breakfast, okay? Don’t take too long,” Harry scolded Ron playfully. Harry was quickly shooed out with rather rude finger gestures by his groggily awakening roommates.

Hermione was already at breakfast by the time Harry stepped into the Great Hall. He carefully focused on her face as he made his way over to her, having seen a flash of white-blond hair in his peripheral vision and not ready to face anyone other than his best friend. He sat down with a sigh of relief, glad to not have been accosted by the other staring students.

“Morning, ‘Mione,” Harry greeted, watching the girl pull her head out of the morning paper with a start.

“Harry, don’t freak out,” Hermione began and Harry began to laugh. “What?” She asked, upset.

“I feel like we should make that the tagline of my life,” he finally answered between chuckles.

Hermione’s lips twitched and he could tell the poor girl was trying to stay serious despite the truth of his statement. “Okay,” she finally bit out. “I guess that’s fair enough.”

They dissolved into giggles and the brief tension broke with ease.

“Alright, seriously, what did you want to show me?” Harry asked after settling down with a glass of pumpkin juice and a bowl of porridge.

Hermione grimaced and handed Harry her daily copy of The Daily Prophet. He dramatically rolled his eyes as he unfolded the large paper then groaning as he saw a large image of himself and Snape entering the hall taking up the entire front page. Someone had clearly taken a covert photo last night, to Harry’s disgust. Harry was shocked to see himself enter the hall with a dark liquid splattered over the entire lower half of his face, the substance obviously blood even in the black and white photo.

Harry looked savage, as if he had just finished slaughtering a pack of werewolves and was now strolling in for his evening snack. He looked singularly focused, driven, but Harry knew the thought going through his exhausted mind at that moment had been, ‘get to Hermione and Ron, ignore the blond twat, then bed’ on repeat. It certainly looked like he was thinking darker thoughts, though, but he guesses that's probably the hereditary expression of most Blacks. It was surprising to see himself in a photo with all the changes to his features, especially since he looked like an odd mixture between Sirius and Bellatrix. It was a realisation that churned his stomach uneasily.

Harry Potter: Unseen Battle for Hogwarts! Screamed the title in enormous block letters. For more details, see page 4.

Harry chuckled darkly, though he was a little disturbed by seeing the amount of blood on his face. He hadn’t realised the break had been quite so bad. He tossed the paper down and dug into his breakfast.

“Merlin, they’re fucking morons,” Harry muttered into his oatmeal, drawing a loud snort from a surprised Hermione. He glanced up cheekily at the girl as she quickly wiped away the tea spilt on her robes and smiled at her fierce glare.

“Language, Potter,” she warned, though without the customary heat. Harry nodded his head in her direction.

They settled into a companionable silence, Hermione finishing reading the paper and muttering in disgust while Harry gazed off into the distance, daydreaming of freedom as he stirred the last of his oats. Professor McGonagall came by a few minutes after Ron ran into the entrance hall, desperate to catch breakfast and inhaling his pork sausages with determination.

McGonagall winced at Ron’s lack of table manners and passed the NEWT class schedule over to Hermione, discussing classes while Ron wiped his chin and had the good sense to look ashamed. McGonagall finally turned her attention to Harry and he was surprised to see that her expression softened slightly.

McGonagall and Harry briefly negotiated his course schedule and Harry stunned to discover that he could take Potions. NEWT Potions. Harry was suddenly grateful Kreacher had forced him to do the extra classwork for potions class during the summer. The biggest stick in the mud was finding out that Snape was now leading DADA (a fact that grated Harry’s nerves endlessly), but Ron’s suggestion that the old bat was going to fall to the DADA curse in at least nine months put a smile back on Harry’s grim face.

Hopefully, Snape will be so incapacitated that he won’t be able to return next year, Harry thought nastily to himself but then he rapidly shook his mind to clear the cruel thoughts. He was disappointed that the professor could rip a hole in Harry’s carefully constructed calm, even when he wasn’t present. Harry pursed his lips and returned to his schedule, focusing on clearing his mind of all thoughts regarding Severus Snape and how much he’d like to punch the git in the throat.

To Harry’s unending despair, his first class was double Potions with the Slytherins which guaranteed that Harry was going to have to face Malfoy straight up every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning. For two hours. Harry slunk out the Great Hall with Hermione and Ron in tow, the couple bickering about some nonsense or another.

Harry had managed to keep their travel time brisk, thankfully out pacing their classmates and soon all three were panting in the dungeons, both Hermione and Ron looking at Harry questioningly at their near run to class. As soon as they walked into the Potions classroom, dramatically redecorated since last year, the trio stiffened immediately.

A sweet, musky smell blasted Harry’s senses and he suddenly found himself bracing against the back wall of the classroom, the cool flagstones doing little to cool his feverish body. Harry clenched his hands into tight fists, embracing the pain of his nails slicing into his palms. Once he had ridden out most of the wave the smell caused, he glanced up through his eyelashes to see Ron and even Hermione looking completely disarmed and punch drunk by the smell of the room.

A few cauldrons bubbled in the back of the classroom, the steam rising in spirals and the surface of the potion as shiny and opalescent as a pearl.

Amortentia, a voice whispered in Harry’s mind and he groaned audibly at the horribleness of the situation.

The door to the classroom opened and Harry lurched forward, grabbing his friends with a sheer veneer of self control and leading them towards the desks to the far right of the room. He placed himself on the far-left seat, open to the aisle in case he needed to dart out of the room. Hermione and Ron sat uncomfortably next one another, neither meeting one another’s eyes but they didn’t look nearly as affected as Harry felt.

Harry stared directly ahead as the other students wandered into the room, watching his classmates enter in the reflection of a bell jar at the front of the room. Lavender Brown sighed loudly upon entering the classroom and fluttered against her friend, Parvati, who swooned in response. A group of Slytherins pushed past the duo harshly only to stop in sudden surprise. Pansy Parkinson and Blaise Zabini looked pleased by the smell, but immediately snapped out of their trance once Malfoy entered the room. Malfoy stiffened, much like Harry had, and began to tremble. Harry watched Parkinson and Zabini grab Malfoy’s arm and lead him to sit on the left of the room.

To Harry’s surprise, Malfoy fought to sit across the aisle from himself, just an arm’s reach away. Harry suppressed an unhappy moan, irritated that Malfoy sat only a metre away from his own seat. Harry stared straight ahead, watching uncomfortably in the corner of his eye as Malfoy turned and pinned him with a heated glare. Harry felt himself shudder and become disjointed, his mind numbing and his body feeling as if he were floating away from himself in an odd dislocating sense.

Harry had once considered what he might smell in Amortentia after reading about the love potion. He had thought he would smell the lightly petroleum-esque scent of his wood polish for his broom, or the sweet tang of treacle tart from the Hogwarts kitchens. Instead… He honestly wasn’t quite sure what he was smelling. It was a deep, stifling odour, permeated with an almost spicy musk and a harsh finish, reminding him of that one taste of firewhiskey he had back in fourth year. Harry didn’t recognise the smell but it burned him, entering through his nose in sharp inhales and setting alight his lungs. And, despite the singeing of his lungs and the harshness of the smell, he felt his eyes close momentarily as his body shuddered in pleasure. It tasted like… Magic. Overwhelming, molasses-like magic.

“Harry?” Whispered a voice to Harry’s right.

Harry jumped lightly in his seat as his intense concentration was broken and he turned to face an extremely worried Hermione, unsure of how long he had been wallowing in the fumes. “Yes, Hermione?” He bit out patiently, hoping he didn’t seem too rude.

“Your hands are bleeding,” Hermione whispered back and Harry looked down at his fists in his lap, realising with surprise that he was still clenching his hands. With concentrated effort, Harry relaxed his hands and smiled weakly at her. “And… Your pupils are really dilated, Harry,” Hermione added unhelpfully.

Harry closed his eyes in horror. He was so tightly wound, especially with the object of his humiliating secret sitting just a few feet away, that he could almost hear his jawbones grinding as he fought for control. Thankfully, Harry didn’t feel wildly attracted to Malfoy like he did on the train (or whatever that completely insane emotion was), but he felt weakly helpless and pleasure curled on the forefront of his brain, sending tinging shocks down his spine and curling dangerously in his stomach.

“It happens sometimes,” Hermione continued in a whisper. “Some people have really strong reactions to the potion, even if just the smell. It’s called Amortentia and it’s an extremely strong love potion; everyone smells their own heart’s desire. I’m also pretty sure it’s insanely illegal, if not incredibly immoral, to have it brewing in an unaired classroom, getting a bunch of unattended students high,” she added crisply in a strong tone of disapproval.

Harry looked at her helplessly as his fists curled back in on themselves. “I guess the new professor is hoping to sedate us for introductions,” Harry gritted back through clenched teeth, trying to make a joke to lighten the mood.

Hermione blanched in horror.

“I’m kidding, Hermione,” Harry whispered, looking down at his lap.

“No,” Hermione contradicted. “I think you’re right.”

The thought made Harry feel sick.

Finally, the unintroduced professor bumbled into the classroom a minute late, chortling and chatting up the students and overall being a complete slime ball. Harry was briefly accosted by the man (Slughorn, his mind whispered) and he looked up through his eyelashes at the pompous bastard. Harry nodded politely at whatever the man was saying, not hearing anything over the roaring crash of waves in his ears and the pulse of a drumbeat. Harry trembled and felt his face grow ashen as another wave of the potion blasted their workbench.

“I think you need to go to the hospital wing,” Hermione hissed in Harry’s direction as Professor Slughorn completed his round of the classroom, introducing himself to whomever he deemed important.

Harry barely heard her over the blood rushing his hears and he nodded curtly.

Hermione’s hand shot up into the air.

“So I said, Mr. Undersecretary, there is no way I can take your lake house for the entire summer! Not when you have much more important guests to host, such as the Minister himself!” Slughorn chortled. “But then the man said –”

Slughorn looked up at Hermione’s excited, waving hand. “Yes, my dear?” He asked, sounding a little put out at having been cut off.

“Harry’s not feeling well, Professor,” Hermione stated firmly. “I need to take him to the hospital wing.”

“Oh, my!” Slughorn squawked, scuttling towards Harry who in turn tensed harder.

“It’s alright, professor,” Hermione interrupted the professor’s approach. “I’ll escort him and then return as fast as possible.”

Slughorn’s beady eyes were focused exclusively on Harry, who felt the weight of the critical gaze with irritation, but then he flapped an unconcerned hand in Hermione’s direction. “Very well,” he announced dismissively.

Not waiting to hear the conditions of their release, Hermione stood so quickly that her chair nearly toppled over. She grabbed Harry’s forearm, collected both of their book bags, and shot out of the classroom in one sweeping motion.

The pair walked for five minutes silently, Hermione charging forward with rabid determination and tugging Harry behind her with an iron grip on his forearm. Harry finally regained control of his body after dazedly following behind and lightly pulled back on his abused arm. Hermione whipped around like a boomerang as they stopped and she hugged Harry tightly.

“That sick, perverted, ridiculous joke of a man… Ooh how dare Dumbledore hire that, that…” Hermione stuttered angrily into Harry’s shoulder, fuming so hard that Harry could feel the sheer heat of her fury against his neck.

“It’s okay, Hermione,” Harry soothed, patting the enraged girl’s back. “We’ll just need to make up for Potions like DADA last year. How does Snape’s Army sound to you?”

Hermione choked out a disbelieving laugh, pulling away to study Harry.

“You really have changed over the summer, haven’t you?” Hermione asked softly, eyes searching.

“You have no idea,” Harry agreed, smiling at his best friend, still trying desperately to take control of himself after having nearly melted into a puddle in the potions classroom.

 “So,” Hermione announced, lacing her fingers with Harry’s and leading him down the hallway. “Feel like skiving off the first class of the term?” She asked playfully, sending Harry a mischievous smile.

“Wait,” Harry crooned in disbelief as he allowed himself to be pulled down the hall. “Who are you and what have you done with Hermione Granger?”

Hermione laughed, lightly hitting Harry’s shoulder. “Hush you,” she murmured, but her eyes glittered with cheek.

“What did you smell?” Harry enquired, watching as Hermione turned slightly red as they strolled side by side, hands still intertwined.

“Grass, peppermint, and… well,” she trailed off, blush spreading down her neck.

“Ron?” Harry asked curiously.

Hermione squawked and her head whipped around to fix him with a glare. At his lack of judgemental reaction, she gave up and sighed. “That obvious, huh?”

Harry hummed his agreement. “Ron’s just as bad. I’m sure he smelled parchment, ink and rose water,” he teased. Hermione lit up in embarrassment, but she seemed pleased under her neon blush.

“What about you? What gets Harry Potter that hot under the collar?” Hermione retorted.

“Powerful black magic,” Harry answered a little hesitantly, figuring honesty in this situation would be the best approach. Hermione snorted and glared at him through the corner of her eye. 

“Yes, the incorruptible Harry Potter is wildly attracted to black magic. So much so, that he nearly creams himself in a potions classroom. Sure, I believe that,” Hermione snarked, rolling her eyes.  

Harry cocked his head at Hermione, a little surprised by her newfound penchant for inappropriate jokes, and gave her a self-depreciating smile.

“Oh, my god,” Hermione exclaimed, dragging Harry to a halt. “Tell me you’re joking,” she demanded. “Seriously, Harry. Tell me you’re joking.”

 Harry looked down at the floor in shame and Hermione clapped a scandalised hand over her mouth.

“Room of Requirement, now,” Hermione stated, expression bewildered but eyes hard as glass.

Harry nodded miserably and followed Hermione to the seventh floor.

Once the pair had settled into their old training room, summoning plush chairs to sit around the crackling hearth, Hermione affixed Harry with her best McGonagall glare. Harry stared into the fire as he steepled his fingers, pressing them lightly to his lips in thought. They hadn’t spoken since his revelation in the dungeons and Harry wasn’t sure where to even start.

Hermione let out a noisy sigh and rolled her head back to look at the ceiling.

“What does black magic even smell like?” Hermione finally asked, breaking the silence.

Harry made a noise close to a laugh, but it was hollow and mirthless.

Hermione looked back at Harry with pursed lips. “It’s just… You know,” she emphasised, nose scrunching in distaste.

“Oh, I know,” Harry assured her, still looking deep into the flames.

“It’s just such a weird thing to consider. I don’t know…” Hermione trailed off helplessly, at a loss for words.

“With my luck, I’m just glad it’s not Voldemort,” Harry deadpanned, flickering his gaze to study Hermione’s reaction.

The girl shuddered and made a noise close to gagging, clenching the arm rests of her chair tightly.

“You have the sickest sense of humour, you know that?” Hermione asked rhetorically, a smile pulling at the corner of her lips.

Harry finally relaxed, tilting his head back in his chair and resting his eyes. “Still love me?” He whispered into the room.

“Oh, Harry,” Hermione sighed sympathetically. “Of course, you dunderhead. It’s going to take a lot more than a dark magic kink to create a wedge between us.”

Harry squawked in surprise at her answer. “Kink?” He asked, incredulously.

Hermione smiled slyly and winked, causing Harry to blush even further.

“I think something happened that shouldn’t have, something I can’t find any records of,” Harry said quietly into the room. “When I was adopted by the Black family,” he elaborated at her quizzical look.

“What are you talking about?” Hermione pressed, leaning forward in her chair and studying Harry intently.

With no little effort, Harry finally told Hermione the story of following Malfoy down Knockturn Alley, of discovering Voldemort wanting a cabinet in Borgin and Burkes, and painfully regaling The Incident. As he summarised the events of the train, her expression grew darker and darker with each passing word.

“And then I sat down at the table, you vanished the blood, and the rest is history,” Harry ended a little anti-climatically.

“So, Malfoy’s a Death Eater, he’s on a mission from Voldemort, he cornered you on the train, snogged you stupid, and then broke your nose,” Hermione stated, looking ready to enact her own version of Harry Hunting featuring a certain blond-haired ferret. “Now you’re helpless to the smell of black magic and find yourself swooning in the presence of some twat from a dark family.”

“Basically,” Harry answered simply.

“What a smarmy, ferrety little shit,” Hermione breathed furiously. At Harry’s look of surprise, she snorted. “It’s just so typically Malfoy and yet not,” she whispered, looking pensive.

“I know,” Harry agreed, turning back to face the fire. “I think Voldemort marked him as punishment for his father getting caught in the Ministry of Magic. That this is some kind of mission impossible that’s going to end with Malfoy dead at Voldemort’s feet. Malfoy seems to know it as well,” Harry murmured.

“So what exactly is the point of coming onto you? Why do this when he’s already in bad favour? What does he stand to get out of this?” Hermione asked curiously in brainstorming mode, eyes unfocused as she considered each angle.

“I don’t know,” Harry admitted. “Malfoy knows something. Something about being blood adopted into the Black family that I don’t. You should have seen the look on Narcissa Malfoy’s face, Hermione,” Harry pressed thoughtfully. “On the train station. It looked like she’d seen a ghost. And Malfoy seemed just as resistant to whatever happened between us as I was. He was… Mad. At me. But I don’t think he intentionally broke my nose. There’s no doubt that he didn’t notice it,” Harry explained at Hermione’s scandalised look. “But he was trying to get away just as fast as I wanted him to leave.”

Hermione nodded as she processed the new information.

“You know,” Hermione hummed thoughtfully. “There’s one option that we haven’t discussed yet.”

Harry stared at her quizzically, gesturing for her to continue.

“It’s actually pretty straightforward,” Hermione admitted. “Have you heard of Occam’s Razor?”

At Harry’s sound of disagreement, Hermione continued. “Occam’s Razor is basically a theory for distilling a problem to the simplest terms possible using the known factors and deducing an answer that sounds closest to the truth. Not to overstate its simplicity, but essentially the theory states that the most probable answer is often the simplest.” She looked at Harry meaningfully, as if willing him to understand.

Harry stared at Hermione in confusion. “And what’s the simplest answer?”

“Well,” she answered slowly. “The simplest answer is that… You fancy Malfoy.”

Harry narrowed his eyes at her. “I thought we established that’s bullshit,” he retorted bluntly.

Hermione gave him an exasperated look at waved her hands helplessly in the air. “Don’t play stupid, Harry. Not because of some ancient pureblood curse. Just plain and simple. You like him,” she pressed, leaning forward as Harry scoffed and turned to watch the fire.

Hermione braved on. “Especially since you two have been at one another’s throat for the past five years. He’s been pulling your proverbial pigtails since the moment he met you. You’ve been complaining about him ever since. You constantly bicker and needle one another day in and day out, not to mention obsessing for hours on how to get one over on the other. And now you’ve come back to school, looking like an heir to one of the darkest, most ancestral houses of purebloods, and Malfoy’s been completely taken off guard and is falling over himself to not constantly corner you and snog you to death. Plus Malfoy’s just taken the Mark, which I imagine reeks of black magic to you and you were just pushed over the edge.”

Harry gaped at Hermione, who had finished her tirade with a flush and settled back uncomfortably into the chair.

“Don’t look at me like that, Harry,” Hermione huffed. “Blame the Razor. Besides, everyone knows the Blacks have a penchant for incest,” she sniffed, blush growing darker despite her know-it-all tone.

Harry blanched. “What the hell do you mean?” He asked, choking on his words.

Hermione pinned Harry with an incredulous look. “Um, Harry,” she asked softly, as if speaking to a small child. “You do know that you’re technically second cousins now, right?”

Harry turned a sickly shade of white and his already tight lips paled considerably.

“Oh, my god,” Hermione gasped. “You really didn’t know, did you? Because now you’re technically Sirius’ son in flesh and blood and he is a direct cousin of Narcissa Malfoy and – ”

Harry held up his hand quickly to stop Hermione’s babbling, silencing her immediately.

“Hermione, I swear to Merlin and the spirit of Hogwarts herself that if you don’t stop talking this instant I will literally vomit all over you.”

Hermione’s open mouth snapped shut with a loud clack and they both stared at one another, Harry white as paper and Hermione looking nauseated at his threat. They were silent for several minutes as Harry composed himself.

“So, what you’re saying is,” Harry started slowly, carefully considering each word. “I’m suddenly somehow in love with Draco Malfoy, my second cousin in blood, and we simply can’t keep our hands off one other because of hormones and dark magic.”

Hermione shrunk into her chair and peered at Harry miserably. “Until another answer comes up… Yes,” she whispered.

Harry nodded and closed his eyes, letting his head fall back on the headrest of the chair. The two friends sat in silence as they ran down the clock until Potions class ended.

Harry and Hermione wandered down to their next class five minutes before the period ended. Harry wasn’t particularly interested in having to wade through throngs of leering students and he knew that word would get out immediately that he panicked in Slughorn’s class. Just as Harry turned a corner on their way to Runes, Hermione trailing slightly behind him, Harry caught sight of Draco Malfoy storming down the hallway, looking as if he was on a warpath.

Their eyes met briefly, a clash of green and grey, and Harry felt the blood drain from his face at Malfoy’s dark smirk of victory.

Harry shoved Hermione back around the corner and whipped out his invisibility cloak. He muffled Hermione’s yelp with his hand and draped the cloth over them, holding her tightly against the wall. Just as she began to squirm, Malfoy rounded the corner looking as if ready to rip someone’s throat out.

Malfoy balked at the seemingly empty hallway, a long corridor with only a staircase at the end and no doors to escape behind.

Hermione stopped moving and glanced at Harry, who carefully withdrew his hand from her mouth. He pressed a finger against his lips and she nodded nervously, returning to stare at the baffled, enraged blond.

Malfoy carefully looked around and, for a heart stopping moment, Harry was sure the boy saw him. Then Malfoy scowled darkly and continued stomping down the corridor, disappearing down the stairs and echoing steps fading away after a moment that felt like a lifetime.

“Merlin,” Hermione breathed. “When did he get so scary?”

“About the same time I misplaced my Gryffindor bravery,” Harry muttered distractedly, finally removing the cloak and tucking it into his knapsack.

“Thank Merlin you carry the cloak with you,” Hermione said, still looking a little haunted by their near encounter with Malfoy. Harry nodded, looking speculatively at the direction Malfoy went.

“Harry,” Hermione whispered, gaining his attention. “I think I take back what I said about the Razor. There’s definitely something else going on.”

Harry smiled at her sardonically and gestured for her to lead the way to class. Once her back was turned, Harry frowned and fell deep into thought.

After their double second class, Ancient Runes, Harry and Hermione quickly trotted to the Great Hall for lunch; thankfully the class was with Ravenclaw so Harry didn’t have to face Malfoy’s cold stare. Harry discovered that Kreacher had (behind Harry’s back, of course), sent in Harry’s essays from over the summer to Professor Babbling and begged for the boy to be allowed to NEWT Ancient Runes. The class had been added as a probationary trial period to Harry’s already packed schedule alongside with a note from Kreacher warning him of the consequences should he fail the class. Harry wasn’t sure who he feared more: the eagle eyed, stern Runes professor or Kreacher with a wooden spoon.

The infamous Hogwarts Rumour Mill was already in full force by the time Harry and Hermione walked through the large entrance doors. Hermione wasn’t usually privy to such gossip, as most of the students saw her as a nark, and no one had the guts to say to Harry’s face what they whispered behind his back, so the pair walked in deaf to the nonsense begin spread about them. Their usual aid in hearing the newest stories was either Ron, as he often got an earful from a gleeful Dean and Seamus, or Ginny, who was somehow always aware of every snippet of gossip on the grapevine.

Hermione and Harry walked quickly to the Gryffindor table, Hermione’s face beginning to grow anxious as the muttering grew exponentially in volume at their entrance. Harry remained calm, though irritation began to stir deep in his chest, and made a point of looking directly at the seat he was aiming for. A few students catcalled, making Hermione dart her head around and blush just as she sat down across the table from Ron.

“What on earth is going on?” Hermione hissed at Ron, who was staring at a pile of food on his plate glumly and looking a little green around the gills.

Harry sat down next to her and poured himself a glass of water, keeping a close eye on his mate’s queasy expression.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Ron suddenly snapped, looking everywhere but Harry and Hermione. “Maybe it’s the brief shag you two shared in the broom cupboard on the seventh floor during Potions.”

Their section of the Gryffindor went deathly silent and Ron’s voice carried unnaturally.

“Excuse me?” Hermione cried out, griping the table edge so hard her knuckles turned white.

“Look at me,” Harry intoned darkly, staring straight ahead at his best friend.

Ron’s wandering eyes snapped to Harry, surprised by the dangerous tone.

“That’s bullshit and you know it,” Harry stated, voice barely above a whisper. Lavender and Parvati leaned close to their side a little too obviously, causing Hermione to whip her head around to glare at the nosey girls.

Ron’s eyes darted between Harry, who was staring at him with quiet intensity, and Hermione who was still glaring down her two blushing classmates. “Whatever,” he fumed. Ron stood up quickly, gathered his bags and walked out of the Great Hall without a second glance back.

“What, what,” Hermione began to splutter, wringing her wrists in horror. “How dare – how dare he?”

Harry didn’t respond and instead stared at the spot Ron had just vacated. This seemed to be a near-annual tradition for Ron. Act like an enormous ass, run away, then come back with his tail between his legs. A vicious cycle of throwing Harry under the proverbial bus, verbally abusing Hermione to tears, and then acting like it was all just one big mistake and couldn’t they please forgive him?

Harry felt his body numb with rage but carefully kept his hands relaxed and face slack. The crescent cuts on his palms from earlier that morning still stung and he focused on the physical pain rather than the dry ice consuming his stomach.

Harry slowly rose to his feet and offered Hermione his hand. She accepted it, confused, and he leaned close to whisper, “Let’s eat in the kitchens. Dobby and Kreacher will get us whatever we want.” At her nod, Harry walked Hermione out of the Great Hall briskly. As soon as they crossed the threshold into the hallway, the whispers turned into a deafening roar and Hermione visibly flinched.

Hermione took one look at Harry and burst into tears. He quickly pulled her aside into the nearest alcove and held her as she sobbed. His eyes grew flinty as he listened to Hermione’s heart break, resolve strengthening. Something had to be done about Ronald Weasley.

Chapter Text

The clever thing about juicy rumours, Harry considered, was that they always contained a nugget of truth. It was easy to figure out that portraits had seen Harry and Hermione holding hands as they made the walk up to the Room of Requirement. A few students were sneaky enough to listen to the whispers of the painted canvases and would quickly run to tell their friends. Word would have undoubtably circulated about Harry’s ‘illness’ in Potions (he would put fifty galleons on the story having leaked before Potions had even ended), so it was easy to combine the two rumours into one obscene tale.

Once a notorious gossip like Romilda Vane, Marietta Edgecombe (whose pimpled curse was long gone but grudge as strong as ever), or Lavender Brown had caught whiff, it was basically the same as someone standing in the centre of the Great Hall and shouting out the news like a demented town crier. Harry mused that the rumour was mostly fuelled by the fact that that he was Harry Bloody Potter, the world’s easiest target. That and Hermione was loathed by all three girls, who gleefully took every opportunity to rip their talented classmate down.

Hermione had grown into her own over the summer, becoming a stunning vision of intelligence, elegance and classical good looks. Harry once would have assumed that in of itself was enough to inspire the raging jealously of the other girls. But Harry knew it was more than just his best friend’s newfound confidence; a darker and crueller storm boiled under the surface.

During his etiquette classes, Harry had discovered that promotion of muggleborn rights fell in and out of favour almost twice a decade. Though it was ‘fashionable’ for liberal families to promote muggleborn equality these days, the same families very rarely committed to the idea in practice. Their pureblood children, despite being told that the muggleborn community was equal in many ways, were silently pushed away from marrying non-purebloods, let alone those descended of muggles. It was a sickly-sweet and hypocritical at best. Even the Weasleys, some of the most liberal purebloods Harry knew, treated muggleborns as if they were a special child at which one would look down their nose. To Wizarding Society as a whole, muggleborns were just… Less.

Harry knew that the fact Hermione could outsmart everyone with ease despite being ignorant of magic until eleven must burn at those envious half-bloods and purebloods around her. She was rising above her perceived station, outshining even the privately tutored. It was hard to tell a muggleborn that she didn’t quite belong when she was sharper than any student her age – pureblood or not. It was due to this that Hermione, smart, clever, wily Hermione, would always be pushed down by her peers.

Tall Poppy Syndrome, Harry had heard it referred to as once. The thought tapped into a pool of rage Harry had fought all summer to muzzle.

The dark musings had Harry glaring in poorly concealed disgust at the students in the halls who dared to purse their lips pettily and stage whisper in uppity tones as Hermione walked by. While Harry would never be able to think of Hermione romantically, he felt as strongly and protectively of her as he would a sister. He had never wanted to hurt anyone younger than him before, but listening to a gaggle of third year girls gossip loudly about Hermione’s rampant ‘sluttiness’ within the poor girl’s hearing nearly had him casting a permanent slug eating curse on the entire Great Hall.

Ron had once more decided that both Harry and Hermione were personae non gratae. It seemed a few Hogwarts students of varying houses had become bored with the pro-Harry media over the summer and jumped on the bandwagon, sneering at Harry with distaste and gossiping about the Backstabbing of Ron. Ron took this as encouragement and promptly began a rather physical, extremely public affair with the head of Ron’s Side (as it was embarrassingly titled), Lavender Brown.

However, the majority of the Gryffindors, Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws seemed extremely uncomfortable with the entire situation and tried to play nice with both parties. Only Neville and Ginny sat resolutely on Hermione and Harry’s side of the table and provided a buffer to the constant awkward silences. Thankfully, the two largest mouth-pieces of the movement, Ron and Lavender, had decided to mash their faces together for the time being and the division slowly puttered out into nothing.

Two weeks after the start of the school year, Hermione and Harry sat in the Room of Requirement warming their feet, chairs positioned around a summoned circular fire pit in the middle of the room. The smoke was curling up lazily into the rafters, disappearing without a trace, the smell and sound of the crackling fire soothing the group’s nerves. Neville, Ginny and Luna had joined them and, to Harry’s annoyance, their conversation had quickly devolved into a bitter session about Ron’s new found way to act like a total git. 

“Harry, while we’re on the subject, did you really shag Hermione in the broom cupboard?” Ginny asked breezily, though a dark undertone belayed her light humour. Neville immediately blanched, a spectacular beetroot-red blush flaring up his neck, and even Luna put down her Quibbler to peer over her cut-out spectacles at the duo with interest.

“No,” Harry answered shortly, hoping it would be the end of the conversation.

“Seriously, Harry, tell the truth. It’s been over a week, so no one will be any more upset now than they were before if you just fronted up,” Ginny pressed encouragingly as she tried to needle an answer from the frowning boy.

“I’m gay,” he responded abruptly and continued staring into the flames with disinterest, ignoring Ginny’s flabbergasted expression, Neville’s shrinking frame, and Luna’s leering smile.

Even Hermione was gaping at him and Harry realised the subject was going to be discussed with or without his participation. He scowled and leaned back into the chair, adjusting his feet by the fire.

“What?!” Ginny squawked after a beat of silence, leaping to her feet. “Merlin, this is so much better than the ‘sex with your pseudo sister’ shit!” She bounced on the balls of her feet, clearly torn about who to run and tell first.

“Ginny!” Screamed Hermione, a shrill sound that had everyone jumping in their seat. “Hasn’t Harry been through enough, yet?” Hermione then burst into tears, hands covering her face as she sobbed.

Ginny immediately deflated and sat down, looking embarrassed and upset.

“It doesn’t matter who knows whom or what I fancy,” Harry muttered, trying to clear his mind while looking into the flames.

Hermione looked up with surprise, tear tracks glittering in the fire light.

“It’s not like anyone actually cares,” Harry continued. He suddenly laughed, a sound hollow and rough. “It’ll be the next hot topic in Britain for a few months, then a barb in conversations for the next forty years. Provided Voldemort doesn’t liquify me first.”

The group sat completely still, looking at the sullen boy in shock. Luna rose to her feet and walked over, crawling over his armrest to sit in his lap. Harry looked at her with surprise as she wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him awkwardly. Harry snapped out of his dark mood instantly and smiled tenderly at the blonde girl.

“I care,” Luna whispered. “Whether you’re happy, that is.”

Murmurs of agreement chimed in and Harry bowed his head, grateful for the support he had.

Though she would never admit it, Ginny had been a little suspicious of Harry and Hermione’s relationship and had felt a little defensive of her brother at the first scent of foul play. She had taken Harry and Hermione’s side, especially since Ron was acting like such a prat, but a little piece of her still doubted if she was doing the right thing.

But after she finally dragged the basic story for why Hermione and Harry had left Potions from Hermione, Ginny had reeled with shock and, well, was kind of surprisingly unsurprised. To her irritation, Hermione’s lips were sealed on the matter of what Harry smelled in his Amortentia. But Harry’s revelation that he only discovered his ‘tastes’ over the summer before sixth year was a fact ‘so adorably, typically oblivious Harry’ (her words exactly) that Ginny focused on coddling Harry instead.

Harry was sure that no amount of head damage was going to remove the memory of Ginny cornering Harry in the common rooms and announcing that they were going to have so much girl talk. He didn’t have the energy to tell her that being gay didn’t automatically mean that he also liked all the things she did. It seemed she was a little starved for effeminate sibling relationships, so he allowed the girl to prattle on for hours about so-and-so’s new six pack and whatnot and silently begged the gods that may be to just obliviate him on the spot.

On the bonus side, Ginny’s realisation of Harry and Hermione’s genuine ‘just-friends’ relationship seemed to be a turning stone in the fight against the Hogwarts rumour mill. Harry had never realised it before, but Ginny was a very popular girl. As in, a very, very popular. It seemed due to a combination of being from a well-known pureblood family, friends with upper-classmen (and close confidant of Harry Potter), dating an older boy who snuck her butterbeer, attractive, a rising star on the Gryffindor Quidditch team, and now a household name for having joined Harry at the Battle of the Ministry. Ginny also made sure she worked all of these facts to her advantage with Slytherin-esqe cleverness.

Harry was stunned to note that little Ginny was one hell of a catch. He then realised that he probably should have figured out from day one that he wasn’t into girls if he couldn’t even give Ginerva Weasley a second glance. ‘Classic oblivious Harry’, indeed, he thought to himself with a touch of self-derision.

By deciding to fully defend Harry and Hermione’s honour and scoffing at all attempts to string out the rumour of their ‘fling’, Ginny had put most of the fifth and lower years of Gryffindor in their place. However, it took one girl to put most of Hogwarts in place.

Bathsheba Belby, a pinched girl in Ginny’s year who followed the redhead like a lackey, had attempted to make an ill-witted joke regarding Hermione’s propriety in the commons after supper. Though the joke had become so over used by now that even the first years rolled their eyes, a few girls tittered meanly. It was then that Ginny finally snapped. She began to laugh. It soon turned into a fit and the girl’s overly dramatic wails of laughter rang out in the commons, bringing out every student in the house, even from within the depths of the sleeping quarters.

Ginny made a scene of calming herself down dramatically and fluttered her hand against her chest, wiping tears of mirth off her face and pointedly stared at Bathsheba the entire time.

“Are you alright, Ginny?” Emily Mudgeright asked, concerned for her friend.

“Oh, you know,” Ginny chuckled lightly. “It’s just that Bessie (a nickname that had the other girl cringing) is so funny. I really don’t know where the girl gets it from. Hey, Bessie,” she called out, drawing all eyes to the girl. “How did you get so funny?”

Bathsheba had looked around like a frightened mouse, silently begging for the others to help her as the redhead approached her.

“I, I,” she stuttered, backing away helplessly.

“You’re just so funny, Bessie. I think you should do stand-up. Perhaps you should start now with a show for the whole house, hm?” Ginny then turned to the rest of the Gryffindors, who watched the scene with bated breath, and flung out her arms to gesture to the crowd. “Who wants to see Bessie here tell a joke? Go on, Bessie, say it again!” Ginny crowed.

Harry and Hermione descended the stairs of their respective rooms, confused by the commotion.

“Harry, Hermione!” Ginny shouted. “C’mon, get down here!”

Bathsheba shook her head, looking close to tears, as the duo cautiously approached a vaguely hysteric Ginny. Ginny whipped around and grasped Bathsheba’s hands, ignoring the girl’s flinch, and dragged her across the common room to meet Harry and Hermione halfway.

“Ginny, what are you doing?” Hermione asked, appalled.

“Oh, Hermione,” Ginny gushed. “You really must hear this joke Bessie made.” Ginny turned to the ashen, shaking girl, and gripped her hands tighter. “Go on, Bessie, everyone’s waiting.”

Bathsheba began to cry silently, trying to tug her hands out of Ginny’s white-fisted grasp.

“Say it,” Ginny demanded suddenly, expression cold and voice echoing in the deathly silent room. Harry was shocked at the display; for a brief moment, he could see the influence Tom Riddle had on the youngest Weasley as she commandeered the room in an effortless power play.

Bathsheba accidentally locked eyes with Harry and she whispered ashamedly, “I a-a-asked if Harry had found his f-f-firebolt yet, be-because I th-think I ssaw st-sticking out of Her-Hermione’s sk-skirt.”

Hermione turned bright red and gasped, but Harry kept his eyes affixed coolly on the younger girl’s watery gaze.

Ginny let go of Bathsheba without warning and the girl tumbled to the floor. “Oh, no,” Ginny said, in faux disappointment. “It really wasn’t that funny this time around. Actually, it sounded a little mean,” Ginny announced.

Ginny turned to Hermione and Harry, continuing with her elaborate, overacted skit with joy. “Hermione, Harry, do you think that was funny?” She asked curiously.

“Ginny,” whispered Hermione, horrified and still blushing to her roots.

“No, I don’t,” Harry answered tonelessly. “I think that was supposed to be mean.”

Ginny grinned at Harry, winked, then turned to a very traumatised Bathsheba. “See? Harry fucking Potter doesn’t think that was very nice. What do you say to someone when you hurt their feelings, Bessie?”

Bathsheba trembled, still trapped under Harry’s pinning gaze, and whispered inaudibly.

“What was that, Bessie?” Ginny pressed, sickly sweet.

“I’m sorry!” Bathsheba screamed, jumping up and running. She bolted for the common room entrance door and tumbled through, picking herself up and sprinting down the corridor. The door creaked and swung, pushed by a draft in the chilly hallway.

Ginny turned to the entirety of Gryffindor House (minus Ron and Lavender, who seemed to always be shut away somewhere outside of class) and scowled at them darkly.

“I get it that you all like to get your rocks off by putting others down, but now is not the time,” Ginny hissed and, though her voice was low, the sound reverberated in the deafening silence. “Harry and Hermione are a little too busy trying to save your fucking lives by fighting the most powerful Dark Lord in centuries, not fight stupid rumours about shit you know nothing about.”

A few people shifted uncomfortably.

“You either stand with us or against us. There’s no grey area in the battlefield, where you can skulk in the shadows and both publicly cheer and privately mock your champions. For shame!” Ginny yelled, the noise shocking a few flinches out of her audience. “We’re going to need to unite this year. Not against Slytherin or Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff,” she emphasised in disgust, “But rather against people who want to rip you from your beds as you sleep and murder your families before your very eyes. Who will steal your magic and will and then turn it against those you love.”

Ginny stopped talking as her voice broke. Harry put a comforting hand on Ginny’s shoulder. There was an echo in her voice of the scared little eleven-year-old, crying into his shoulder as they flew to freedom out of a secret death chamber. Her tiny, weak voice begging him to believe that she didn’t want to do it.

“This stops tonight. You study hard, you work hard, and you protect your own,” Harry announced, taking over Ginny’s stage. “You don’t have to fight with me, or even alongside me. But don’t think for a moment that you won’t have to fight. Let’s just get on with the year and enjoy being children a little while longer.”

The older Gryffindors voiced their agreement and even though the younger years looked frightened, they nodded in response. 

“Mr. Potter,” a harsh voice admonished from behind him. Harry turned around to see a furious Professor McGonagall holding the elbow of a tear-stained Bathsheba in the open portal of the common room entrance. “What in Merlin’s name is going on in here?” The woman’s snapped.

Like a whip had cracked, every single Gryffindor abandoned their pride and scrambled at once to their bedrooms in a flurry of movement. In seconds, Harry, Hermione and Ginny were standing alone facing the trembling professor.

“Go to bed!” McGonagall snapped at the girl in her grasp. The professor let the girl’s elbow go and Bathsheba scrambled past them quickly, running up the stairs to the sleeping quarters at breakneck speed.

“You three, come with me,” McGonagall demanded, brooking no room for argument, and strode out of the common room.

“I didn’t even do anything!” Hermione breathed to Harry, upset at the turn of events.

“Ah, and yet you’re always caught with the troublemakers,” McGonagall responded from a fair way ahead. Hermione paled, horrified by the woman’s sharp hearing.

The trio followed the stalking Deputy Headmistress through the halls of the castle. McGonagall made quick work of opening her office door and shooed the students inside.

Once they had settled into the office, all three sitting on wickedly hard wooden chairs and McGonagall settled nicely into a comfortable looking, wingback leather armchair, the woman’s demeanour softened.

“Professor –” Hermione started explaining desperately, always the first to break when it came to the Head of her house.

“Ms. Granger,” McGonagall cut her off. “I’m not mad at you. Well, perhaps at Ms. Weasley – that was a little harsh,” she scolded lightly, peering at Ginny over her spectacles.

Ginny had the decency to blush. “She had it coming, Professor,” Ginny muttered defiantly, looking down at her shoes. “I’ve been telling her all week to stop with the jokes about Hermione and Harry. I just… Snapped.”

Professor McGonagall hummed noncommittedly. She summoned a highball glass and a crystal flagon of whiskey from a bookshelf. She poured herself a fifth of the dark coloured liquid and sipped it quietly, ignoring Hermione’s gape.

“We are indeed in dark times,” McGonagall stated after a few minutes of silence. “I find that as the outside looms near, people will try harder to bury their heads in the sand and fill their days with nonsense – if only to hold the horrors at a bay a little while longer.”

Harry nodded at the woman, who was looking wearier and more stressed with each passing day.

“Well, I suppose I must punish you,” McGonagall sighed as she put down her empty glass.

Hermione’s wide eyes filled with unshed tears.

“Oh, Ms. Granger, don’t look at me like that,” McGonagall huffed. “You must begin to understand that there is nothing I could possibly do to you to hurt you, nor any other figure of authority in this school. With the exception of expulsion, of course,” the woman muttered, waving her hand dismissively. “You really must realise by now that you are an adult, or at least on the cusp of being one, and that house points, homework, and detentions mean nothing in the end.”

Hermione twisted her hands, seemingly shocked by the elder woman’s words, but smart enough to nod and accept the professor’s wisdom.

“Alright, ladies, out with you. I must speak with Mr. Potter alone,” McGonagall dismissed the girls distractedly. Just as the two girls had reached the door, she added, “Oh, yes, and thirty points from Gryffindor.”

Both Hermione and Ginny looked at one another in shock, clearly horrified but trying to not appear affected, and scampered out of the room. They shut the door tightly behind them and their steps could be heard fading down the hall.

During the entire meeting, Harry had kept his eyes trained faithfully on McGonagall. He quietly watched her movements, her mannerisms, her gestures – and smelt a rat.

Just as McGonagall turned to address Harry, in a flash of movement he reached out his right hand and cast a wordless, wandless stunning charm. Unlike charms from a wand, which were singularly directional small beams of light, Harry had discovered that casting with his open hand often caused the spell to spread out like a net made of the five points of his fingers. It caught McGonagall soundly by surprise, the red web of magic wrapping around her face and knocking her out instantly.

Harry was grateful that the deputy headmistress was seated for she certainly would have collapsed spectacularly to the floor otherwise. He wasn’t sure if she was not herself, but rather a polyjuiced version under another’s control – in the event she wasn’t, he certainly didn’t want to face a bruised McGonagall seeking revenge.

Harry absolutely, one hundred percent did not want to deal with Dumbledore or Snape at this hour, or ever, but he acknowledged that he may be slightly out of his depth. And there was no way in hell that he was going to summon Ginny or Hermione to face down whatever was sitting in the chair before him.

He took out his wand, still a little bitter that he couldn’t produce the Patronus Charm wandlessly yet, and (remembering the joy of Sirius inviting him to live together like a family) summoned his patronus. To Harry’s surprise, instead of a regal stag, a large Grim curled out of his wand. It was a humungous beast, nearly as tall as Harry, and it studied Harry with intelligent eyes. He smiled at the patronus warmly despite the confusion, feeling a soft, nostalgic warmth curl through his chest.  

“Hello, there,” Harry whispered, reaching his hand out to touch the Grim’s spectral head and it closed its eyes, leaning towards the impossible touch. “Could you please deliver a message to Dumbledore and Snape?”

The beast reacted precisely how Harry felt about the matter, baring wickedly sharp canines and snorting.

“Oh, I know,” Harry agreed with a laugh. “But it really is an emergency. Please repeat after me: ‘Come to McGonagall’s office immediately. There’s a situation.’”

The Grim tilted his head at Harry and looked at him sullenly. Harry wasn’t even aware that patronuses could behave in such a manner. He laughed once more when the dog shook its shoulders in a disgruntled roll and then bounded out of the classroom, disappearing through the door like a ghost.

Harry stood and gently bound McGonagall’s hands tightly enough to restrain her but not enough to hurt then cast a full body-bind curse to freeze her in position. Once he was sure the woman was unarmed, fully bound, and out of reach of anything remotely useful as a weapon (highball glass included), he pointed his forefinger at the woman and whispered, “Rennervate!”

McGonagall awoke with a strong inhale of her nostrils but not much else as the full body bind had her immobilised. Her eyes flickered around the room, as if unsure of her location, and Harry watched with careful consideration. She attempted to speak, to scream, to throw a fit, but the bind kept her incomprehensible mutters muted.

Once McGonagall eventually calmed down, she trained her eyes on Harry in sad, pleading manner. Harry didn’t move a muscle, sitting comfortably in the wooden chair facing McGonagall desk and watching her reactions apathetically.

After nearly ten minutes of nothing happening at all, Harry staring at McGonagall and McGonagall staring right back, her eyes turned hard as glass and the crows feet around her brows sharpened. A madness flickered in the woman’s blue irises, gleaming cruelly in the candle light.

“And there we are,” Harry whispered victoriously, his carefully constructed image of relaxion gone in a flash as he leaned forward to study the person hiding behind McGonagall’s eyes. An intense stench of dark magic filled the room, but unlike before in Slughorn’s class Harry didn’t find himself rendered immobile. This magic was… Slimy. Tainted.

The door McGonagall’s office burst open and Dumbledore raced in, followed by a dishevelled Snape.

“Harry?” Dumbledore asked perplexedly, clearly not expecting the boy to be the source of the patronus received. Dumbledore’s eyes flickered up to McGonagall and he gasped. “What have you done to Minerva?” Dumbledore raised his left hand (the other suspiciously black and reeking of oddly familiar black magic) and unbound McGonagall.

Instantly, McGonagall’s head snapped back and her body writhed painfully. She began to scream a horrible, piercing sound. Her mouth gaped open and balls of vapours arose from her mouth, a self-imposed exorcism by the creature possessing McGonagall’s body. Dumbledore reared back, eyes wide, as the vapours pulled from McGonagall’s shaking frame and evaporated immediately.

McGonagall collapsed into her chair, head lolling back and body shaking in strenuous shock. Snape lurched forward and withdrew a hidden medical bag of potions. He carefully unstoppered multiple vials and poured them down the shivering woman’s throat.

Harry looked at Dumbledore calmly, staring into the wrinkled, pale face of his once-mentor.

“I was trying to keep that from getting away,” Harry answered Dumbledore’s original question simply, his response inspiring a look of bewilderment from Dumbledore.

“What happened, my boy?” Dumbledore asked softly, sitting down on the wood chair next to Harry.

“Nothing really, sir. McGonagall asked to speak to me, I noticed there was something… Odd,” Harry didn’t feel particularly inclined to inform Dumbledore that he could now ‘smell’ black magic, so kept the rest to himself. “I immobilised her, summoned you and Professor Snape, and… That’s basically it,” Harry answered truthfully if not a little flippantly, lips thinned and eyes downcast to avoid the man’s piercing gaze. Though he had become much better at Occlumency over the past three months, he still was not ready to try his defence against Dumbledore’s decades of experience.

“You did well, Harry,” Dumbledore sighed. “I wish I had trusted your instincts from the beginning,” he admitted quietly into the dark room. “I find my own to be lacking and sluggish in these trying times.”

Harry chanced a glance up at Dumbledore and smiled softly. “No harm, no foul, sir,” he answered respectfully, though perhaps a little too polite and stilted. “May I go to bed now?”

Dumbledore looked over at the recovering Minerva McGonagall, still being treated carefully by Severus’ steady hand, and nodded at the almost unrufflable boy-turned-man before him.

“Of course, m’boy,” Dumbledore agreed. Harry was quickly out of his seat and halfway out the door when Dumbledore spoke next. “Do come see me after dinner Saturday evening, Harry.” Harry turned to the slouched elderly wizard and bowed his head in deference to the invitation. And then he was gone, firmly closing the door between himself and Dumbledore’s sad eyes.

After Ginny’s scene, the entirety of Hogwarts had ceased whispering about Harry and Hermione and they were surprised to note that a few students approached them to apologise in person for their dodgy behaviour. Even Bathsheba slunk up the duo as they studied in the library and whispered a genuine apology, eyes downcast and sad. Hermione had quickly forgiven the girl and had immediately taken to her, bringing the younger girl under her wing and even allowing her to study with them on occasion.

Harry’s meeting with Dumbledore went more or less as expected; the man gave Harry an odd, indecipherable lesson in Voldemort and required him to get information from the new Potions professor. Harry decided to basically ignore Dumbledore’s task and instead focus on his endless studies and practicing his duelling with Hermione, Neville, Ginny and Luna. Class began to fly by in monotony as the months passed and soon it was nearly winter break. The added pressure of NEWTs bogged everyone down and the drama mill seemed to significantly dry up as people became engrossed with their classwork leading up to the holidays.

Harry didn’t speak of the possession of Professor McGonagall nor his altered patronus to his friends, deciding to leave that discussion to winter break. Between NEWT level courses for himself, Hermione and Neville, as well as OWL preparation for Ginny and Luna, it seemed a little cruel to remind his friends that the war was slowly seeping into Hogwarts. Especially if nothing could be done about it. He did resolve, however, to tell them as soon as their classes ended so they could use the time off to process the information. Harry wasn’t one for withholding information, especially when it concerned his friends.

Ron and Lavender continued their love affair with little sign of slowing down. Lavender had stopped teasing Hermione and Harry and actually seemed a little put off by Ron’s constant bemoaning and, for a lack of a better word, bitching. And yet she still followed him around like a lovesick puppy.

On a Saturday morning two weeks before the end of the term, Harry woke far before the sun rose in the horizon and headed down to the common room to complete the last of his homework. Kreacher, the little monster, had insisted on continuing his etiquette lessons and Harry was loaded with even more homework (the ‘promptsies’ increasing in difficulty with every passing week). The extracurricular course seemed useless at first but, though Harry would never admit anything to Kreacher for fear of fuelling the elf’s fanatic attempts to run Harry’s life, he was greatly appreciative for the information he was learning. Everything pureblooded under the sun, including bows, balls and titles, was beginning to make sense to Harry’s tired brain.

As he finished the last of his Charms paper, Hermione skipped down the stairs to join him at one minute to six o’clock.

“Morning!” She chirped happily, leaning over his shoulder. “Merlin, Harry! You’ve gotten so much better at doing prepwork,” Hermione exclaimed, pulling the paper off the table to read.

“Kreacher’s the best when it comes to beating in homework skills,” Harry laughed. “He’s raised nearly six hundred years’ worth of Black children to attend Hogwarts, so I guess it makes sense that the elf knows how to teach anyone how to write a damn good paper.”

Hermione smiled at him winningly and gestured for them to take off to breakfast.

Hermione and Harry ran into Luna, who smiled dreamily at them from the middle of the hallway wearing nothing but a light sleeping gown, a felt night cap, and wool socks.

“Luna, what are you doing down here?” Harry asked, perplexed.

“The niggletons of Wiltshire invaded my bed and have insisted I stand here for exactly fifty-five minutes,” Luna answered seriously.

“Do these niggletons happen to have brown hair curly hair and were kicked out of Dumbledore’s Army last year for being a snitch?” Harry pressed, looking at his friend with concern as Hermione’s eyes widened with understanding.

“Silly Harry!” Luna laughed. “Niggletons are rarely snitches; for one, they hate the outdoors. But I do suppose this one is the exception to the rule,” she frowned thoughtfully.

Hermione sighed. “Next time I see Edgecomb, I’m scarring that girl for real,” she muttered angrily under her breath.

Harry hummed his agreement and pointed his wand at Luna’s attire. Her gown shimmered as it was transfigured into the mandatory school robes and her socks into a pair of shiny Mary Janes. Her hat disappeared and Luna felt around for the soft fabric on her head.

“Sorry Luna,” Harry apologised solemnly. “Had to use the hat for undergarments. You really shouldn’t go around in school robes bare, lest you catch a cold.”

Hermione blushed and choked loudly on her breath as Luna beamed at Harry.

Harry pocketed his wand and then patted his robes in surprise, scowling suddenly. “I forgot my permission slip for Hogsmeade,” he announced. “Hermione, be a dear and escort our Cinderella to breakfast?” He asked kindly.

Luna giggled and fell into a deep curtsey before Hermione. She then wove her little arm into the crook of Hermione’s elbow and dragged the confused girl down the hallway. “Harry would be the best fairy godmother, don’t you agree, Hermione?” The girl asked enthusiastically and Harry grinned as Hermione spluttered, throwing a helpless look over her shoulder at Harry. The pair finally rounded a corner and Luna’s chattering faded into silence.

Harry grimaced and took off in the other direction. It took an effort and a half to get away from his friends without acting obvious. They had stuck by his side all week and he was getting restless with the task he needed to complete.

Harry didn’t want to tell his friends, especially Ginny, that he needed to check if he could still sneak into the Chamber of Secrets since it was sealed once more in second year. To steal a rotting basilisk’s fang.

It felt like a lot to worry them about without even knowing if the portal could be opened anymore. Especially since he had yet to broach the complex, disgusting subject of horcruxes.

Harry weaved his way through the labyrinthine corridors. He was immensely grateful for having the combined knowledge of sneaking around Hogwarts for the past five years as well as the Marauders Map at his disposal. Harry made short work of traipsing his way to the second-floor girl’s bathroom, peaking his head down the hallway and breathing a sigh of relief at the deserted corridor. He ran to the entrance, slipped through quickly, and slammed the door shut behind him.

Harry leaned against the wood frame and tried to catch his breath. He slid down and sat on the floor, peaking under the closed stalls to check they were unoccupied. Confirming he could see no feet nor hear Myrtle’s recognisable sobs, he finally relaxed.

Harry stood and approached the hidden chamber entrance apprehensively. He hadn’t seen the snake decoration in years and carefully ran his fingers over the spouts and taps of the large, intricate sink island. Harry finally found the insignia of Salazar Slytherin and his heart began to beat loudly in his throat. He could almost taste the fear of his twelve-year old self, standing next to the ashen Ron and shaking Lockhart. While this time he wasn’t chasing after a missing little girl, followed by his terrified friend and a panicking belligerent professor while they blindly dodged a giant death snake (all the while worrying about a petrified Hermione laying all alone on that hospital bed), Harry still felt the creepy chill inspired by the Chamber of Secrets.

“Don’t,” a high-pitched voice commanded from behind Harry.

Harry whipped around and came face to face with Myrtle, who glared at him with a thunderous expression.

“I have to,” Harry sighed, shrugging. “It’s the only way.”

“That’s what Ginny said,” Myrtle snapped. “I had to!” Myrtle mocked coldly, voice going even impossibly higher in a cruel mimicry of Ginny’s eleven-year-old self.

Harry frowned, the taunting digging deep. Clear your mind, Harry reminded himself, finding himself struggling to not rise to the bait.

“Myrtle,” Harry finally stated at long last. “I can’t tell you what I’m doing or why, but I can say that by doing what I’m doing, this chamber won’t have an heir for much longer.”

Myrtle blinked in surprise at Harry’s words, pigtailed head tilting to the side. “Do you promise?” The girl suddenly simpered, her ghostly eyes glinting from the memory of a chandelier’s candlelight.

“Of course, Myrtle,” Harry promised softly, doing his best to appear kind and appeasing despite despising the fact that he had to have this conversation with the saccharine ghost.

“Oh, well then,” Myrtle then chirped. “Off you go!” She then dove into the nearest bathroom sink and giggled loudly as she hurtled down the pipes, suddenly leaving Harry alone in the bathroom.

Harry shuddered and released an audible blegh. There were few things that truly spooked him in the world, and Myrtle was one of them.

Harry leant forward to the sink with the small snake engraving and whispered softly, barely audibly, “Open”.

The sink, as it had in second year, groaned heavily and then opened loudly like the moaning maw of a great beast. Within the depths of the new hole in the floor came an odd smell, musty and tangy and just a whiff of black magic that made the hairs on Harry’s neck stand on end.

“Damn,” Harry vented softly, attempting to gather his courage as he stared down at the large pipe in the floor. When he had been twelve, he had been full of vigour and excitement and just enough naivety to jump down this opening to the Chamber of Secrets. Now, at sixteen and having seen his own fair share of horror, it seemed like literally the worst decision possible to leap faithfully into the empty abyss.

“Better now than never,” Harry commented, mouth twisting in apprehension, before he jumped into the hole in the ground.

Harry crawled out of the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets with a gasp, finally pulling himself over the lip and rolling exhaustedly onto the bathroom floor.

It had been disgusting. The body of the massive snake had long since decayed but the stench had held in the sealed room, the once fresh water on the floor of the main chamber now filthy and thick with growing bacteria, algae and moss. It was humid, too, something Harry had not recalled from his first trip. Whereas it had been clean(ish) upon his first arrival, the second time through showed that the protection and preserving spells cast on the underground layer were as dead and rotten as the damned basilisk. Harry would feel a bit bad about destroying an ancient catacomb, but he found himself having very little sympathy for the legacy of a bigoted founder as he lay on the cold flagstones of an abandoned girls’ bathroom, covered in slime and dust.

At last, Harry groaned and stretched, feeling a bit dizzy and nauseated. He had managed to pull a large fang out of the skeletal head of the basilisk (something that gave him the creeps, as if it were about to come alive and snap at him) and tuck it safely into his book bag, wrapped cautiously by a pouch made of rooster skin (how Kreacher had managed to procure that, Harry had no idea and no intent to ask the demonic house elf). But the journey had taken a lot more effort than he first imagined. Between the pressure of the black magic entombing the chamber, the effort required to wade through the thick, swampy water, and using up his magical reserves to protect himself from the wayward curse and occasional trap, Harry was exhausted.

Harry found himself falling into a doze as the entrance to the chamber closed once more, lidden eyes closing and breath evening out as he fell fast into sleep on the stones of the second-floor bathroom.

Chapter Text

Harry awoke and balked as he discovered he was laying on a cot in the Hospital Wing, the slimy residue of the Chamber of Secrets long cleaned off and he found himself instead wrapped in a warm pair of borrowed hospital pyjamas. He frowned as he sat up slowly, body protesting the movement as he rested himself on his forearms, and he glanced from the darkened windows to the softly glowing light of the candle chandeliers. It was clearly well past curfew and Harry silently berated himself for having fallen asleep on the floor a bathroom of all places, especially after collecting the –

Harry lurched up quickly, ignoring his protesting muscles. The fang. Where is the – Harry sighed in sudden relief when he found his bag tucked in the hollow cupboard of the bedside table, the fang still in the rooster skin pouch, hidden in a secret compartment of his bookbag. He tucked the bookbag back into the bedside table cupboard and leant back into the firm bed, letting his thoughts race instead.

Between the odd and uncontrollable thing with Malfoy, his exhaustion from Ron’s horrible over-reaction to a rumour, and the pressure of NEWT level courses… The overwhelming stress of the new school year was finally catching up to Harry. That wasn’t even including the raging gossip of the Hogwarts rumour mill and the daily passive aggressive nonsense published about himself in The Prophet (which appeared to be incapable of resisting a nasty swipe at him on occasion). Harry hadn’t returned to Quidditch this year (a fact that both devasted and somewhat relieved him), and the lack of an outlet for his aggression was taking its toll. Harry felt physically and mentally exhausted.

Harry found himself once more dozing and peacefully let the soothing wave of sleep overtake him.

Harry didn’t awaken again until a few hours later, in which the room was aglow with the blue wash of very early morning light, when Hermione burst through the entrance doors in a wild panic.

“Harry!” Hermione wailed, launching herself at his bed.

“Oomph!” Harry responded as he was tackled by the panicked brunette.

“Oh, I’ve only just heard – I’m so sorry, I thought you wanted some private time instead of going to Hogsmeade and I should have never left you without checking, oh Merlin I’m so sorry!” Hermione gushed, her brown eyes threatening to overspill with tears.

“Hermione Granger!” Hissed a fierce, dangerous voice.

Both a groggy Harry and an alarmed Hermione turned to face Madame Pomfrey, who stood in the doorway of her office in a starched nightgown and ashen faced with rage.

“Oh, Madame Pomfrey,” Hermione spluttered, face going red with embarrassment. “I’m so sorry, it’s just I’ve only found out Harry was in the hospital wing and – ”

“That is absolutely no excuse!” Pomfrey hissed in response. “I have another charge who requires her rest and your hysteria will only excite and do her harm!”

Both Harry and Hermione looked in surprise towards the direction of Pomfrey’s gesturing hand and gaped as they saw Lavender laying limp on a cot on the far side of the room, surrounded by quietly beeping and humming magical monitoring charms.

“Jesus,” Hermione answered in shock. Harry inhaled sharply in surprise; Hermione rarely used muggle cusses and, when she did, it was mostly because she was too shocked to think of any other word. “I didn’t know it had been Lavender that was cursed.”

Harry shot a curious glance towards Hermione as Pomfrey harrumphed, hands on her hips with stern annoyance, but soon he found his eyes drawn once more to the sickly girl in the bed. Harry couldn’t stop watching Lavender from across the room, eyes incapable of pulling away.

“That is absolutely none of your business, Miss Granger, though it’s always relieving to know that the Hogwarts gossip mill still churns in full force,” Pomfrey retorted caustically, causing Hermione’s already blossoming blush to turn into a mottled red.

“I’m so sorry, again, for disturbing you,” Hermione answered quickly, appeasing. “But if I could please just stay with Harry for a little while, until I know he’s better?”

Harry felt his world shrink. Where he had felt merely drawn to watching the cursed girl moments ago, his vision slowly tunnelled until he was utterly unable to look away from Lavender’s tremoring form. The magical alerts hovering over Lavender’s prone form flashed warningly, unbeknownst to the arguing Hermione and school nurse, and Harry was overcome with an oddly urgent need to approach the girl.

Harry’s vision blinked in and out briefly and, as if he had silently apparated, he was beside Lavender’s bed, his breath short and the edges of his vision darkening dangerously. In the furthest distance, he could almost hear warning cries trying to call him back, but Harry dismissed the nuisance sound for the unimportant white noise that it was.

Unsure what he was doing but confident all the same, Harry reached through the flashing wards and felt himself tremble as he was encompassed by the feeling of pure, unadulterated black magic. Harry fought the weakness in his knees and placed cold hands on Lavender’s clammy skin, the roiling curse bubbling up and latching onto his skin.

Harry had felt the same spike of dangerous magic from the cursed trinkets at Burgin and Burkes; a magnetic pull stuck his hand to Lavender’s skin, his finger pads humming and tingling as if he had just touched a live wire. The curse felt so familiar – like – like – the cursed necklace. The silly girl had actually put on the cursed necklace from Burgin and Burkes. She must have, judging by the vile anger and poison left imprinted in her skin and blood and slowly chewing through her magical core like a parasite. Harry breathed deeply as a sense of pure calm washed over him, a peculiar, forbidding feeling of… Homecoming. With a single deep breath to steady himself, Harry closed his eyes and let the curse pull him home.

Waking up to the sight of the hospital wing’s arched ceilings for the third time in twenty-four hours was both annoying and comfortingly familiar. Harry groaned in pain as his body protested against the start of consciousness, his muscles tensing and a white-hot migraine storming in the horizon.

“Harry,” a small, muted voice sounded from his left, surprising Harry into fully opening his eyes. Afternoon light flooded his eyes and Harry groaned once more, feeling his pupils react in response to the warm hue of the room.

“Madame Pomfrey,” the same voice whispered again, only slightly louder than before. A bustling noise sounded to Harry’s right, forcing his attention to where a large, blurry shape blocked out the light from the high windows, which he could only assume was the mediwitch.

“Dear,” the voice of Madame Pomfrey responded, “Go get Professor Snape. Immediately.”

Harry frowned, still blurry eyed and confused, and turned towards his pillow. He sighed into the soft fabric as his mind reached the simple conclusion that if he didn’t stay awake, he wouldn’t need to see Snape (of all damn people).

“No sleeping, Harry,” Madame Pomfrey’s voice broke through the beginning stages of his slide into darkness. “Please, Harry, we really need you to stay awake.”

Harry frowned even deeper into his pillow, irritated but unable to not respond to the matron’s distressed tone. He turned his head and the woman’s face slowly came into view, her normally sharp features softened in maternal affection.

“Ma’am Pom’rey?” Harry asked, tongue thick and slow. Harry blinked slowly and felt himself remerge from the deep rest he had been sliding into, dewy exhaustions slowly rolling off his mind like waterdrops.

“Yes, dear. And don’t you worry, love. We’re going to figure out what this is,” Pomfrey responded firmly, sounding as if she were comforting herself more than anything.

“M’kay,” Harry agreed sluggishly, smiling at Pomfrey’s hazy form. Harry reached out to hold the woman’s hand to comfort her and was surprised when his hand hit an invisible barrier.

“I’m sorry, dear,” Pomfrey assured his confused gaze immediately. “But we need to be sure that you’re quarantined until we know exactly what happened. But I can say for sure that you saved Lavender’s life, whatever it is that you did. You silly, stupid, amazing boy.” Pomfrey sounded torn between helplessly happy and desperately sad. It confused Harry’s heavy mind.

“Is he still awake?” A drawling voice cut through Harry’s haze and he scowled instinctively, despite the twitching pain of his facial muscles. Snape.

“Just now, yes,” Pomfrey confirmed.

“Step away from him. I’m going to expand the barrier,” Snape commanded sharply. Madam Pomfrey’s form was suddenly gone and Harry felt her loss of presence instantly. The bubble of weight keeping him warm and sedated suddenly expanded and Harry felt his mind sharpen immediately. Harry jerked as a spike of energy raced through his body, the movement entirely involuntary, and then gasped as his head rushed with blood from the sudden movement.

“Keep still, Potter,” Snape demanded. Harry turned his head slowly to the dark shape towering over his bed and Harry eyed the blurry figure irritably. “You’re under a quarantine capsule at the moment. We’re trying to figure out what you did to Lavender and why you reacted the way you did.”

“I ate it,” Harry answered sluggishly and then blinked at surprise at his own words.

“You ate it?” A familiar voice sounded from behind Snape. Harry squinted his eyes and noticed a ball of… Hair? Hermione’s here, his mind supplied happily.

“Mmm,” Harry agreed distantly, his body weakening from its earlier alert state and already slipping back into rest. “It was a nasty curse. So, I ate it.”

“Don’t you dare go back to sleep, Potter,” Snape warned in a dangerous tone, promising pain should Harry fail to obey his order.

Unfortunately for Snape, Harry passed out in that exact moment and, by the time the boy exhaled his next breath, Harry Potter was oblivious to the world once more.

When Harry awoke again, he was a fair bit more than just annoyed with himself. He grit his jaw as he jolted into awareness, the darkness of the hospital wing striking.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Harry hissed to himself, holding his head as he slowly sat up in the firm but comfortable cot, memories of the past twenty-four hours rushing back to him. “How the bloody hell does this keep happening to me?”

“I’m inclined to agree,” a piercing, startlingly high-pitched voice answered from the darkness.

Harry felt his breath freeze in his throat, his blood chilling as if a ghost had just passed through his prone frame.

Harry knows that voice. But it’s different. Sharper. Colder. Somehow even less human than the last time Harry heard it.

“Come now, Harry. After years of confrontation, are you really going to shy out now?” The voice goaded from a far corner of the room.

Harry felt his lungs unfreeze, his breath now coming out short and fast. Harry didn’t dare look in the direction of the voice and he closed his eyes, focusing on clearing his mind.

“Oh, Harry,” tutted the voice. “Don’t you think that if this was a dream, you would have awakened by now?”

Harry carefully ignored the voice, chanting over and over, Clear your mind!

“Do not ignore me,” the voice whispered, suddenly in his ear.

Harry inhaled sharply and his eyes flew open as he felt the wards around his bed, the quarantine wards, shatter under the sudden shift in magical tension. Harry cried out in sudden agony.

The coldest, darkest energy Harry had ever felt wrapped around his frame, tangible and insidious. That suffocating, burning scent of molasses, musk, spice – Black tendrils of poisoned magic harshly dragged against Harry’s face and he inhaled sharply, struck dumb by the overwhelming sensation of… Of – Of –

“Pleasure,” the voice purred, still by his ear, still right next to him and fuck it’s too much – too much – too –

A cold, rough hand shot out of the dark to clasp Harry’s face and yanked him to face the left of the bed, Harry’s eyes glazing in shock. Harry stared dully at his greatest enemy, the cruellest creature to walk the earth..

“Poor little Harry,” the pale, sharp face tutted, lash-less eyes so hooded that only a small slit of blood red irises were distinguishable in the darkness. Sharp cheek bones stood out in the pale moonlight, a dent and two holes where a straight and narrow nose should have been, and thin, pale lips crooning that toxic, undeniable tone. Voldemort was horrifying, a monster out of the deep. An abomination of nature itself.

“Me, an abomination? I’d say the term applied more to you than myself, wouldn’t you think? From what I’ve heard, you’d inherited something a little beyond your control,” Voldemort laughed hideously.

“What?” Harry breathed, his mind confused and heavy as if drugged and completely helpless in the presence of Voldemort’s vicious magic.

“Let’s just say that you’ve walked yourself into a bit of a trap, Harry,” Voldemort continued softly, slitted eyes watching Harry’s every facial movement. “I almost wish I had thought of it myself. And, oh, how I have watched your little affair with the young Malfoy boy through both your eyes. Interesting, isn’t it? That strange, desperate need for pure magic. But what if you could have that magic, from the source? Not just tasting from a weak imprint. Actual true, real magic from the spring.”

Harry watched Voldemort croon those words in blank terror, flinching as cool breath washed over his face. Harry’s eyes unwittingly closed as Voldemort’s magic clenched around Harry’s frame in emphasis, the feeling of the magic suffocating, and helplessly he realised he had begun to lean closer to Voldemort.

“St-stop,” Harry answered helplessly, barely noticing when he converted from speaking English and slipping effortlessly into Parseltongue, subconscious attempting its best to appease the monster and stop whatever it was that he was doing. “Please – stop,” Harry begged, still oblivious to his change of language.

A pulse of dangerous, dark magic filled the air and Harry’s eyes snapped open in shock as he registered his words. Voldemort’s eyes had widened marginally and Harry found himself pinned under the viper’s gaze like stunned prey.

Fuck he wasn’t supposed to let Voldemort know that he could speak – fuck – oh god did Voldemort know he knows about the h-

“Harry,” Voldemort whispered, sibilant and cold and gleeful. “Have you been keeping a secret from me?” The Parseltongue pierced Harry’s frame, cold fingers tightening on his jaw and another hand suddenly holding the back of his head, long fingers carding through wild black locks.

“Fu-fuck you,” Harry answered helplessly, once more letting the strange language drip from his lips, angrily, focusing on that feeling and chanting desperately to himself – dammit, Potter, you’re angry – anger yes anger you’re angry Harry you’re mad you’re angry that this is happening make it stop Harry –

The magic became suffocating as if the gravity in the room had instantly tripled, encompassing, too much, too overwhelming, Voldemort’s eyes narrowing dangerously at the insult, and then all Harry knew was darkness.

Harry stared blankly ahead at the wall of the Hospital Wing, mind leagues away as Pomfrey and Snape argued in her office. Occasionally, a yelled word would slip through the cracked door and Harry focused on ignoring their fight, breathing deeply through his nose and exhaling through his mouth. Harry instead singularly focused on his breathing, the slow filling of his chest and the soft rush of air over his lips soothing.

Whatever had happened the night before… It was over. Harry wasn’t sure if it was real or a… Dream. It just seemed so incredibly implausible, that Voldemort had cornered him by his bedside at Hogwarts (though it would hardly be the first time the Dark Lord had slipped into Hogwarts under Dumbledore’s nose). But it was equally implausible that it was a dream. Harry knew his connection to Voldemort caused some wildly vivid visions, but to dream that…

There was one undeniable piece of evidence that last night’s horror show wasn’t just a figment of Harry’s imagination and it haunted him. Long black lashes in the shape of tendrils wrapped around Harry’s ashen skin, deep ebony lines of various size similar to a tattoo. Wrapped around his arms, stomach, legs, neck. Black fingerprints stained his jaw, like a sooty reminder that Hell had visited him in the night. Grey stained his lips, an almost blueish steel shade that reminded him of frostbite. Tracing the places Voldemort’s magic had touched him, where Voldemort had touched him.

Harry rocked under the force of a violent shudder and resumed focusing on his breathing.

Harry felt… Marked. It was disgusting. He felt violated. Pomfrey had screamed that morning, startling Harry into sluggish consciousness, emerging from sleep in a drunken stupor and weak with mind numbing drowsiness. Snape had been summoned almost immediately and the pair had been in her office ever since. Harry wasn’t sure if they had been talking for minutes or hours; he could barely focus on anything other than the events of the past twenty-four hours and his own breathing to settle his raging mind.

Merlin, Harry really needs to speak to Hermione.

Harry had dozed off again and awoke near midday, the golden sunlight streaming into the hospital ward and warming Harry. He glanced at his exposed arms and was immediately relieved to note that the black lashes and lines had nearly completely faded under the sunlight, turning translucent. A quick glance at his reflection in the stoppered vial of headache potion on his bedside table showed that the sooty finger marks around his face had faded as well, though not nearly as dramatically as the black lines. With any luck, they would be completely gone by evening.

Harry groaned and dropped his head back onto the pillow.

“Kreacher,” Harry whispered into the quiet room, not sure where Madame Pomfrey was nor if Lavender, who was still laying in the cot on the other side of the room, would awaken at his voice. “Please come to me as quietly as you can.”

A muffled crack! could be heard in the corridor outside the Hospital Wing entrance and Harry smiled softly at his friend when the house elf slipped through the door unseen. Kreacher was suddenly upon Harry, holding his torso tightly with his arms and legs.

“Hey,” Harry hummed softly.

“Masters Harry,” Kreacher crooned against Harry’s shirt and the boy winced when he felt tears soak through the thin fabric.

“I think I need to go back home, Kreacher,” Harry whispered near one of Kreacher’s large ears. “Just for a little while until I figure out what’s going on.”

Kreacher nodded against his shirt and with a loud crack, the pair were gone.

Harry spent a few days in Sirius’ bed while he recovered from “eating” Lavender’s curse and Voldemort’s surprise appearance. To his utter relief, all the marks and lines on his body completely disappeared a full day after his… Encounter. Just thinking about the situation made the taste of bile rise to the back of Harry’s throat, so he did his best to not dwell on the memory.

Thankfully, Harry found his sleep to be blissfully restful, dreams remarkably lacking any trace of a Dark Lord and leaving him to dreamlessly float as he rested. On the third morning of having returned to the ancestral Black household, a Friday and the last day of term (Harry avoided considering exactly how much homework he had missed, for it gave him a headache instantaneously), Harry finally got out of bed and wandered down the kitchens.

Harry found Kreacher muttering angrily to himself as he banged dishes in the kitchen, preparing Harry’s morning meal. Harry smiled to himself at the irritable house elf, knowing the source of the elf’s distress was Harry’s illness.

“Good morning,” Harry offered after a few moments.

Kreacher whirled around, eyes wide in shock, before snarling, “Masters Harry needs to be resting.”

Harry sighed, realising it was going to be one of those days with Kreacher. “I know,” he agreed calmly. “But it does me good to get a bit of exercise.”

Kreacher appeared to be taken aback by Harry’s lack of complaining and his solid excuse for leaving bed. Harry took the elf’s momentary shock to sit down and patiently wait for his morning scramble. The elf waffled for a moment before huffing and finishing Harry’s breakfast, slamming a porcelain dish so hard onto the tabletop that Harry was surprised it didn’t shatter in a million pieces.

“Thank you,” Harry offered quietly, finishing his breakfast in record time to appease the elf. It didn’t do much, but Harry could see a slightly satisfied gleam in the evil creature’ eyes.

“Masters Harry be inheriting the Curse,” Kreacher stated suddenly into the quiet kitchen as he pointedly cleared the table, avoiding Harry’s gaze.

“Excuse me?” Harry asked, taken by surprise.

“The Curse,” Kreacher repeated unhelpfully, turning to scrub a frying pan by hand in the kitchen sink.

Harry’s eyebrows drew together as he processed Kreacher’s words. “Are… Are you referring to smell of black magic thing?” Harry asked slowly, wondering if Kreacher would understand.

The little elf stiffened, shoulders hunching. He then stepped down from the stool next to the sink and sat down across the table from Harry, fiddling with his ears.

“If Masters Harry already being smelling the magicks,” Kreacher whispered fearfully, “Then there’s not much Kreacher can be doing.”

“About what, Kreacher?” Harry pressed, alarmed by the doom in Kreacher’s tone.

“Masters Harry be looking for a mate,” Kreacher whispered even quieter than before, words nearly lost into the table as he shrunk further into his seat.

Harry stared at Kreacher dumbly. “A mate,” Harry repeated.

Kreacher nodded miserably before disapparating with a distressed crack!

“What the fuck?” Harry asked no one in particular.

Harry eventually went looking for Kreacher when it became apparent that the elf had no intent on returning and finishing the conversation. It took Harry nearly half an hour of aimlessly wandering the floors, not even sure if the elf was still in the house, before he decided to give up and return to his room. Just as he reached Sirius’ bedroom door, hand wrapping around the doorknob, Harry realised that there was another door down the hallway that he’d never noticed before. It was pushed slightly open and a small beam of light filtered through the crack. The sounds of muffled riffling filled the air.

Harry quietly padded to the ajar door, peeking through. Kreacher was quietly sifting through what appeared to be, after a brief cursory glance, an abandoned bedroom. Soft light filtered through a moth-eaten curtain covering a large window, the gentle glow illuminating tiny dancing particles of dust.

The bedroom was decorated in a completely different style than Sirius’ bedroom, instead focusing on simple blacks, greys and whites with an occasional splash of Slytherin green. Harry made a guess that the bedroom was Regulus’ as he noticed a picture frame covered in a thin film of dust tucked into a corner of the room, the photo within displaying a very young Sirius wrapping an arm around a younger man and ruffling his hair. The younger man looked startlingly similar to Harry and he realised that he physically appeared more like the unfamiliar boy’s brother than even Sirius himself. A framed, faded diploma from Hogwarts hung on a far wall and Harry could just make out Regulus’ name scrawled across the bottom in green ink.

Clearly the doorway to the bedroom had been hidden from prying eyes with a charm as Harry never even knew this room existed. Even Sirius had not gone down to the end of this hallway when he had been alive and Harry hadn’t ever thought to ask why; it had appeared that there was nothing else on this side of the house.

Kreacher seemed to reverently worship the long-gone boy and it made sense to Harry that he would want to keep the boy’s mementos away from The Order. The room looked nearly completely undisturbed since Regulus had last left, save for the thick sheen of dust covering everything. There were slippers tucked tidily in the corner of the room, a towel still hanging on the door to what Harry assumed was an en-suite. Clothing had been carelessly dropped into a washing basket and a small diary sat on a faded bedside table. Even the spacious study desk was overflowing with curling, aging paper, books stacked high and an ancient quill was still dipped in a well of long-dried ink, stained black from being left in the pot.

It looked like Regulus had just left the room. Like he would return at any moment and blink in surprise at the layer of dust. Harry could almost hear it, could almost see it, like the imprint of a life remembered only by time and the room that once housed it, the laughing berating of Kreacher as Regulus moved around the room, vanishing the signs of age with a flick of his wand.

It was a mausoleum.

It made Harry feel sick, filling him with an odd longing to meet the boy who turned on everything he believed to save Kreacher’s life and steal a horcrux. Harry wanted more than ever to know Regulus’ full story.

Kreacher turned slowly as Harry gently pushed open the door to properly step inside the room, the rusty hinges creaking gently. Instead of the elf scolding Harry, as he had expected, Kreacher silently waved the boy over to a large closet. Kreacher gently held up a dusty black garment, a tailored overcoat etched with elaborate golden stitches, the embroidery intricate and delicate.

“This be fitsing you better than Sirius’ clothes,” Kreacher said at long last. Harry blinked in surprise. That wasn’t what he’d been expecting Kreacher to say; he didn’t know what he expected, but certainly not that.

“That would be lovely,” Harry answered quietly, feeling weirdly like he was disturbing the room.

Kreacher smiled up at Harry wetly from his seated position on the floor. The elf looked drained, as if just being surrounded by the memory of Regulus broke the little elf’s heart.

“He was a good boy, a good heir,” Kreacher said into the room, voice firm as if defending Regulus from disapproval. “Masters Sirius be banished, disowned. Me thinks you being adopted by Master Regulus, not Sirius, when Masters Harry became Heir Black.”

Harry sat down next to Kreacher, ignoring the feeling of dust sticking to his pyjama bottoms. He mulled the words over. “But I drank Sirius’ blood,” Harry answered at last, unsure.

“The spell only needs bloods from a surviving Black,” Kreacher whispered. “And the Chosen will inherit. Masters Regulus was the heir, after Masters Sirius was thrown out, even after Masters Regulus died. Masters Sirius became a bastard by the Blacks magic after that, no matters what Dumblie-dore says. Me thinks you Masters Regulus’ son, Masters Harry. Not Sirius.”

Harry felt his stomach sink. It would certainly explain his inheritance of Regulus’ looks rather than Sirius’.

“This is why Kreacher thinks you have inherited the Curse,” Kreacher continued blithely.

“Did… Did Regulus have this too?” Harry asked, astonished, as he began to connect the dots. Kreacher nodded miserably.

“A most vile Curse,” Kreacher growled, expression hardening. “Kreacher sees it take many Black children.”

“Is it fatal, what I have?” Harry asked softly, an ominous feeling pressing against his chest.

Kreacher turned large, sad eyes to Harry. “Only if Masters Harry fights it,” the elf answered.

“What does it do, Kreacher?” Harry pressed.

“Heir Cetus was a very bad man,” Kreacher answered instead, eyes filling with rage as he fell into a memory. “Masters Cetus wants to marries a Døkkálfr, a dark high elf lady. Cetus tells family high elf blood is better than muggle, as good as gold, as good as pureblood. Dökkálfar being Toujours Pur.” The words were spat with withering derision.  

Harry frowned at the odd tale. “How long ago was this?” He asked Kreacher, concerned where the story was going.

“Many centuries ago,” Kreacher frowned dismissively. “Kreacher was just young house elf, apprentice elf. Bad days, when purebloods mate with monsters to stop interbreeding. Dökkálfar elf is not being like house elf. No relation at all, between house elves and dark elves. Tall, strong as wizards, but uncontrollable. Wild. Feral,” he hissed into the dusty room. “Dark elves being attracted to dark magic, feeding on the dark arts.”

Harry sounded out the name slowly, mouth tasting the unfamiliar and challenging word. He’d never heard of anything like a high elf before despite being more than just proficient at Care of Magical Creatures and Defence Against the Dark Arts. The magical being was something they had not discussed or learnt at school. And neither was interspecies mating; sure, it was something Harry knew about, but had only been exposed on limited occasions. He knew of a few cases, such as Fleur and Hagrid, but he didn’t realise that it used to be a thing.

“Masters Regulus inherits Dökkálfar blood. Inherits the curse. The need to mate,” Kreacher whispered into the dim bedroom, eyes unfocused as he stared beyond the room into something far, far away.

Harry choked on his breath. “The need to m-mate,” he stammered. The words hit him a harder than they had in the kitchens. Looking for a mate versus needing to mate were two extremely different things, in Harry’s opinion.

“Dökkálfar blood is unstable,” Kreacher said after a beat of silence. He slowly rose to his feet and took the small diary off Regulus’ bedside table, briefly holding it between his hands before handing it to Harry. “Dökkálfar attracted to black magicks, the stronger the better. Masters Regulus genes was triggered by the Dark Mark.”

Harry flinched at the wrinkled house elf’s words. He hadn’t known Regulus was a Death Eater. But it made sense, in a roundabout way. The Black family was infamously dark and Voldemort’s rise to power would have been irresistible to the family. But Harry hadn’t realised until now how literally irresistible black magic had been to the ancient household.

“What happened to him?” Harry said at long last, not willing to push Kreacher further than the elf could handle but desperate to know what happened to the young man. A man who was now his father, apparently. It was a thought that made Harry’s mind whirl. 

Kreacher made a pitiful whining noise. “Masters Regulus fell in loves with a man. Very strong, evil man. Evil man that broke himself into many pieces and could not love Masters Regulus back. Bad man could only love himself and the pieces he makes. Masters Regulus could not handle it, could not handle rejection from his mate. Masters Regulus decided to unite all the pieces, to make the bad man whole again. And then maybe he would love Masters Regulus.”

Harry’s jaw dropped open so far he was sure his tongue was slowly being coated in a layer of dust, but he couldn’t stop himself from gaping in horror at the trembling house elf.

“But Masters Regulus was too hurt, too far along,” Kreacher whined, falling deeper into despair as he recalled Regulus’ descent. “It would have never happened if Masters Regulus did not join that bad man, that evil powerful man. Bad man destroys whole Black family, despite he says he wants the purebloods to live, to rule. Bad man destroys purebloods and eats their magicks.”

It did not take a stretch of imagination to know who the ‘bad man’ was. But the thought of Regulus, his father by blood now, having fallen in love with Voldemort – it was nearly too much to handle. And did Voldemort know? Did Voldemort string along the young man to use his wealth and position and magic for his own nefarious plans, all on the promise of love and affection and adoration if only the young Black heir bent to the will of a madman?

Would that happen to Harry?

Suddenly the Harry’s horrible dream (or memory, he shuddered) while in the Hospital Wing made sense. Voldemort laughing at him, knowing he controlled him. Teasing him for having fallen into a trap of his own makings. But what had triggered the gene he carried from Regulus?

The horcrux, Harry’s mind whispered as he felt his face pale, his blood running cold. His body had metabolised the horcrux, or as best as it could, and had bonded with it. His inheritance had stopped his soul and magic from fighting the soul shard as if it were an invasive enemy, instead accepting it as a part of Harry. Harry had inadvertently bonded with Voldemort, like Regulus had when he had taken the Dark Mark. No wonder he had felt so uncontrollably addicted to Draco Malfoy. The boy had just taken Voldemort’s mark, though it had faded over time. At the beginning of the year, the boy had positively reeked of the immortal Dark Lord from the residual imprint of Voldemort’s casting.

That was the smell in the Amortentia. Voldemort. Not just black magic, or else Harry would have felt the same wooziness for the demonic watcher who had possessed McGonagall. Voldemort’s magic had been affecting Harry from the instant he was a baby, always around him and interfering with his life. From the monster’s assassination attempts all the way up until now, Voldemort had hounded him, haunted him.

And now Voldemort had him.

“My inheritance wants to mate to a monster,” Harry whispered numbly into the silence, eyes glazing over as he felt a cold stillness overtake his body.

The ghosting touch of Voldemort’s fingertips burned Harry’s jaw as the sad house elf and cursed heir sat quietly together in the oppressive room, Harry’s mind stilling as he realised that perhaps he was in much bigger trouble than he’d ever been in before.

Chapter Text

Harry had given into his own guilt and owled Dumbledore shortly after leaving Hogwarts, excusing his departure as illness and confirming he would return at the beginning of the school term. Harry also mailed his school work to his professors, also apologising for his disappearance. Harry was under no illusions that Snape would, for an instant, accept Harry's work as Harry wasn't physically there to turn it in (the professor could barely bring himself to grade Harry's work and, when he did, it was often with vicious slashes of red ink). But Harry honestly just did not care anymore. School work had long ago taken a backseat to the rest of the chaos in Harry's life and if there was one thing Harry felt secure in, it was his own performance in DADA.

Harry realized early on in the winter break that he was going to need Hermione’s expert study skills as well as Ginny and Neville’s pureblood experience to help him decipher a solution to the issue at hand. He also desperately needed a good dose of Lovegood calmness; Luna always was able to ground him, even when he felt so terrible back in fifth year, and she provided an excellent outside perspective that often helped shift the frame of a problem into something more manageable.

Instead of bothering his friends, though, Harry remained within Grimmauld Place, letting them enjoy the holiday season with their respective families for as long as they could. Part of Harry wondered, darkly, if this was going to be the last Christmas the world would enjoy in peace for a long time to come.

From within Grimmauld Place, Harry nearly forgot it was Christmas entirely. It was so dark and gloomy, even more so than the summer now that the sun hid behind drizzling London skies, and Harry found himself unable to get into the spirit of the holiday.

To pass the time, Harry distracted himself by carefully reviewing the overflowing texts in the Black library, Kreacher meticulously disabling jinxes and curses as Harry slowly chewed through tomes on the poorly known subject of dark elves. Harry didn’t comment when the house elf lovingly reactivated the dark spells on the books once Harry put them back on their shelves; he couldn’t even begin to understand the odd elf’s logic.

It seemed that there was very little research conducted on the Dökkálfar or, if there had been, it certainly wasn’t to be found in the Black library. But Kreacher was quick to reassure him that he was most certainly not the first Black to be interested in his heritage, so Harry realised that if there were other books written on the subject of Dökkálfar… Well, they had most likely been lost to time.

The only book that captured Harry’s attention and held the most helpful of information was a thin, matte-charcoal leather book, pages worn and yellowed with time despite the preservation runes etched into the bookshelves. The spine the book was embossed in bold flaking gold lettering with the apt title, Dökkálfar – The High Elves of Svartalfheim. There was a companion book in eggshell-white leather in the same style, the spine engraved instead with silver cursive declaring, Ljósálfar – The High Elves of Álfheim. From the best of Harry’s meagre understanding, it appeared that the Ljósálfar were the light companion to the Dökkálfar’s dark, two contrasting creatures not unlike Yin and Yang but rather an ancient Nordic version of the concept.

Unfortunately, it was increasingly becoming more and more difficult to distinguish myth from reality, as was often the case in the wizarding world, and Harry found himself with even more questions now than at the beginning of his research. It hardly helped that the two books effortlessly switched between English and Old Norse and then to Latin when the author felt like it, as if expecting the reader to know multiple languages and follow with ease. While Kreacher was most helpful with the Latin and with helping Harry decipher the peculiar words of the poetic Old Norse verses, it was very slow going and Harry’s brain was worn down each day by the time the room began to darken into the shadowy dusk of late evening.

Harry frowned as he carefully laid down the slim Dökkálfar book on the edge of the velvet settee he had curled up in, rubbing his tired eyes with the palms of his hands. Time was passing by both sluggishly and yet with alarming speed; his days were filled with tedious reading sessions and whispered assistance from Kreacher and yet, to his surprise, Harry discovered Christmas had passed a few days ago and it was rapidly nearing New Years.

Perhaps things were worsened by the poor quality of Harry’s sleep. Since his discovery of his heritage, he had suffered… Distracting dreams. They were patchy and confusing, each dream leaving Harry shaken but he could hardly recall the memory as soon as he awoke. Shaking off the horrid feeling, Harry picked up the Dökkálfar book once more and resumed his research. If he was going to beat this damned Curse, he’d need to absorb everything there possibly was to know about the mysterious and damned dark elves of lore.

On New Year’s Day, Harry decided it was time to call his friends. While he knew that they probably were worried sick about him, and a bit nervous about their reaction to his departure, he had been dreading this meeting. While Harry missed his friends dearly, he knew it was time to have the Talk.

“Would you mind bringing my friends here, Kreacher?” Harry asked the irritable house elf over breakfast.

Kreacher had been summoned multiple times to Hogwarts in order to put up and then subsequently take down the Christmas decorations that the Great Hall was so famous for during this time of year. He had also then been summoned to put up New Year’s decorations and expected to be called back tomorrow to then have such decorations removed.

Understandably, the elf was horrendously grouchy and tired.

While technically Harry certainly didn’t need to ask Kreacher’s permission to bring his friends to Grimmauld Place, he did so to protect his own hide. Harry preferred to not be on the dark side of Kreacher’s foul mood (it could put even a dementor’s attitude to shame, when the elf was on a roll) and Kreacher had become something of a custodian of his wellbeing, and Harry wouldn’t dare to simply command the house elf to do something (lest he awake with cockroaches being bred in his bed).

Kreacher, with an expression alarmingly close to Hermione’s disapproving sneer, turned on Harry with a soapy sponge gripped tightly in his little fist and he glared at Harry with glinting eyes.

“Bringing the mudbloods and bloodtraitors here?” Kreacher hissed and bared sharp little teeth, dishes long forgotten.

“… Yes?” Harry answered unsurely, smiling endearingly at the venomous expression on his companion. “But only for a few days, the term is set to start again in a week’s time.”

Kreacher laughed, an insidious sound that rose the hairs on Harry’s arm. “Oh noes, Masters Harry,” Kreacher chuckled, waving a sudsy hand in Harry’s direction and expression twisted in mad amusement. “Masters Harry never be returning to Hogwarts.”

Harry blanched at Kreacher’s declaration. Harry was overcome by déjà vu; the last time a house elf declared that Harry wasn’t to return to Hogwarts, he had ended up in an ancient secret chamber being chased by a death snake while his best friend’s sister was being actively consumed by the ghost of a fifty year old school boy. Suffice to say, those words made Harry a bit… Wary.

“May I ask why?” Harry enquired gently, doing his best not to stoke the mad ire of the excited elf.

“Masters Harry be attacks in Hogwarts. Dumbledore be both a bad man and a stupid man; Masters Harry not being safe!” Kreacher snarked, mouth twisting into a bitter grimace.

Ah. This was because of the fiasco with Voldemort in the Hospital Wing. Looking back, Harry realises that Kreacher hadn’t really overreacted at the time; clearly the elf had been holding out until Harry mentioned returning to school to unleash the holy rage of his paternal instincts. And with the same wrath of a furious board member leading the Parents’ Association to battle, Kreacher continued before Harry could object.

“Masters Harry be banned from returnings to Hogwarts until Dumbledores be gone,” the house elf snarled. “Masters Harry being safe in superior wards of Ancestral House of Black. Masters Harry never be leaving.”

Harry sighed softly, frowning but feeling a gentle surge of affection for the house elf fill his chest. Harry has come to realise that the little creature was incapable of expressing loving feelings in a normal or healthy way, so Kreacher often chose to possessively protect Harry with every single dirty trick his blackened little heart could think of. While Harry supposed most people would be annoyed or infuriated by the elf’s overprotectiveness, Harry never really had a parental figure to look out for him like this before, someone who was wholly and completely on his side – consequences be damned.

“That’s fair,” Harry replied at last, acquiescing to Kreacher’s challenging glare.

The elf blinked in surprised, as if shocked his stern lecture had worked, then quickly recovered and nodded at Harry with firm snootiness, nose rising in the air in haughty victory.

“But if I’m banned from returning to Hogwarts, then you must at least let my friends visit until they have to leave for the spring term if you expect me not to be bitter about it,” Harry bargained, eyebrow raised in expectation. “Just for the final week, alright?”

Kreacher stared at Harry for a brief moment before scowling darkly.

Harry grinned.

Kidnapping his friends turned out to be easier than pie. All Harry had to do was nod at Kreacher and then pop! One by one, his friends appeared in the entrance hallway of Grimmauld Place (thankfully avoiding the ire of Walburga Black’s painting with a heavy sleeping spell woven into her velveteen curtains). Harry even made Kreacher leave a letter in the family homes of his friends upon their sudden departure, having already secretly mailed each one of his friends to instruct them to pack their bags and be waiting in their respective living rooms for his signal (or, rather, Kreacher’s sudden appearance).

“What the – ” Ginny barked, the first to arrive, before dropping her luggage trunk, tumbling onto her knees and vomiting into the troll leg umbrella stand. “Oh, dragon’s ball, elf magic is just the worst,” she mumbled, her head still buried in the assortments of umbrella handles.

Second up was Hermione. “Morgana,” Hermione croaked as she swirled into existence in the entrance hall. She took one look at Ginny kneeling over the umbrella stand before turning green and pointedly looking away. “That… Is not right,” Hermione said at last, after talking a few calming gulps of hair.

Harry winced.

Neville arrived next. He stumbled as he appeared into being by the coat stand and waved at Harry weakly, looking a little worse for wear, and especially pale. But the boy always did look a little shaken after spending an extended period in the presence of his grandmother, so Harry wasn’t too terribly concerned.

At last, Luna arrived. As if stepping into existence with the grace of a dancer, the blonde girl simply appeared in the hallway, unaffected and looking rather fresh faced.

“Harry!” The airy girl chirped. “I should have known it was you who was behind this!” She then skipped close to the young man and enveloped him in a hug. “My, is that pie I smell?” Luna enquired, head turning toward the kitchens. Without waiting for an answer, the girl was gone, leaving the other four friends staring after her in fearful awe.

“Unnatural,” Ginny scowled, finally surefooted enough to stand and pointedly ignore the sick in the troll stand.

“Scary,” Hermione agreed, watching the kitchen door with wide eyes.

Kreacher had clearly been bitter about having to summon Harry’s friends to the Black house and, as a result, was a little… Rough. The elf hadn’t even returned either, clearly intent on staying out of the teenagers’ way until he was needed. On the bright side, Hermione and Ginny looked too queasy to launch into berating the dark-haired boy for disappearing at the end of the term, instead leaning forward and encasing him in a tight hug.

The group followed Luna into the kitchens and a brief series of greeting were exchanged, Ginny quickly rushing to the kitchen sink to wash her mouth and put on a kettle for some tea.

“So,” Hermione said at last after seating herself primly at the kitchen table. “This clearly is the House of Black which we stayed in last year, but I cannot for the life of me remember the address or how to get here. I’m assuming you’ve used the Fidelius Charm, which doesn’t explain how Kreacher was able to bring us here without telling us the house address nor how Dumbledore is no longer the secret keeper.”

Harry smiled at his close friend, the girl too smart for her own good. “We changed the secret keeper. I’ll explain the method to you later, you’re going to love it. Unfortunately, I can’t tell you the address right now, but I gave Kreacher permission to bring you here. If you were to leave, you wouldn’t find your way back,” Harry answered, shrugging lightly. “So… I would recommend that you don’t leave.”

“But – but – school,” Hermione spluttered, eyes wide.

“There’s still a week before we’re supposed to head back to class and I’ll make sure you’re not late. And, besides, we have a slightly more… Pressing issue,” Harry cut in before Ginny could add to the protests. Upon noticing he had everyone’s full attention, he continued. “I think the Dark Lord has plans to kidnap one of you and use you as bait at some point in the year.”

At that, Neville, Luna, Ginny and Hermione became instantly still, staring at Harry in fear.

The battle of the Ministry the year before had left its mark on the group, some scars visible and some not. Though they had not personally seen Voldemort in the Ministry, facing up against the vile Death Eaters had been horrific enough of an experience. Harry felt his heart clench at the idea of those revolting cult followers ever getting their hands on his friends again.

“He’s fixated on me,” Harry stated slowly, forcing himself to say the words. “It’s worse than the last few years, too.” Harry closed his eyes, thinking about all the things he had to tell his friends. “We’ll have a cup of tea, I’ll show you to your rooms, then we’ll talk.”

Explaining the entire story to his friends was slow going. It felt like pulling teeth. Of course, Harry wanted to keep the whole… Mating thing to himself. But the last time Harry withheld information, it hurt his friends dearly. Hence, the whole story came out, mortifying details and all.

Harry had told them everything, including receiving the blood adoption and its true changes (horcrux included), deciding to locate the horcrux containers and securing them in the house, discovering the spectral spy hiding in McGonagall, the encounter with Voldemort in the Hospital Wing, and even the unfortunate discovery of the Curse.

At last, the group of friends, who had since located to the library and were seated in a half-circle around the flickering fire, sat in silence as they absorbed the tale.

“That is…” Ginny began before trailing off, brow scrunched in thought. “Just,” she continued lamely, as if lost for words, and did not finish the thought.

Neville watched Harry, who faced the fire and waited for the judgement of his friends. Neville reached over the arm of his chair and linked hands with Harry, smiling kindly as the smaller boy jumped and looked over to him.

“We’re here for you, Harry,” Neville stated firmly. “And, seriously, the whole creature blood thing in pureblood families is way more common than you think. My gran reckons that our ancestors were a bit frisky with a couple different species, to be honest. It’s like an open secret that an era existed when pureblood families thought it was a good idea to mix blood with humanoid magical creatures. I mean, we now know better, so everyone just kind of… Pretends it never happens,” Neville stated dryly while releasing a solemn laugh.

Harry stared at Neville, mouth opening slightly in surprise. He hadn’t realised it was actually well-known amongst the purebloods.

“Ugh, yeah,” Ginny huffed, rubbing a hand over her tired eyes. “I’m actually fairly sure our family has Selkie or something like that. My mum doesn’t like to talk about it, but it’s a bit of a family legend that great-great-great grandpa so-and-so got busy with an ocean lady.”

That started a laugh from Harry, who blushed at the sudden and unwelcome imagery as Neville nodded.

“I’m actually a descendent of a companion elf to the Dökkálfar,” Luna commented, twiddling her thumbs. “My ancestors from a few centuries ago on both my mama’s and papa’s side were Ljósálfar. Basically, the same thing as the Dökkálfar, but the Ljósálfar are light high elves. Very interesting mythology, you know. They’re mostly found in the northern countries, like Norway and Sweden, though some have been known to have established communities in lower Germany,” Luna stated, nodding thoughtfully to herself.

The other four students blinked at Luna in surprise.

“There’s a companion species?” Hermione breathed, expression growing fascinated.

Harry knew this look. This was the beginning of a new obsession. Though, Harry thought, Hermione always has been a little obsessed when it comes to elves – to make the understatement of the century.

“I have to research this,” Hermione stated, standing up quickly.

“You’re welcome to anything you find here,” Harry answered quickly, gesturing to the expanse of bookshelves in the darkened library. “But just be careful. There’s a few nasty traps here and there.”

Hermione nodded, barely paying attention to Harry, and disappeared into the shelves. Ginny and Neville quickly fell into discussion as they considered the implications of Harry’s newfound creature status, swapping stories from their own pureblood heritage as they tried to find a way for Harry to get out of his bond to Voldemort.

Luna, on the other hand, simply smiled at Harry serenely and leant back into her chair, retreating to her own thoughts.

Harry felt the tight knot of worry in his chest loosen, a heavy weight caused by the fear of being rejected by his friends evaporating into the ether.

They cared so deeply for Harry and he felt himself well up though he fiercely supressed any tears, not wanted to worry his friends even more than he already had.

Harry stood to join Hermione in her research (and to protect her from the occasional cursed tome), the world suddenly a little bit brighter and his shoulders just a touch lighter.

Ginny burst into Harry’s bedroom at five in the morning three days into her arrival at Grimmauld Place, tears streaking down her ashen face. Harry’s eyes snapped open the moment she stepped through the threshold, his mind already lingering lightly on the surface of consciousness as he lucidly dreamed.

“Harry,” Ginny stated, voice cracking.

Harry flinched. There was one thing in the entire world that put Ginny in such a state and that was family.

“Who is it?” Harry asked, untangling himself from his sheets.

Ginny silently handed Harry a small charm in the shape of grandfather clock. In miniature writing on the tiny clock face, the name Ronald was pointed at Mortal Peril.

“Shite,” Harry hissed and handed the replica of the Weasley Clock back to the trembling girl, blindly pulling out on a pair of fitted jeans from his godfather’s wardrobe and hopping as he pulled up the pant legs. “Have you spoken to your parents yet?”

Ginny shook her head, seeming incapable of speaking lest she completely break down.

“Go to the owlery, it’s behind the old wooden door on the fourth floor. Send a letter to your mum and say that you’re fine. She’ll know you’re alright because of the clock, I know, but she’ll need to see your writing. Let her know that we’re going to figure out what’s happening and we’ll report back once we know more,” Harry quickly said as he pulled on his shoes and a heavy woollen coat.

Ginny nodded and raced out of the room. Harry briefly stopped, rubbing a hand across his face, taking a moment to collect himself before going to wake the others.

Ronald fucking Weasley, he thought to himself sourly. Of course.

“What on earth do we do?” Neville asked over a steaming cup of coffee, brown eyes wide and puffy with worry.

“Fuck if I know,” Ginny snapped, though her words were not taken offensively by the shy boy, who frowned sympathetically and laced his fingers through hers instead. Ginny was clearly fighting for self-control, refusing to have Kreacher return her to The Burrow and instead demanding to be part of the rescue crew, and she looked up worriedly at Neville’s touch.

“We know for sure that it is You-Know-Who?” Luna enquired softly, voice distant but serious.

Harry closed his eyes briefly and focused on the connection he shared with Voldemort. Without even needing to open the connection any further, he could simply taste the awful glee emanating from the Dark Lord.

Opening his eyes, Harry focused on Luna and reported solemnly, “Yes.”

A muscle jumped in Ginny’s jaw but instead of panicking further, she steadied herself with a deep breath and nodded. “What do we do?” Ginny demanded, going into strategy mode with a determined gleam in her eye.

“We have to find out where he’s being kept and either break him out or trade,” Harry replied. “Voldemort will want me, undoubtably, in exchange for Ron’s life and safety. But judging by the malicious glee alone I can feel from the fucker’s mind, I would say that he’s not going to honour any deal we make. The second he has me, I can guarantee he’ll kill the both of us and raze everything down within a five-mile radius just to be safe.”

“Fuck,” Ginny stated with raw emotion into the tense room, Luna nodding in agreement.

Hermione griped her laced hands until they turned white, eyes glazed as her mind whirred. In the eerie silence of the house in the early morning, occasionally interrupted by the creaking of the wooden bones and an unnerving shuffling or two, the group solemnly waited.

“Do you think the Order has plans?” Harry asked at last, breaking the tense silence.

“If they do, they won’t include us,” Hermione said blandly into the kitchen.

“They’d better,” Harry clipped, expression stormy. “They learnt what it meant last year to not include us in anything.”

“We shouldn’t run off this time,” Luna added, eyes wide. “If we’re going to do anything, it has to be in tandem with the Order.”

“I think we should go to The Burrow,” Neville added, wringing his wrists.

“Yeah,” Harry sighed. “You guys need to go to The Burrow. The last thing I could do to help would be to come with you, though. I’m assuming this whole situation is a ruse to get me to a new position to then attack.”

Ginny was gearing up to tell Harry off, but she was quickly cut off by Hermione.

“If anyone knows how to stage a rescue, it’s the Order,” Hermione said faintly. She looked up at Harry with unhappy eyes. “I think you’re right, that this is a baiting scheme. If you put yourself in a vulnerable location, I’d bet that he wouldn’t hesitate to hurt Ronald once he had you. The best thing you can do is stay hidden here and for as long as they don’t have you too, they’ll keep Ron hostage.”

Ginny deflated at Hermione’s words, hearing the truth through her strained voice.

Harry nodded and set up the floo, sending each one of his friends off to The Burrow after Ginny checked the coast was clear. An indecipherable feeling had begun to well in his chest as he watched his friends disappear and, at last alone in the kitchens with just Kreacher by his side, Harry realised it was a stark and helpless loneliness.

Harry found himself wandering the halls of the ancient house, restlessly wringing his wrists and feeling very much like a caged animal. He hated being stuck in here, with nowhere to go and impotently kept to the side – if only for everyone else’s safety. It felt much like what they had done to Sirius last year and Harry felt desperately sad for his godfather, who must have been horrified at the solitude after years of Azkaban.

At last, Harry settled on the velvet settee in the library once more, tucking his legs under him and a tugging a blanket over his cold frame. He tried to get through the stack of Hermione’s notes, the girl having sped read through the tomes he had slowly chipped through in the winter break with the alarming speed of a ravenous animal. The notes she wrote were in clear handwriting, but the thoughts were jumbled and harried; Hermione had made leaps of logic that Harry couldn’t explain but he trusted her method and tried to absorb the information.

At some point, Harry was reading Hermione’s notes and then suddenly, as if in the blink of an eye, he was somewhere else.

Harry was standing in the Death Chamber of the Ministry of Magic. Unlike his dreams from the year before, the chamber wasn’t perfectly tidy and untouched. There was evidence of a fight, scorch marks blackening the slate floor from wayward spells and splashes of blood staining the walls. Even the Veil, something Harry couldn’t bring himself to look at quite yet, swished lightly in a non-existent wind in his peripheral vision. The room was completely empty.

Voldemort had broken through his psyche, had used his harried composure to break through with raw, brutal force. And he was playing dirty, Harry realised with a frown. Harry capped his own anger, instead focusing on his surroundings through his peripheral vision and angling himself so his back was protected by a stone wall.

“Hello, Harry,” a saccharine, keening voice whispered in his ear.

Harry held completely still, eyes closing partially and instead focusing on his surroundings. He’s not next to you, he told himself firmly. He’s everywhere. Keep calm. Clear your mind.

“Hello,” Harry answered quietly after a lengthy pause. Part of Harry wanted to lash out, wanted to taunt the creature. But after the effects of last year’s events, Harry realised that unlike the way he acted, he did have things to lose that Voldemort would gladly take from him. 

The temperature of the chamber became frigid as Voldemort stepped through the air, appearing in the room with eloquence.

“You wanted my attention, now you have it,” Harry continued, wanting to keep this dream on his terms. Harry kept his eyes heavily lidden, not trusting that he wouldn’t overreact to any scene Voldemort had concocted to torture Harry in his demented mind.

“And all it took was a simpleton Weasley, yes,” Voldemort laughed, the high sound piercing. The monster had materialised few metres to Harry’s left next to the stone archway containing the Veil. Voldemort leant against the frame with causal amusement, as if completely unfearful of the fluttering portal to sure death. “How predicable you are, little boy.”

Harry inhaled and exhaled slowly. Voldemort did have Ron. Though he knew it instinctively, it was still horrid to hear it confirmed. A feeling of ugly, greasy rage bloomed in his stomach, spreading through his veins like a sickly disease.

“I propose a trade,” Harry grit out, the stress of the dream now beginning to wear on him. “Me, for Ron returned to his family safe and sound. That includes any harm, intentional or not.”

The silence in the chamber was deafening. Harry didn’t dare look up to Voldemort’s expression, knowing it would haunt him.

“You, for a blood traitor? Pricing yourself rather low, I see. I hear you don’t even like the brat anymore,” Voldemort then said, voice so casual that Harry could practically see the man inspecting his nails with disinterest in his mind’s eye.

“I don’t put prices on people lives like trinkets,” Harry then snarled, upper lip twitching in barely suppressed rage. “This isn’t something that I could even begin to negotiate. You have Ron, I’m going to exchange myself for his guaranteed passage to safety. I’m not going to fight about this.”

And then Voldemort was there, just in Harry’s personal space and Harry flinched back, eyes widening but refusing to look up, refusing to make eye contact.

The magic in the chamber became heavy, like it had in the Hospital Wing those few weeks ago. It was overbearing, as if gravity had increased and the air thicker. A thin, translucent hand appeared just under Harry’s chin, startling him, and it guided his face to look up despite his better judgement.

Harry felt his heart stop momentarily in his heart, the glowing red eyes of Voldemort a piercing sight in the gloom of the Department of Mysteries. Voldemort was so close, his fingers singeing Harry’s jaw and nearness petrifying Harry’s frame.

“You do not demand from Lord Voldemort,” Voldemort hissed, eyes alight with contempt. “You bow for Lord Voldemort.”

“Oh, shut up, you miserable wanker,” Harry said.

The reaction, as it had been in the Hospital Wing, was swift and merciless. A hand snapped around Harry’s neck as the taste of Voldemort’s dark magic became unbearable, sharp black nails digging into the flesh of Harry’s throat and cutting off Harry’s breath. Harry felt his eyes roll into the back of his head at the lash of vicious magic, his own blood singing out in response and overwhelming him.

“You will tell Lord Voldemort where you are,” the monster hissed in Parseltongue, the syllables elongated as he wove compulsion through his words. 

No no no no – Harry chanted in his mind, feeling himself warp and bend to Voldemort’s will. The war drum, that steady beating that he had come to associate with his creature inheritance, started up again in his mind.

“You will tell your mate the truth,” Voldemort continued, smug in a way that made Harry’s blood run cold.

Harry realised Voldemort had done this before, had probably done it to Regulus years before, because against all odds – it was working.

“Tw- twelve –” Harry gasped, hands clawing at Voldemort’s wrist as the monster held him down on his knees.

“Yes?” Voldemort encouraged, his own magic brutally battering Harry’s defences.

“Grimmauld Place,” Harry whined as the address was pulled from his lips. It didn’t matter if he didn’t give the rest of the location – the intent of the secret keeper revealing the address was sufficient enough. No, no, no, Harry sobbed in his mind, furious.

“Good boy Harry,” Voldemort continued, face contorting into a horrid mockery of glee. “I’ll see you soon.”

Harry awoke on the library settee in cold sweat just as a loud crack! sounded from the entrance hallway, shocking Harry to his core. Like the dream just moments before, the stench of a black magic user’s magic began to fill the lower level of the house, seeking every crevice and filling the air with its taint.

Kreacher, Harry thought to himself in panic, he’s in the kitchens.

Between himself and the kitchens was a very long hallway and the entrance hall, as well as a door leading off to the formal dining room.

Harry raced out of the room, wand in hand and feet scrambling to keep up with his disjointed thoughts.

Before Harry could encounter the monster, a high pitch scream of rage filled the air. Harry flinched as he skidded across the floor by the entrance to the dining room, face going ashen as Voldemort broke through a curio cabinet’s protective runes with horrifying ease and smashing his hand into the glass panel, pulling out Slytherin’s Locket from its cushion beside the stabbed diary.

“Where did you get this?” Voldemort hissed in wrathful Parseltongue, spinning around to Harry just as Kreacher appeared by Harry’s side. “You! You ungrateful, miserable little wretch! What did you do?” Voldemort screamed at Kreacher, his voice increasing in pitch and his wild magic lashing through the dining room with vengeance, causing a tunnel of wind to whip through the room and batter at the worn furniture.

Kreacher stepped in front of Harry defiantly, as brave as a lioness protecting her cub, as the young man continued staring at Voldemort with petrifying, mind blanking horror.

“You never allowed to be hurting another master,” Kreacher snarled lowly, baring his sharp little teeth.

Accio, Harry thought desperately, Accio accio accio!

“You fucking diseased little rat,” Voldemort snarled, advancing on Kreacher and a still-frozen Harry, inhuman face twisting into an alarming expression of insane rage. “I’ll skin you alive and throw you back into that cave, into the arms of your rotten corpse of a master and will laugh as you scream.”

Kreacher trembled as he raised his hand, magic beginning to glow in his palm as he stood his ground between Voldemort and Harry.

Accio! Harry screamed in his mind, only a slight widening of his eyes betraying his tumultuous thoughts. At the very last second, just as Voldemort cast a curse in the direction of a trembling Kreacher and Kreacher beginning to reciprocate with a spell of his own, Harry felt the band of magic in his command snap as his summoning obeyed.

Harry dropped to the ground like a stone as Voldemort’s curse collided with Kreacher’s little frame, clutching the house elf close his torso on the worn floor of the dining room. In the moment after Harry collapsed, the stolen basilisk fang flung through the space he had just been occupying a brief second before and continued whistling through the air with the speed of an arrow.

With a sickly crunch, Harry watched wide eyed as the fang sunk into a bony, thin chest. Voldemort was pushed back from his approach, stumbling as he reeled upon the impact of the fang. Eyes the shade of fiendfyre flickered down in sudden surprise, as if so shocked by the impact that the pain had not yet hit, but rather registering merely like an annoying bee sting. Then Voldemort’s skeletal hands wrapped around the bone and pulled instinctively, releasing the last of the basilisk’s venom through his already blackening web of veins as blood blossomed on his chest like a blushing flower.

“You,” Voldemort said in Parseltongue, words cutting off and his shallow breathing began to gurgle and bubble as blood filled his lungs. “You venomous little bitch.”

Harry scrambled backwards as the fang clattered to the floor, holding Kreacher close and eyes wide in terror.

Voldemort swayed briefly, as if he were going to chase after Harry’s scrambling retreat, but instead he reared back and clenched the locket his in hand even tighter. The piercing glare of Voldemort bore into Harry’s skull as lines of black poison spread up his thin neck, the monster’s fury eclipsed by sudden agony, and then he was gone – the loud crack of apparition shocking and unexpected.

Voldemort took the locket, Harry thought numbly, still trembling on the floor and holding Kreacher close to his chest. And I killed him. Harry blankly stared at where those horrid eyes had occupied the room not seconds before, trapped in the memory.

“He’s dead,” Harry croaked. Despite the words sounding like victory, they tasted like ash. His soul felt exhausted, as if worn thin and beginning to crumble under the abuse Harry had been put through in the last few hours.

Kreacher’s body began to seize unexpectedly and Harry snapped from his daze, eyes widening as the elf began to writhe under the agony of Voldemort’s curse. Harry quickly laid the elf down on his back quickly and pressed his spread hands over the little elf’s chest, the creature’s back arching violently as his large eyes rolled into the back of his head.

“Kreacher, no – no, no, no,” Harry sobbed, feeling his magic lash out and pierce the elf’s body as his mind began to collapse in horror. Deep within that little frame was a ferocious, crackling curse that tasted like ravaging disease. Harry felt that single minded control that had overtaken him by Lavender’s bedside now pull him once more, his vision tunnelling and magic hooking onto the curse.

Harry felt tears flow down his face, rapidly dripping onto Kreacher’s now limp body as he worked. Corralling and withdrawing the curse felt like an impossible task, like trying to reverse an ocean wave or capture smoke with his fingers. But Harry kept pulling, kept sucking on the venomous curse and eventually, with every ounce of strength left in his core, Harry felt the last wisps of the disease pull out of Kreacher’s shallowly breathing chest and into Harry’s burnt fingertips.

Harry fell backwards with a weak cry, his trembling fingers now black and nails blue, feeling his own magic fight to metabolise and digest the curse. He kept watching Kreacher avidly, body shaking like a leaf, until suddenly Kreacher inhaled sharply and began to cough, turning over onto his side and bracing himself against the worn floorboards.

With a near silent laugh of relief, Harry finally let himself relax and collapsed onto the dining room floor, falling into unconsciousness.

Wiltshire, England

“Wear this,” Voldemort wheezed as he apparated into a candlelit study in Malfoy Manor. Lucius Malfoy leapt to his feet at the sight of the Dark Lord stumbling into his private office, the Dark Lord holding fluttering hands against his thin upper body, lungs crackling as they filled with liquid and the dark wizard hacking up globs of coagulated black blood onto his priceless Persian rug.

Lucius quickly took the locket from Voldemort’s outstretched hand and pulled the gold chain over his head, reaching out to steady the Dark Lord by gripping his forearms and leading the violently ill man to sit on a nearby ottoman.

“Do not take it off,” Voldemort hissed, bracing himself against Lucius’ side. Dark blood dripped sluggishly from the open wound on his chest and from the tear ducts of his blazing eyes. “I will be gone for a few weeks. Get Severus immediately and tell him what has happened. Everything continues as planned. I will know if you take this locket off and I will be very displeased,” Voldemort hissed in threat. “You will not disobey as you did with my book. This is your last chance, Lucius.”

Lucius paled dramatically, dipping his head in an obedient, regal nod.

Voldemort took a final shuddering breath and then he collapsed. The pale, intimidating vessel of Lord Voldemort shrivelled and its heart stopped, the convulsing body stilling in death as the blackened blood coursing through his veins shone in eerily contrast on the man’s translucent flesh.

Lucius stared at Voldemort in horror, stepping back at the sight of the Dark Lord dead in his own house. It certainly looked incriminating. He raised the heavy, gaudy bauble closer to his eyes, inspecting the artefact. Clearly, whatever it was, it was important enough for Voldemort to entrust (well, threaten) him to protect with his dying breath.

But with this locket, Lucius can say that Voldemort chose him. And his Lord did, in a loose meaning of the word. The Dark Lord pulled him from Azkaban even after failing at the Department of Secrets; his Lord brought him home to his wife and child with mercy unexpected. Lucius knows Voldemort will not be gone for long. After all, his Lord has an endless number of fail-safes against his own death; one must, with enemies such as his. And Lucius knows it won’t take thirteen years to resurrect his Lord this time. Lucius doubts it will take three months. This is his last opportunity to prove himself, to show that he is worth the attentions and respect of Lord Voldemort.

Head held high, Lucius sidestepped Voldemort’s cooling body and quickly made his way to his floo, the locket a worthy weight on his chest. He had a man to speak to about body preserving potions.

Chapter Text

Harry awoke slowly to a dim, unfamiliar room. His eyes adjusted in the gloom and he realised with a sluggish mind that he had passed out on a sofa in the library.

He still felt horrid, as if his very being protested being alive. After awakening from his position on the dining room floor, Harry discovered both himself and Kreacher had been there for hours, unconscious and cold. Harry had moved Kreacher to the library, placing the elf’s prone frame on a conjured cot in front of the fire. He had stayed with Kreacher all night, stroking the elf’s wrinkled brow and whispering comforting assurances as Kreacher moaned and cringed through night terrors.

With cautious movements, Harry pulled himself up and glanced at the small clock on the far wall; it read 12:52 and, judging by the dim light trying to filter by the drawn velvet curtains, that was noon rather than midnight. Harry stretched and made his way to Regulus’ rooms after quickly checking Kreacher was still resting peacefully. Harry had found himself gravitating more towards to Regulus’ room lately, finding his adoptive father’s rooms oddly comforting. Harry showered off the stench of sweat and rested his head against a tile wall, letting the hot water chase off the chill in his bones.

Harry sorted his way through Regulus’ old clothes and as he was dressing in an outfit, Harry noticed a thick wall of curtains tucked in an alcove on the far side of the bedroom. He pulled back the curtains and secured them on their holdbacks.

The photo that had been hidden behind the two heavy velvet curtains was an image of a grand estate, though it did look rather worn and unattended. It seemed odd that the proud Black family would take a photo and display an estate that was in such disrepair. Then Harry noticed something peculiar – a tree in the photo moved slightly, as if swaying in the wind. A bird flew by the picture. It wasn’t odd that it was moving, as all wizarding photos did, but this photo was different.

It's in real time, Harry realised with wide eyes. The estate is worn down because no one has lived nor taken care of it in years.

Harry felt a small hint of hope blossom in his stomach. If this house was under the protection of the Fidelius Charm as well, Harry should be able to transfer the protection of Secret Keeper to himself and they would have more room to organise themselves. It wouldn’t hurt to have another base of operation as well, making it easier to move across the country without being seen. Also, Harry didn’t know when Voldemort was to come back; it could be days or months. All Harry knew for sure was that he was living in Grimmauld Place on borrowed time.

Buttoning up his duffle coat, Harry shook himself from his morose thoughts and instead went to a room he hadn’t entered for months prior to Voldemort’s unexpected arrival the night before – the dining chamber.

In the room was a large, shattered curio cabinet and, within that curio cabinet, was the diary of Tom Riddle sitting on a velvet cushion. There was a line of empty cushions, awaiting their trophy. This curio cabinet had once held a set of rather horrifically cursed dinnerplates, so was etched with every protective rune under the sun. It was something of a burglar trap – should a person open the cabinet and take its wares, they would soon find they had left the house with something much worse than a few cursed trinkets and rare jewels.

Kreacher was the only one alive who knew how to open the cabinet while neutralising its wares (short of blowing it to smithereens and unleashing the internal curse) and had shown Harry – it took a personalised spell designed by a long dead Matriarch of the family. Harry cast the spell carefully, running his finger down the side of the wooden side panel as he did so in case there was any residual magic clinging to the bones of the cabinet. The curio cabinet accepted the spell and touch like a key and the front door gently clicked open, despite the large gaping hole in the face of its glass window.

Not twenty-four hours ago, the curio cabinet held two horcruxes. Now, it held one. Harry felt frustration well up inside his chest. He felt like he was going backward. But the container holding Voldemort had been destroyed, so at least they had bought themselves some time to find the other horcruxes. Harry does not know how many horcruxes there are, but Dumbledore has hinted that Slughorn most probably knows.

Harry suddenly recalled that he was supposed to be attempting to gain a memory from Slughorn and exhaled a cynical laugh. Under normal circumstances, Harry would never allow himself to be alone in the same room as Slughorn. Defence progeny or not, Harry did not feel comfortable hanging out around the slimy, underhanded Potions Master. 

Harry reached into the curio cabinet and pulled out the shredded corpse of the diary, bringing it close to inspect the damaged pages. It was no surprise Voldemort didn’t notice the book; it had been thoroughly water damaged and shredded from the poisonous fang, barely recognisable to the proud, glossy leather-bound book it had once been. While the whole concept of the horcruxes was disgusting, to say the least, part of Harry was impressed by the magic Voldemort had managed at such a young age, the same as himself.

Harry put the diary back and closed the curio cabinet. The ring on Dumbledore’s finger, Slytherin’s locket, and a diary. That left an unknown number of other horcruxes left to locate and destroy.

Harry felt briefly overwhelmed at the idea.

Where on earth where was he to even begin?

Wiltshire, England

Lucius coughed into a monogrammed satin handkerchief, feeling a bead of sweat drip down his brow. Pulling the square back, he was briefly alarmed to see a smattering of blood in the crushed fabric. Shaking his head dismissively, he tucked the handkerchief back into his coat and continued on his way.

Harry returned to Hogwarts only once Kreacher was given a clean bill of health. The elf had been rather fussy and annoyed with Harry’s insistence on returning, but with Voldemort gone (or, as Kreacher referred to him as, that bad man) there was little reason to halt his education for the time being. Kreacher certainly protested as the little thing loathed Dumbledore with a near demonic hatred, but Harry knew he needed to return to Hogwarts - for his friends, for his education, to continue working with Dumbledore, to find a new basilisk fang; the reasons were endless. Either way, the little creature was more affectionate than late, Harry accepting the painfully tight leg-hugs as Kreacher’s way of dealing with the attack.

Harry had also questioned Kreacher about the photo in Regulus’ room and discovered it was indeed in his inheritance – Manor Black, as it was aptly named, was an estate actually not far from Wiltshire, where the Malfoy Manor was located (at least, according to Kreacher). This had both the disadvantage of being extremely close to where Harry assumes Voldemort’s base of operation is, and the added benefit of Harry being able to get close to Voldemort’s hideout without being too obvious.

Harry and Kreacher decided to transfer the Manor’s secret keeper status to Harry, but at Easter when both Harry and Kreacher had fully recovered from the house invasion; it would take both their combined efforts to complete the complex spellwork. At least the house couldn’t be entered by anyone without Harry’s permission and he figured if the house looked so abandoned, clearly no one had been squatting in it for the time being. The last thing Harry wanted was to stumble upon Bellatrix LeStrange sniffing around the property gates.

It was two days to the start of term and Harry was glad that he got at least a day to settle back into his dorm before the other students returned; only Dean had remained over the break and he smiled wanly at the boy. While his relationship with his roommates wasn’t exactly the best, Harry found that it was easier to be polite and distant. He’d been burned one too many times by Dean, Seamus and Ron to really speak to them anymore and it seemed the feeling was mutual. Harry and Neville had moved to the furthest side of the room and kept up a curtain for privacy; Dean, Seamus and Ron kept to their side and to a much later schedule than Harry and Neville, so it seemed the group never really ran into one another.

Harry frowned as he sat on his bed, thinking about Ron. In the end, Ron still hadn’t been found. Ginny’s letters indicated that her brother had not been seen from since his disappearance on the New Year, which was odd in of itself. The Death Eaters were always quick to gloat when they had one of the Order’s people, so the radio silence was almost more ominous than if Lucius Malfoy personally delivered a lock of Ron’s hair to a sobbing Mrs Weasley.

Harry laid back in his four-poster bed and realised with a groan that he still had yet to speak to Slughorn. Godric, he thought to himself as he rubbed the heels of his palms into his eyes. That’s going to be shitshow. Well, might as well get it over with.

Unsurprisingly, Slughorn had all the time in the world for Harry Potter-Black.

“Harry, m’boy!” The large man boomed, spittle spraying Harry’s cheek. Harry refrained from flinching and wiping it off his face.

“Professor,” Harry replied respectfully, allowing the professor to herd him into the personal office and sat on an overly plush chair facing the professor’s desk.

“May I tempt you with a slice of crystalised ginger? I do find I prefer the pineapple kind better, but we mustn’t look a gifted horse in the mouth, I’m afraid,” Slughorn chuckled. “The students do love giving me presents, you see. I saw that you were unable to attend my little Christmas get together, which really is understandable with your busy schedule; I do hope you’ll attend my next get together for Valentines, though. It would certainly be disappointing if we find an entire year pass us by without at least one social event with us two popular scholars there to entertain the crowds!” Slughorn began chortling once more and pressed a slice of ginger into his mouth, shaking the ornate box of sweets in Harry’s direction.

Clenching his jaw to withhold his instinctual reaction of wanting to tell the professor exactly where he could stick that box, Harry instead smiled tightly at the professor’s blathering and shook his head, waving the box down politely.

“My sincere apologies for missing that party, unfortunately I was terribly ill; winter flu and all. Professor, I was hoping you would be able to help me with something,” Harry replied softly, eyes downcast, riding the coattails of his pureblood etiquette training to maintain propriety. “I would love to have a drink with you, actually. I’m not seventeen until July this year, but I could go for a butterbeer. Could I tempt you with a sherry in Hogsmeade?”

Slughorn looked like someone had just handed him a million-galleon check and a free unicorn. Harry maintained his polite smile, squashing the twitch that threatened to break his façade at the greedy gleam in Slughorn’s eye.

“I would certainly be delighted to share a drink, m’boy. Why, at my age, sixteen was the legal drinking age and I must disagree with this new regulation not allowing your generation to have a stiff drink, especially in these trying times. Come, we’ll get ourselves a private booth at The Three Broomsticks,” Slughorn demanded, raising from his seat and bustling to the floo. “Rosmerta is an old pupil, you see.”

With speed surprising for his size, the professor had collected his personal items, thrown a pinch of powder into his fireplace, and disappeared into green flames with a belted, “The Three Broomsticks Inn!”.

Harry sighed deeply, looked to the heavens for support, and followed.

Between a combination of seeker reflexes, sleight of hand, and a few well-placed galleons to the bemused bar maid, Harry managed to keep the drinks flowing for Professor Slughorn while pretending to keep up with his glass of firewhiskey. Four hours into their session in the pub, the pair had bemoaned Dumbledore’s interfering personality, bonded over their equal dislike of Snape, shared dirty jokes, and Harry had only sipped half a glass of firewhiskey in total by the time Slughorn was deep within a rant about the change in the quality of student, on his nth glass of sherry, and unknowingly one of eyes had begun to droop heavily.

“And I must say that I do not see as much promise as I used to, I tell you that!” Slughorn raved, waving his sherry glass. Harry laughed and swayed, acting tipsy so he could dodge the splash of the sticky liquid caused by Slughorn’s gesturing hand. “Though I must say, there are a few notables! Your mother, for one. Oh, what a woman,” Slughorn sighed, leaning his chin on his hand, elbow digging into the table of their private booth. There was an uncomfortable beat of silence as Slughorn was lost in his thoughts. “But we shan’t forget Miss Granger!” Slughorn then boomed, becoming animated and he held his hands to the sky as if thanking the gods for Hermione Granger.

Harry took this opportunity to slyly replace Slughorn’s nearly empty glass of sherry with a full one and pretended to take a sip of his own, adding an empty tumbler to the table to give the appearance of having finished yet another glass.

The bar maid was going to get a spectacular tip, Harry decided.

“Hermione really is incredible,” Harry agreed, slurring his words just so. Harry has only been drunk once back in fourth year after beating that damned dragon in the Triwizard Tournament, though he has had a fair amount of experience watching his fellow housemates get trashed after Quidditch games. He tries his best to replicate how he felt, but at this point he’s not sure if his acting even matters – Slughorn is so plastered, Harry’s not sure if the man would even be able to stand.

“Speaking of amazing students,” Harry then said quietly, leaning close to Slughorn and blinking slowly. “Is it really true that you taught Tom Riddle?”

Slughorn stilled immediately, frown evident even past his massive walrus moustache. “Ah yes, Tom Riddle. Now that is a story to tell,” Slughorn said, though his sombre tone was ruined by a loud hiccup. “I really mustn’t say a thing.”

Harry shrugged. “I just thought it cool that you taught Riddle everything he knows about Potions. Horrible person or not, rumour says he was a genius at Potions and I figured he must have learned just so much from you, being a Potions Master and all,” Harry replied, taking a genuine sip of his whiskey. He was certainly going to need it to keep up all the compliments.

Slughorn positively preened, twirling his moustache. He then promptly broke his brief claim of confidentiality, swelling and spilling like an overflowing fjord. “Oh, it was just wonderful being his teacher, I must tell you. I hardly had to explain himself, the boy was so clever! He just absorbed information quicker than a sponge and he left his classmates in the dust. I swear, that boy had so much potential. He could have gone into any field he wished! Bah, what a waste of talent, becoming a Dark Lord,” Slughorn scoffed, flicking his hand in distaste. “And to do so just after Gellert was taken down by Albus; can you believe the gall?” Slughorn asked rhetorically, eyes widening as he gave Harry an unimpressed stare. “I tell you, that boy may have been the brightest student I have ever taught, but never trust a person with a god complex, I tell you.”

Looking up at Slughorn through thick eyelashes as the professor smugly tutted over his sherry, Harry silently agreed with his statement. God complex, indeed.

“Did you ever see any sign of what he was planning?” Harry enquired, leaning forward and pressing with a gossipy tone, “Because I heard that he gave absolutely no hint of becoming You Know Who, but people always remember things differently – hindsight is twenty-twenty, after all.”

Slughorn nodded emphatically. “Oh, people have said all sorts of things since he rose! Though, mind you, most people don’t know the real identity of You Know Who. But, oh! The stories people would spin. I put them in their place, and rightfully so, when I heard people tell tall tales,” Slughorn sniffed. He downed the rest of his sherry. “Shall we wrap up?”

“I am having just such a lovely time,” Harry answered softly, pressing an open hand against Slughorn’s forearm. Harry felt something slimy uncurl in his chest, hating the way that Slughorn glanced at the hand on his arm and then leeringly up to Harry. “Would you mind staying for another?”

“Wouldn’t hurt, m’boy, wouldn’t hurt!” Slughorn chuckled, patting Harry’s hand. “Bar keep!” He shouted, “Another round!”

Harry smiled and withdrew his hand, his tendons cramping from the strain of not wiping his palm on his pant leg. It felt diseased.

“So, tell me something interesting. Something you’ve never told anyone before or Dumbledore,” Harry quipped in a flirty tone. “Something horrible or something completely out of character. I want to know the inner workings of Horace Slughorn.”

Slughorn’s ruddy cheeks burnt a darker hue and he laughed nervously, quickly taking his drinks from the bar maid as she came to deliver new glasses and collect the old. She glanced at Harry, concern evident in her eyes, but he gave her an appeasing smiled and quickly handed her his half-empty glass while taking the new whiskey. She smiled humourlessly and left. Harry realised he was going to have to wrap this up quickly, lest the bar maid decide that she would need to summon another professor to bring Slughorn back.

“Something interesting. Something horrible. Hmm, you’ve got me,” Slughorn answered, tapping his chin thoughtfully.

“Something morbid, then. Something about Tom Riddle,” Harry teased, leaning ever closer to Slughorn.

“Well…” Slughorn began slowly before trailing off. There was a haunted look in his eye and Harry knew in that moment that Slughorn was on his hook. He smiled charmingly, encouragingly at Slughorn and batted his eyes a few times for emphasis. Harry wasn’t sure if it would work but he’d seen girls do such a thing and figured while his dignity was shot to hell, he might as well totally commit.

“Tom Riddle once came to me,” Slughorn said, trying to sound mysterious but clearly still holding deep terror over this particular memory. “He asked me if it was possible to become… Immortal.”

Harry gasped. “He asked you about that? I know that he’s done something to keep coming back, but he must have really trusted you to ask such a thing,” he pressed, really laying it on thick. Come on, you old bastard. Spit it out.

Slughorn nodded gravely, closing his eyes theatrically. “And I, in my youth and folly, believed him to be just a scholarly boy.” Bullshit, you old walrus, Harry thought darkly, while nodding with eyes wide, you enjoyed the attention. “And he asked if he were able to attain… Well, seven methods of being immortal.”

Harry felt his heart stop for a brief moment. Seven. His heart then jumpstarted with a vengeance and his pulse began to hammer loudly in his ear.

“Oh, wow. What did you tell him?” Harry breathed, crossing his arms over the tabletop to hide his trembling hands.

“I told him such a thing was preposterous!” Slughorn burst out, waving his sherry glass once more. “Seven times! I mean – really! What absolute madness! I tell you, for all the smarts that boy had, he was awfully contrarian, you know.”

Harry nodded sagely. “I hear the smartest people lack the most common sense,” he stated snippily in the same tone Aunt Petunia used when smearing the reputation of unapproved neighbours.

Slughorn looked at Harry with such relief in that moment, as if a great weight had been pulled off his chest. “But you mustn’t say anything to anyone about this, you know, m’boy? This will be our little secret,” Slughorn whispered, leaning closer to Harry over the table.

“Oh, of course, Professor,” Harry agreed. He reached forward with his forefinger and tapped Slughorn’s nose flirtatiously. “Our little secret. Obliviate.” A beam of light shot from Harry’s finger and leapt across the short distance to Slughorn’s forehead, the red spell washing over his face like a wave and sinking into his skull in an instant.

Slughorn blinked at Harry with a brief look of shock, as if slapped. Then his eyes became unfocused and face slack.

“Are you alright, Professor?” Harry asked worriedly, clasping his hands on Slughorn’s forearms over the sticky timber tabletop. “I was just asking you if you would be willing to stay a little longer and you just stopped talking!”

Slughorn blinked at Harry slowly, mouth agape. “Oh, my, that’s right! No, no, m’boy, I’ve had a sherry too many, it appears! Well, well, we really must be off. May I tempt you with a nightcap?” Slughorn then asked, a sly look overtaking his features and eyes glinting.

Had Harry experienced even a modicum of guilt over obliviating a professor, he would have surely felt it evaporate at the predatory expression on Slughorn’s face.

“Oh, Professor,” Harry laughed softly. “While I would like that very much, I think it’s probably best I went to bed. I think I may have a bit of trouble standing.”

“Of course, of course,” Slughorn agreed quickly with authoritative resolve, as if he had not just propositioned what he believed to be a drunk and vulnerable underage student.

Harry wondered what Riddle had thought of this obscene mess of a person.

“But would you mind accompanying me to the floo? I may need to go straight to the Gryffindor Common Rooms if I ever wanted a chance of making it to bed!” Harry laughed jokingly.

“It would be my pleasure,” Slughorn crooned, slowly lugging himself to his feet and steadying his sway by gripping the table edge. Harry took the man’s outstretched arm with a phony sway of his own and he downed the last of his firewhiskey, knowing he would need the extra numbness to be able to live with himself after tonight.

Slughorn did indeed accompany Harry to The Three Broomsticks’ floo and provided Harry the password to floo directly to the Common Rooms. Turning to the large, heaving man, Harry forced himself to smile one last time.

“We really must do this again, Professor. I’ve just had such a delightful time,” Harry simpered.

Slughorn bowed deeply and saw Harry off.

Once Harry stepped out of the floo and into the warmth of the Gryffindor Common Rooms, the grandfather clock in the far corner of the room ticking steadily closer to one in the morning, Harry finally allowed himself to violently shudder.

“Godric,” Harry hissed to himself, jumping up the stairs two at a time and quickly making his way to the bathrooms to take a long, deep shower. Though, unfortunately, part of Harry knew that no matter how much hot water he used, he wouldn’t be able to wash off the slimy feeling of Slughorn’s stare.

As he stood in the spray of the shower, eternally grateful that the Sixth Year boy’s dorm room was empty save for a loudly snoring Dean, Harry let himself think about the information he had gathered.

Seven horcruxes. And Harry’s not even sure if that includes himself, seeing as the monster didn’t seem to know what Harry was until he let the cat slip the bag in the Hospital Wing.

Seven.

Merlin help him.

Wiltshire, England

Lucius Malfoy twitched, his face jerking to the left as his muscles spasmed. His fingers coiled inward, manicured nails digging into his palms.

He felt like screaming or crying or ripping off his face or something.

Instead, he smiled blandly at his wife and took another bite of his steak.

Before Harry knew it, the school term was in full swing and everything had gotten back to normal. Well, as normal as Harry’s life could possibly could be.

Harry began to notice a few students giving him odd looks, occasionally glancing up over his morning meal and seeing a seventh year in Ravenclaw staring at him blankly or a young student in Hufflepuff slack-jawed and drooling.

It was becoming… Disturbing. Luckily, though, Malfoy seemed to be completely distracted with something else, as his attentions were very rarely on Harry like they had been in the first term.

Thankfully, Hermione (as was her fashion) came to the rescue with a solid, if not alarming, explanation. Hermione charmed their summoning galleons to glow warm just before lunch began on the fourth week back to classes and Harry quickly made his way to the Room of Requirement just after his Charms course ended. It took him a bit longer than expected, because a few students kept bumping into him and, at one point, Harry was fairly sure someone tried to knock him over so that they could pick him up. Thanking his lucky stars for his Seeker reflexes, Harry managed to neatly dodge all attempts, but it made him nearly five minutes late.

Harry entered the Room of Requirement to see he was the last one there, Neville, Ginny, Luna, and Hermione all seated around the crackling circular firepit in the centre of the room. He quickly made his way to the last empty chair, smiling at his friends in greeting. He gratefully went for the plate of sandwiches sitting on the ledge of the firepit, ravenous.

Hermione wasted no time in friendly greetings, instead launching straight into discussion. “So, everyone. I’ve just completed the majority of my research on the Dökkálfar using the Black and Hogwarts libraries and I thought I should probably tell you straight away, as you’ll start to be noticing some… Odd behaviours,” Hermione stated, looking directly at Harry.

Harry frowned at Hermione’s words. “I’ve noticed that some of the students I’ve never even spoken to or seen have been behaving a bit weirdly, yes,” he replied slowly.

Hermione nodded curtly, as if this confirmed all of her suspicions. “For a while, the Dökkálfar did indeed mate with wizarding kind and quite a few pureblood families still carry a considerable inheritance from the dark elves. Though it is not an active gene, per se, in most children these days. However, Harry, because your blood carries what Kreacher calls ‘the Curse’, you are basically a… Signal,” Hermione said awkwardly.

Harry blinked at Hermione blankly, sandwich forgotten in his hand.

“Well, not so much a signal,” Hermione amended. “You’re like a beacon to the other students with dormant Dökkálfar blood. I think that’s why Malfoy behaved the way he did – normally he wouldn’t be attracted to someone the way he was to you, except you’re somewhat of an ignition point and his blood reached out to you. Apparently the Dökkálfar aren’t particular about what kind of gender their mate is, as long as they are strong in black magic. The Dökkálfar also have a strong heritage of blood adoption, so if two women or two men became mates, it really wouldn’t affect their family lines.”

Harry blanched at Hermione’s clinical reiteration of her research, blinking rapidly as his thoughts caught up with what she was saying.

“That all sounds rather animalistic,” Ginny said, frowning.

“Oh, it really is,” Hermione sighed, rubbing her forehead with her palm. “Dökkálfar mating rituals are very much based in animalistic behaviours. Dökkálfar have generally one of two ‘genders’, per se. Harry is something akin to a Submissive Dökkálfar, which is generally the more maternal and feminine based, though certainly dangerous in its own right. Similar to dragons; you certainly wouldn’t call a submissive or female dragon friendly. Though unlike other magical breeds with the same social structure, submissive Dökkálfar men do not have the ability to carry children and it isn’t exactly a requirement to be feminine, though is seems fairly common.” Hermione said all of this with rapid speed, barely giving Harry time to gape.

“And the other gender?” Neville prompted, eyes wide and a light blush on his cheeks.

“Well, this is basically the other side of the coin. Alpha Dökkálfar are what we would normally refer to as a dominant male. I assume Malfoy fits into this side, as he was drawn to Harry. While the alpha group generally take the role of the traditional male, they can be both men and women. And, oddly enough, while they are the instigators of relationships, it’s the submissive group that pulls the alpha group in with signalling magic,” Hermione ended, looking a little put out.

“So what the hell is happening now?” Harry asked, brows drawn. “I wasn’t ‘putting out’ this vibe at the beginning of the school year, was I? Why has this only started now?”

“You smelt of Draco,” Luna replied calmly, her own opalescent eyes glittering in the firelight. “I could smell it. As so aptly put by Hermione, I most likely fit in the Submissive Ljósálfr category. I won’t know for sure, though, until I turn sixteen, which is the common age of presenting for my kind and rather akin to puberty. But I could smell Draco on Harry nearly a mile away at the beginning of the school year,” Luna ended dreamily.

Harry felt a white-hot blush race up his neck. “So you’re saying there’s a percentage of the school that knows I pashed Draco Malfoy on the train to Hogwarts?” He blurted out.

“Oh, yes. But the scent marking would have kept the others at bay. Now that you’re scentless, the other students will see you as available. They wouldn’t actively be pursuing a Dökkálfar mate, as most of the students don’t have enough high elf blood for it to run their instincts. But a Submissive Dökkálfar just wandering around the school, putting out all kinds of pheromones? I’m surprised Draco isn’t fighting harder for you, as would be his instinct but perhaps he has more issues to deal with. I imagine there’s a bit of stress at home,” Luna replied breezily, shrugging.

“Merlin, can you imagine the shit-show that was Malfoy Manor?” Ginny asked, breaking the tension minutely by startling a laugh out of the group. “You Know Who shows up, massive hole in his chest, and dies. They must have been totally freaking out.”

Harry had told his friends early on in the term what had happened after they left Grimmauld Place and, while they had been stunned, Ginny’s laughter at the time had helped ease the strain. Now, though, Harry barely registered Ginny’s words.

Hermione nodded and followed up with, “Though I’m sure the Death Eaters learned their lesson from last time when his followers who thought he wouldn’t return bailed. They’re surely waiting for his resurrection, though probably running around like headless chickens without someone in control.”

“I’ll keep a closer eye on Malfoy,” Harry stated, looking into the fire and putting down his half-eaten sandwich, suddenly not hungry. “I think he’s up to something. Voldemort gave him a task, something to do with a wardrobe. I need to figure out what it is, seeing as it may lead us to Voldemort’s other soul pieces.”

“Do you think You Know Who would entrust a soul piece to Malfoy?” Neville asked in surprise.

“Well, he trusted the damned diary to Malfoy Senior,” Ginny muttered darkly. “And look how that turned out. The idiot got the book destroyed. I wonder if Riddle would chance it again.”

Harry blinked at Ginny in surprise. “I bet the locket is at Malfoy Manor. I just found out that I’m an owner of an estate just outside of Wiltshire, not too far from the Malfoy estate.” At Hermione’s scandalised expression, Harry quickly elaborated. “I’m not exactly suggesting we go up and knock on the door. But if we come up with a way to get into the house while their defences are down, we may have a chance to get it back.”

“Oh Godric,” Ginny groaned, leaning her head back against her chair. “You’re going to have to seduce Draco Malfoy.”

Harry stared at the girl in shock, floundering for words.

“No,” Hermione barked firmly, tone brooking no room for argument. “We don’t prostitute Harry out. We’ll figure out another way.”

Harry turned to the brunette, wondering what she would say if he’d seen his performance with Slughorn. Dumbledore seemed to have no issue using Harry as jailbait for the slimy professor.

“Speaking of which,” Harry replied, lacing his fingers together. “There’s seven horcruxes. At least. We’re most likely looking at eight with me included.” Harry hadn’t had a chance to mention this to his friends yet, but now seemed as good a time as any.

Ginny inhaled sharply, clearly recalling the horror of the diary horcrux multiplied by seven, while even Luna flinched at the thought. Neville and Hermione shifted uncomfortably in their chairs, frowning at one another.

“That’s… Absolutely disgusting,” Ginny breathed.

“So, we suspect the ring on Dumbledore’s finger,” Hermione said into the uncomfortable silence, trying to bustle the conversation along into professional territory. “And we know of the locket and the diary. And you, though we agree you were probably an accidental horcrux. So that leaves four other pieces. With V-Voldemort gone,” the girl stuttered over the name, face alight with determination, “That gives us some time to figure out what they are. Harry, you need to keep working with Dumbledore. You need to get him to speed along the lessons. I don’t think it’s safe for you to be here for much longer, especially with your pheromones going crazy. And we’re going to need a couple more basilisk fangs to cover our bases.”

Harry nodded, looking down at the fire once more. He’d have to leave Hogwarts soon. The thought left him feeling cold and distant; Hogwarts had always been his safe place and for him to have to leave it felt chilling.

“Papa has a few suppression potion recipes,” Luna added helpfully. “We spoke of it over the winter break after I realised Draco’s scent on you had all but diminished.”

“Great,” Hermione added, smiling at the blonde girl. “Get those potions recipes, I’ll start on them immediately. We need everything we can use to protect Harry until at least he gets as much information about the horcruxes as he can from Dumbledore. Then we’re both dropping out.”

At Hermione’s shocking statement, Harry’s head snapped to Hermione. “Are you kidding me? That means you’ll never graduate,” Harry asked, stunned to his core.

“Graduation won’t mean anything if we’re all dead, Harry,” Hermione deadpanned, while pointedly ignoring the various looks of surprise in the group. “Besides, there’s no way in the world that I’m letting you wander off on your own to look for heavily warded and most likely lethal bits of Voldemort’s soul. Are you forgetting who got you through the potions trial during our adventure in first year? You wouldn’t make it two minutes without me,” Hermione teased.  

Harry took Hermione’s hand and smiled at his close friend, feeling genuine affection for the girl wash over him.

“I’ve been thinking on this for a while,” Hermione then continued, frowning as her tone became sombre. “And I think we should all take an Unbreakable Vow to keep this information secret. I do believe that you’d never reveal anything intentionally,” Hermione quickly said as Ginny geared up to argue with her, “But there are worse things at play here. If someone uses Legilimency on you – well, none of us are up to the level of Dumbledore or Snape by any means. The only way around that, other than for all of us somehow miraculously becoming Occlumency Masters in a few days’ time, is an Unbreakable Vow.”

Ginny visibly deflated from her earlier offense, nodding to acknowledge the veracity of Hermione’s words.

“Someone is going to have to be the caster and someone as the controller of the information,” Neville contributed suddenly, looking around at the others unsurely.

“If Hermione casts the spell, I can act as the person that gives permission to allow you to talk if you have to,” Harry offered. “This way, if you need to share the information with someone outside the group, you can ask me. It would probably end really poorly if we vowed to never be able to discuss this ever again with anyone outside the group.”

Hermione nodded vigorously. “We have to make sure to give one another an out, just in case,” she said. “We’re in this together, but if any of us ever want to get out – well, we can agree to release the person from the Unbreakable Vow on the provision of agreeing to be Obliviated. It’s not a perfect plan, but no one has to be here that doesn’t want to be.”

Neville, Ginny and Luna looked ready to protest, so Harry quickly cut in, “Listen, guys. I really do appreciate your support. But I have to do this, it’s not only my destiny but… If I don’t, really horrid things will happen. You, on the other hand, have a choice. And I totally understand if you want out. Hell, I want out. So please don’t feel like you have to make a decision now. In six months’ time from now, if you want out, you’ve got it. But you can’t leave this group knowing the things I’ve told you,” Harry stated firmly.

“Get fucked, Harry,” Ginny snapped suddenly. “We’ve been in this from the beginning. We’re not going out of this without a fight.”

“Yes,” Luna agreed, smiling. “Get fucked, Harry.”

“Yeah!” Neville burst out, blushing.

Hermione rolled her eyes, but nodded at Harry too.

Harry felt an indescribable wash of affection for his friends overtake him.

“Morgan the Great,” Luna chirped abruptly, pinching her fingers over her nose. “If you don’t get a hold on those pheromones, Harry, I think you might have a mate sooner than you think. You’ve got to stop feeling all lovely dovey. I’ll ask Papa to send them over those instructions today.”

Blushing darkly, Harry turned his nose up at his friends as Ginny winked at Harry in amusement and Neville hid a grin.

Merlin, his friends were such assholes.

That afternoon, Hermione, Neville, Ginny, and Luna bound themselves by oath to Harry, swearing to never reveal to anyone of the information they had learned, including but not limited anything to do with the horcruxes, Harry’s inheritance, and the location of Harry and said horcruxes. Harry was also sure to add in that they were allowed to tell someone that only Harry could give permission to divulge the information, so if his friends were ever taken hostage, they wouldn’t be tortured to death for information they couldn’t share. It felt horrid adding a clause like that, but Harry was coming to realise that nothing is fair in war.

Luna’s father was also spectacularly on the ball, replying that afternoon with the potions recipes to get Harry’s pheromone smell under control. If he was releasing even one fifth of what Harry smelled in the Amortentia potion on the first day of class, he completely understood why that small smattering of students were looking at him so oddly. He actually felt a little embarrassed for not having considering it earlier, to be honest.

Hermione was, as always, incredibly quick to act and had the first batch of Pheromone Deodorant (as the potion was amusingly named by Luna’s mother, who had created the potion for her own uses) on the boil by the end of the day. By breakfast, Harry was to have his first dose. Feeling a strong sense of relief at the news, Harry found himself able to properly relax after spell training.

Since the beginning of the year, the group had decided to continue practicing their Defence skills, but without the other members of Dumbledore’s Army, especially seeing as it had ended to poorly the year before. They had even begun practicing hand to hand combat, which was a bit difficult seeing as they didn’t have a teacher. But Hermione brought a few VHS self-protection guide tapes from home and cleverly managed to rig a television-like system to play the instructional videos. Between the five of them, they were able to figure out the movements and were getting better with each passing day.

At last, it was time for Harry’s meeting with Dumbledore, his first meeting since returning back from the winter break. At quarter to eight in the evening, Harry bid goodbye to his friends and slowly made his way to Dumbledore’s office.

Harry mulled over what he would say to the old professor on the way, not sure what he should reveal. Their meetings had been tense since the beginning of the year, Dumbledore pressing for more information as to why Harry had decided to inherit the Black blood (and how he managed to so) and Harry staunchly not answering. It had come to something of a stalemate when neither party would back down and instead they forged onward with Riddle Lessons, as Harry referred to them in his head.

Harry felt extremely conflicted over Dumbledore. While he was incredibly annoyed with the old man and his machinations, Harry still held a deep albeit grudging respect for Dumbledore. While the wizard had tried his best to keep Harry in the dark about almost every aspect of his life – and to catastrophic consequences as a direct result – Harry understands that Dumbledore has spent most of his life needing to depend only on himself and had pulled away from people as a result. Harry’s sure he would have become like that, had he not had Dumbledore around to show him precisely how obnoxious and insidious it really was.

Harry is simple. He lives life upfront; either people will listen to him or they won’t. The meeting with Slughorn certainly reminded Harry how little he likes playing these games. Part of Harry regrets even going for a drink. He should have just confronted the professor and forced the secret out of him by demanding the truth. But Harry had been so frightened that the professor would deny him that he had to find a way to make the slimy professor speak. But the outing left its mark on Harry. Harry certainly felt a bit less about himself, now.

Harry was exhausted with the idea of trying to decipher what lesson Dumbledore had for him next. He understands what Dumbledore is trying to do – get into the mindset of Voldemort so that he can predict the monster’s next move. But Harry’s not that kind of person, he’s not able to scheme and plan more than a month ahead in time. He doesn’t play with people like chess pieces and he doesn’t manipulate people, even for their own good.

Even now, Dumbledore refuses to tell Harry what’s wrong with his hand, to Harry’s astonished annoyance. Sure, unbeknownst to Dumbledore, Harry can smell the disease spreading up the man’s arm, the slowly crumbling preserving and protection spells trying to keep the curse in one place (smelling, oddly enough, of Snape’s magic). Harry knows that Dumbledore is dying and the old man can’t even bring himself to tell Harry. He’s going to leave Harry all alone in the world, trying to figure out this riddle of horcruxes all by himself, and will have died thinking Harry was unprepared for his death.

In the end, Harry has come to realise that it all boils down to trust. Dumbledore doesn’t trust Harry. Hell, Dumbledore doesn’t trust anyone. Perhaps that’s the reason he’s still alive after living a full life of adventure and heroism, but Harry can’t imagine anything more lonely than to be Dumbledore. Perhaps to be Voldemort, actually. Harry sees the two men as opposing chess masters standing across the board of humanity from one another, unmoving forces of nature to be reckoned with, slowly shifting their pawns like detached gods. Outside the realm of life. And Harry is Dumbledore’s queen, the ultimate ace to challenge Voldemort’s throne. And, like the marble queen, Harry doesn’t know what Dumbledore’s next move is until it’s happening. Perhaps because, inherently, Dumbledore doesn’t trust Harry to accidentally out him to Voldemort.

Harry stopped suddenly, realising he was in front of the two gargoyles protecting Dumbledore’s office. Sighing, he told the gargoyles the password and made his way up the ancient spiral staircase. Knocking on the door, Harry entered at the softly spoken, “Come in, Harry.”

Harry fully looked at Dumbledore for the first time in a few weeks and felt his heart drop to his stomach at the sight of the weary, heavily ill man. Clearly the disease was starting to take its toll. Harry gives Dumbledore perhaps three or four months of life left, judging by the bitter, tangy smell of rot coming from the man’s thin frame.

“Professor,” Harry murmured respectfully, head lowered and seating himself across the cluttered desk from the seated man.

“Hello, Harry. You enjoyed your time off, I would hope?” Dumbledore enquired politely. “I did hear that there was some activity over the holiday season.”

Harry barely withheld a flinch. Of course Dumbledore would have heard that Voldemort was dead. The man had spies in every nook and cranny of the wizarding world. Harry leant back in the highbacked chair and shrugged lightly, glancing up to the professor’s electric blue eyes through his eyelashes. Fucking Snape, Harry thought sneeringly as he carefully watched Dumbledore expression in case the man was skimming his mind – unexpectedly, there was no reaction.

“It was… Busy,” Harry replied. “And you?”

Dumbledore smiled softly, though his blue eyes lacked the usual twinkle. “That was very dangerous, Harry. You could have died. You could have endangered your friends.”

Harry frowned, feeling a spark of annoyance strike him deep. Part of him wanted to demand what, precisely, he should have done to protect himself – though he knew Dumbledore’s answer would only further annoy him, so he bit his tongue.

“I know that. I sent my friends away before Voldemort got to me,” Harry answered tightly. Harry didn’t dare tell Dumbledore that he had lost a horcrux (one that he wasn’t even supposed to know existed) in exchange for protecting Kreacher, a dark house elf. Dumbledore had a habit of valuing people’s life as less than the small victories of war.

“Yes. But your actions the past year have been deeply flawed and this result was only to be expected. You have been irresponsibly reckless,” Dumbledore answered, bushy eyebrows drawing together. “I hope you can see that, dear boy?”

“There are seven,” Harry replied tautly, focusing on the pain of digging his fingernails into his palm instead of screaming What would you know of recklessness? at the old man.

“Seven?” Dumbledore repeated hesitantly, though Harry knew that the old wizard knew what he meant. But Harry understands the need to be sure – seven is an extraordinarily insane number.

“Well, eight. If you include me. That’s my theory, at least,” Harry answered, shrugging once more and settling deeper into the plush fabric chair.

Dumbledore sat completely still, peering at Harry over his halfmoon glasses and steepled fingers.

Harry did not address the fact that this was the first time it had been said aloud that he was a horcrux. He didn’t particularly want to discuss his feelings with Albus Dumbledore. Things were too far gone. Now, Harry just wants to know what Dumbledore knows. Just because they aren’t friends doesn’t mean they aren’t allies, at the end of the day.

Dumbledore clearly did not want to address the elephant in the room, either. Harry would call him a coward if he wasn’t doing the exact same thing.

“That is an unusually high number. I suspect it has something to do with Tom’s fascination with the wizarding legend of seven being a strong number,” Dumbledore answered instead. “Similar to the muggle fascination with three and nine.”

“I suspect that is the reason I was able to kill him,” Harry stated. “He’s not thinking as clearly as he should. Everything is current and in the now; he’s unable to reason. I think the insanity of being splintered into too many pieces is weakening him.”

“You may have bought time, but you risk him returning in a more stable form,” Dumbledore said blandly, his expression the calm before an oceanic storm. “We could have worked with the Voldemort of now, instead of facing an unknown enemy in an unknown amount of time.”

“We needed time to find the horcruxes and now we have it,” Harry scoffed bluntly. “Let him come back as another homunculus, for all I care. He’ll need my blood again, anyway, if he wants to challenge me on a level footing. And I assure you that I will not be as naïve this time.”

Dumbledore frowned deeply at Harry.

“We do not know if the Black blood adoption has removed your mother’s gift,” Dumbledore replied. He then hesitated briefly before continuing to say, “I would like you to return to Occlumency lessons with Professor Snape.”

Harry felt ice explode in his chest, racing through his extremities with the beating of his heart, filling him with cold anger.

“No,” Harry replied frigidly.

“I really think – ” Dumbledore started, before Harry cut him off sharply.

“No.” Harry repeated once more, leaning forward in his chair and resting his elbows on his knees, lacing his fingers tightly as he stared flatly at Dumbledore. “I do not care if you trust him. I do not care if he’s the best Occlumency Master alive. I do not care. I will never willingly let that man into my head again.”

Dumbledore looked at Harry with an expression of such sadness that Harry felt like jinxing the old man with enough viciousness to make the curse consuming his rotting hand look like child’s play.

“You cannot hold onto your anger forever, Harry. Professor Snape has done more for you than you will ever know,” Dumbledore sighed, expression concerned.

“And I would like it to remain that way. For whatever reason he has for doing what he does, it really doesn’t matter to me,” Harry said at last, hanging onto his patience with a thread. “But I will never trust him. And I will never let him close to me. I will put up with him while I have to, but you can’t ask more of me.”

Dumbledore then acquiesced through a defeated nod, though Harry was unsure if he actually understood that Harry would never let that man near him again, or if he thought he could convince Harry at a later time. Harry was completely aware that Dumbledore thought Harry’s dislike of Snape to be a childhood rivalry similar to his father’s own hatred of the man. But Dumbledore was shockingly dismissive of abuse when it suited him (the Dursleys coming back to mind, glaringly) and Harry knew that nothing he said would ever allow Dumbledore to see the sacrifice he made on behalf of Harry to be anything other than necessary for the Greater Good.

Sometimes, Harry wonders who hurt Dumbledore to make him like this.

“Let’s get on with our lesson,” Dumbledore said.

Wiltshire, England

Lucius wheezed shallowly, his inhale gruff and chest whining in high pitched desperation as he gasped for breath. He stumbled down a set of stairs, weak hands slipping on the marble bannister and he tumbled the last couple steps onto the entrance foyer tiles of Malfoy Manor. The large locket hanging around his neck came free from its hiding place under his day robes and made an alarming clink! on the Italian marble floors.

Lucius scrambled to hide the locket under the lapels of his coat, head yanking about wildly as he checked to see if anyone had seen him fall. Thankfully, he was on his own.

Lucius felt his face twitch violently, jaw grinding ferociously. He wanted to take the damned locket off, just to take a short break. But the thought of a vengeful Dark Lord stalking after him in his own house had Lucius cringing in on himself, curling into a foetal position.

It had been four weeks since the Dark Lord’s death, not a few feet from where Lucius now lay. Lucius had faithfully worn the horrid locket day in and day out, not even taking it off during showers or resting. Occasionally, he had woken up, swearing that the thing was choking him – but no, the chain was loose, there were no welts on his neck, and only a damp sweat soaking his sheets revealed his distress.

Things began to change so very drastically in those few weeks. Lucius saw his wife leave him for another man, a broad man with a deep voice and a physical strength that he would never attain, not with his slim form and light features. Lucius despaired upon her departure, briefly considering killing himself. But then the damned woman waltzed into the dining room as if she had never left and Lucius began to realise that it had never happened.

Yet the rage stuck, the paranoia kept. Lucius twitched once more. He recalled receiving a letter from his son, the parchment real and crinkling in his hands. It read of a boy who hated his life and blamed his father for forcing him into servitude for a monster, for destroying the family ancestral home and emptying their once vast bank account. Lucius had sobbed when his own son made himself a bastard, claiming to not have a father worth calling his own.

But then the letter wasn’t there, wasn’t on his desk where he left it. Lucius could not find it. Could not find hide or hair of such a letter. Draco even wrote to him again, not referencing his earlier letter and asking for his guidance in fixing that damned Vanishing Cabinet.

Lucius was losing his mind.

Lucius felt the air around him chill suddenly, his breath coming out in puffs of condensed air. He stared at the icy fog coming from his wheezing chest and he whined lowly, knowing what that meant.

They’re here, he thought to himself with agonising despair. The dementors are going to take me back to Azkaban. Oh, Merlin, I can’t I can’t I can’t no please –

And then there were rotting hands grabbing him and holding him and his soul was being sucked out by a kiss from the devil itself and –

Lucius screamed, screamed to save his life and screamed to release the welling fear and horror in his –

Then, suddenly, impossibly, it was over. Lucius wasn’t being held in the air by a dementor, he was on the floor of his entrance hall, screaming without a cause, back arching and body writhing painfully.

Lucius shut his jaw immediately with a clack, realising it was another one of his visions. The locket. It had to be the cursed locket.

Lucius’ overwhelming fear of Voldemort was the only thing keeping him from ripping the damned thing off and throwing it into his dungeons. He shuddered as he cried, undignified. If this were to be Voldemort’s punishment for his errors, then Lucius thinks that he has certainly earned his Lord’s forgiveness. There was nothing truly worse than this agony.

“What would you know of suffering?” A soft voice whispered in Lucius’ ear, deep and soothing and mesmerising.

Lucius opened his bloodshot eyes, too weak to move. Lucius struggled to see the person standing over him at first, the man’s blurry frame coming to focus so very slowly. He was a young man, barely into his twenties – his sharp features and ebony hair reminded Lucius of someone. He couldn’t remember who, though. This person seemed so very familiar.

The young man, towering over Lucius, laughed lightly. It was an enchanting sound. He then crouched over Lucius, an expression of idle amusement crinkling his handsome features.

“Don’t you know me Lucius? Because I know you. I know everything there is to know about you. I know you think yourself better than most, if not all. I know that your father took you to Corsica for your tenth birthday, and I know that you took your son on his tenth. I know your dreams and your wishes and your hopes and your fears. And oh, you have so many fears, Lucius,” the young man sighed, running the back of his hand gently on Lucius’ hollow cheek with a featherlight touch.

Lucius hadn’t realised that he had started crying until the tears began to pool onto the floor by his face.

“My Lord,” Lucius whispered.

“Yes, Lucius,” Voldemort whispered. “I’m back. And I am so very proud of you. You gave yourself so that your master could be whole again. Aren’t you happy?”

Lucius stared at the young man with wide eyes, mouth trembling as his lungs wheezed and sucked less air with each breath, his chest so painfully tight. The hand on his cheek grew firmer, as if solidifying.

“Please,” Lucius sobbed, mind now beginning to fade. He couldn’t remember what he was asking for, but it was so terribly important. His thoughts puttered out uselessly, a flame blown out by a light breeze.

The young man smiled once more, expression endearing and assuring. He gently put his hand over Lucius’ eyes and closed them softly as the drained, shrivelled shadow of a man took his final breath.

At last, the foyer was silent.

The young man grinned, pulling his family’s heirloom off Lucius’ corpse and stood to his full imposing height.

It was time to see what his future self had been up to for all these years.  

Chapter Text

Harry dreams of a handsome young man with a devilish smile and sparkling grey eyes. He dreams only a snippet at a time, like the swirling memories of a pensive. The boy is fierce and intelligent and dangerous, so very dangerous. And so very lonely. The boy laughs as easily as he breathes, but the boy cannot cry.

Harry follows the boy of his dreams as a spectre, unable to participate and watching silently as he is pulled along in time, like a bouncing balloon yanked by its string as it trails behind. The boy graduates Hogwarts, goes to work in a small boutique shop and sells its lethal wares with alarming charm. The boy becomes a man, so very charismatic and sharp, a poisoned blade ready to strike.

And then, when Harry thinks he can no longer be surprised by this man’s wit, the boy-turned-man turned to Harry, turns to the spectre watching his life, and looks Harry right in the eye – actually seeing Harry, appraising his ghostly form. The man’s eyes pierce Harry, shredding past his defences and shocking Harry to his core.

“Hello, there,” the young man says, smile sly and tone wry, “And what’s your name?”

Harry awoke with a gasp, fingers digging deep into his sheets and body trembling like a leaf. His dream was fading, dissipating too quickly to remember what it had been about but an uncomfortable, nagging itch remained in its wake.

Though Harry wasn’t sure how he knew, he just knew. Somewhere out there, somewhere in the far beyond, something had gone terribly, horribly wrong.

“We have to go,” Harry told Hermione over breakfast.

Hermione looked up from her book of Dökkálfar and their observable social groups, blinking at Harry as she considered his words. A piece of egg fell off her fork, poised just before her mouth.

“When?” Hermione asked, brow furrowed.

“Today, preferably.” Harry replied dully, breakfast untouched.

Hello, there. And what’s your name?

Harry shuddered, recalling the words. They were the only memory he had of his dream. He couldn’t recall who had said it nor what the context had been, but the whisper curled like dark magic in his mind and left a shivery feeling in his chest.

Hermione’s eyes widened and she closed her book carefully. “What’s happened?” She asked quietly, despite the two of them being the only students on their end of the table in the early morning hour.

“I can’t quite tell, but something’s not right. I don’t think it’s safe to be here,” Harry answered numbly, recalling that odd piercing feeling when he had jolted awake. It had felt rather similar to being stabbed, like a sword had been dispassionately pushed through his chest. It felt as horrifyingly shocking as when the basilisk’s fang sunk into his arm.

Hermione frowned at Harry. “The Dökkálfar are renowned for their instincts. I genuinely think that if you’re this upset, we should leave now,” she confided. “I’ve had a bag ready to go since we returned from the term. And we can make more of the supressing potion once we’re out of here, so I won’t even bother bottling what stores we have left. How do we leave?” Hermione quickly asked, already packing her bookbag with deliberate slowness as to not garner attention.

Harry felt such immense affection for Hermione in that moment, his best friend ready to abandon her entire life for Harry on the drop of a hat. And without a real explanation.

A nearby student in Ravenclaw blinked blearily as their head jerked up to look at Harry. Harry frowned at the reaction; he’d taken his ‘deodorant’ potion that morning, so if others were picking up the scent of pheromones it was most likely because Harry’s emotions were overwhelming the suppressant. Harry quickly focused on reining in his emotions, realising he was feeling rather raw and on edge.

“We’ll get help from Kreacher,” Harry replied at last, refocusing his attention on Hermione. “He’ll take us to the manor and we can shift the wards today. Grimmauld Place isn’t safe. We can go right now if you’d like. I have my wand and I don’t need to get anything else; Kreacher will bring the rest for me.”

Nodding, Hermione stood slowly from the table to avoid attention and the pair made their way out of the Great Hall. The moment the friends passed the threshold to the carnivorous room, the entirety of Hogwarts went into lockdown. A screaming wail of an alarm began to shriek jarringly from the main entrance hallway. Sir Nicholas exploded out of a nearby wall and shouted hysterically, “Death Eaters in the building!”

Loud screams began to build and noise filled the air as students began to race out of the Grand Hall, flowing around Harry and Hermione with clumsy terror.

“The others,” Hermione gasped, going pale as she glanced at the staircase going toward Ravenclaw and then to the other staircase leading to Gryffindor Tower, gripping onto Harry’s arm as she was jostled by a panicking group of first years.

“Get Luna, I wouldn’t know the answer to open Ravenclaw’s riddle,” Harry quickly hissed. “Stay there. I’ll have Kreacher collect you. Whatever happens,” Harry stressed, “Do not let anyone open the Common Room door for anyone, no matter what they say. If they’re claiming to be a student outside of the portal, tell them to find a classroom to hide in.”

Hermione nodded, eyes wide, and she shot off in the direction of the Ravenclaw Common Room. Harry bolted in the opposite direction towards Gryffindor Tower.

Every instinct screamed at Harry to just leave, that his friends would be fine – but he couldn’t bring himself to leave, not when there were enemies in Hogwarts. Loud war drums began to beat in his ears, his heartbeat racing to catch the stressful tempo. His Dökkálfar instincts were going crazy at his stubbornness, trying to override his need to protect those that weren’t his mate.

Harry felt something odd shift in him, an oddly dominating instinctual drive overtaking his senses and stealing his attention. His frantic run began to slow until he was jogging, then walking, then standing still, only a few feet from the Gryffindor common rooms but destination long forgotten. His head tilted as he focused on an odd nagging in the distance, his nose smelling something… Familiar. It was as if the smell or, rather, the presence was very, very far away – and yet somehow here.

Hello, there.

A loud crash! shocked Harry out of his trance and he spun around in time to see a deranged Bellatrix LeStrange smash into the entrance of the corridor in which he stood. The abomination of a witch released a startled cackle upon seeing him as she climbed through a blown hole in the stone wall.

“Bwaby Pwotter!” Bellatrix screamed joyously, throwing her head back to laugh.

Harry felt his vision tunnel dangerously, blackening at the edges as he took in the sight before him. Bellatrix LeStrange. The sight of the woman flicking the Killing Curse at his Godfather, pushing him into The Veil, flashed before Harry’s eyes like it was happening right in front of him again. Despite being able to smell LeStrange’s black magic rolling off her in waves, instead of being attracted – Harry found himself insurmountably revolted. Every atom of his being protested her existence, his entire soul rejecting her with extreme prejudice. Harry felt the dark elf blood in him grow threatening, instincts weaponising like a blade being sharped on a stone and his mind singularly clearing as he subconsciously readied for battle.

“Baaaaby Potter took the gift and now he’s Baby Potter Black!” Bellatrix began to sing, advancing towards Harry with a skip and a hop, oblivious to his prickling. “Aren’t you gonna say hello to Aunty Bella?”

Harry raised his wand at the deranged creature stalking towards him.

“Oooh! Did bwaby figure out how to use his widdle wand?” Bellatrix taunted once more in that horrific teasing voice, high pitched and mocking and disgusting.

“Crucio,” Harry breathed.

To his own surprise, a shockingly vibrant bolt of light shot from his wand, aimed directly between Bellatrix’s eyes. She released a startled squawk and lurched to the side, diving and rolling to avoid the torture curse.

There was a moment of dangerous silence between the two. Harry had moved his wand to stay trained on the woman and had raised his other hand in case he needed to double cast. He was suddenly so grateful that he had continued his defensive training.

“You almost got me,” Bellatrix stated suddenly, baby voice gone and instead sounding like a disappointed parent. “So very naughty. If you’re going to kill me, little cousin, you’d better get it right on the first try!” With that, Bellatrix lurched at Harry and cast silently, a whip of sickly purple flame exploding out of her wand and snapping through the air towards Harry.

Instinctively, Harry leapt into the air and cast a weightless spell on himself without a second thought. Leaping over the cracking whip of fire with ease, Harry floated for a moment in the air as the weightless spell took hold and used the brief second to cast a binding spell at Bellatrix. She cackled as she effortlessly batted it away but inhaled sharply at the cutting curse, the same shade as the bind spell, hiding behind it and nearly catching her in the face. Harry landed back on the flagstones with light feet and ducked to avoid the flailing whip still anchored to Bellatrix’s wand.

“A trojan cast!” Bellatrix crowed, snapping back the whip of purple fire and releasing her spell, the crackling purple light slowly fading. “I’m so very proud. He really is a Black!” She then declared to no one, mockingly hiccupping through faux proud tears.

“Don’t you ever get tired of being so full of shit?” Harry finally spoke at last, mouth downturned in distaste as he spat the words in Bellatrix’s direction.

Bellatrix’s eyes narrowed then and her face contorted into an expression of tormented hate; obviously he had struck a nerve and, for a brief moment, Harry wondered who else in her life had finally snapped and called her on her nasty behaviour. Just as Bellatrix geared up to attack, a sudden shout destroyed everything.

“Dumbledore’s dead!” A girl screamed loudly from somewhere nearby in the castle, her desolate cry echoing through the hallway eerily.

Bellatrix’s expression of loathing evaporated instantly and she released a whoop of joy. Before Harry could stop her, she leapt back to where she had come from and raced away at breakneck speed, on the retreat.

Harry stared at the place where Bellatrix had just stood, numbly blinking into the empty hallway.

Dumbledore dead. It couldn’t be.

Harry burst into the Gryffindor Common Rooms, where the entirety of the house was leaning out the windows and screaming in horror as they pointed down. Harry shoved a sobbing first year out of the way and followed the line of pointed hands.

Sprawled like a broken doll, Dumbledore lay on the cobblestones of the entrance footpath nearly thirty stories down, blood beginning to pool around his crumpled frame.

“No,” Harry whispered.

He raced down the stairs, two-three-four at a time. He couldn’t believe it. Dumbledore, dead. This couldn’t be happening.

In record time with near inhuman speed, Harry finally made it to where a few students had gathered outside the front doors and he harshly pushed past them, running at full pace towards Dumbledore’s broken body.

Harry fell to his knees, numb with shock at the sight of Dumbledore actually dead. It really was him, smashed halfmoon glasses and blinding swirling robes and all. Harry didn’t dare turn him over, not ready to see the damage to the old wizard’s face. Harry quickly conjured a white sheet and laid it over the body, realising that there were many more observers leaning out of windows than just the Gryffindor Tower.

Harry noticed a glinting of light as he draped the sheet over the last exposed part of Dumbledore’s body – the ring on Dumbledore’s rotting hand twinkled at him invitingly. Unsure what possessed him to do so, Harry quickly slipped his hand under the sheet and tugged the ring off, holding it in his palm and backing away from the body just as Professor McGonagall swept past him, sobbing.

A dark and consuming rage began to bloom in Harry’s stomach, the anger greasy and slick like an oil spill. He felt himself trembling in fury, so overwhelming and devastating that he found himself unable to move.

The Death Eaters had broken into Hogwarts. They were here in his land, his home. Something not quite human nor rational screamed violently in his mind, a livid possessiveness shutting out all thought.

Harry’s head snapped towards the castle as he felt that presence again. That weird existence that he had noticed earlier. It was coming from the castle.

Harry raced through the halls of Hogwarts with single-minded determination. He wasn’t aware of any thought nor decision going through his mind, all he knew was that he had to find that presence. And he knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that he would find the Death Eaters there too.

With the same inhuman speed that had Harry by Dumbledore’s sides in moments, he was suddenly there on the seventh floor of the castle – watching a cloak whip into the Room of Requirement as someone disappeared through the open door.

Of course. Harry snarled, vision tunnelling dizzyingly. He didn’t recognise the magic of the wizard he’d nearly seen, but he could smell LeStrange’s foul magic lingering in the near vicinity. She’d been here.

Harry slipped through the open doorway of the Room of Requirement after the unknown wizard in quick pursuit. He barely even noticed the multitude of overflowing, overwhelmed rows of junk surrounding him, instead wholeheartedly focused on hunting down the wizard. Harry tracked the Death Eater as he weaved through the aisles with ease, following the man’s nervous energy and barely notable magical core. 

Finally, Harry got close enough to hear the wizard’s panting. He leapt out from an aisle and ran at full speed towards the man, unaware of his own fury as he charged the Death Eater.

The unfamiliar Death Eater squawked as he noticed Harry running at him, the boy’s expression twisted in hateful fury, and he scrambled into a nearby wardrobe. Harry smiled darkly and slashed at the air, unsure what precisely he was casting but feeling the magic leave his body all the same. With an ear-shattering bang! the wardrobe exploded into countless tiny splinters, the armoire completely eviscerated by Harry’s lash of magic.

Harry gaped in sudden surprise, snapped out of his blood-rage and inhaling sharply in shock as the wardrobe was vaporised. He certainly had not expected that to happen. Harry skidded to a stop not three feet where the cupboard had been, now a pile of wood on the floor and dense fibrous dust floating in the air. Unexpectedly, there was no blood nor gore – the man in the wardrobe had, quite simply, disappeared. Harry had even felt it, the man’s magic there one moment and then gone the next.

It’s a portal, Harry thought as he stared at the empty space once occupied by the wardrobe, the odd shape and design of it reminding him of another. It must be – but to where? Does it link to the one in Borgin and Burkes? Or is there a network of them?

Harry was suddenly inundated with thoughts, which were running a mile a minute in his mind. It seemed his momentary lapse was catching up to him, the realisation that he had literally scaled seven stories in a furious blood-rage to go after the Death Eaters was shocking and deeply disturbing. He barely remembered even chasing the wizard, rather mostly recalling the all-consuming hatred that had blinded him. And at the time he had felt so... Territorial. Feral, even. The war drums had been overwhelmingly controlling, steady and fierce and timed to the beat of his heart. It had fuelled him, guided him.

Harry inhaled slowly, stepping back from the remnants of the wardrobe. He had gotten too excited and had literally destroyed the only way he could go after the Death Eaters. And who knew what had been on the other side? Perhaps he could have even used the wardrobe to his advantage to get to Malfoy Manor, as he suspected where the portal went.

Harry felt faintly annoyed with himself but he was also a little impressed. Though it would have been absolutely ridiculous to have chased the Death Eaters through a wardrobe portal into Merlin knew where with no backup, Harry felt like that ferocious Dark Elf side of him could probably have taken on whatever welcoming party was there to greet him on the other side. After freezing during the facedown with Voldemort in his home, Harry had been worried he’d lost his spine – but the events of the last half an hour helped remind himself that he was not helpless, that he could stand his own against Bellatrix LeStrange of all people.

Before he could venture too far into that thread of thought, Harry smelt something odd prickle his nose. A consuming tugging of his mind and nose, that annoyingly distracting scent that had called him before, curling against his nostrils. Harry turned towards the scent, closing his eyes and feeling something positively purr at the smell. Harry didn’t notice he was acting on instinct, still raw and wounds open from the events of the past half an hour, and allowed the smell to draw him down an aisle. He stopped in front of a bookshelf, easily two metres tall, and barely took notice of the various cages with many-legged skeletons housed within their rusting shells littering the floor. Sitting proudly on a wooden bookshelf was a tiara, discoloured and oxidised with age – yet its inlaid jems glimmered regally in the soft light of the junk room. There was a peculiar sound coming from the tiara, not quite a voice and yet almost a whisper of words.

Harry cocked his head as he looked at the odd trinket, pupils expanding and nose flaring as he scented the magic radiating from the crown. It was purely dark magic, think and tangible. It felt like a horcrux, like the locket had felt but, unlike before, Harry found himself drawn to its lure with helpless attraction. His fingers trembled as they raised to gently touch the surface of the crown, rocking on his feet and eyes fluttered closed as the dark magic within reached up to the surface of the tiara and greeted him back. 

Harry shuddered sharply, feeling a taste of something forgotten floating to the surface of his mind.

Hello, there. And what’s your name?

With a careful touch, Harry lifted the beckoning tiara from the bookshelf and held it in his hands, turning it over to inspect the artefact. It was old, clearly, and not very well cared for. He brushed the pad of his thumb over the main jewel on the face of the tiara, inhaling sharply when magic sparkled at the touch.

Mate, Harry’s mind supplied. He barely took notice of the bizarre association, instead closing his eyes and focusing on the magic as his instincts took over. An assortment of curses had been woven into the fabric of the artefact’s magic, smelling so very familiar and right. Harry felt the curses come apart under his touch, like the slow unravelling of a knot. The magic was absorbed into his skin, his dark elf side greedily consuming the curses with starved abandon. Harry’s eyes opened partially as the curses were eaten, noting that his fingertips had grown black like they had when he had eaten Kreacher’s illness and absorbed Lavender’s curse.

All that was left, then, was the imprint of soul. Harry distantly realised that he had somehow stumbled upon a horcrux, sitting unwatched and unguarded in the Room of Requirement. His chest twinged oddly at the thought, his possessive streak from before raising to the surface.

Mine, Harry heard a foreign voice say in his mind, the rasping words spoken in Parseltongue. You are mine.

Snapping out of the daze at the declaration, Harry dropped the tiara in shock.

“No,” Harry snapped, the words echoing into the vacant room. “I – no!”

The tiara sat innocently on the wooden floor, not responding.

“You – you spoke to me!” Harry said, flabbergasted. “I can’t even begin to – I just – what?”

“Harry!” A panicked voice shouted out into the room, the echoing words a sharp and surprising contrast to the earlier silence.

“Hermione?” Harry asked, spinning on his heel.

From behind a shelf, Hermione burst into his line of sight. Her eyes were red from tears, which had streaked down her face and stained her cheeks.

“Oh Merlin, Harry,” Hermione gasped, leaping into his arms. “I cannot believe you just ran like that! I couldn’t find you and –”

Harry squeezed Hermione tightly against his frame as she cut off, burying his face into her hair and inhaling the smell of her rosewater perfume. It was comforting, in the same way he imagined it would be to embrace one’s own sister after a frightful scare.

“It’s alright,” Harry whispered. “Nothing happened.”

After a moment of embracing, Hermione then let out a strangled sound. “Is that –” Hermione started to say before cutting off once more.

Harry pulled away and followed Hermione’s line of sight.

“A horcrux? Yeah,” Harry answered bitterly, expression growing dark.

“A horcrux?” Hermione yelped. “I thought it was – well. Oh, Morgana. Of course it is!” Hermione babbled.

“What?” Harry pressed, feeling as if he were missing something.

“I think that’s actually the Lost Diadem of Ravenclaw,” Hermione laughed, sounding near hysterical. “I’ve only seen drawings of it in Hogwarts, A History. It’s been lost for... Well, since Ravenclaw herself!”

Harry blinked at Hermione in surprise. “I guess that keeps in line with the founder’s theme,” Harry answered slowly. “And be careful. It’s... Sentient.”

At Harry’s words, Hermione’s immediately stalled her slow approach to the artefact and she stepped back unsurely.

“And I think it’s taken a bit of a liking to me,” Harry then added numbly.

Hermione’s head whipped up to look at Harry. “Come again?” She asked, aghast.

Harry shrugged helplessly. “I’ll explain later. For now, we need to get out of here.”

Nodding firmly, Hermione drew out a handkerchief from her pocket and carefully wrapped the diadem, doing her best to not touch it.

Once it was safely stowed in her bookbag, the pair were off to find Kreacher and sort out some new wards for Black Manor.

Wiltshire, England

With the benevolent disinterest of a divine monarch, Tom Riddle sat upon a large, gaudy throne within Malfoy Manor. He had one leg tossed carelessly over an arm of the chair as he inspected the Locket of Slytherin with bored disinterest, twirling the large thing with deft fingers. He was on a dais in the main ballroom, an imposing, colossal space enchanted to hold thousands of guests. Filling the air around him was the rowdy celebratory clamour of his Death Eaters, having just returned from Hogwarts as victors. Despite his new appearance, Voldemort’s followers accepted him with ease, even more faithful to him in this new form than they had been in the years prior when the snake-like being that hosted his soul had ruled with an iron, humourless fist.

In his short tenure as the main soul piece, Tom had yet to follow up on what the soul shard before him had been up to for the last several years. Instead, he had pulled the memories from Lucius Malfoy’s head when sucking him dry of life and found himself rather… Repulsed with his most recent form. Clearly, there was something very wrong with the stability and sanity of his soul, if it had become the thing Lucius witnessed.

As far as Tom could recall, the last memory he had was of was killing that pathetic muggle tramp back in ’49, creating reason for that useless creature in its death. Tom recalled he had developed plans to create a rather nasty protective trap for the locket and, had he managed to protect the locket per even half of his original plans, it was fairly alarming that it was now out and about in the world once more. Whomever had released the locket must have intimately known the intricate plans he had carefully laid out to protect it in solitude for eternity.

But while Tom was annoyed that someone had gotten close enough to figure out the location and secrets of the locket’s hiding place, he was somewhat appeased by the fact he had been returned to the mortal plane. And in his early twenties, as well, which boded well for his current plans. He was the third largest piece of soul after the diary and ring as planned but, looking at his predecessor, Tom realised something must be done. He could not allow that shard of himself to take form again, lest it ruins his plans with its insane, impulsive behaviour.

So upon his arrival in the current time, Tom decided to reply to the youngest Malfoy’s letter seeking his father’s assistance in repairing the Vanishing Cabinet, diagnosing the issue with ease and providing a carefully detailed response. Tom himself had dealt with this particular issue with the Vanishing Cabinet, having repaired its sister in Borgin and Burke’s not a few years before – well, at least per Tom’s memory, as it would have been far back in ’47. Tom knew that his Death Eaters would need a satisfactory victory to keep them sated and pleased for the next few weeks while he focused on reabsorbing the loose horcruxes into his being.

And what a satisfying success it had been. Dumbledore dead, after all these years, at last. Nothing to stand in his way other than the rumours of some half-wit boy supposedly meant to challenge his throne, a boy whom he imagined would be crumbling at his feet by the end of the year.

Raising his chin regally and surveying the celebrations around him with amusement, Tom turned his attentions to his Death Eaters drinking and entertaining themselves at his feet. They were largely stupid creatures, dull and insipid and filled with all kinds of superiority complexes fed to them by their worthless pureblood parents. They were so very easy to tear down and build back up as he pleased, to control and have eating greedily out of the palm of his hand. Tom had scoffed upon the discovery that his previous form barely held this new group together, that he had been suffering turncoats with each passing month. How disgustingly shameful. Tom planned on making this new generation of Death Eaters even more tightknit and loyal than any group before them, even moreso than his Knights of Walpurgis.

Tom listened to the celebrations with a smirk, knowing that in just a few short hours, once his Death Eaters were resting and recovering from the events of the night, he would be fully caught up to speed with the history of his new past.

Harry and Hermione arrive at Manor Black just outside Wiltshire not half an hour after leaving the Room of Requirement. They had made quick work of finding Neville, Ginny and Luna and explained their plans to them. It clearly appeared that the school year was over despite there being a few months left yet to term. Harry sincerely doubted any sane parent would leave their child in Hogwarts after Death Eaters had quite literally popped in and murdered the headmaster without an iota of resistance.

Unsurprisingly, Manor Black was dark, dingey, disintegrating, and horribly haunted. Not by ghosts, to Harry’s surprise (though Kreacher warned him there were a few nasty ghouls sealed in the torture dungeons – and Harry reeling at the thought of even owning torture dungeons) but rather by the odd curse and rampant proliferation of magical pests. It was similar to how Grimmauld Place had been when the Order first moved in, except the Manor was on an extraordinarily larger scale.

“This is going to need a lot of work,” Hermione stated rather obviously as Harry stood by her side in the entrance hallway, a vast antechamber leading to a grand marble staircase in the centre and with many doors leading off left and right.

“Was that a feral chupacabra?” Hermione squawked, tone disbelieving, as a small black creature scuttled by, racing from one shadowy part of the room to another. She quickly sidled up next to Harry, pressing into his side as she held her wand out in the direction of the shuffling noise with threatening bravado.

“I think so,” Harry replied faintly, feeling a little overwhelmed. He suddenly felt like taking his chances at Grimmauld Place, Voldemort potentially resurrected or not.

Deciding to make quick work of changing the ownership of the Secret Keeper to Harry, the trio focused on locating the house stone keying into the local ley lines and adjusted the wards. It had been much more laborious than Grimmauld Place, perhaps due to the size and age of the estate, but through Kreacher and Harry’s practiced movements and Hermione’s aid, the trio managed to make quick albeit draining work of the wards.

Finally, Hermione and Harry collapsed limply on an old, dusty sofa in a vast library nearly the entire size of Grimmauld Place itself (Hermione so exhausted she couldn’t even summon the energy to cry with happiness at the sight). Meanwhile, Kreacher scurried around like a madman, trying to clean the house all the while muttering, “Oh the estate! Mistress would be so very angry with Kreacher! Bad Kreacher! Oh, so very dirty and rotten, ooooh –”

Harry and Hermione wisely decided to stay out of the house elf’s way.

“So... The Diadem,” Hermione said conversationally once the pair had somewhat recovered.

“Oh, don’t remind me,” Harry groaned, covering his face with a dusty hand. “We’re going to need to put it somewhere like the curio cabinet in Grimmauld Place. I’m sure this manor has all sorts of cursed holding spots. Thank Merlin for paranoid dark families,” Harry muttered.

“Do you think Voldemort will feel it if we destroy a horcrux?” Hermione asked, frowning.

Harry felt a twinge of something attempting burst through his chest, rather alike a possessive growl. He suppressed it harshly, not appreciating this new bizarre reaction to Hermione’s words.

“I don’t know. We kept the locket before because we didn’t know if destroying it would alert Voldemort to the destruction of a horcrux. But since the cat’s out of the bag, I guess we probably could just destroy it,” Harry replied tersely, feeling ill at the words.

Hermione peered over at Harry, brow furrowed. “You feel sick at the thought, don’t you?” She asked knowingly, voice concerned.

Harry sighed and pressed his palms into his eyes, knowing he shouldn’t have even tried to keep this from Hermione. The girl was too intuitive.

“Yeah,” Harry replied slowly. “I think it’s the elf. It wants... To fix Voldemort. Not destroy him. Though part of me suspects that destroying the container of the horcrux doesn’t actually kill the soul shard, the same way Voldemort doesn’t die when his body is killed. I think the pieces just... I don’t know – float? Exist? Whatever they do, they’re loose but stuck here in kind of a weird form of purgatory until all of Voldemort’s containers are destroyed. Then they can pass on, together.”

Hermione fidgeted at Harry’s words. “So as long as you’re alive... There’s literally no way Voldemort could die. I guess we could try to capture or imprison him,” Hermione said, tone thoughtful. “I’m also suspecting that you’ve already begun the bonding process with him. Which is why you’re so sensitive around the Diadem. You really only just started to display the beginnings of the mating dance around the same time the new school year started and the locket was locked away by then... So you hadn’t experienced the full brunt of the horcrux until then.”

Harry considered Hermione’s words. It made sense. Looking back, he had not had the same reaction with the locket as had with the diadem but he wouldn’t be surprised if he did now.

As if reading his thoughts, Hermione continued, “But. Well, now is different. You’re pretty far gone, Harry,” Hermione said, sounding very small and timid. “And I don’t know if there’s a way to protect you from him. You’ll be attracted to him. You’ll want to find him and put him together. I think the best way to avoid total insanity of being rejected by your bond mate is to capture him and lock him up.”

Harry agreed, though the part of himself that he was slowly coming to recognise was the elvish instinct, very harshly disagreed. Mate, it said to him petulantly. No, Harry thought back firmly, as if admonishing a naive child. He’s a genocidal asshole. There’s no chance in hell.

“We could check Regulus’ journal,” Harry said into the dark library, the dank air chilly and his words accompanied by a puff of mist.

“Regulus’ journal?” Hermione repeated, aghast, as she sat up quickly. “You mean to tell me that you’ve had a first person written experience of what you’re going through and you haven’t told me yet?”

Harry blinked at the girl in surprise. “Oh, yeah,” he replied dumbly. “I completely forgot to tell you. Kreacher gave it to me back at Grimmauld Place. I’ll ask him to retrieve it for you once he’s off his mission to scrub this place to the ground.”

Hermione huffed a sardonic laugh, covering her face with her hands as she leant back into the sofa. “Hopefully we’ll find something useful,” she muttered from behind her hands. “Especially since Regulus went through this with the same person. Maybe he’d have discovered something from the locket horcrux; I bet he could feel them in the same way you can now.”

Recalling the words of the diadem, Harry felt himself shiver. Mine. Harry wonders if Regulus would have understood the hissing Parseltongue the diadem had spoken to him. Harry shrugged off the thought, instead focusing on Hermione. That brought him back to the horcruxes; they needed to figure out the remaining pieces – and quickly.

Harry’s mind and soul felt heavy after the day’s events and he didn’t want to dwell on yet another seemingly impossible task, but it was necessary to work on the problem. They were running out of time with each passing day; Harry was worried that the attack signalled Voldemort’s return already. Harry absentmindedly spun a tarnished gold ring on his middle finger, fingers tracing a large, cracked black stone.

“So we know what they mostly are,” Harry said. “The horcruxes,” he added at Hermione’s questioning gaze. She then noticed, for seemingly the first time, the jewellery on his finger and sat up quickly.

“Did you get that from Dumbledore?” She gasped.

Harry gave her a sardonic smile. “Yeah,” he replied, feeling a sparkle of magic as he pulled the ring off his finger and turned the item over. While it wasn’t cursed nor a holder of a horcrux anymore, it certainly was something – though what, Harry wasn’t sure.

“The ring, the locket, the diary, the diadem, and Voldemort,” Hermione said, frowning at the darkly glinting stone inlaid on the ring. “What else?”

“Seven soul pieces,” Harry murmured, slipping the ring onto his left middle finger once more. It hummed warmly, as if it were always meant to be there. “Let’s forget me, for a moment, as I was unintentional as far as we can tell. So, we have two others.”

“Going on the theme of the founders, there’s the cup and the sword left,” Hermione replied.

“Cup?” Harry asked, eyes snapping away from the ring onto Hermione.

“The Cup of Helga Hufflepuff,” Hermione explained. “Then there’s also Gryffindor’s sword. But... That was in Dumbledore’s office the entire time and I bet he already checked it just in case. I really doubt the sword was a horcrux, especially since you coated it in basilisk venom.”

Harry nodded his agreement. “I think I would have noticed it in the office during meetings, if I found the diadem so quickly in the Room of Requirement.”

Hermione shrugged helplessly and fell into thought, wringing her hands as she was prone to do when working on a puzzle.

“If Voldemort didn’t know about me being a horcrux, which he clearly didn’t until my slip in the Hospital Wing,” Harry continued after a while of silence, “Then he would have followed up with another horcrux to make seven soul pieces in total. Something extremely meaningful to him. I wasn’t sure if it were possible... But Dumbledore theorised Nagini, which would seem so stupid as he lets her roam freely. But Voldemort hasn’t exactly been acting sane, so it is plausible.”

Hermione shuddered at the thought of Nagini. The snake inspired deep concern for Harry as well; it was lethally intelligent, a silent and quick apex predator, and contained a nearly impossible to treat venom, especially now that Harry and Hermione couldn’t be out in public – much less at St Mungo’s, where the only known antidote to her venom was located.

“Besides, I connected to her during fifth year, when she attacked Mr. Weasley,” Harry said, still smarting with guilt. It had been a horrid experience. “So I think she might be the last.”

Hermione nodded. With her agreeance, Harry realised they now had their direction: find the cup, capture Nagini, and destroy both. Perhaps the diadem would know where to find the cup; it certainly was coherent enough to speak so it may just tell him if he asked... Nicely.

It was a daunting task.

At midnight under the full moon, Tom Riddle stood before a reflection pool in the greenhouse gardens of Malfoy Manor. In the reflection, a handsome young man with a peaceful expression watched him back. It was time to summon his other soul pieces, the ones no longer anchored in their carefully chosen containers.

Herpo the Foul’s diary, which Tom had read all those years ago, hinted that the only way to reabsorb his soul pieces was to feel remorse. How laughable. Hidden within the book, in between the lines, was a real way to do so. It just meant that Tom would never be able to split his soul again or it would shatter infinitely and he would be trapped, not dead but most certainly not living, in a hellish purgatory of his own making on the mortal plane.

While it was a frustrating thought, this had always been a contingency plan. He knew Dumbledore suspected soul magic, even way back in his youthful years of Hogwarts when he had used the death of that insipid harpy, Myrtle, as his first horcrux for his diary. He had been so young and unknowingly naïve in those days. Tom smirked, the reflection in the pool mimicking his actions. It would be interesting to discover what his other soul pieces had to say. Tom did not have to worry about losing all of his anchors, however – only those with their containers destroyed would be returned, the others still bonded with their vessels safe from this summoning.

Unlike his most recently untethered form, Tom knows that there is something important and beautiful in being broken and put back together, a quiet and unbeatable strength in evolving. He had just begun studying the Japanese art of Kintsugi at Borgin and Burkes a few months prior (well, to his memory), a beautiful Japanese art of shattering pottery and then using a combination of gold and lacquer to create from its remains an even more interesting and stronger vessel.

Tom likens himself to a shattered vase, slowly mending his soul into a patchwork of history and knowledge and overbrimming with the endless fountain of life.

Leaning forward to stand over the reflection pool, Tom gently dragged a ritual knife over his palm then clenched his fist and watched as droplets of blood splashed onto the surface of the pool. The waters began to turn gold and silver with each drop, spreading out to fill the shallow waters.

“Come,” Tom whispered to the pool in Parseltongue, calling out to his soul. “Unhomed and lost, rejoice me in my future, mend my past. Return to me.”

Nothing happened for a brief moment. Then Tom collapsed onto his knees, splashing into the shallow pool. He groaned in agony as his soul was once more put to the test, burning under a forge of purifying flame. An overwhelmingly large portion of his soul was returned, churning and melding back into him and, like the melting of ore and banging of steel, he was made stronger.

Panting in pain, Tom clutched his bleeding hand close to his chest as memories that were both his and yet not swelled in his mind.

Flittering across Albania, resurrection in a graveyard, a terrified servant giving a hand so He could rise. Inhabiting a stuttering fool, chasing the Stone of Eternal Life. His sixteen-year-old self sucking the life from a redheaded girl, a black-haired boy stabbing a diary. A woman screaming, a baby crying as it reached out for its mother. Death magic, blood wards. A prophecy. A war. A Champion. A boy adopted into an ancient family, an Heir.

A young man trembling in a hospital bed, whispering Parselmouth with the reverence of a secret prayer, pupils blown as he submitted to instinct.

His horcrux.

Tom’s eyes surged open, lungs heaving for air as his mind swam.

A horcrux in a boy. An impossible container, alive and well. A vessel inheriting the Curse from his adoptive father, an heir to an ancient family. A boy who would be drawn to him, eternally his, an accidental anchor. An orphan, a half-blood, an equal.

Tom began to tremble, whether from agony or shock or excitement, he couldn’t tell.

Plush lips and jade eyes and defiance burning so fierce it sears a mark in his memory. Tom’s own diluted elvish blood, the sins of his Gaunt and Slytherin ancestors’ breeding, arising to the occasion – answering the call of his Submissive Døkkálfr. A call his earlier self had been too fractured, too broken to see other than to try to control. A Døkkálfr ripe for the plucking, crying out through his bond, pleading soft Parseltongue in the moonlight of the hospital wing, submitting to Lord Voldemort’s touch and soft skin branding with the dark magic of his mate. Destroying his own mate with a basilisk fang, so very clever, rejecting the splintered soul piece.

Tom inhaled sharply as a deep, instinctual pleasure coursed his veins, a guttural growl tearing through his chest as his newfound instincts blossomed in his mind’s eye. The boy had rejected him in his previous form, had measured his predecessor and found him wanting – and killed him as a result, as Dökkálfar mating habits often resulted in when one’s mate was not found good enough. For this childe to continuously defy him, always stay one step ahead...

But oh – the Døkkálfr would not stand a chance against his resurrected self. Tom Riddle always measured up. Tom Riddle did not disappoint and Tom Riddle most certainly did not fail.

Harry Potter.

Unbeknownst to the resurrected shade of Tom Riddle, just a few miles away in an ancient, hidden estate, a boy gasps as he jolts awake, drenched in cold sweat and trembling from the echoes of lost dream.

“Hello, there,” the young man says, smile sly and tone wry, “You are mine.”

Chapter Text

Kreacher had worked overnight and by morning, when Harry and Hermione rose from the sofa after a poor night’s sleep, the ground level of Black Manor had been mostly cleaned out. The chupacabra they had seen scuttling across the entry floor turned out to be part of an entire family, of which Kreacher had hunted down and thrown out of the house (“Being bad lucks to kill the chupacabras,” Kreacher had explained) and he was well on his way to cleaning out the pixies, ghouls, and boggarts lurking on the second floor.

Harry and Hermione had barely gotten into their breakfast when an unexpected visitor arrived at the manor.

Harry felt his nerves tingling, an electric shock racing from the base of his spine outwards through his limbs. The tips of his fingers turned a dusty black and Harry felt his hackles rising.

Trespasser, Harry’s instincts sang.

Kreacher appeared in the kitchen with a crack! with eyes wild and expression harried.

“Masters Ha – ” Kreacher began and Harry quickly cut him off.

“I know,” Harry replied lowly, voice gravelly.

“What is it?” Hermione asked, hand gripping her procured wand.

“An uninvited guest,” Harry growled. He quickly pushed his chair out and got to his feet.

How someone had found them, he had no idea. Transferring the Fidelius Secret Keeper to himself had worked; Harry felt the connection humming through his magic.

Harry stalked through the house to the entry doors, a worried Kreacher and grimly frowning Hermione chasing after him. Harry yanked open one of the immense black French doors of the entrance and promptly stepped back in surprise at the sight before him.

A tall woman stood on the wrap-around porch outside. Long black curls spilled around her shoulders like a waterfall and her skin was tinted with a grey sheen, as if she had been born from the cold ashes of a fire. But the most startling part of her appearance were her glowing eyes, unsettling gold irises ringing her slit-like eyes. She was stunning – frightening. Harry felt her magic even from two meters away from where she stood at the top of the porch’s stairs. It tasted familiar, the same way that running into a very old acquaintance felt. Harry was momentarily rocked by déjà vu, part of him sure that he had experienced this before but not quite able to recall the moment. 

“Harry Potter,” the woman said, her thin lips pulling back to reveal inhumanely sharp teeth as she smiled – the expression looked strained on her face, as if she weren’t used to smiling. Her words were twisted with a slight accent that was unfamiliar to Harry. “We haven’t officially met. I am Ilmr.”

“You were the being that possessed Professor McGonagall,” Harry breathed, eyes widening. “Your magic – that’s where I felt it.”

“Very good, Mr. Potter. Or, should I say Black?” She replied, all teeth and sharp amusement.

“Døkkálfr,” Kreacher whimpered from the background, the fear in his voice evident.

Harry stood his place in the doorway, shielding Hermione and Kreacher from sight even as the dark elf’s eyes flickered to the shadows behind him.

“What do you want?” Harry asked, uneasy by the creature’s presence.

“To speak to you,” Ilmr replied, leaning against one of the porch’s columns. “I am an envoy, sent by my leaders. We are curious as to your development.”

Harry frowned as he considered her carefully spoken words, her accent clipped and cultured.

“I suppose you’ll want to be invited in?” Harry answered slowly. “I heard your kind can only enter a home when invited.”

Ilmr laughed, a cold sound that rose the hairs on Harry’s neck. “Our kind, little one. And that is an old wives’ tale. I found your house despite your wards, no? I can come in anytime I want. Though I thought I should give you the benefit of the doubt and see if you would play kindly.”

Harry nodded stiffly, stepping back and to the side. Hermione spluttered as Harry did so, quickly getting out of the way as the tall Døkkálfr woman swept past and into the shadowy house.

“Charming,” Ilmr drawled, taking in the dreary settings.

Harry ignored her, his senses going haywire as he carefully kept himself between his friends and the elf woman. She seemed ferocious, feral in a way that reminded him of a panther. She was all subtle muscle, strength, and fearsome cunning; a predator in her natural habitat.

“Drawing room is to the right,” Harry said, nodding at the doorway. “Kreacher, please get us some tea, would you?” When the little elf wavered, Harry assured him, “I’ll be fine. I’ll call you if I need anything.”

Kreacher nodded, frowning deeply but obeying.

Hermione, Harry and Ilmr settled in the drawing room, with Hermione and Harry seated close to one another on a settee and, across a large coffee table, Ilmr lounged in a dusty armchair.

“What is it you want from me?” Harry asked, breaking the brief silence.

“Nothing, really,” Ilmr replied, crossing her legs and taping her nails on the leather arms of the highback chair. “Just professional curiosity.”

“You possessed a professor and exorcised yourself upon discovery. That seems like a lot of effort for curiosity,” Hermione snapped, her upper lip quirking in distaste.

“I see why you like this one,” Ilmr said to Harry, a cold smile carving her face as she turned her attentions to Hermione. “Such fire.”

“Leave her out of this,” Harry bit out. The whole situation was putting him on edge, his instincts warning him to be careful of the dangerous creature encroaching on his territory.

“I am not here to harass either of you,” Ilmr sighed, waving her hand in the air dismissively. “It is rare for a human half-breed to develop into one of our kind. While we are hardly a social species, we do take care of our own. The last time a Døkkálfr of your kind developed, he was killed by his own soulbond.”

“Regulus,” Harry whispered, the name dripping from his lips before he was even aware of Ilmr’s meaning.

“Correct,” Ilmr agreed, head tilting as she considered him. “Our numbers are small and we protect our blood. We did not approach your adoptive father when he presented, an error we will not commit again.”

“What do you want from me?” Harry repeated once more, knuckles whitening as they tightened over his wand.

“To protect your life,” Ilmr stated. “We know that your attraction to this Dark Lord is growing and we know of the prophecy.”

Harry bristled sharply at her words. “What the hell do you mean you know about that stuff?”

“It was not difficult to discover, especially when humans like to talk so very much,” Ilmr replied, rolling her eyes. “Your Order of the Phoenix was especially easy to infiltrate. They suspect your attraction to Voldemort and your leader is cunning. They know you must die to bring the Dark Lord to his end.”

Harry felt ice run through his veins at the thought of the Order of the Phoenix talking about his murder, about sacrificing him to end the war. It logically was not that much of a surprise, but it still felt horrid to think that people like Tonks was preparing for his murder.

“Only some of the humans know about this,” Ilmr continued, as if reading Harry’s thoughts. “I suspect there would be mutiny if it was revealed to the entire Order.”

“So you want to – what? Protect me?” Harry asked, snarling.

“No,” Hermione said unexpectedly. Harry briefly let his eyes flicker to his friend, who wore an expression of sudden understanding. “They want to help us,” Hermione breathed.

Ilmr shrugged, smiling sharply. “Your Dark Lord has made many problems for our kind. Dark creatures were mostly forgotten after Grindelwald’s time, especially with many of the wizarding kind working to reveal that most dark creatures are not interested in bothering humans. Ah, but then your precious Voldemort starts recruiting dark creatures who are too stupid to understand the consequences of their actions, such as dementors and werewolves and their ilk, creatures who were seduced by your Dark Lord’s lies.

“And now we are shackled by laws in your government, unable to move freely and required to register. As if we would give such power to the wizards,” Ilmr laughed, clearly amused by wizardingkind’s attempts to control her species, “But it is very inconvenient. With a strong, famous hero such as yourself to present as a Døkkálfr – well, one could say you would be a very powerful proponent for our rights.”

“It’s political,” Hermione confirmed just as Ilmr trailed off. At the dark elvish woman’s nod, Hermione leant back into the sofa and relaxed. Harry knew the girl’s thoughts must undoubtedly be running a thousand miles a minute. His best friend had always shown interest in fighting for the civil rights of underappreciated creatures and Ilmr’s brief but eye-opening explanation had clearly drawn Hermione in.

“What do I get from this?” Harry then said, crossing his arms over his chest but hand still carefully gripping his wand.

Ilmr released a half-bark half-laugh in amusement. “Knowledge that you have made the world a better place?” She offered, eyebrows raising. At Harry’s stony expression, she grinned. “Or, perhaps, assistance in capturing your soulmate.”

Harry’s eyes widened at Ilmr’s words before he forced himself to relax. Of course, though, she had caught his expression and she laughed like a hyena, leaning forward in the armchair so that her elbows rested on her knees and she laced her black, sooty fingers loosely. Her ashy skin darkened gradually from her elbows down towards her fingers until they were stained ink black at her fingertips, a permanent colouring unlike Harry’s own marks.   

“This Dark Lord has Dökkálfar blood running through his veins, though his history,” Ilmr stated, ignoring Hermione’s gape of surprise. “He would not have presented, not unless he were more whole and a strong submissive such as yourself to draw him towards his inheritance with strong signalling magic. We believe that whatever your soulmate was before you killed him... Well, something new has been born and has taken his place. He knows what you are and he plans to have you. His blood demands completion of the soulbond.”

“How do you know all this?” Harry whispered softly, feeling fear curl like ice in his stomach.

“We watch, Harry,” Ilmr stated, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “We watch, we wait, we take. I can show you what it means to be Dökkálfar. You will have power the world knows not.”

Harry flinched at the wording, an unwelcome echo of the prophecy on his life.

“Why wouldn’t the fact that Harry killed Voldemort destroy the soulbond?” Hermione asked, tone curious. “Wouldn’t that be considered a rejection of a mate?”

“Clever,” Ilmr drawled. “And yes, it was a rejection. It is not uncommon for a weaker alpha Døkkálfr to be murdered in the pursuit of a stronger submissive mate. A submissive Døkkálfr does not submit to a being it considers below its strength. Harry here killed the weak soul shard’s host, but he did not destroy his mate. And when it comes back stronger in the shape of a larger soul piece, I doubt Harry will be able to resist. That is why he needs our help.”

“Who else is behind this?” Hermione demanded. “Will others help besides the Dökkálfar?”

“Who?” Ilmr asked sarcastically, leaning back into her chair. “You think the Witte Wieven will come to your aid? They can hardly see beyond admiring their own reflection.”

“The spirits of wise women, a type of light elvish women,” Hermione supplied at Harry’s confused expression. “And why wouldn’t they?” Hermione asked, turning back towards Ilmr. “Aren’t they supposed to help humans in time of need?”

“They are a strong force to be reckoned with,” Ilmr conceded sourly, as if the words pained her to say them. “But they have been angered by the humans’ insistence on their evilness and they are bitter they have been mostly forgotten to time. Humans no longer bring their shrines gifts nor worship them on Ēostre, just as humans no longer sacrifice on Samhain. Much of our power was pulled from the spring and autumn equinox and refusal of ancient traditions has made our kinds weak.”

“So the Dökkálfar will help us,” Harry murmured. “And they do not mind?”

“There have been conflicting opinions on the matter,” Ilmr admitted, face twisting in annoyance, “But know that I am here to help you.”

“One dark elf?” Harry laughed disparagingly, tone sharp and bitter.

And then, before Harry could barely see her move, Ilmr was in Harry’s face as Hermione yelped in surprise. Ilmr had leapt over the coffee table and now straddled his hips, her knees digging into the velvet settee beneath Harry and hands braced on the back of the sofa. Ilmr pressed her snarling face into Harry’s personal space, making the smaller Døkkálfr shrink back in fright at her sudden threatening demeanour.

“It would do you well to remember your manners, little Døkkálfr,” Ilmr snarled, long canines glinting in the white lighting of the drawing room’s tall windows. “I have offered my aid as an ally and refusal would be considered the act of an enemy.”

“Yous step back from Masters Harrys right now,” Kreacher snarled from behind Ilmr. Harry’s eyes flickered from the eerie golden shade of Ilmr’s eyes to Kreacher, whose hand was raised and crackling with uncast magic at Ilmr’s back, a tea tray forgotten at his feet.

“Tell your rat to stand down,” Ilmr whispered coldly in Harry’s face. “And we can forget your poor behaviour just this once.”

Harry felt his face twitch in annoyance at Ilmr’s words. “I apologise for my disrespect,” Harry replied softly, his fingers burning as his own fight instincts began to unfurl, “But you do not get to disrespect my friends in my home.”

Ilmr stared down at Harry passively, that annoying smirking expression long gone, but then she abruptly shrugged and stood in a smooth, swift movement.

“I realise I have not allowed you the opportunity to process this information,” Ilmr said, eyes flickering around the room to Hermione and Kreacher. “I will leave now and will be back in a fortnight. We can discuss further at that time. In the meantime, should you need to contact me, push a little magic into this.”

A round piece of metal the size of a coin appeared in Ilmr’s left hand and she rolled the disk between her knuckles in a smooth movement. She then flicked the metal and it spun high into the air before completing its arch and coming back down towards Harry. Harry snatched the metal disk from out of the air and turned to Ilmr – then flinched as he realised that the dark elf had disappeared while the trio were distracted by her toss.

Harry turned the metal coin over in his fingers. It was a round disk with the middle cut out in the shape of a square, the main circle of metal etched with old Nordic runes. The runes glowed briefly as he ran his fingers over the marks, warm to the touch and filled with Ilmr’s oddly familiar magic.

“That was amazing,” Hermione said suddenly, blinking at the space where Ilmr had once stood.

Turning to his friend with eyebrows raised, Harry nearly rolled his eyes at the expression of wonder and awe on the girl’s face.

“That’s one way of putting it,” Harry muttered grumpily to himself.

Harry and Hermione threw themselves into making the house habitable. After a week of cleaning and banishing out the occasional ghoul and boggart they came across, Harry and Hermione were finally able to sleep at night without worrying at the idea of being attacked. It took another week to clean the vast gardens, though they did not bother with the enchanted woods surrounding the property. Kreacher gleefully claimed the woods contained monsters frightening enough to protect the house for centuries and Harry did not feel like pressing his luck anytime soon.

After the house was up to a somewhat reasonable condition, the trio then began working on the house wards. They were old and crumbling after a decade of being forgotten but Harry’s presence in the house as a Black Heir helped boost the ailing wards. The house had been, unsurprisingly, built on an ancient ley line (Kreacher claimed most wizarding families had a manor in Wiltshire for that particular reason) and the earth magic fed the house. Black Manor was alive in a way that Grimmauld Place wasn’t; the house groaned and shifted as if it were a living, breathing beast.

Harry was also sure that the house occasionally obfuscated the trio by changing the location of corridors and rooms, though the shifting felt more playfully teasing than malicious. Sometimes the library could be found by going down the west-wing hallway and sometimes it could be found by climbing the vast staircase at the entry and opening the nearest door on the right. This arrangement seemed to be applicable to most rooms, though Harry was finding it easier to locate rooms when he listened to the gentle guidance of the house.

Ilmr returned on the second week. Harry and Hermione were prepared for her visit this time and Hermione spent most of the visit barraging Ilmr with questions. The girl had not quite lost the look of awe in the face of Ilmr’s extensive knowledge even long after the dark elf left, even though Hermione managed to keep most of her composure enough to ask intelligent questions. By the time the day had fallen to late evening, Hermione invited Ilmr for dinner and the two women kept their conversation up the entire time. Harry would have felt a little like a third wheel, but Hermione was sure to keep the conversation on topic and he enjoyed using the time to watch Ilmr.

Whilst darkly beautiful and surprisingly young for someone of her wisdom (though Harry couldn’t be sure of her age as magical beings’ physical appearances tended to be misleading), Ilmr was also animalistic in appearance in a sleek, predatory way. Ilmr once again reminded him of a panther; she was slimly built but held a powerful presence and her dark magic wrapped around her silkily like a sleeping cat. Harry realised she was an alpha Døkkálfr and her coiled magic was as intense as it was alluring. But unlike Voldemort’s magic, Ilmr’s magic did not make the war drums beat in his head nor did he find himself solely fixated on the woman.

However, the same said could not be said the same for Hermione. Despite being a human from muggle origin, Hermione seemed completely enchanted with the dark elf woman almost in the way Harry was to Voldemort and the Døkkálfr woman seemed equally curious. Harry wonders if Hermione was at all aware of her fawning, though Ilmr did not appear willing to embarrass the younger woman by commenting on it and Hermione seemed to draw out a side of Ilmr that Harry had not prepared to see. Ilmr softened slightly to Hermione’s endless questions and, by the end of the evening, Harry had to intervene so that Ilmr would leave the house before it was a new day.

Despite the somewhat uncomfortable realisation that his best mate was probably crushing on a dark elvish woman (and completely blindsided by such a thought), Harry was glad that Hermione had absorbed Ilmr’s responses like a sponge and was able to ask sophisticated questions on the issue at hand. Harry learned more than he had ever expected about the Dökkálfar and he found himself wishing he was more like Ilmr; there was a satisfied aura about her, as if she were completely comfortable in her elvish skin and relished her power. For Harry, who often felt both trapped in a civil war with himself and completely helpless in the face of his elvish side, it was incredible to see a real Døkkálfr who was utterly in tune with her inheritance.

Harry had felt a little overwhelmed by Ilmr’s description of soulbonding. Of finding a mate and the fierce mating behaviours of the Dökkálfar. It was all so very wild and predatory, like a dance or chase. Ilmr advised Harry to watch out for his mate, who would feel compelled to hunt Harry down. Though Ilmr expressed concern that the Dark Lord would most likely not recognise the need to hunt Harry down as part of the mating ritual, but rather thinking it was his own bloodlust for Harry’s life.

Ilmr also pressed that it was vital that Harry fought back; any less, and Voldemort would kill him. Ilmr was also sure to insist that though Harry’s ‘gender’ had been dubbed submissive in wizarding texts, the word could not be further from the truth.

“We have our own terms. The fjall, or mountain, is what you refer to as alpha,” Ilmr had explained patiently while gesturing to herself, “While the fljót, or river, is what you refer to as submissive,” she gestured to Harry. “Fjall Dökkálfar may stand tall and proud and unmoving, but they do not forget that Fljót Dökkálfar can carve from them all the same. The fljót is fluid, clever, flows strong and deep. While a mountain may cast a long shadow, it is the mountain who is at the mercy of the river’s path. The river nourishes the mountain and, in turn, the mountain protects the river. It is because of this knowledge that the Dökkálfar cherish their mates.”

Harry felt immensely better at the knowledge that he wasn’t just going to keel over in Voldemort’s presence. Ilmr’s hyena-like laughter upon his description of the war drums beating in his heart and mind every time he was near Voldemort had been degrading at the time, but Harry was relieved to discover that it wasn’t because his elvish instincts were forcing him to submit – no, it was his instincts calling for a fight. That brief relief had evaporated, however, upon the discovery that it was Dökkálfar mating tradition for the submissive to fight the alpha and only by being defeated would the submissive rather willingly – well, submit. Harry was beet-red in the face upon Ilmr’s rather unnecessarily detailed description of what, precisely, ‘submission’ meant and even Hermione had a dusting blush running across her cheeks to the bridge of her nose by the time Ilmr leant back in her chair and shot the mortified pair a filthy grin. 

By the time Harry had shooed Ilmr out of the house after her vaguely threatening-sounding promise to return to teach them both proper self-defence, Harry somehow felt both much more knowledgeable on the subject of Dökkálfar and yet utterly and totally turned-around. Each answer Ilmr gave, ten more questions popped up. Harry also suspects that Hermione could spent another week just questioning Ilmr but, if he heard any more information, he was worried his head would implode.

Eventually, Ilmr returned again a couple weeks later. Hermione and Harry had spent the time between her visits working on their defensive magic and training harder physically. Though the pair were hardly out of shape, the physical activity helped keep their minds off the brewing war in the horizon. Ilmr had been amused by their routine of physical activity and instead gave them a new punishing regime, promising that by eating good food and obeying her fitness plan, they would become formidable in a few short months.

Ilmr also immediately shot down their idea of going looking for horcruxes.

“You are not ready,” Ilmr had said silkily at Hermione’s causal mention of horcrux hunting. “And you will not leave until I say you may.”

Of course, that had been met by quite possibly the most stubborn-headed debate of the century as Hermione promptly lost her cool at Ilmr’s declaration. Harry wisely stayed out of the two women’s ways as they very politely verbally sparred, voices never raising but the tension high all the same. After Hermione eventually sulked off when Ilmr’s magic spiked and the dark elf stated with finality that Hermione would not leave until she could properly take Ilmr on in a fight, Harry realised that the damned elf woman had been sly smirking the entire time. Harry’s not sure what the hell is going on between the elvish woman and Hermione, but the Døkkálfr had been too darkly pleased by Hermione’s spitfire personality and the whole thing makes Harry feel shifty. He doesn’t know truly know Ilmr, despite the woman hanging around the Manor often enough, and he questions the Døkkálfr’s motives. Hermione is his best friend and he’s worried she’ll get burnt from whatever this budding relationship blossoms into.

Hermione and Harry also got in contact with Luna, Ginny and Neville to let them know they were safe and to tell them to stay put. Neville was excited at the prospect of getting his hands on the Black Manor greenhouses but stayed behind in the wizarding world at Harry and Hermione’s suggestion; he was to help act as their eyes and ears. Luna was also unable to come over as it was, in her exact words, ‘Niffler mating season’ and she was responsible for writing the cover-story on the subject for the Quibbler. She also admitted that her father nearly had a heart attack upon discovering the events of the Death Eater break-in and she worried after him; Hermione and Harry were sure to insist she stayed home to take care of her father.

Ginny was at home taking care of her mother and family. The family was still keenly missing the presence of Ron and Harry knew the loss hurt Ginny more than she wanted to admit. Even though the boy was a complete git, Ginny still loves her brother. The realisation that Harry has not really given Ron a second thought since the boy’s kidnapping leaves him surprisingly ashamed. While Ron has a lot of growing up to do, Harry knows the boy doesn’t deserve whatever the Death Eaters were dispensing. All the same, Ron has taken up very little of his thoughts lately and Harry weakly offers his condolences to Ginny, promising that if they discover anything about Ron’s whereabouts, they’ll contact Ginny immediately.

Harry thinks about Malfoy Manor, about breaking in and stealing Nagini and the locket horcrux. He wonders if Ron is there, only a few short kilometres away but buried under layers of security. Harry wonders if Voldemort is back yet, though suspects the Death Eater break-in of Hogwarts confirms it, and wonders what Dumbledore meant by his concern that Voldemort will come back in a stronger form. The creature that stepped out of the cauldron in the cemetery had been a formidable beast and Harry can’t imagine a more terrifying, dangerous enemy. Whatever form Voldemort chooses next, Harry thinks he’ll be ready for it.

Unlike before, Voldemort doesn’t send Harry terrifying dreams. Harry is not sure why, whether it is because Voldemort is recovering from his resurrection or just busy with his nefarious plans. Kreacher occasionally leaves the house and returns with no news from the Death Eaters. The army had gone to ground and only occasionally popped up to burn down a co-muggle-wizarding village and remind everyone of their existence, but otherwise all was silent from Voldemort’s end.

But Harry does dream, though these dreams can’t possibly be from Voldemort as the tone is completely different. Though he barely remembers anything by the time he wakes up, Harry always feels a warm purr stuck in his chest and he’s twisted so tightly into his sheets that it takes an effort to get out of bed. From what little Harry remembers, he knows there’s a young man and he can almost feel those light touches on his skin, soft lips just touching the nape of his neck. Harry blushes when he awakens, not knowing who the man is nor why his gaze feels like sunlight touching Harry’s skin. Even though there’s never any memory of his dreams being anything less than innocent (being embraced by warm arms, lips grazing his neck, fingers curling in his hair), the dreams are surprisingly embarrassing once he returns to his faculties.

Harry is glad Voldemort is not around to witness this.

Ilmr brought strange news to Hermione and Harry three months into their stay at the Black Manor. She had asked around her tribes and was surprised to discover that the name Tom Riddle was well-known in certain circles. The man was born of Gaunt and Slytherin lines, both families that were infamous for their blood purity obsession and known for their powerful dark magic. It was not uncommon, Ilmr surmised, for dark elves to take mates of exceptionally powerful wizarding stock. As the Gaunt and Slytherin families bred with the Dökkálfar, they became more and more alike the dark elves. Eventually their own young began producing Dökkálfar and Tom Riddle had presented at sixteen as an alpha Dökkálfar. Ilmr suspects this is how Tom Riddle was able to cast such dark magic at sixteen, to create a horcrux from a schoolmate when it was a feat only accomplished once before by an old, experienced dark wizard with nothing left to lose.

When Tom Riddle just entered his thirties, the man went travelling and came across a hunting troupe of Dökkálfar. He joined the group of alphas and returned with them to a well-known Dökkálfar tribe. While the man stayed with the tribe for many years and learned the ways of the Dökkálfar, he was not accepted as their own. He was a halfbreed, the creation of a Døkkálfr and a human. Harry knows how furious Riddle had been growing up when he was seen as anything other than perfect; Harry recalls how Dumbledore showed that Riddle defined himself by his Slytherin heritage, how Riddle loathed to be seen as less for his genetic make-up. Eventually, Riddle left the Dökkálfar tribe and returned to civilisation to rule.

Well, that explains where he disappeared off to for a decade, Harry had thought mulishly.

Ilmr was quick to note as well that the Dökkálfar had been uneasy around Riddle. He did not appreciate the elders trying to teach him of mates, of an equal to share his life with. The Dökkálfar adore their mates, despite being deeply dark magical creatures, and Riddle’s indifference was seen as weakness (though this was not said to the dangerous alpha’s face). The tribe had sighed in relief when he had left for his own ambitions. Ilmr also commented that many submissive Dökkálfar had tried their hand at enticing Riddle, but nothing worked; the man was too splintered by that time to recognise the calling of the soulbond. Ilmr muses that perhaps none of the submissives drew his attentions; after all, a powerful mate would only consider a powerful match.

Harry scowled in odd possessive anger at the thought of other submissive Dökkálfar throwing themselves at Riddle. The thought nearly gave Harry have an aneurysm when he realised what he was thinking and Harry had to leave Ilmr almost immediately, escaping her knowing smirk as he blushed in mortification.

Finally, thankfully (for his own sanity), Ilmr agreed to let them off the estate. One at a time, though, to Harry’s never-ending despair. First went Hermione, which put Harry’s teeth on edge. When Hermione returned with red eyes and tear tracks down her cheeks, Harry nearly put a hole in Ilmr’s head. After Harry had calmed down, Hermione explained that she had obliviated her parents and sent them off to Australia to protect them from the upcoming war. Harry did not apologise to Ilmr, but he had a feeling the woman wouldn’t care either way; it took a lot to get under the elvish woman’s skin. Harry also suspected that, in her own way, the elvish woman was proud of Harry’s response – a Døkkálfr protecting his family, even against an alpha who could probably lay him out on the floor.

Harry decided to spend his day out of the Manor with Ilmr just outside the Malfoy Manor’s fence. Ilmr had taught Harry how to step like he was hunting in the Dökkálfar way, to not make a sound nor trip an alarm ward. It was good practice, slinking around outside the compound in the shadows, under the protection of a disillusionment charm and quiet as a mouse as he slipped from shadow to shadow, in the space in-between.

To Harry’s lack of surprise, they saw nothing suspicious nor out of the ordinary (watching Death Eaters rush in and out of a castle-esque manor was hardly unexpected) and went back the next couple days after that to see if the Death Eaters’ routine deviated. Hermione was not allowed to come as she could not yet capture the hunting shadow-movement technique that Ilmr so effortlessly displayed and the bushy-haired girl grumpily stayed back at the Manor, practising religiously in the hopes she would be able to come on the next scouting mission.

“Will she ever get it?” Harry had asked as Ilmr apparated the pair to the outskirts of the Malfoy Manor estate.

“Not unless she has a drop of Dökkálfar blood I don’t know about,” Ilmr had muttered, flashing a sharp smile in Harry’s direction.

Harry huffed an exasperated laugh at the elvish woman. Hermione was undoubtedly going to be furious when she found out that shadow-walking was a Dökkálfar-specific technique, but Harry was slowly coming to realise that Ilmr would rather listen to Hermione rant on than put the young woman in harm’s way. It was an unsettling realisation, but Harry knows that has much more to do with his protective streak over his best friend than lack of approval of Ilmr.

Ilmr took to spending weeks at the Manor now, teaching Harry and Hermione how to physically defend themselves while casting magic. It was rather alike what Harry thought a duelling course mixed with an unholy blend of martial arts class and a rugby club would be; physically exhausting, occasionally extremely dangerous, and paced to an aggressive, punishing speed that honed their reflexes.

Hermione was now leagues ahead of where she had been at the beginning of the year and Harry was pleased that he had also improved by leaps and bounds. Ilmr showed Harry ways to control his magic and it was becoming easier with each passing day to trust his new elvish instincts.

It was nearing the end of May when Harry finally let himself approach the diadem once more. After Hermione and him had arrived at Black Manor, Harry had insisted that Kreacher hide the crown somewhere safe and Harry had not seen it since. But, despite not knowing exactly where Kreacher had put the diadem, Harry could... Feel it. Like a distracting sound, playing in the background and capturing Harry’s attention. Harry became better at tuning out the distraction as Ilmr taught Harry how to contain his elvish magics, but it never went away. The diadem reached out for him sometimes and Harry found that he needed to stop himself from going to visit it on the odd occasion.

When Harry finally gave into the diadem’s call, it was because Harry thought he was ready to confront the soul shard.

The diadem had been given its own room in the old servant’s quarters. In a small storage room, the crown was in the middle of the room on the floor, the discoloured metal and grand jewels on the face of the crown matted with dust.

Harry picked up the crown and closed his eyes at the surge of Mine-mine-mine-

“Hello to you, too,” Harry whispered back, fingers curling tighter around the crown. Harry slowly put the crown on his head and instantly was sucked into a scene.

Before him was a large meadow, heather fluffy with the final blooms of the season. Cornflowers spun in the breeze, their colour matching the sky, and lavender scented the air. The meadow went on forever, until it touched the sky in the far horizon.

“Mine,” a voice hissed behind Harry and he felt himself jump as arms wrapped around his stomach. Harry kept stock still as a nose pressed in between the blades of his shoulders and inhaled sharply, as if taking in his smell.

“That’s a bit presumptuous,” Harry stated blandly, not inflecting any anger in his tone nor acknowledging the strange curling feeling in the bottom of his stomach.

“Is it?” The voice replied, surprisingly young sounding, the Parseltongue accented and lilting.

“Yes,” Harry answered firmly in English, though his voice nearly cracked at the end. Harry was drawn back into a small body and Harry refused to look around, to see what form Voldemort took now. He was beginning to realise he had been very stupid for thinking that he was ready to face the diadem.

“You know you are mine,” Voldemort replied, still in Parseltongue, still sounding like a child. Harry felt his blood pressure beginning to rise. Voldemort’s nails dug into Harry’s sides.

“I need to know where the cup is,” Harry replied instead, voice catching in his throat when those arms tightened.

“No, you do not need to know that,” Voldemort breathed, sounding equally furious and amused.

“I won’t hurt him,” Harry said. “Or – rather – you,” he corrected.

“I do not share,” Voldemort answered instead.

Yanking out of Voldemort’s arms and spinning around, fingers glowing with the beginnings of a defensive spell, Harry began to snap – before freezing and letting his mouth hang open.

Before him was what appeared to be an eleven-year-old Voldemort, though with his looks he could have been younger. Voldemort was – well. He was simply a gorgeous child. Harry flinched back at the sight of the child’s softly curled black hair, his grey eyes flashing red, full lips quirking in challenge. Voldemort just stood there, letting Harry blink at him in confusion and stumble backwards.

“You would hurt me in this form, Harry?” Voldemort asked coyly.

“Fuck you, seriously,” Harry snarled in fury and he focused on breaking the illusion. Voldemort’s mouth twitched, the mask slipping for a second, and Harry smirked. “That’s what I thought.”

Coming out of the diadem’s world was difficult but Harry managed to extract himself. He blinked at the disorienting sight of the small storage cupboard after having been in what felt like an endless flowering meadow, the diadem gripped tightly in his white-knuckled hands.

“Try the LeStrange vault,” the diadem them whispered into Harry’s mind, making him jump in surprise and drop the diadem.

Even though Harry’s not sure if it hurts the soul shard to be dropped, Harry still winced. He knew Hermione, for one, would be devastated if he accidentally dented Ravenclaw’s handmade Diadem of Wisdom.

“You can’t be serious,” Hermione moaned, slapping her palm to her forehead as Ilmr sat on the sofa arm next to Hermione, one of the woman’s sharp eyebrows raised in silent disapproval in Harry’s direction.

“At least we have a starting point,” Harry offered defensively. “The diadem said to try the vaults and Merlin knows if it is trying to throw us off the track or help us, but it’s better than sitting around here doing nothing.”

“You should not have confronted the soul shard on your own,” Ilmr then said quietly. “You must have one of us around to help should things go south.”

Hermione nodded, sitting up to frown at Harry disapprovingly. In the face of the stoic elf’s expression and Hermione’s glare, Harry deflated.

“Okay, alright,” Harry conceded, hands coming up in defeat. “Next time, you’ll be there.”

“This is most likely a trap,” Hermione said, looking up to Ilmr for confirmation.

Ilmr stared down at Hermione with her amber eyes glowing, head tilting as she considered Hermione’s words.

“That, or the soul shard knows something we do not,” Ilmr said. “It is possible that the soul shard wants us to collect the pieces, to bring them together to conspire. If we find the shard, we cannot allow it to be left near the diadem.”

Hermione made an expression of disgust at the idea of Voldemort’s soul pieces plotting in their home.

Would you hurt me in this form? Harry recalled the diadem saying. The words crawled up Harry’s back like a spider, chilling and eerie and putting Harry on edge.

“So, who feels up to dealing with some goblins?” Harry asked brightly, shaking off the memory with a suppressed shudder.

At Hermione’s wince and Ilmr’s expression of disgust, Harry realised that perhaps the two women weren’t as excited as he was. Even so, the women eventually agreed to go and scout the Diagon Alley, with Ilmr to shadow-step Hermione (the girl still unable to do it on her own and getting suspicious) while Harry would keep close behind. Ilmr also insisted Hermione go in disguise and Kreacher was all too gleeful to locate an unsuspecting witch and pluck a hair from her head as she passed by. Polyjuice consumed and glamours fixed for at least an hour, Kreacher and Harry apparated as a pair directly to a shadowy stoop, just cattycorner from Gringotts on Diagon Alley. Ilmr and Hermione followed shortly, arriving with a nearly silent pop just two shops down from Harry and Kreacher.

To Harry’s shock and awe, Ilmr’s instructions to go into Gringotts and simply demand to access Bellatrix LeStrange’s account actually worked. As he was heir to the Black family and LeStrange was born a Black, and technically considered a life-prisoner of the state (despite being on the lamb), the goblins were annoyed but acquiesced to Harry’s statement that he was her family head. LeStrange’s own husband did not have account autonomy as he too was a ward of the state and the goblins admitted that in the event of the LeStrange family death, assets would be transferred to Harry’s name rather than Draco Malfoy’s name as the order of inheritance hierarchy was in Harry’s favour.

The whole situation had been horrifically tense, with Ilmr staring at the goblins in dislike and the goblins sneering back at her with equal distaste, and even Kreacher and Hermione snipping at one another in stress. Eventually, Harry found the cup and nearly activated the duplicating charm as he bent to pick up the nearly-silent horcrux.

Unlike the diary, the horcrux in the cup was hibernating. While it did not reject Harry’s magic, it did not curl out and pull him in like the diadem. Instead, it softly replied to Harry’s unravelling of the duplicating charm with distant, muted inquisitiveness. Harry put the cup in his knapsack and the group hightailed it out of Gringotts before the mutinous goblins could change their mind.

Once back in Black Manor, Harry allowed himself to relax and gave Ilmr and Hermione time to breathe, leaving them alone in the library and busying himself with finding a room to hide the silent cup.

“We should break into Malfoy Manor to collect the locket,” Ilmr said one day over a cup of coffee. It had been a month since Kreacher, Hermione, Harry and the dark elf had gone to Gringotts. They spent the following days investigating the final horcrux, Harry and Hermione coming to the disappointing conclusion that Dumbledore was right; Nagini was most likely the last piece.

Hermione spluttered into her tea at Ilmr’s words and Harry glanced at the elvish woman in surprise. If she was suggesting such a thing, then Ilmr clearly thought they were ready.

“I can’t cast magic, yet,” Harry said. “It would just bring Ministry officials to us and that is the last thing we need.”

“We could wait until your seventeenth birthday,” Hermione said contemplatively. “It’s just a month away now. And we need a really good plan, which is going to take a couple weeks to plan and scout around Malfoy Manor anyway.”

“Yes,” Ilmr agreed, smiling at Hermione warmly.

Hermione flushed under the elvish woman’s gaze and Harry put his head in his hands. Despite the obviousness of Ilmr and Hermione, absolutely nothing had happened. At all. It had been months and Harry was beginning to tire of the tension. If Hermione was any more sexually suppressed, he was sure she was going to explode – a fact he told her not a week ago and had resulted in Hermione cursing him with a rather vicious bat-boogey hex.

“A month,” Ilmr agreed and Harry nodded mutely. A month to plan a break-in of an ancient noble house to face Death Eaters, a suspiciously quiet Dark Lord, and possibly a horcrux or two.

Harry groaned.

On his seventeenth birthday, Ilmr insisted on a traditional Dökkálfar coming of age ceremony. While he had come of age the year before (and what a year it has been, Harry mused to himself), Ilmr claimed that he would always be considered a minor to the Dökkálfar until he completed the ceremony.

Harry suspects that Ilmr really just wants to annoy Harry as much as possible and this is her way of getting free rein at telling Harry what to do.

But on the summery eve in the vast gardens of Black Manor, Harry realises that there was more to the event than Ilmr getting to boss him around. The flowering gardens were aglow with firebugs and flame pixies burning with flickering golden light. There was a row of arched arbours, covered in blooming wild roses and sweet peas, and a pebbled path led under the archway to a small dock jetting out into the pond. Impossibly large koi fish, the size of small horses, swam lazily in the waters and occasionally rose to nibble at the water striders rippling the pond surface.

Hermione met Harry at the beginning of the path, Ilmr at the end on the dock and accompanied by a smiling Luna, Neville and Ginny.

“May I?” Hermione asked, gesturing at Harry’s arm.

The pair linked arms and Harry let himself be pulled down the row of blooming arches.

“Rather alike a wedding,” Harry commented, taken by surprised and awed by the beautiful sight of the gardens lit up like a fairy-tale.

“There’s a reason magical wedding are like this,” Hermione replied as they neared their friends on the dock. “A new moon at midnight, an ancient house built into a ley line, firebugs and pixies, good friends and family – the magic of the ceremony is a harbinger of good fortune on a union and a happy change.”

“Union?” Harry repeated, looking over to Hermione.

“Your acceptance of your Døkkálfr self. A union of childhood and adulthood. A new chapter,” Hermione said. The pair stopped in front of their friends, Hermione stepping back as Ilmr commanded Harry’s attention.

The elvish woman began to speak in a language that Harry recognised from the Dökkálfar – The High Elves of Svartalfheim book. It must have been Old Norse and Harry felt the magic pull from her lips with each word, the pressure of the air in the gardens growing thicker and denser with each passing moment. Harry watched as a darkness descended on the gardens like a dark blanket of mist, even the nearby firebugs difficult to see in the shade.

“Harry James Potter-Black,” Ilmr stated suddenly, Harry’s eyes snapping up to look into her amber irises with anticipation. “You are son of the Dökkálfar. Such a title bears responsibilities you must take an oath to upkeep. You will protect your kind, your young, your mate, your friend. You will celebrate the season of Samhain and Ēostre, you will feed and give magic as freely as you breathe. And you will be a great warrior and wear the honours of the warrior; you will never bow to an enemy, and you will never surrender. Do you accept to uphold the tenets of the Dökkálfar?”

Harry inhaled deeply, the smell of heather and lavender just on the outskirts of his senses, as if the meadow of his sleep was here instead of in a dream of his own making, and he exhaled slowly.

“I do,” Harry promised – and he meant it.

As if someone had flicked a light switch, the dense darkness laying thickly on the garden evaporated in the blink of an eye and the warm light of the firebugs and pixies flashed brightly like jewels. Ilmr grinned at Harry with that sharp amusement that Harry has come to appreciate and she reached out to clasp Harry’s hand. Yanking him close so that they were chest to chest, Ilmr wrapped an arm around Harry and hugged him tightly. The hug was over instantly and Harry was then pushed back into his friends, who congratulated him warmly.

The evening had gone by quickly, the friends enjoying a couple bottles of herbal liqueurs procured the Black Manor’s cellars. In the morning, Harry sent his friends back home and then it was just Hermione and Ilmr once more.

“Malfoy Manor today,” Hermione said over her cup of tea, eggs untouched on her plate.

“You must eat to keep your strength up,” Ilmr stated blandly, staring at Hermione’s plate pointedly.

Harry hid a smile at Hermione’s fond expression, the young woman becoming (somehow) even more obvious with each passing day.

“Yes, Malfoy Manor,” Harry answered, working his way through a piece of toast. Though they had trained ruthlessly for this moment, Harry still felt the unease roil in his stomach.

Chapter Text

Harry went to the Diadem to see what it could tell him, to pull clues from the hateful creature that might help give them an edge. After all, it had led him to the cup horcrux. Resentfully, yes, but it had nonetheless. Perhaps it will give me something for the attack, Harry told himself, wondering if he was being delusional.

Harry tried valiantly, and somewhat in vain, to not think about why else he would be seeking out the shattered remains of Voldemort’s soul.

The instant Harry touched the Diadem, dust smearing his fingers, he’s gone. The world tilted sharply and narrowed, the edges black and endless. Harry found himself crouched in a dark room, pressed against freezing wood panes and his pupils straining to see through the inky blackness. A wardrobe or a coat closet, he deduced, feeling the bottoms of wool coats brush the top of his head. Harry held still, disoriented, and felt a small body push into his chest.

“Where on earth are –” Harry began to ask quietly as he brushed the coattails of a winter coat out of his face, and was rather rudely, harshly cut off.

“Shut up!” A Parseltongue whisper hissed venomously.

Harry paused, alarmed. The small body pressed into his was the Diadem Voldemort, in child form and all. The child, if it could even be called that, didn’t move an iota, holding himself still.

The walls began to rumble in a low roar that builds louder and louder, vibrating the wood, rattling their small dark hiding place. Vibrations violently shake the closet, raining dust and lint down into their faces. Thumping noises come and go, shadows flickering the line of light under the closet door as people run past.

The child Voldemort held his breath, not daring to move.

Harry realised, with a sudden stab of horror, what is happening. Bombings. This is a memory for Tom. Trapped in a closet, hiding from loud banging feet as people evacuate. A child hidden in a dark closet, no safer from the bombs than if he were standing on the street, yet he sought comfort in the dark, small space. The world felt dim and impossibly dense in here, the memory coloured by Tom’s childhood fear, an oppressive horror borne from being attacked and being unable to do anything about it but hide.

Harry acted on instinct. He wrapped his arms around the child in front of him and pulled him into his lap, cuddling him close. The child was shivering, though the trembling seemed to be more from fear than the bone-chilling coldness.

“Are we in the orphanage?” Harry asked quietly, a nearly inaudible whisper.

The child digs his nails into Harry’s forearms, but he did not try to escape. Instead, Voldemort bundled himself closer into Harry’s embrace. A small nod is almost lost in the movement.

In that moment, there is no Voldemort or horcruxes or Harry Potter. There was just a frightened child in the closet of a loveless orphanage, being bombed. Harry put his hand on the child’s head, turning it into his chest gently to shield his eyes from the dust still raining down on them. Harry rested his chin on soft hair and tucked the child in closer.

Harry closed his eyes and focused. He recalled the cupboard under the stairs, remembered small insignificant aspects of it that were seared into his mind. Saw the triangle shape of the door under the stairs and the low light of a single filament bulb hanging on a tangle of exposed wire. Felt the stale air. Tasted the dust motes and the crisp draft that pushed up from the uneven floor.

Harry opened his eyes and sighed in relief. In the dreamworld of the Diadem, the room had transformed into his closet under the stairs. Harry and Voldemort sit on the hard cot, the child held in Harry’s arms.

The child slowly pulled back, opening his eyes. Harry had expected to encounter blood red eyes and was ready to suppress a flinch, but the child’s grey eyes startled him more. They roved over the small shelves holding broken green soldier toys, over his collected memorabilia of trinkets nicked from rubbish bins and smooth rocks collected from the garden. Voldemort – or Tom, was it? – moved to stand in the small space. As Tom looked around curiously, Harry kept himself pushed into the corner of the cupboard, not daring to shift on the hard cot.

“Is this where you come from?” Tom asked, picking up a smooth rock from a shelf. He turned it over in his hand and inspected the shape of it.

Harry paused. “Yes,” Harry answered at last and he wondered if the Diadem was going use it against him. The memory or the rock, he's not sure.

“You’re like me,” the child answered, putting the rock down. He studiously avoided Harry’s eyes.

“Kind of,” Harry answered noncommittally. He didn’t particularly feel like getting into a fight as to why he was similar to Tom, or a provide a brutally detailed description in ways he is not. Leading fellow children to a cave and murdering them, jumped to mind.

Tom seemed to hear that last thought. He rolled his eyes and scoffed a noise of sardonic dismissal as he turned to inspect the crudely drawn artwork taped to the wall.

Harry’s eyebrows drew together. “Can you hear my thoughts? How?” Harry asked with trepidation.

“You’re in my world,” Tom replied distantly, tracing a crayon stick figure with a finger. “I hear loud thoughts sometimes, speak into minds. Each container was given a power so, naturally, being a crown, the party trick of choice was telepathy. Rather alike writing was the diary’s weapon. This isn’t even taking into account that I’m an accomplished Legilimens and your mind is astonishingly unprotected,” Tom added, throwing Harry a disparaging and somewhat disappointed look.

Harry felt himself starting to get annoyed and he forced himself to relax. Despite how much of a child this version of Voldemort appeared, and how alarmingly adorable he could be at times, it is still kind of horrifying how evil he very clearly was.

“Why were you hiding in the coat closet?” Harry asked, ignoring Tom’s unwelcome criticism.

“Why are you?” Tom shot back, sending Harry a withering glare. He then waved over the room meaningfully.

Harry opened his mouth, then closed it. He wasn’t sure why he chose this place. Of all locations, it was rather weird. Harry was not even sure it would work, imagining the cupboard. Harry had simply empathised so strongly with Tom in that moment, all he could see was his own cupboard under the stairs, his own wounds, his own childhood. And, well, here they were.

Tom raised an eyebrow at Harry, arms crossing, as he presumably heard Harry’s unspoken response. Harry got the impression Tom was rather disgusted that the answer was ‘empathy’. Of course, Harry sighed internally.

“I’m going to get the locket today,” Harry responded instead.

Tom’s head snapped up from where he was inspecting a spindly spider meandering across the floor, eyes widening in horror. “Absolutely not. He’ll kill you,” Tom commanded sharply, severely.

Harry laughed, dismissive. “Yeah, he’s tried it and that didn’t really end well for him,” Harry retorted.

“He’s different,” Tom stressed, crawling onto the cramped cot, making Harry press back harder into the wood corner. “Stronger, better. He calls out to me, and I know if I come I’ll never be able to leave. He’ll keep you.” Widened grey eyes narrow into a glare, possessive and dark. “You’re mine, no one else’s,” Tom hissed in Parseltongue.

Harry gave the child Voldemort an unimpressed stare. “Jealous of even yourself, are we?” He laughed, uncomfortable. Even as a child, Voldemort was terribly intense.

Tom looked away suddenly, flushed and petulant. Harry had embarrassed him.

Harry stared at Tom in surprise. Very rarely can Harry get through Voldemort’s cold exterior, and when he did there was usually only rage beneath. Embarrassment is kind of adorable, Harry caught himself thinking, before he shook his head. This is Voldemort, for fuck’s sake, Harry corrected himself.

And yet, it really was strange. How much they’re alike. How much they’re not.

The child Voldemort and Harry sat on the cramped cot for a beat, then the little terror sighed deeply.

“Fine. What do you want from me?” Tom asked, eyeing Harry suspiciously.

Harry shifted on the cot, surprised. He hadn’t expected to be able to ask something forthright. He expected to be toyed with, to piss off the horcrux, and get some information through the horcrux’s rage. Once more, Voldemort had taken him by surprise. He really needs to stop doing that, Harry thought to himself, cranky.

“I don’t know,” Harry answered truthfully, his arms wrapping around his knees so he could pull his legs to his chest. “I just want this all to stop.”

Tom inspected Harry with narrow eyes, contemplative. “I’ve never been very good at stopping,” Tom replied curtly. “I wouldn’t even know where to begin.”

“I’m beginning to realise that,” Harry breathed out softly, a bitter laugh buried in the words.

“You are Døkkálfr, aren’t you?” Tom asked curiously.

Harry’s eyes snapped up to look at the child. “Yes, but you know that,” Harry replied sharply. “Don’t go fishing for information.”

“Kind of, but not really,” Tom shrugged, casual, “I don’t know what goes on outside of here. I am just myself. I sometimes get snippets from the others, thoughts from people, from myself, like how I know you’re mine. But outside of that…” Tom did not finish and he trailed off as he inspected Harry closely.

Harry realised he needed to change tack. He was getting nowhere. “Why are you a child? You didn’t make this horcrux at this age.”

“The parts of the soul that are split off during creation cannot be controlled,” Tom replied coolly. He looked away from Harry, moving to pick up a broken green solider toy. “I presume what I felt when I killed ultimately influenced the outcome.”

Harry recalled the moments before when he and Tom were cramped in that impossibly dark, cold cupboard, the feeling of being bombed burning his lungs. Harry’s stomach roiled, uneasy.

“What happens if I destroy the locket?” Harry pressed. He needed to know, the feeling clawing at his skin.

“The same that has always happened,” Tom said simply. His lips quirked in a smirk and Harry realised, with abrupt clarity, that the little shit knew full well he was being entirely unhelpful and was enjoying it. “Do you even want to?”

Harry’s lips parted in offence at the question as he stared at the Diadem in shock for the audacity. “Of course I do,” Harry insisted severely. “I –”

The ceiling of the cupboard suddenly rumbled, knocking dust into the air and cutting Harry off.

Tom’s eyes widened in fear and he leapt at Harry, making Harry recoil from the tiny Dark Lord in turn. Tom buried into Harry’s chest, sharp nails digging into his flesh as Tom pushed his way closer. Harry held his hands in the air, frozen, unsure what to do, just a bit terrified of the monster seeking comfort in his arms.

“It’s just Dudley,” Harry said, voice wavering.

“You can’t let him kill you,” Tom snapped angrily.

“Dudley won’t kill –” Harry began to say softly, confused, before he was sharply cut off.

“You know who I mean,” Tom barked, his nails digging tighter into Harry’s chest. “You kill him first if you have to.”

Harry gaped down at Tom, shocked. Was he actually telling Harry to – to kill himself ?

“How?” Harry asked urgently.

Tom sighed, his annoyance and frustration clear. “I don’t know how to stop him. If I ever knew how you did it, I’d be able to stop you. But I never know, and you always somehow do it. So do it again. Kill him, Harry Potter. That thing doesn’t deserve you.”

Harry reeled, completely taken aback by the possessiveness in the horcrux’s tone. “I –”

“Go, now,” Tom commanded, his voice too young for the authority he attempted to wield. “Kill him and come back.”

Harry felt the world explode around him and he was resurfacing with a gasp in the kitchen cupboard.

Take me with you, the Diadem hissed.

Harry flinched back, barely holding onto the crown in his hands. The Parseltongue had hissed in his ear, close and furious. Telepathy, huh, Harry thought to himself warily.

“I can’t carry a crown with me,” Harry said, hoping the Diadem would let it go. “And even if I wanted to –”

Shrink me, idiot, Tom snapped.

Harry frowned at the crown. So rude, Harry thought to himself.

I’ll protect you, the voice continued softly, and Harry struggled to decipher the abrupt change in tone.

Harry groaned, closing his eyes. This was stupid. Monumentally, irreversibly, dumb. Ilmr will kill him. Hermione will kill him. Still, Harry trailed a finger over the edge and felt the Diadem begin to shrink slowly. Harry continued until the crown was no bigger than a ring. Harry slipped it over his middle finger on his left hand, the glittering gems and gold muted in its small form.

“You better not make me regret this,” Harry warned. It was too late, though. Harry already deeply regretted everything.

What am I even doing? Harry thought to himself.

A scoff echoed through his head, Tom’s dismissal clear. Otherwise, the Diadem remained silent, as if it knew it had won and was not about to take any chances of losing that victory by opening its mouth.

Smart, Harry thought loudly, pointedly.

The Diadem was conspicuously quiet.

Ilmr and Hermione didn’t notice the ring, much less comment on it. Perhaps due to nerves, or due to concealment magic from the Diadem itself; Harry could not find it in himself care. It was just past noon, when Malfoy Manor was at its quietest, and Harry had a task to focus on. Sneaking through the wards was easy, though not simple. They had practiced for months and they were rewarded for their training.

Harry silently stepped between shadows under the glare of the sun. Harry was behind an external stone wall one moment and within the manor the next. He paused and watched Ilmr follow closely behind him, a pale Hermione clutched in her grasp. They pressed into a dark alcove, listening for movement. The manor was silent. Dread roiled in Harry’s stomach, but he brushed the discomfort away. Nerves.

The trio looked at one another and nodded. Harry reached out with his senses, closing his eyes and concentrating. Voldemort’s magic echoed throughout the entire Manor, blurring Harry’s senses and overwhelming in its strength. The beginning of a war drum began to beat in his blood and Harry tamped down on it harshly, the sound a reverberating but muted noise in the background.

Harry forged through the manor with his mind, explored every crevice and poured like water on each surface. Where are you? Harry called out in his mind.

Where are you? Harry asked again, louder, clearer, trying to reach the locket.

Here, a voice unexpectedly replied, sharp and cold and gleeful.

Harry’s eyes snapped open, throat choking on a gasp. That – that was not the locket. Yet, it was. But no – no, it was something else entirely. Something whole. And, inadvertently, Harry had just caught its attention.

Hello, there. And who are you?

“Oh, shit,” Harry croaked.

The wards slammed down hard around them. Light flared over every surface of the manor in a flash, momentarily blinding them.

“What happened?” Ilmr whispered, fingers brushing against the flagstones in their dark alcove. The shadows did not respond as they usually would and Ilmr swiftly withdrew her sooty black finger tips from the flagstones as if burnt.

“I – I don’t know,” Harry breathed, reeling. “I don’t know what that was.”

You do, the Diadem mocked, sibilant hiss curling in his ear. I warned you.

Harry opened his mouth to retort, no you absolutely freaking did not, but snapped his jaw shut as he realised both Ilmr and Hermione were looking at him, the latter pale as a sheet.

“Something’s wrong,” Harry said instead, a knot growing heavy in his stomach. “Something has gone really, really, really wrong.”

Ilmr snarled, lips twisting and sharp canines exposed. Her tall form pressed into Hermione, protecting her from unseen danger. “Plan B. The dungeon tunnel. We’ll go out that way.”

The trio quickly began to move through the manor, quiet on their feet. It was eerily silent. Harry felt like stating aloud, “Too quiet” , but felt ridiculous, instead biting his lip. It was as if all of the Death Eaters within the manor had evaporated.

Harry felt a chill race up his spine.

The trio looked around a corner and Harry spied a scratched wooden door, small and unassuming in its appearance. The door to the torture dungeons. Hermione shuddered as Harry and Ilmr traded looks. It was unguarded, remarkably. Unbelievably. This is not right, Harry thought to himself for perhaps the hundredth time. Ilmr bristled as if her instincts were screaming the same.

They made it two steps toward the dungeon doors when an explosion detonated in the space between Harry and his companions, blasting Ilmur and Hermione back away from him and Harry forward. Harry flew into the dungeon door, crashing through it and tumbling down a stone staircase. Harry curled his body in and he rolled with the tumbling, attempting to protect his head. He finally stopped in a heap at the bottom of the stairs and groaned, raising his head to blearily look up the staircase at the only source of light: the way he’d fallen in. The door snapped shut sharply, unnaturally, and he is bathed in darkness.

Get up get up get up! The Diadem screams in Parseltongue, bringing the room into focus.

The war drums roar in Harry’s head, his blood, beating to the pulse in his neck and making it impossible to hear. Harry breathes through his nose sharply, trying to regain control, but it’s slipping through his fingers like smoke. Harry focuses and melts into the inky shadows, spreading out quietly as he feels through the room.

Harry can hear Ilmr and Hermione fighting on the other side of the door, hissed curses and Ilmr’s darkness and Hermione’s bright brand of magic flaring like a spotlight. Harry panics, rushing forward the darkness to the door and tries to shadow-step through; he is pushed back harshly, fingertips stinging, electrocuted. The door flares a bright white, momentarily blinding Harry, then extinguishes.

The wards will not let you through, the Diadem tells Harry, hissing in displeasure.

“Thanks, genius,” Harry snaps back, pressing his hand against the solid wood. It only responds if he tries to get through it. Interesting. “I could do without your constant narration. Kinda trying to not die right now.”

The Diadem sulkily goes quiet.

“Harry?” A scratchy voice calls from the inky darkness behind him, echoing against the dungeon flagstones.

Harry jumps, startled. He whips around and peers down the stone staircase but can see nothing through the thick, unnatural darkness.

“Harry, mate, is that you?” The voice calls out again, rough sounding. As if it hadn’t spoken in a long time. Or had spent that time screaming instead.

Harry felt a chill ripple down his spine.

“Ron?” Harry asked, not daring to hope.

“Blimey, Harry,” the voice – Ron – responded. “Took your time, didn’t you?”

Harry let out a laugh of relief and took several steps down the stairs before the Diadem snapped, And are you sure it is ‘Ron’?

Harry paused at the Diadem’s question. That… Was actually an excellent point.

“In second year, we saw what leaving the castle?” Harry asked reproachfully.

“Spiders, Harry, fucking spiders,” the voice responded in a defeated tone. “Though I’ve seen enough here to fill the forest again and then some.”

Harry laughed softly, amazed. It really was Ron. Harry leapt down the remaining stairs in the direction of the voice. He kept his wand raised, muttering a charm to glow light above him. In the unnatural darkness, the light barely extended a few feet where it should have lit up the dungeons.

Harry walked down a row of cells, their content suspiciously vacant. Blood trailed the floors, though, dark enough to not be fresh but not so old as to have been worn through with time. The sight of soiled hay and the occasionally abandoned filthy garment of clothing in the cells left a terrible taste in Harry’s mouth and he didn’t linger. Instead, Harry quickly made his way down a hallway, shuddering at the sheer volume of cells.

Abruptly, a parchment pale face appeared in the bars next to him, making Harry jump and swear. Wide eyes reflected light, brightly luminescent in the darkness.

“Harry,” the pale face breathed.

“Ron,” Harry said, overtaken with dread.

The tall boy was thin, stick thin. He was paler than Harry had ever seen him and his features were twisted tightly over his bony prominences, cheekbones a jarring slash on a normally round and flushed face. He looked abnormal, inhuman, in the dull glow of Harry’s wand.

How could I have forgotten him here? Harry thinks to himself suddenly, filled with suffocating guilt. Why has the Order not rescued him by now?

And really, that had been Harry’s expectation, something that had soothed the guilt at night when he struggled to get to sleep. That Ron was rescued. That the Order was keeping it secret for some reason or another. Not that Ron had spent nearly six months trapped in Malfoy Manor’s dungeons, just a few leagues from where Hermione and Harry have been safely holed up. A taste of acrid bile burns the back of Harry’s throat.

“So, how’s it going, mate?” Ron asks, leaning against the iron bars and crossing his arms over his chest.

Harry gapes at him, astounded.

“Fancy letting me out?” Ron continues nonchalantly, before his voice becomes strained, “Please?”

“Yes, fuck, of course, yes, shite,” Harry says, scrambling. Harry presses his hand to the metal bars and the lock falls apart under a blast of pure magic, the door swinging open.

“Huh, never tried that,” Ron says blankly, looking at the door swing open. “Show me how to do that?”

Harry pulled Ron into a hug, wincing as his nose hits Ron’s prominent breastbone. Skinny arms wrap around him and Ron’s breathing turns heavy, a quiet sob muffled into his hair.

“I’m so sorry, Harry, I’m so fucking sorry,” Ron says, voice cracking.

“Don’t even,” Harry replies sharply, willing down tears, “Don’t you dare.”

“Can we get out of here?” Ron asks weakly.

“Would love to, but gotta break Hermione out first,” Harry replies, pulling back.

“Hermione’s here? What?” Ron yelps, pushing past Harry and looking down the hallway, as if the girl would pop out of thin air.

“Stuck battling some soul sucker on the other side of the dungeon door, which won’t fucking open,” Harry growls, glaring down the hallway in the direction of the door.

“By herself? What the fuck, Harry?” Ron shouts, turning on Harry, wringing his thin wrists nervously.

“No, not by herself,” Harry replies, not willing to go into what or who Ilmr is, because they really, really don’t need to get into that right now. “An ally is with her. A really powerful ally who won’t let a hair on her head get singed. She’s okay,” Harry emphasised, thinking of the poor bastard that tries to curse Hermione having to face down a furious Ilmr.

Ron appears to release a breath he’s holding, relieved. “Okay, so what is the plan?”

Harry turns to Ron and blinks. The look on his face must say something, because Ron groans and wipes a grimy hand down his face. “Harry, you crazy bastard. What was the plan; break in here, rescue me, and then blast your way out?”

Another stab of guilt electrifies Harry’s stomach. Break in to rescue Ron… Harry wasn’t about to correct him just yet.

“Something is really wrong, we planned this down to a tee but it immediately went to shit as soon as we got through the wards. We didn’t tell anyone, I have no idea what’s going on,” Harry explains, grimacing. “It just doesn’t make sense.”

Ron’s eyes widen and his lips twist. He wrings his wrists harder. “There’s been something messed up happening recently. I think the last couple of months, but I don’t really… Understand time here. I don’t know what happened, but people stopped coming down to see me.” At this, his pale face contorts as he recalls a dark memory. Harry winces, looking away in shame. “And then the prisoners slowly stopped coming… I’ve basically been by myself for the last two weeks, I think. All the scummy Death Eaters crawling around are acting a lot differently. I think it has to do with You Know Who,” Ron whispered.

Harry’s head snapped up to look at Ron. “How so?” He presses urgently.

We don’t have time for this, the Diadem snaps.

Harry’s eyes flicker down to the ring, suddenly suspicious. Why would the Diadem want them to stop talking about this? Did… Did the Diadem somehow contact Voldemort?

Panic seizes Harry’s heart, squeezing it in a cold grip. Was Harry responsible for this? Would he be responsible for harm coming to Hermione and Ilmr over his stupidity once more?

Don’t be an idiot, the Diadem sighs in his head. For having the voice of a child, it suddenly sounds immeasurably ancient and strained. I didn’t contact him. I told you to kill him. Focus, please.

Harry recoils, rebuked and annoyed and ever so suspicious, but somewhat pacified. He realises Ron is speaking and his gaze snaps up to look at him, drawn out of the chaos in his own head.

“I don’t know,” Ron says, “It’s just… Different. Sorry, mate, I’m just a bit frazzled, I can’t think straight.”

“No, no, of course,” Harry assures him, ashamed and feeling incredibly selfish. “Let’s work on getting out, then food and sleep. Sound good?”

“Yeah,” Ron breathes, eyes suddenly glowing in excitement. “A bed. A proper full meal. Blimey. Let’s blow this hellhole.”

The pair quickly hurried back to the dungeon door, Harry helping a weak Ron up the stairs, hating himself more and more as Ron’s trembling increased. The door is locked and Harry tries shadow stepping through again, but once more he is electrified.

“Fuck,” Harry hisses.

Ron just watches him with wide eyes, confused.

“Harry.” Ilmr’s voice intones deeply from the other side of the door. It is quiet on their side, a silence that irks Harry.

“Yes, I’m here,” Harry replied urgently.

“Step back, I’m blasting through,” Ilmur responded without inflection.

Harry leapt back, alarmed. “Oh shit, move move move!” Harry barked, half pulling and half supporting Ron down the staircase as they scrabbled down.

“What are you –” Ron began to say, confused, and was cut off as the door to the dungeon exploded inward, spraying them both with shards of wood.

Harry embraced Ron and shielded him as best as he could, gritting his teeth at the sting of wood splices and clouds of debris blasted past them.

“Blimey,” Ron croaked a few moments after, silence blooming around them.

Ron and Harry turned to look up the stairs at the bright light pouring from the dungeon entry, eyes narrowed as the harsh light filled the previously dark space. Two silhouettes broke the light, one tall and lithe and the other petite form pressed up against the tall one.

“Hermione?” Ron asked reproachfully, raising his hand to shield some of the light blocking their vision.

“Ron!” Hermione gasped. The smaller silhouette broke away from the taller and ran down the stairs, Hermione’s shocked and pale face coming into view. Harry backed off for a moment as Hermione ran headfirst into Ron with the force of a train, arms wrapping around him and face burying into his thin chest.

“Hermione,” Ron repeated, voice choked up and cracking through the syllables as his arms slowly wrapped around her, knuckles turning white with how hard he held onto her. “Fuck, ‘Mione, I’m so fucking sorry.”

Hermione didn’t respond, instead she pressed harder into him. They had to be crushing each other, but neither seemed to mind.

Charming. The Diadem stated abruptly, sarcasm dripping from every letter. We absolutely have time for this, apparently.

Harry looked away, suddenly embarrassed. He glanced up the stairs and watched as Ilmr slowly made her way down the staircase, hooded eyes watching the pair in front of her and movements carefully measured, a lithe predator in a lion’s den.

“We have very little time,” Ilmr stated once she reached the bottom of the stairs, an eyebrow arched as she watched Ron and Hermione pull apart, both wiping their wet eyes quickly and quietly.

“Ilmr, this is Ron,” Hermione said, looking up at the tall elvish woman with large, damp eyes.

“Yes,” Ilmr said tonelessly, looking at the tall boy as he, in turn, blinked at her in surprise and studied her face.

Ron took a small step back, hands coming together to wring his wrists again, as the tall woman loomed over him. Despite them being the same height, Ilmr positively swamped Ron with her presence, imposing and oppressive in the small space. Ilmr studied him, the muscle under her right eye jumping minutely in a small twitch, then her face went as blank as a mask and she turned to Hermione and Harry.

“Through the tunnel, quickly. We have very little time,” Ilmr barked.

Harry nodded and Hermione grabbed Ron’s wrist, pulling the stammering boy back into the darkness of the dungeon.

Harry looked at the pair and then back to Ilmr, who stepped up to Harry’s side and watched the pair warily.

“She used to love him,” Harry said quietly. “I think she still does. But… Not like that, anymore.”

“I realise,” Ilmr responded. “She told me about Ronald Weasley.”

Harry looked up at Ilmr in surprise. He hadn’t realised Hermione talked about Ron. Then again, Ilmr and Hermione spent hours together without Harry, training and talking and simply being together. It shouldn’t surprise him, but it did.

“Let us go, child,” Ilmr says instead, voice brusque. She began marching down the dark hallway in the direction of Hermione and Ron.

“I’m not a child anymore,” Harry replied, frowning as he quickly moved to keep pace with her.

“You are all children,” Ilmr snapped back, moving faster.

“She likes you, Ilmr,” Harry said instead, hurrying past cells as voices and noise began to echo behind them.

Ilmr shot Harry a bemused look, lips twisting. “I am not in secondary school, child, and I do not care whom or what likes me.”

“Sure,” Harry replied agreeably through pants, the pair now jogging as they sped up to catch Ron and Hermione. “I know that. But Ron is Ron and he’ll be a prat soon enough. The novelty of him being rescued will wear off and she’ll likely slap him at some point and move on. She just needs to process.”

Ilmr didn’t respond, but the inky oppressive shadows of the dungeons suddenly felt a little less like molasses as they ran through them, the tension easing minutely.

Harry yelped as a bright light of sickly yellow shot between them, smashing into a cell ahead of them and exploding into a web of colour, tendrils of magic spreading out in an ominous fungal pattern. Ilmr grabbed Harry’s arm and sped up, yanking him past the cell as thousands of fine tendrils of magic reached out to them and missed them by millimetres.

“What the fuck was that?” Harry barked, catching up to Ron and Hermione as the pair panted harshly.

“Nothing good,” Ilmr responded darkly. “Just know that they aren’t taking any prisoners this time.”

The group finally reached the end of the seemingly endless hallway, turning sharply to the left into a small corridor. Hermione released a shaking, pale Ron, and trained her wand at a seemingly innocuous stone wall.

“Like we practiced,” Ilmr stated, coming to stand close to Hermione as she raised her left hand at the wall.

Harry turned, guarding the women’s backs and keeping Ron behind him. He began casting silently, palms pressed together in front of his chest and head down.

“What are you doing, mate?” Ron asked loudly, aghast. “We don’t have time for praying!”

“Shut up,” Ilmr snapped angrily over the sound of her and Hermione casting at the wall, “Let him concentrate.”

Harry looked up and pulled his hands apart sharply, a web of magic spooling between his hands and billowing out like a spider’s web. He pumped magic into the fine web as it softly floated in the stale dungeon air and attached to the walls, ceiling, and floor. It shimmered unnaturally in the inky darkness, fine and delicate looking, as it created a barrier between them and their hunters.

“Woah,” Ron said from behind Harry. “That’s neat. But… Will it do anything?”

Harry didn’t respond. A bright beam of murderous green came whistling out of the unnatural darkness, barrelling toward them. Ron gasped and stepped back too quickly, falling over. Harry stood motionlessly in the path of the spell, not moving, and narrowed his eyes as it slammed into the fine web.

The softly floating web, which had looked like a mass of fishing net billowing gently in the ocean, abruptly tightened, snapping into millions of fine, tense threads. The green spell wriggled as it was caught in the magic fibres, sizzling and extinguishing.

A dozen new spells began to shoot out of the darkness, each one slamming into the vibrating web and getting caught like flies in a spider web, fizzing and sizzling angrily as the shield absorbed its power, only growing stronger with each strike and glowing hauntingly.

“Blimey,” Ron whispered in the darkness. “It stopped an Unforgivable… That’s not supposed to be possible. Right?”

Harry ignored Ron, concentrating on the shield in front of him. Despite it growing in strength from the onslaught of spells, the shield still required immense magical strength to keep it active. Harry doubts he’ll be able to get it going again if it fails and he needs, desperately, for it not to fail.

“We’re almost through,” Hermione’s voice cut through the sound of sparks as dozens upon dozens of spells hit Harry’s shield, lighting it up like fireworks in the night sky. They were now coming at a rate the web couldn’t absorb fast enough, yet the shield held fast, bright and glowing with in a multicoloured haze of light.

Harry partially turned to look at the wall behind him out of the corner of his eye. A door had appeared in the stone wall, creaking open. Mouldy air wafted out of it, earthy and stale.

Hermione suddenly yelped, eyes wide and horrified. She looked past Harry, toward the shield, mouth dropping open in terror. Ron cried out loudly in the sudden silence, scrambling backwards.

Harry’s head snapped back to the shield and inhaled sharply as a bolt of fear struck him.

Barely a metre away, just on the other side of the shield, stood Tom Riddle. His face was aglow in the sizzling light of the spells, face brightly lit in the eerie darkness. He stared at Harry with piercing eyes, grey splintered with gold, and his expressionless mask slowly morphed into vicious victory. Harry watched, wide eyed and lips parted in horror, as the side of Voldemort’s lips curled upwards into a smirk, exposing a sharp canine.

“Hello, Harry Potter,” the creature whispered softly, soothingly.

“Oh, my god,” Hermione’s voice croaked.

Harry couldn’t think, couldn’t move. He stared at the young face of Tom Riddle, a haunting slash of pale skin in the inky blackness. He was vaguely aware of drums beating in his blood, in his ear, in his head. His body tingled, as if disconnecting from his mind, feeling so far away. Voldemort tilted his head slightly to the right and Harry felt himself mirror the action, unable to look away from Voldemort’s piercing gaze. Voldemort’s grin grew wider, sharper. Impossibly, through the impenetrable shield, Voldemort loomed over Harry.

“Let me through, sweetheart,” Voldemort continued to whisper soothingly, deep voice gentling and enchanting. Harry felt the world close around him, black tunnelling vision and muffled sound, grey and gold filling his eyes. The multicoloured glow of spells glittered, refracting, beams of light the colour of stained glass piercing the darkness. Voldemort’s hand came up to stroke the ward, spells arching and fizzing at his touch, finger pads growing black as the sizzling magic responded. A sibilant hiss dripped from his lips, honeyed, crooning, dominating, “Let me through, Harry Potter.”

Ilmr abruptly stepped in front of Harry and pushed him back, exploding the quiet bubble, and Harry inhaled sharply, gasping for air as if surfacing from under water. He realised he had been leaning forward, drawn in by the quiet voice, the world rushing in to fill the vacuum left behind.

A loud, animalistic growl exploded through the hallway, reverberating through the space and vibrating Harry’s spine. Harry shuddered, leaning his aching forehead between Ilmr’s shoulder blades as he panted, realising with dawning horror that the noise hadn’t come from her.

“How dare you interfere with what is mine, Døkkálfr?” Voldemort hissed, a possessive snarl of noise that made Harry retreat further into Ilmr’s back.

Harry clutched Ilmr’s cloak, reeling as he tried to anchor himself. He felt abruptly dizzy, the flagstones swirling below him, and he swallowed as he tried to ground himself.

What the actual fuck, Harry thought to himself, gasping through breaths.

“This Døkkálfr is not yours,” Ilmr replied deeply, tone frigid and steely. “You would kill your mate. Mates are to be cherished, treasured. You have proven yourself incapable of this. You are a spiritually broken beast. You are owed nothing but a swift mercy killing. And I will ensure that you are given your dues.”

Voldemort was uncharacteristically silent in response, an answer that Harry knew spoke of nothing but horror.

“Harry Potter deserves more than the shattered soul of a monster,” Ilmr continued harshly, unrelenting. “Do not fret, Voldemort,” she hissed, viciously amused, “As with you, I’ll personally ensure the next suitor meets the high standard that Harry Potter deserves.”

Harry stood stock still, holding his breath. Ilmr’s words echoed through the dungeon, only the shuddering breaths of Hermione and Ron filling the accompanying silence.

Harry grit his teeth. He was being a coward.

Don’t, the Diadem suddenly barked in his mind. The sarcastic little horcrux voice was suddenly high pitched and reedy, the crown pulsing around his ring finger. Fearful, Harry realised. The Diadem feared this version of Voldemort. Don’t let him see you. Get away, Harry, please. Please.

Harry ignored the Diadem, steeling himself and stepping out from behind Ilmr. She placed her right hand on his abdomen, black fingers digging into the muscle, holding him back. Ilmr’s gaze didn’t waver from Voldemort.

Harry looked through the shielding ward at the haunting vision before him.

Voldemort was large, as tall if not a little taller than Ilmr. Unlike the thin, sickly form of his previous iteration, his shoulders were broad, framed in a heavy black cloak that pooled around his large black boots. His jaw was defiantly tilted upward as he stared down his nose at Ilmr through hooded eyes, his piercing, disturbing grey and gold gaze broken by thick eyelashes. He had sharp features, an aristocratic nose and jaw, high cheekbones and sculpted eyebrows. A furious snarl curled his mouth, exposing those sharp canines once more, as his eyes flickered to look at where Ilmr’s hand touched Harry’s stomach.

Voldemort’s gaze then flickered to Harry’s face, his face tilting down as his focus changed.

Harry clenched his jaw under the intensity of Voldemort’s attention, fingers tightening painfully around his wand as he raised it to Voldemort’s chest. Something inside of him unfurled at being the focus of those damn eyes, the war drums an echoing thunderstorm on the horizon. Voldemort’s gaze refocused on Harry’s wand and his snarl transformed into a brief smirk before melting into an expressionless mask once more.

“You challenge me for Harry Potter,” Voldemort replied at last, voice colder and deeper than Harry had ever heard from him. His eyes flickered back to Harry’s face from his wand, addressing Ilmr but still staring straight at Harry. A laugh, uncharacteristic for Voldemort in its depth and soft humour, echoed in the dungeon, filling Harry’s stomach with dread. “You challenge me for what is already mine.” He sounded amused, though his expression gave nothing away. “Fine. You die first.”

Noise exploded around them, screaming screeches of twisting metal and exploding stone a deafening cacophony around them. Ilmr rushed backward as an iron bar from one of the cell doors was ripped from its frame, shooting through the air and whistling through the shield with the speed of an arrow. The web caught the metal as it screamed through, piercing a foot through the ward and directly into the space Ilmr had stood half a second before.

“I’ll enjoy this, Døkkálfr,” Voldemort said, unmoved and expressionless as a dozen more iron bars hovered in the air behind him, poised for strike. His gaze tracked Harry as the young man looked up at him from where he had stumbled back under Ilmr’s push, green eyes wide in shock before narrowing in resolve. Harry wasn’t sure who he was talking to, but it didn’t matter. The threat to all of them was clear.

More screaming metal filled the air and then the thick glowing web was being pierced over and over with iron metal bars, overwhelming brute force and pure iron ore damaging the magical shield. A bar got through and impaled the stone wall behind them, metal vibrating loudly as it embedded itself.

Ilmr snarled, shoving Harry back and hissing, “Move, move, move!” Ilmr grabbed Hermione’s wrist and yanked the shocked young woman behind her, disappearing into the darkness of the escape tunnel.

Voldemort’s laugh followed them over the sound of twisting metal and their loud panting, Ron muttering what the fuck, what the actual fuck over and over under his breath.

“Run, Dökkálfar. Run, run, run, as fast as you can,” Voldemort called out, taunting, voice unnaturally carrying down the escape tunnel behind them. Harry shuddered as he felt the magic shield begin to fail completely, only holding on by a few threads now.

Ilmr was running so fast that Hermione could barely keep up, stumbling behind her through the dark, earthy tunnel. Harry yanked a wheezing Ron at Ilmr’s heels, too panicked to consider his weak friend’s lack of stamina, as they rushed away.

“Did you feel it, Harry?” Ilmr asked as they passed through a strange void in the tunnel, a brief feeling of thickness in the air that pushed against them but let them pass.

“Wards, we went through wards,” Harry replied, slowing to a stop with Ilmr. “There weren’t meant to be wards down here. Why did they let us through?”

“I’ll explain later. Take Ron to safety. I will see you back at base,” Ilmr replied sharply. “Go, first, so I know you are safe.”

Just as the last thread snapped in his shield, exploding in a shatter of light as Voldemort stepped through, Harry nodded, arms wrapping around a wheezily coughing Ron. He melted into the shadows, whisking them away from Malfoy Manor and the mad young Dark Lord on their heels.

Chapter Text

Harry and Ron melted into existence in a small shack not far from The Burrow. Harry recalled it from their summer years ago, when Harry ran around with the Weasleys and played Quidditch and ate until he couldn’t move. It felt like a lifetime ago, now. Shadow stepping was similar to apparition, in a way. Harry just focused on where he needed to go and, like a character moving through the paintings in Hogwarts, he slipped his way through the shadows and earth, connected through the void. But it was not easy and he felt insurmountably exhausted once their forms solidified.

Ron moved in a fast jerking motion, pushing Harry back so hard he slammed into the back wall of the shed. Harry grunted, a strange feeling piercing his stomach. The magic required to move them this far was not kind to him nor was the shield and, at first, he thought he had overdone it.

Harry slumped against the wall of the shack, sliding down onto the soil beneath him. Harry pressed his hands to his lower stomach, feeling – queasy? He wasn’t sure. A warm wetness bloomed around his fingers, wetness spilling onto them, a hot sticky and slippery and strange sensation. Harry choked, head reeling as pain exploded as if an afterthought, filling him with bone-splintering agony.

“I’m sorry, Harry,” Ron’s voice trembled as he scrambled back, smashing into empty tins and knocking shelves over in his hasty retreat. “I’m so sorry, but I had to – he was going to kill me for you, I had to – I have to – you don’t understand! You don’t understand!” Ron began shouting, slamming into the opposite wall of the shack from Harry.

Harry shook his head in confusion, woozy, looked up at Ron across the room and tried to concentrate on what he was saying. The whites of Ron’s eyes were flickering, madly roving around the shed.

“You understand! Don’t you?” Ron cried out, spittle spraying out of his mouth.

“What?” Harry croaked, dazed. He was vaguely aware of an ocean roaring sound – no, a screaming, in his head. A woman? Mum? No, no, a young voice – it was the Diadem, and it was screaming. Why was it making that noise?

Harry looked down and gaped, astonished, as the sight of a splinter of wood in his abdomen above his hands. It was a jarring sight, abnormal – the wood splinter was in the centre of his stomach, pushed through fabric and muscle and sinew into the cavity. No, not a splinter. A spike. It took a moment to realise it was a large, sharp chunk of the wooden door that Ilmr had blown up. How – how did it end up in his stomach? It hadn’t been there the whole time, had it? No, no, it definitely hadn’t.

With an abrupt, urgent need that took his breath away, Harry wanted it out. It freaked him out, the sight of it in his body, searing in its agony and sticking out of his gut. Harry’s hands wrapped around the wood, his panic telling him, out out out!

Don’t pull it out, the Diadem was screaming – why was it screaming? Do not pull it out. Tell me where we are Harry, tell me right now!

Harry blinked down as blood poured out of the wound and over his fingers. Too quickly. Ron – Ron might’ve clipped an artery? Harry isn't sure. Harry pressed his fingers around the wound, trying to keep the blood in, but it hurt too much and he felt his body spasm.

Tell me where we are, Harry! The Diadem shouted. Its young voice was so loud, so high-pitched, Harry flinching at the sound. Where he is?

The Burrow? Harry thought to himself. Am I in the shed by the Burrow? He can't - he can't remember.

Harry’s gaze snapped up to Ron, mouth parting in shock.

“You stabbed me,” Harry said helplessly, barely able to speak louder than a whisper, feeling shockingly stupefied. Ron had stabbed him. In the stomach. Merlin, he was going to die, right now. Harry felt his body jerk and a cough burst out of him, a wet spray of blood smattering the ground in front of him. Harry groaned at the pain caused by moving, trying to hold still, head falling back onto the wall behind him with a thunk.

Harry tried to call up his magic, to at least stop the bleeding, to have a fighting chance no matter how narrow the odds. But Harry was suddenly so very tired, exhausted as blood spilled over his fingers, his magic depleted from holding off Voldemort’s attack on his shield, from escaping, from blood loss.

“I’m so sorry, Harry,” Ron sobbed, scrambling around the dimly lit shack as light shone through the broken tiles of the roof, scratching at the walls. “I have to get out of here – how the hell do I get out of here – ”

“Why – why would you stab me?” Harry asked, devastatingly confused, the world flickering. His voice was too soft to be heard over the smashing of terracotta pots as Ron scrambled over a table and found the exit. Ron slammed the door open, laughing breathlessly at the sight of light.

Harry watched with squinted eyes as Ron’s silhouette stood in the doorway. The tall, unnaturally thin silhouette filled the frame as Ron clutched the door jamb and laughed madly, bright white light spilling into the darkness and blinding Harry.

“Fresh air, fresh air!” Ron shouted happily, freely, madly.

Not right, Harry’s mind whispered. He’s not okay.

With jarring suddenness, the blurring silhouette of Ron collapsed, a marionette with its strings cut. Harry’s eyes strained as a black figure approached the doorway, stepping over Ron with ease, getting larger with each flickering still frame of Harry’s vision as it approached him. Harry felt like he was watching a film, but it was being played at too slow a rate - scene by scene, jumping from one image to the next, slow and yet too fast. Harry’s head tilted up, he’s so tired, pupils trying to adjust once more as the blurry frame crouched in front of him.

Fingers slipped around Harry’s face, palms cradling his jaw, finger pads coming to a rest behind his ear. Harry released a sigh as pleasure smoothed the agony in his body, the creature he’s learned to be the Døkkálfr purring in contentedness. The pain was beginning to go away in his stomach, too, chased by an icy cold feeling in his limbs and chest. Though Harry knows that this is probably bad, he doesn’t care when it doesn’t hurt anymore.

Lips press against his forehead, against his scar, then the blurry shadow retreated, still holding his face.

“Min bedre halvdel,” the shadow said. Harry focused on the lips speaking in front of him, tried to understand the words, but they made no sense to him. Should they make sense? Harry blinked dazedly at bright grey eyes, feeling suddenly so safe and terrified all at once, but he couldn’t remember why.

Harry lifted his bloody fingers and pressed his thumb against pale lips. He left a jarring slash of bright red against those lips, smearing iron-ore red along alabaster skin as his fingers trailed up a cheek, resting on a sharp cheekbone.

Harry worked hard to focus, to look at the face, at the bone structure and the eyes. Tom? No, no. Voldemort. Harry felt a disbelieving laugh rip out of him and then he groaned in pain as his stomach clenched, more blood coming up his throat and spilling wetly, hotly, out of his lips, dripping down his chin.

“I think this means you win,” Harry said, a smile curling across his lips. Merlin, this was hilarious. Perhaps undeserving, unnervingly so. Harry is vaguely aware that he might be going into hypovolemic shock, but he doesn’t care because this is, quite possibly, the funniest thing that’s ever happened to him.

After all, this shit, the prophecies and horcruxes and inheritances – it had been all a waste. A massive waste of everyone’s time. And for Harry to have been done in by a crazy Ron. With a splinter. In the garden shed. It was like a game. Harry laughed again, because it was funny. Blood misted the face in front of him as Harry jerked, coughing out more blood between laughs.

And of course, Voldemort was here to witness it all. Morgana, he must be feeling amazing right now, Harry thought to himself. Harry stared at Voldemort’s face, at Tom’s face, and realised it was all such a goddamn waste.

“Hey, Voldemort,” Harry says, grinning, hoping to really piss Voldemort off one final time for old time’s sake before he’s dust, “When I’m dead, make a super cool anagram out of my name too.” Harry feels a strange urge to begin giggling welling in his chest. He doesn’t, because he thinks it really might hurt, but it simmers there just under the surface.

“Empathy jar resort,” Voldemort stated in a droll tone, expressionless.

“What?” Harry asked, eyebrows drawing together, the non sequitur making his drifting mind focus for a moment, sharpening through surprise.

“Your name is no good, unfortunately. I guess you can’t die just yet, until I think of something better,” Voldemort said. Harry looked at him, astonished.

“Did you actually just say – empathy jar resort? How long have you been working on that?” Harry asked, aghast, eyes widening in horror.

“About one second. I’m a genius, Harry Potter,” Voldemort replied archly.

“A genius? That came up with empathy jar resort?” Harry laughed helplessly, more blood spilling out his lip, stomach aching. Merlin. “I think you’re overselling.”

Harry felt something touching his stomach and, jumping in surprise, he began to look down, but the hand on his jaw – when did the other one move? – kept his face looking upward.

“Look at me, Harry Potter,” Voldemort said, staring at him with a strange intensity through his eyelashes. “Look at my eyes.” Harry’s gaze flickered back up, found himself trapped in the hypnotic burning gaze.

“You have to come up something better than that,” Harry said, grinning wetly. His mouth tastes like metal. Tinny. Iron? “I can’t go down as empathy jar resort. Not against, I am Lord Voldemort. That’s just slander.”

Harry blinked for a second and the shadows flickered inward, making the world seem a little bit darker. The world was dark at the edges, blurry, the sight in front of him the only thing he could see, a camera obscura projected on a silent backdrop. But that’s okay, Harry thought to himself, I doesn’t mind the darkness. Reminds him of the cupboard under the stairs, small warm dark safety in a cold blue-white house.

“You’d prefer hot jersey pram rat?” Voldemort asked, quirking an eyebrow much too seriously for the words coming out of his mouth, in Harry’s opinion.

The words registered a second later and Harry’s lips parted in shock just as a flash of pain jerked Harry’s stomach, a keening noise ripping out of his chest. Voldemort threw something behind him and it rattled as it hit debris on the ground. A hand pressed against Harry’s stomach, fingers digging into the flesh. Where it had been so cold there, suddenly felt hot. Too hot. It burned.

“First off, ow,” Harry said in reprimand, narrowing his eyes at the man. “Secondly, I definitely know that I’m hallucinating, now. Voldemort didn’t just say hot jersey pram rat to me.” Harry leaned his head against the wall, choking on his laughter and blood. “Also, if those are my last words, I’m going to haunt you forever, hallucination or not. You know what? I’m just going to haunt you in general. Forever." Harry's mind drifted for a moment. "Hey, can ghosts haunt people rather than places?”

“In my experience, that is all they do,” Voldemort answered, pressing a thumb on Harry’s cheek as he looked down at him, expression indecipherable.

The shadows flickered inward again, tunnelling his vision as Harry trailed off. Harry began to lose his fight to hold onto reality.

“Look at me Harry, focus,” Voldemort said. “Do you want another anagram? Unfortunately, they’re all along that thread. As I said, your name is terrible.”

Harry blinked at Voldemort, confused. “My name is awesome, thank you, Riddle,” he replied pointedly, offended. The fingers at his abdomen tightened minutely. Nowhere near pissed off, Harry thinks to himself with vague disappointment. Have I lost my touch? “Also, who are you and what have you done with my crazy nemesis? Bring him back, please. This guy is freaking me out.”

Voldemort doesn’t reply to that, but he does give Harry a rather shirty glare, if Harry were to be completely honest. It looked rather eerily alike Hermione’s glare when she asks if he’s finished his essay that’s due in two days and can she read it, and he responds with, “We have an essay?”

Wild, Harry thinks to himself, blinking slowly at Voldemort in astonishment, feeling incredibly distant and colder, somehow. Is that all you have, Potter? Harry thinks to himself with odd detachment as he realises the closest he’s gotten to Voldemort being pissed off so far is a cranky look. Which, alright, bizarre . But nowhere near the reaction he’d hoped for. Harry’s chasing homicidal.

The wall against Harry’s back strangely feels so much less solid, rather alike a shadow than planks of wood. Harry felt himself slipping into it a little bit at a time, as the moments wore on, sliding backward millimetre by millimetre.

“Can I call you Tom?” Harry asks, wondering if this will be the one to piss him off.

Voldemort gave Harry a rather dark look, much less relatable to Hermione and closer to his usual fare. “No,” Voldemort says shortly.

“It’s just weird, because when I think of Voldemort, I think of – snake face,” Harry says, trying to hold back a laugh but hopelessly failing, because Harry’s really sure he’s got him now. “You know, gross melting face on the back of Quirrell, or rising out of a cauldron like a cheap horror flick, that.”

Voldemort’s face went expressionless, the amusement fading away. He closed his eyes for a second and sighed, looking really rather put out, if Harry were to be honest, to his own astonishment. But really, Harry thinks, who is this?

“Yes, you may call me Tom,” Voldemort said tonelessly as he opened his eyes again to look at Harry. Mesmerising Harry with his gunmetal grey irises, molten, bright.

And in honesty it really was odd to Harry, seeing an older version of the Diary’s face. Late twenties? Harry wasn’t sure. Harry was so used to the disquieting snake face that he struggled to console the two into one Voldemort. Voldemort to him was an animated corpse, a thin, tall monster chasing him through his house, screaming in rage at him as Harry trembled in fear.

Yeah – okay, Tom it was.

Oh, yeah, the Diary.

“You can’t tell anyone I told you this, but the diary was a really cool piece of magic,” Harry said, drifting, letting his head press harder into the rotting wood behind him, the burning sensation in his stomach fading away, fingers still pressing around the wound. It felt… Strange. Nice. “Could you put me in a diary, so I can write to people, too? But you know, not eat their souls, because ew, Tom. Just. Ew.” Harry stressed, shuddering.

“It didn’t eat souls, Harry,” Voldemort said calmly, though he was looking increasingly annoyed. Close, very close, Harry thinks to himself faintly, but I can do better. “Though I don’t think you’re smart enough to understand the complexity of the magic even if I were to explain it to you in detail, with crayon, so continue believing whatever you want, Harry Potter.”

“Wow, you’re astonishingly bitchy,” Harry said, laughing helplessly at the audacity of the words as soon as they came out. “Who knew?”

Voldemort’s fingers on his jaw grew tighter, a muscle ticking on his defined jawline as grey eyes narrowed at Harry dangerously. Grey eyes flashed a stunning red, crimson, once. There we go, Harry thought to himself with amusement, grinning at him cheekily around the wet, tacky taste of hot metal in his mouth. Mission accomplished. Homicidal. Can die in peace, now.

Harry blinked as, suddenly, the world slowly began to get smaller until all he could see was Tom’s eyes. They were so bright.

“In the next life, you total creep,” Harry said, slanting a grin at the man, feeling the words come out, dare he say, fond.

Yes, Harry decided, those were good last words. The hand on his jaw tightened and, Harry thinks, it should be painful but it wasn’t.

And then Harry felt himself falling backward into the shadows behind him.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Tom hissed venomously, following Harry into the shadows, pressing up against Harry with arms like steel around his waist.

Harry wrapped his arms around Tom’s neck, burying his face there, glad he had someone to hold at the end even if it was Voldemort, of all people. Morgana. And, well. Makes sense, in a way. Voldemort was there at the start. He was always going to be there at the end.

Harry felt himself falling asleep as he drifting into the shadows, in the space in between, as Tom’s arms tightened around him and followed his free fall into darkness.

Harry doesn’t remember waking up. He’s just simply awake, lying in a heather field, looking up at a powdery blue sky. His head is in someone’s lap, small fingers stroking through his hair.

Harry tilts his head back and blinks up at the child Voldemort’s face, little red eyes glowing back at him from above. Astonishingly evil-looking devil child, Harry thinks to himself. The Diadem – Tom – doesn’t react, though he’s surely heard it.

“Did you know the muggles used sugar to make bombs, Harry?” The Diadem asked him.

Harry doesn’t scramble to get up, or try to move away and get out of here. Because Harry suspects he might be dead.

“You’re not dead,” the Diadem says, annoyed. “Not for a lack of trying. Really. A stomach wound, Harry. You really must do better than that.”

“Did you call him, the other one?” Harry asks.

The Diadem ignored him. “Did you know muggles used sugar to make bombs?” He repeated.

Harry stared up at the Diadem, small fingers tangling in his birds nest of hair. Harry fears he might get his hair pulled if he tries to move and he really does not want that, so he stays perfectly still.

“No, I didn’t know,” Harry replied at last.

A whistling noise sounded in the distance. It was followed by a massive impact, a boom that rocked the heather field not too far from them. Harry watched as soil exploded up into the air, raining back down.

Harry jumped and moved to sit up, but the hands in his hair tightened, holding him painfully in place. Harry’s eyes watered as his skull was tugged harshly, muscles tensing. The fingers then soothed the pain, going back to gently threading through, teasing out knots.

“Humans are a curious species, Harry,” the Diadem said softly, unaffected by the explosion and Harry's reaction. “We’ll use just about anything to cause pain. Sugar, for example. A plant cultivated for its sweetness. Slavery and misery for that stupid little plant, just so that we could rot our teeth out. Millions enslaved, tortured, killed. Generations of trauma and horror. And then, just when you would think they had extracted all that they could from that little plant, they turn it into a bomb,” the Diadem whispered, smiling faintly.

Harry didn’t dare move.

“Sugar was the first to be rationed, when the war started,” the Diadem continued, fingers threading through Harry’s hair gently. “And the last to be returned.”

Harry heard a whistling noise in the distance again. He braced himself this time. Harry looked up at the Diadem, who was staring off into the distance.

“They didn’t have sugar rations at Hogwarts,” the Diadem said, hands tightening, making Harry’s eyes water, “In fact, they didn’t care that there was a war going on. The wizarding world didn’t even care when the Americans dropped that new bomb on Japan. The world-ender. They didn’t understand. But how could they? They didn’t even have to ration their sugar.”

Harry remained still, flinching minutely as the bomb exploded not far from them, spraying them in soil.

“Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds, Krishna had said in the Bhagavad Gita, and Oppenheimer quoted,” the Diadem said slowly, thoughtfully, eyes distant, “Misunderstood. The Destroyer is also the Maker, is the alpha and the omega, the starter and the ender of the clock. The Destroyer is Time. The muggles have built the world up and they will tear it back down. Oppenheimer knew it. The end began with that first bomb, we just don’t know the time on the clock. But it’s ticking down, Harry. And wizarding kind will obliviously blunder along until we are wiped out in the inevitability of muggle demise.”

Merlin, Harry thought to himself, staring up at the little face in astonishment, saw the echoes of pain in the red gaze.

The Diadem looked down, having heard the thought, and he smiles. “My pain is natural, Harry,” he said. “The Hindus and Buddhists believe that there are noble truths to our lives, inalienable and inextricable to human existence. The very first, duhkha, says that we suffer. That humans by nature are uncomfortable, uneasy, unsatisfied. That we grasp, breathlessly, for something beyond ourselves in our pathetic, mundane daily lives, and we fall horribly short. That feeling, that truth, is duhkha. And through this mortal horror, only then do we know that we are alive. I am alive, Harry, even though I am just a horcrux. I know this, because I suffer, Harry. I have always suffered. Do you?” the Diadem asked, eyes bright and dangerous and so, so red.

A bomb goes off, closer, louder, but all Harry can see is red.

“Why are you telling me this?” Harry asked, a knot blooming in his stomach, cold and writhing.

“Because he won’t explain it to you,” the Diadem said harshly, jaw clenching. “He thinks it doesn’t matter. That you won’t understand. But I know you can, that you will. You have to understand me, Harry.” The Diadem’s voice was sharp but there was something young in it, childish and desperate.

The answer hits Harry hard, devastating in its vulnerability. Do you see me? The child Voldemort was screaming. Do you see who I am? It needed to be understood, validated, heard. It needed Harry to look at him, truly see who he was, and accept him as he was.

“Yes,” the Diadem said. “That. And I know you can’t understand just yet. That it’ll take time. But I needed to start you on the path.”

“Do you want to go back to that cupboard I showed you?” Harry asked sharply, needing this to be over. Now.

The Diadem – Tom – looked stunned, then.

“Could we?” the Diadem asked, young voice lilting in excitement. Still somehow a child, despite holding a very adult, terrifyingly philosophical piece of Voldemort within him. Harry felt the hair on his arms rise, shuddering.

“Yeah,” Harry said, closing his eyes and focusing.

The world shifted and Harry opened his eyes on the cot in the cupboard under the stairs. Harry was still quite small, compared to his peers, and just fit in the cot. Harry laid on his side, knees bent as he faced the door, and the Diadem laid in front of him with his back to Harry. Harry was keenly aware that the Diadem had chosen to position himself between the door and Harry.

Harry looked down at the small version of Voldemort. He too lay on his side, facing the door, his face tilting down so Harry’s couldn’t see it. Harry felt his heart reach out for the little terror. Merlin, he was so small. So young. He wasn’t even fully Voldemort in this form, despite being a piece of him. He was still little Tom, from the orphanage. Miniature Tom. Tommy.

“If you call me Tommy, I’ll pull off your toenails one by one,” the Diadem warned, still facing the door.

Adorable, Harry thought to himself. So evil. Like a tiny demon. Harry wondered if anyone hugged Tom growing up. Based on what Harry had seen, likely not. It was too late to do anything about it, the man grown, but this angry, vulnerable soul piece was still a child. Potentially. Harry wasn't sure. Hugging him would do nothing to heal the little monster’s soul, but it might make Harry feel better.

Harry made up his mind. Harry wrapped an arm around the Diadem’s waist and pulled the Diadem toward him, cuddling him close. Small nails dug into his forearm, but Harry got the feeling it was more to keep Harry close than push him away.

“You’re mine, Harry,” the Diadem said, shoving up close to Harry’s chest. He pulled Harry’s arm tighter around him. “You’re not allowed to die.”

“Everyone dies,” Harry replied simply. He moved his other arm under his head so he could rest it on his elbow.

“Not me,” the Diadem said, his nails a sharp pressure against Harry’s arm. “I won’t ever die, Harry. I will become Time, the destroyer of worlds, so that we may live outside of it, untouched. Both of us.”

“Okay,” Harry sighed, brow furrowing, not in the mood to argue but not able to let this go. “But it’s okay if I die. Death is natural, Tom, and you shouldn’t be scared of it. Time is inevitable, right? It goes on whether or not we want to, presumably into infinity, and we just get to be here for a part of that. We should enjoy that. We should cherish it. It’s okay if I die, Tom. I don’t mind.”

The Diadem grew stiff in his arm, nails into Harry’s arm with sharp agony, a muscle under Harry’s eye twitching as he fought to keep still.

“No,” the Diadem hissed in Parseltongue, furious. “You will never, ever die!”

Harry sighed heavily. Even while being a petulant child who was rather happily getting cuddled, Voldemort was still kind of terrifying.

“Alright, alright,” Harry said, softening. “Don’t freak out.”

The Diadem sniffed in annoyance, shuffling even closer to Harry’s chest.

“How did I end up in here?” Harry asked.

The Diadem laced one of his hands with Harry’s and held it tight against his chest. “You tried to die and the one out there, the other me, I called him. He’s healing you. I missed you. I don’t need your body for you to be in here, just your mind. Your soul.”

Harry felt an uneasy feeling ripple through him. That seemed to be a central theme with Voldemort. Bodies were unimportant, they could be created at any time. It was the mind, the soul, that seemed central. The key to immortality. To Time?

“Do you talk to him often?” Harry asked, stomach lurching at the thought.

The Diadem hummed thoughtfully. “In a way. It is less talking, more sharing thoughts with oneself. It can be very boring being in here, alone in my world. So, I reach out, when I want to. I think I’m perhaps the only one able to do it with my telepathy. But I don’t really care for it. Rather difficult to be the alpha in the room if everyone else there is also you,” the Diadem said with wry humour and unexpected insight, surprising Harry.

The Diadem glanced over his shoulder at Harry. “It’s harder for him to reach out to me, though. Nearly impossible. The protective magic on me makes it very hard to see or hear me. I let you find me,” the Diadem said, eyebrow raised in derision.

Harry didn’t have time to investigate that information, but he was going to. Later. Because Merlin’s beard that was loaded.

“When will I be healed?” Harry asked, pushing on. “And where is my body?”

“You’re healed now. You’re just sleeping,” the Diadem replied.

“I’m not exactly sleeping, now am I?” Harry said, dry.

“You are. The body needs rest, but your soul doesn’t,” the Diadem stated, glaring at Harry in annoyance over his shoulder.

“Okay,” Harry answered slowly, uneasy. “I think I need to go back, now.”

The Diadem pulled out of Harry’s arms, sitting upright on the cot. Harry looked at him warily, staying where he was.

“Don’t let him push you around,” the Diadem said authoritatively. “Punch him in the face, if you have to. We rarely resorted to muggle violence. But if you do punch him, hide really well, because he’ll be very angry.”

“I thought you wanted me to kill him?” Harry asked, beginning to feel hopelessly confused.

“The previous version of me… You stood a chance. This version, absolutely not,” the Diadem answered firmly. “Also, consider that the previous iteration was not exactly me. It was… Wrong. Twisted. It needed to be extinguished. Connecting with his mind was torture. But this version. Yes, this is me.”

That’s ominous, Harry thought to himself. And confusing. And a little insulting.

“Harry,” the Diadem sighed, looking to be a moment way from throwing his hands up in exasperation. “I’m an accomplished Legilimens and have been since a young age. I practised it for sport on the children at the orphanage. I have psychopathic tendencies, an extremely high IQ, and about half a century of experience on you. I’ve been capable of complex black magic from a young age. Wandlessly. The version of me out there is a highly aggressive, fully grown alpha Døkkálfr. Your best chance was fighting me when I was at my weakest, or most insane. That’s no longer an option.”

Harry looked at the Diadem in shock, lips parting softly, a feeling of doom knotting his stomach. “And what does he want with me, if not to kill me?” Harry asked with trepidation.

“What we all want,” the Diadem replied. “To get stronger, be faster, be better. Transcend. I presume he’s realised your value, as I have.”

“And what value is that?” Harry asked, wary of the answer.

The Diadem looked down at him pityingly. “I’m not going to deign that with an answer. Please, Harry. Don’t let him steamroll you. Have some dignity.”

Harry frowned at the patronising tone of voice. He sat up as well, sending the horcrux an unimpressed look. “So much attitude stuffed in a tiny little body,” Harry said, raising an eyebrow at the child. “Careful you don’t hurt yourself.”

“Yes, that like,” the Diadem answered approvingly, to Harry’s surprise. “He won’t kill you. Maybe he’ll rough you up, or torture you a little bit. But you’re strong, so push back. He’ll only take what you give him, now that he understands – now that we understand what you are.”

Harry’s eyes widened, aghast. Torture me a little bit? What I am ?

“Tom, what am I to you?” Harry said urgently, needing to know. “What has changed? And yes, I get it, I’m stupid, ha ha,” Harry stressed, annoyed, “But explain it to me.”

“I already did,” the Diadem said, jaw clenching. At Harry’s blank look, he rolled his eyes. “You are the omega to my alpha, the maker to my destroyer, the starter to my end. Light to my dark. Balance. We are fated. Together, we will be one. We are inevitable. We will be unstoppable. We will be timeless. Don’t you see that, Harry?” He hissed in Parseltongue. “Don’t you see me?”

Harry gaped at him in shock, horrified. Harry opened his mouth to say, I don’t want to be timeless, but the Diadem moved sharply, cocking his head as if he were listening to something.

“Okay, he’s gone,” the Diadem snapped sharply. “He’ll be gone for a little while. Do not let him walk all over you, Harry. Wake up now.”

Before Harry could ask what the Diadem was talking about, Harry woke up.

Sitting upright quickly, Harry found himself in a bedroom, inhaling sharply as he focused on his surroundings. The room was rather large, with a four poster bed pushed against one wall where he lay. A large window was open, letting in fresh air, the setting sun lighting the room up brightly in orange and pink. There were no personal effects or trinkets on display, just furniture. A dresser, an armoire, a mirror, a desk with chair, a bed.

Harry looked down at his abdomen and realised he was shirtless. Harry felt like he should probably be embarrassed, but he just felt emotionally numb and tired instead. At least he was still wearing his trousers, pushed low on his hips and stiff with dried blood. His stomach and chest were covered in dark dried blood, but there was no mark on his skin where he had been staked. Amazed, Harry grazed his fingers over his stomach. Five finger marks, imprinted by blood, were still centred around where he presumes the injury had been.

Voldemort had healed him. No – Tom. Harry couldn’t use the name Voldemort, not when this creature wasn’t the same thing, that terrifying monster from the graveyard. But… Strangely, despite his appearance, Harry gets the impression this new iteration is much, much worse.

Harry felt a headache blossoming in the back of his head.

None of this makes any sense, Harry thought to himself, head aching. Harry reached into a shadow behind him and tried to slip into it. He hit a barrier, unable to leave the house. Wards. Same as Malfoy Manor. Dammit. Expected, yes, but infuriating nonetheless.

Harry slid to the side of the bed, carefully standing up as he tested his body. He ached, but nothing felt damaged. Harry carefully stepped over to the window and looked out, saw a large garden and rolling hills with forests in the distance. The sun had dropped beyond the horizon, gold and orange beams striking the sky. Almost night.

He had no idea where he was.

Carefully reaching out, Harry slowly pressed his fingers through the open air – and hit an invisible barrier. Of course. Damn.

Harry’s fingers tingled, the dried blood burning off of them as his fingers slowly went black under the influence of the wards, his Døkkálfr blood protecting him from injury. Harry trailed his fingers across the barrier, tracing it from the centre of the window to the siding. It disappeared into the wood. A full house ward, keeping him locked in. Great. Just, great, Harry thought, insurmountably annoyed.

A small mosquito buzzed outside and then zoomed toward Harry, as if to fly into the room. The moment it hit the barrier, it incinerated in a puff of smoke.

Even better, Harry thought to himself bitterly, backing away. Death by incineration was not exactly a death of preferred choice, for him. Going to have to find another way out.

Harry reached out with his mind, exploring the room. There were a few magical artefacts, but generally nothing useful. A water heating rune was etched into the bathroom pipes. An armoire enchanted to keep clothes dust and moth free.

No wand. Unsurprising. Nothing insidious lurking in the room, though. Now, that's surprising, Harry thought, feeling unsettled.

Harry opened his eyes and wandered over to a dresser and the armoire. Riffling through them, he found shirts, boxers, trousers, socks. Neatly folded and stacked in the dresser. Harry pulled out a clean set of clothes, feeling them through his finger tips. Black cotton, soft and high thread count. Harry searched for his boots, but they were nowhere to be found. Scowling, Harry realised he was going to have to make a break for it shoe-less.

Harry glanced at the door of the bedroom, then back to the bathroom door. Harry will likely need to spend a while trying to get out of here, find a secret exit like at Malfoy Manor given the full-house ward, but he really didn’t want to do it while encrusted with blood. It would make it all the easier for Tom to sniff him out. Harry could use a cleaning spell, but it was seeped into his skin, under his nails, a coating of blood that would draw Døkkálfr attention like a hound that had caught a scent.

He’ll be gone for a little while, the Diadem had said. How long was ‘a little while’? Harry glanced down at the ring on his finger, but it was unhelpfully silent.

Harry cautiously walked into the bathroom and closed the door. He slid the locking mechanism closed and pressed his hand against it, sealing it shut with a wordless spell, the ward flickering over the door and walls with a flash of light. Harry dropped his bloody clothes in a corner of the room and stepped into the shower. He glanced at the small bottle of soap sitting on a soap dish and sighed heavily. Don’t be a coward, Potter, Harry thought to himself firmly.

After scrubbing every inch of himself, Harry reeling over the idea of using Voldemort's soap, Merlin, Harry felt a little bit better. He dried himself with a bizarrely fluffy white towel and put on the black clothes, which fit him quite well. Boxers, socks, trousers, and strangely enough, a black muggle t-shirt. The clothes were quite comfortable.

Creep, Harry thought to himself. Why would Voldemort know his size?

Harry used wandless magic to dry his hair and clean his teeth, then steeled himself to leave the bathroom.

Harry ventured out into the room half-terrified that he was going to see Voldemort sitting on the bed, but it was vacant. However, a large food tray had been placed on the desk. Some fruit, assorted pastries, a couple of sausages, scrambled eggs, toast, and pumpkin juice.

Harry stared at it. Had Tom come in while he was showering? Was it a house elf?

Was it even safe to touch the food?

Harry’s stomach growled angrily and he sat down at the desk, unsure. He spotted a small bowl filled with pomegranate seeds. He picked out one, turning it over in his hand.

A warning, then. Eat my food and never leave, it said.

Dramatic. In character, though, Harry thought, a vague knot of scorn welling in his chest. Tom calling himself Hades tracks. Me as Persephone… Not so much.

The Diadem was disagreeing with that thought – something about you are astonishingly Persephone, naïveté and all – but Harry tuned it out sharply because what would a ten year old know about that? Harry very firmly doesn’t think about how terrifyingly smart it is, lest the thought ruin his poor attempt at wilful ignorance.

Was this stupid to even contemplate? Likely. Harry’s stomach growled again. Harry put down the seed. Picked it back up.

Eat, Harry, the Diadem whispered in his mind. You need to replenish your energy, your blood.

You’re not helping, Harry thought back loudly. Get out of my head.

The Diadem went silent.

Harry groaned lowly. He would just have to face the challenge head on. Eat Tom’s food and then leave, anyway, because Harry was good at ruining his plans.

Harry wonders briefly if he’s talking himself into something stupid, but the thought passes and then he was eating, filling his stomach voraciously. Sighing in relief, Harry drank a glass of water. It filled back up on its own, and he drained it again.

Harry stood and wandered over to the bedroom door, pausing. Closing his eyes, he spread out his senses. No Voldemort on the other side of the door. As Harry’s mind explored the house, he realised – no Voldemort in the entire house.

Harry’s eyelids snapped open, widening in surprise. Owls - he felt owls. There was an owlery.

Harry went to the desk, barely daring to hope, and pulled the drawers out. Parchment, quills, ink. Harry held a quill between his fingers, spinning it in confusion, contemplation. What is Voldemort playing at? He thought to himself, wary. 

Perhaps a trick. Harry sends a letter, Voldemort follows the location to Hermione and Ilmr. Perhaps he’d never even let it get there. Perhaps he’d read it and use the content against him.

Harry sat down, pushing the food tray back. He carefully wrote, ‘I am fine. Don’t come looking for me. I’ll be back soon. H.’

Harry paused. Should he write anything else? What comes to mind is, Ron tried to kill me, very nearly succeeded, he’s possibly nuts, and also possibly dead, I’m in a large wooden house, I don't know where I am, I see a large garden with trees in the distance on rolling hills –

Harry thought about Tom reading the letter and put the quill down. No. He’d need to do this on his own.

Harry carefully tested the bedroom door, prepared for more warding, but was surprised to find it unlocked. Warily, he crept through a simply decorated hallway, the thick socks muffling his footsteps on the immaculately kept wooden floors. He pressed a small smudge of ink on his finger against the wainscoting every few metres to track his path, the marks becoming more faint with each step. The paintings in the hallway were empty of people, though he was unsure if the paintings were just of landscapes or if the occupants were simply elsewhere for the time being. Harry quickly hurried through the hallway, wary of the latter.

Harry passed through several long hallways with closed doors, up three flights of stairs, and into the owlery at the top of the house. A crabby tawny owl stuck out her foot at him and Harry tied the folded letter to the little harness on her leg. This was… Too easy. He felt something roiling in his gut.

“Take this to Dobby the house elf at Hogwarts,” Harry instructed. Kreacher’s name was on the letter, Dobby would see it through.

The owl blinked at him once, slowly, then took off through an open window. Harry held his breath, recalling what had happened to that mosquito, but the owl slipped through the window unharmed and silently flapped into the distance. Harry reached his hand out carefully – was there a break in the wards – but his fingers once more hit the full-house ward, a fizzing gold shield glowing just where his finger pads pressed into it. The ward wouldn’t let him through here.

The sun was now truly gone now, darkness descending. There was no moon tonight, so it would be properly dark. Harry sighed and turned around.

Well, given how easy this all was… Harry thought he might as well just try the front door.

Harry went down several flights of stairs until he hit the landing of the house. The house was eerily silent and dark except for the odd lit candle. House elf, Harry concluded, given he hadn’t been cornered yet by Tom nor could he feel the man's ominous presence in the house. Worried, Harry reached out again with his senses and felt nothing strange at all. Which was just as worrying. Harry wasn’t sure if Tom could cloak himself, though how, Harry wasn’t sure. Voldemort seemed to be able to do a lot of things that shouldn't be possible.

Harry sighed with relief as he found the entry hallway. Creeping through the dark, Harry reached the door. He studied it carefully, fingers drifting over the wood as he felt for curses, and breathed easier when he felt nothing. Harry unlocked the door as quietly as he could, peering around him nervously, and he gingerly opened the door. Taking one last look behind himself into the house to ensure he detected no movement, Harry grinned and turned to step out of the door –

“Going somewhere?” Voldemort asked pleasantly.

Chapter Text

“Going somewhere?” Voldemort asked pleasantly.

Harry’s head yanked around as he jumped in surprise at the voice. Harry stumbled back at the sight of Tom Riddle standing in the doorway, his pale handsome face a jarring clash against the inky darkness outside. He was dressed in a black cloak, the hood up and framing his sharp pale face, grey eyes piercing. He looked terrifyingly beautiful, demonic in the darkness, an omen of misfortune. A dementor before the rot set in.

Harry stumbled backwards, socked feet slipping on the perfectly polished floors. “Were – were you actually standing out there waiting for me, you absolute creep?” Harry asked, aghast.

Tom stepped through the doorway, head tilting and eyes narrowing as he studied Harry. “No, I was not,” Tom responded, the words cool, clipped. “Given the size of your ego, it may astonish you to discover that my life does not actually revolve around you, Harry Potter.”

“You have no idea how much I wish that were true,” Harry retorted sharply. Harry took another step backward and froze as Tom’s piercing eyes flickered down to his feet, then back to Harry’s face.

The first beat of a drum echoed in Harry’s blood, a warning. The tension between them abruptly escalated, an invisible pressure building in the air.

“Don’t run, Harry,” Tom commanded softly, eyes narrowing at him in thought.

“You – stay right there,” Harry warned harshly, pointing a finger at him in threat. “Stay right the fuck there.”

“And if I don’t stay the fuck right here?” Tom asked sweetly, his tone sharp and, horrifyingly, amused.

Tom took one step forward and Harry took one step backward further into the house. Their eyes were locked and Harry knew he should look away, but he couldn’t. Tom’s eyes were all he could see, blood rushing in his ears, filling his vision.

Another beat of the drum.

“We really need to work on your comprehension skills,” Harry commented, trying desperately to recall the layout of the house.

One of Tom’s perfectly sculpted brows rose. “Comprehension skills? Come now, Harry. You’ll find there’s only one educated person currently standing in this house, and we both know it isn’t you.”

Bite me, you ancient dickhead, Harry thought viciously with a sneer, taking a step back.

A delighted, cruel grin blossomed across Tom’s face, wicked teeth glinting in the low light as Tom skimmed the thought. “As you wish.”

Harry had less than half a second to process Tom’s words before he lunged at Harry. Harry scrambled backward and began sprinting through the hallway, back in the direction he had come, the drum in his blood exploding into the tempo of a deafening war beat.

“Merlin,” Harry gasped, grabbing the banister of the staircase and using it to whip himself around the corner of the stairs, launching himself up the staircase as quickly as the socks would let him. A smashing sound directly behind him had the hair on his neck standing upright.

Don’t you dare freeze, Harry berated himself, never so immensely grateful for Ilmr’s brutal training regimen.

Harry sprinted down a hallway, a monstrous growl reverberating just behind him. It’s like being chased by a jungle cat, Harry thought to himself frantically. I’m so, so dead.

Harry waved at his feet and felt the socks disappear, nearly slipping at the sudden increase in traction as his feet slapped against hardwood floors. Regaining his footing with a stumble, Harry swerved to the right just as a clawed hand shot out and grasped the air to the left of him.

“Shit!” Harry cursed with a yelp. Tom was close. Harry would need a different strategy. He was going to need to stand his ground.

Harry dropped to the ground as fast as he could, curling up and shouting, “Sisto!” Harry’s forward motion ceased completely, sticking him to the ground, as Tom shot past him. The creature roared, torso twisting as his hand reached out and long black nails embedded themselves into the floor. Harry watched, wide-eyed, as Tom gouged long lines into the perfect wooden floors, coming to a stop a few meters in front of him.

A beat of silence between them did nothing to dissipate the heavy tension. Tom’s long black nails retreated into immaculately manicured ones, the only visible evidence of Tom’s Døkkálfr blood evaporating from sight. Aside from the hellish look of obsession in his eye, that is.

“This is very stupid,” Harry tried to reason, panting. “We’re two adults. Hell, you’re practically geriatric. Should we just sit down for cup of tea instead?”

Tom’s face twisted into an expression that was feral, inhuman, darkly framed eyes narrowing and lips twisting into a mockery of amusement. “Give up,” he hissed, the Parseltongue sharp and commanding.

Harry’s eyes widened in surprise as the command caused a knot to twist in Harry’s stomach. Warmth blossomed through his limbs, making his skin tingle.

Tom’s expression grew contemplative, before morphing into something viciously smug. “Give up, darling. Come to me, now, my Døkkálfr.”

“Yeeaaah,” Harry said slowly, drawing the word out. “No.”

Tom snarled loudly, launching off the balls of his feet at Harry like a sprinter.

“Spumo,” Harry snapped, casting with one hand out at Tom’s face, and then immediately cast with his other hand spread out, “Ictos!”

Tom’s eyes widened a fraction just a moment before he was drenched in white foam exploding from Harry’s hand, obscuring his vision and stopping him abruptly with the subtly of a possessed fire extinguisher. Harry felt himself propelled backward by his secondary spell out of Tom’s reach, skidding across polished wood floors.

Harry jumped to his feet as Tom snapped a hand over himself, the mess disappearing off of him instantly, but his expression of fury had only tripled. Harry weakly waved his hands in front of him in apology, hoping Voldemort wouldn’t hold a grudge for the foam – unlikely, Harry thought to himself with dread – and Harry took off in a different direction.

Harry was racing to the end of an empty corridor, an L-junction where the hallway continued to the left, sprinting at full pelt. There were occupants in a painting at the end of the hallway and they screamed as he neared, the characters scrambling to get out of the frame.

“Sorry!” Harry shouted as he slammed into the hallway end, crushing the painting, and then took off down the other end of the corridor. Tom smashed into the same wall behind him, a second behind him, practically roaring with feral rage as he perused.

Harry wished desperately he could call for Kreacher through the wards, for surely by now Tom would be hanging by his feet off the gutters for daring to threaten one of Kreacher’s cubs. Shame, Harry despaired.

At the end of the corridor was a large set of french doors, heavy and ornate. Harry lifted his hand up and cast wordlessly, the doors slamming open, and Harry leapt through. The doors slammed shut behind him with another wordless cast and Harry winced as Tom smashed into them, the doors rattling harshly but kept closed by his spell.

Harry looked around wildly, heart thumping in his throat. He was in a large study, two of the walls lined with brimming floor to ceiling bookshelves. A massive fireplace crackled with a fire and it flickered light into the space. Several plush leather sofas and armchairs were centred in a circle-like shape in the room, a thick, long fibre rug between them.

At one end of the study was a large window, a desk placed in front of it and facing the rest of the room. Harry could work with this – if he could just smash through that window and somehow forcefully bypass the house ward at the same time he could –

The study doors exploded inward in a spray of wood chips and Harry instinctively cast a shielding spell, the wood shards reflecting off him harmlessly. He’d had just about enough of wood shards, recently. As Harry dropped his arm where it shielded his eyes, he was tackled by a much larger body.

Harry wheezed as he was slammed into one of the blessedly non-bookshelf walls. In desperation, Harry reached out to the shadows, intending to only go to another part of the room rather than trying to jailbreak the house wards, and blinked in surprise as he appeared on the other side of the room.

Harry stared at Tom in shock from across the room. He could shadow step. There was enough movement of light from the fireplace to flicker and chase shadows across the room. And he could move around but… Just – just not through the house wards. Harry knew from his training that each room would be individually warded in a house like this, tied to the main house wards, so he would not be able to leave the room using the technique. But he could shadow step in the room.

Tom turned, lips twisted in a snarl. Clearly, he hadn’t expected Harry to figure that out.

“Ha! Suck it!” Harry jeered. Tom’s head tilted again, a small movement that Harry was beginning to realise spelled ruinous danger for him, and Tom abruptly materialised in front of him.

Oh Merlin, if I can do it then he can do it, Harry realised too late, ducking Tom’s striking hand and dropping down quickly to sweep the man’s legs. Tom responded by flickering out of sight and appearing behind Harry, long fingers delving into Harry’s hair and gripping tightly.

Harry growled angrily in pain, twisting and slamming his palms into Tom’s abdomen as he spat out a blasting curse. Harry blinked in surprise as the firm muscle under his fingertips disappeared precisely when the curse released, the recipient of the energy unexpectedly missing. Harry was blown backward under the ferocity of his own spell as it collided with the bookshelves.

Flames erupted up the wall, a bath of heat blasting his face, bits of parchment going up in flame. Harry released a weak oomph as his back hit a solid, warm wall. Tom.

Harry flailed, his sharp nails missing Tom’s flesh by millimetres. He was abruptly airborne, bodily lifted and slammed with ferocity onto the rug in the centre of the room, breath knocked out of him and spots of black exploding in his vision.

Harry felt an enraged roar wheeze out of him, squirming angrily as Tom followed him down and then – then –

Harry immediately stopped, frozen, eyes wide in surprise as he stared up at the ceiling of the study. The crashing of drums had been so loud, so vicious, that Harry hadn’t even noticed their presence until suddenly, abruptly, everything was silent. Harry looked up at the ceiling as tiny cinders of burnt parchment floated down above him, the ash gently raining down in minuscule pieces, like snow.

A vibrating sound pressed against Harry’s chest and he realised, suddenly, the position he was in. Why he froze.

Tom was crushing Harry into the rug with a leg pressed firmly between Harry’s thighs, Harry’s wrists held up above his head with one clawed hand and the other hand digging into Harry’s hip. Most importantly, though, Harry thought to himself dazedly, were the teeth currently sunken into his neck just under his jaw, holding him firmly in place.

Harry felt a keening noise wheeze out of his chest in response to what presumably had been a dominating warning growl from Tom. Harry continued blinking in surprise at the ceiling, lips parted.

With an all-encompassing shiver of embarrassment, Harry realised he was incredibly turned on. The teeth in his neck felt astonishingly good and the warning growl he got each time he squirmed made something hot and vibrant ache in his stomach. He realised with vague horror that he actually liked being pinned, that the creature in his mind was saying with a pleased purr, yes, good, strong mate.

Oh, shit, Harry thought distantly. Apparently, this really does it for me.

The teeth in his neck slowly extracted themselves and were followed by several long, broad swipes of a tongue. Harry felt his eyes close, a sigh pushed out of him, heat rushing through his body and making his fingers twitch.

No, Potter, get a grip, Harry thought to himself sharply, forcing his eyes open.

“Ew,” Harry protested, squirming, trying to push himself away from the thigh between his legs so that the evidence of his arousal wasn’t quite so sharply pushed against the top of Tom’s thigh, to absolutely no success, goddammit, “That cannot be sanitary.”

Harry flinched as the teeth sunk back into his neck immediately. Harry’s eyes unfocused, his back arching against the chest pressed into his and inadvertently riding up the thigh between his legs, bare feet slipping on the rug, yanking his wrists against the hand pinning him and not moving an inch.

It should be painful. It should be, Harry thought to himself. However, infuriatingly, his body did not seem to get the memo. Instead, Harry felt himself fill with pure molten liquid heat from heat to toe, relaxing into the sharp canines. Jaws tightened briefly and Harry felt his eyes roll back, head dropping further back into the soft rug and exposing more of his neck. Harry’s lips parted on a silent moan, body shivering with need.

“Are you going to behave, Harry?” Tom hissed once he withdrew his teeth from Harry’s flesh, lips moving against the wound and followed up with a slow, broad swipe of a hot tongue.

“You – what?” Harry asked, confused and vaguely annoyed that Tom was making him think. Irritated, he squirmed, half-hoping Tom would bite him again. Wanting it again.

Tom released Harry’s wrists and Harry grabbed onto his shoulders. Harry felt his nails dig into the muscle there, grounding himself. Tom slipped his hand around the back of Harry’s neck, gently shaking Harry's nape in warning, the other hand still pinning Harry’s hip in place. Harry’s blurry vision refocused as Tom’s face swam into view.

“I said,” Tom whispered slowly and clearly, warning him, “Are you going to behave for me, Døkkálfr?”

Harry ignored him in favour for dragging his nails up man’s neck. Stop making me think, just shut up. Harry felt his hands burying themselves into thick black hair and gently scratching the scalp as he knotted his hands into the strands.

Harry watched with a sharp inhale as Tom’s eyelids dropped in pleasure, the thigh between Harry’s legs grinding down.

“Answer me,” Tom hissed, canines on display, looking down at Harry with molten intensity.

“No?” Harry breathed, not even sure if he was speaking English. He just wanted more of this, whatever the hell this even was, the creature inside him purring.

The man’s eyes flashed red before soothing back to grey, mesmerising.

Harry realised that Tom didn’t look terribly lucid either, echoing Harry’s confusion. His pupils were enormous, his lips parted, teeth stained red from blood, eyes staring at Harry with an intensity that he couldn’t place. Animal. Wild. Feral, Harry realised, brain supplying the word through the haze.

Tom looked feral.

Harry used his grip in Tom’s hair to slowly pull him down until their noses nearly touched, Tom allowing the move with a lazy, predatory look. Harry inspected him up close, looking at thick dark eyelashes, hooded eyes, pale skin. Harry inhaled slowly, deeply, a strong scent of spice and smoke filling the air, it smelled amazing. He wants to crawl up inside of that smell, cover himself in it.

After a moment, Harry tilted his head as much as the hand in his own hair would allow and pulled the soft lips above him down.

Harry sighed as Tom’s lips pressed against his, eyes closing and enjoying the gentle touch. The mouth against his moved after a moment and Harry’s eyebrows furrowed, confused. Warmth pressed against the seam of his lips and, acquiescing, Harry parted them. Harry moaned into the sudden heat, the kiss going from gentle to brutal in an instant, a tongue pressing into his mouth, the taste of iron in blood, dominating in a way that made Harry melt, the thigh against his arousal grinding down, Harry feeling himself arching up into a wall of muscle and pulling on that soft hair between his fingers – yes, more, more, more –

Something tingled in the back of his mind, an awareness that was singing out. Stop. Instincts blooming in his hindbrain, warning him – too far, you’re both too far gone, going to go too far –

Huh? Harry thought sluggishly as teeth bit down on his bottom lip, then soothed with a slow drag of the tongue. Harry’s eyes cracked open, one eye closing again without permission as he rode a wave of pleasure. A strange thought filtered through his head – Ilmr’s mortifying, detailed, remarkably filthy description of what mating entailed – Going to end up on my knees, Harry thought to himself.

Both of Harry’s eyes snapped open at the thought, alarmed. He flushed, horribly embarrassed by the memory and the flood of thoughts that followed it.

Wait a minute. Did – did Tom actually ask me ... Are you going to behave?

Christ, Harry then thought to himself, reeling as Tom’s tongue pressed into his mouth deeper, making him keen helplessly, desperately wanting to sink back into that relentless heat.

Get a grip, Potter.

Harry yanked on the soft hair in his grip harshly, Tom releasing a reverberating growl as he was pulled back. Harry blinked up at the man on top of him, Tom staring at him heavy lidded, blown pupils, blood smeared on his bottom lip. Thoughts were running a mile a minute in Harry’s head – holy fuck how is he so ridiculously hot, just want to lick his –

Punch him if you need to, Harry recalled vaguely.

Harry pulled one of his hands out of the hair in his grip, cocked his arm, and punched the arsehole with everything in his power. The angle was poor and awkward, but the contact was solid.

Tom snarled as he reared back, falling off Harry, hitting one of the armchairs. Harry shakily scrambled up as Tom rolled onto the balls of his feet, fingertips steadying on the floor. He looked up at Harry, his posture all liquid threat, but Harry was suddenly furious.

“You actual asshole,” Harry panted, stepping backward quickly to put space between them, his skin still on fire. “What the fuck is your problem?”

“So, no,” Tom purred.

“Excuse you?” Harry hissed, a boiling charm coiling between his fingertips.

“No, you do not intend to behave,” Tom explained. Rather than being angry, the wanker just seemed pleased.

“Uh, no, I do not ‘intend to behave’,” Harry laughed sarcastically, adding air quotes, then whipped the curse in his hand at Tom’s face.

Tom’s hand snatched the five-point spell between his fingertips effortlessly. Harry watched, wide-eyed, as the monster inspected the angry orange spell in his hand, twisting and turning it around. The spell spun in his palm and began to fizzle, the skin of Tom’s palm turning black as it absorbed the energy.

Tom looked up at Harry. He slowly rose to his feet, so annoyingly tall, and Harry resented having up to look up at him. “Good,” Tom praised, voice soft. “For me, that is,” Tom clarified with a smirk, so condescending it made Harry’s blood burn. “Not so much for you.”

Harry stared up at the man a few metres away, baffled. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re really freaking intense?” Harry asked.

“It may have been mentioned,” Tom replied, circling Harry. “I prefer to think of it as everyone else being really rather dull.”

Harry slowly turned on the spot, keeping Tom in his centre of vision. “Yeah, I’m sure you would,” Harry said, narrowing his eyes at Tom, the prat. “Been told you’re obsessive?”

“Perhaps a few times,” Tom drawled. He moved with lithe, liquid smoothness, like Ilmr did. A predator, confident in its domain.

“Scary?” Harry asked.

“Often,” Tom grinned, sharp canines on display. He continued to slowly circle the room, making Harry turn with him.

This was good. Harry had to keep him talking. Talking about himself, which the giant narcissist seemed to enjoy. Of course. Also, talking meant no biting. This reminded Harry of his bite on the top of his neck, which tingled, spreading devastating heat to his stomach and the rest of his limbs.

No, no thinking about that, Harry berated himself.

“A little possessive?” Harry continued, keeping Tom square in his line of sight.

“A little?” Tom laughed softly in surprise, as if the question delighted him, “No. Very? Yes,” he breathed, a whispering hiss.

“And cocky?” Harry asked, slowly flexing his fingers – what spell would Tom least expect? – “What about supremely, astonishingly cocky?”

Tom stopped moving, his amused expression slowly melting off his face and leaving a blank mask behind. “Never,” Tom stated tonelessly. “People know better.”

Ah. Harry stepped on a landmine. It was only a matter of time. Damn. Well, better lean in.

“So, not cocky,” Harry confirmed. “Interesting. Ever had foam blasted in your face?”

Tom lunged just as Harry flickered in the shadows to the other side of the room. Tom turned, watching Harry with an appraising eye.

“Just by one person, someone who didn’t know better,” Tom said, continuing the conversation casually as if nothing had happened, walking along one of the bookshelf walls, fingers tracing singed books as he passed. His lips were quirked into a smirk, the icy fury from a moment before gone.

Harry wondered how he did that, controlled his expression so tightly. “Yeah?” Harry asked from his corner of the room, “And what happened to him?”

“Oh, you’ll find out soon enough,” Tom answered lowly, dangerously, radiating dark smugness.

Harry sighed, putting his hands on his hips. “Charming. So, come up with a better anagram yet?” Harry asked. “Or did you tap out at, what was it, hot jersey pram rat?”

Tom paused from where he was drawing a line down a book with his fingertip, looking at Harry pensively. “You remember.”

“Yes,” Harry answered slowly, eyebrows drawing together in confusion, keep him talking, keep him busy, “It was kind of a rather formative memory for me, to be honest. I’m thinking of having that as an epitaph on my tombstone. Rather than Harry James Potter, loving orphan, they’ll write, ‘Here lies hot jersey pram rat, pissed off a Dark Lord and got crushed flat’.”

“I figured you’d lost too much blood to remember,” Tom said as a smirk started to curl his lips, “And that was spectacularly terrible. Do not consider a life of poetry, you’d fail.”

“Wow,” Harry said sharply, jerking his head in faux offence, “There goes all of my life’s ambitions, struck down in my prime – ”

Tom appeared before Harry in a heart-stopping flash, a hand striking out to grip Harry’s jaw as he slammed Harry up against the wall, his body hard and immovable. Harry wheezed, the air crushed out of him, and dug his nails into the fabric on Tom’s chest.

“Don’t worry, Harry Potter,” Tom purred in his face, “I’ll give you some new ambitions.”

Harry blinked up at him with wide eyes, speechless. Harry was pushed hard against the wall, his hands clutching the front of Tom’s robes for support. Once more, Tom had crushed a thigh between Harry’s leg, pushing him up. One of Harry’s knees was hitched over Tom’s hip, the other foot barely grazing the floor from how high up he was pushed.

“For a busy Dark Lord, you’re spending a remarkable amount of time throwing me around and pining me to things,” Harry commented as casually as he could, voice a little higher pitched than he wanted it to be. "And demonstrating a surprising amount of strength for someone who's nearly an octogenarian."

Tom slowly moved Harry’s face with the grip on his jaw until Harry was looking to the side away from Tom, sharp nails digging into Harry’s cheek. Tom ran his lips down the side of Harry’s neck where he’d bitten it.

To his own horror, Harry squeaked, abruptly hot and tingling, wiggling against the wall. “What are you doing?”

“And got crushed flat,” Tom murmured against his neck, scraping his canines across exposed flesh. “I thought it was an invitation.”

“I repeat, we really, really need to work on your comprehension,” Harry repeated, still talking against his better judgement. “Genius or not,” Harry added, “Still think you’re overselling – ” voice cracking as Tom’s tongue stroked firmly across the bite, tongue flat and hot and wet –

Harry let out a noise that he wasn’t even aware he could make. It was high pitched and burst from his chest helplessly. It was terribly humiliating and really too loud and practically pornographic, Christ, but he struggled to pay attention to his own pride when he could barely think straight, eyelids struggling to stay open at the sheer amount of pleasure radiating from his bite mark.

Tom paused, his body impossibly tense against Harry. Tom smirked – the jerk is actually smirking against my neck, Harry thought dazedly – and he repeated the movement over Harry’s bite, tongue broad and so so hot and holy shit –

Harry felt himself make the noise again, louder, reedier, needier. He dug his nails into Tom’s chest, punishing, back arching and –

“Do you want me to stop, Harry?” Tom whispered against his skin, nipping Harry with sharp teeth and soothing with another swipe of his tongue.

Harry’s mind was on fire, his skin was burning, those damned teeth wrecking his train of thought – he inhaled as he registered the question, nails scrabbling up a broad chest. What?

“Harry, answer me, do you want me to stop?” Tom asked sharper, demanding, pressing Harry impossibly harder to the wall.

“Yes,” Harry hissed, his nails digging deep and hip flexing –

Tom unexpectedly stepped back, dropping Harry. Harry collapsed to the floor, hitting it with an oomph! Harry looked up at Tom, blinking at him slowly, lips parting in a silent gape, completely taken aback as his mind reeled.

“Fine, I’ll stop,” Tom said. He took a further step back, as if to emphasise his point, looking, quite frankly, bored.

“What?” Harry burst out from his collapsed position on the floor.

“You told me to stop. I’ve stopped,” Tom replied, looking down at the nails on one of his hands. They went from Døkkálfr, black and sharp, to manicured, Tom retreating from the transformation. Tom looked astonishingly put together, for how devastated Harry felt, and he exuded an air of complete disinterest. “I fail to see where the confusion is. Perhaps it is your comprehension we should be working on, yes?”

“Excuse me?”

“I’ve been accused of many things and done even worse, Harry Potter,” Tom spoke softly in his horribly crisp, cultured accent, looking down at Harry through thick eyelashes with derision. “I’ve tortured, maimed, murdered. I feel no regret for having done so and will likely continue doing so until such time I’m put in the ground once and for all.”

Harry felt something churn in his stomach, fear growing in a knot and chilling his bones as he looked up at Tom.

Tom continued, voice soft, mesmerising Harry with his sharp gaze, “I’ve skinned enemies for minor transgressions, taken the eyes from followers who defy me, possessed the unwavering loyalty of dementors for instilling horror and fear in all who cross me. I’ve inspired fanatical obsession and have driven lovers insane, just because I could. And they let me, want me to, because of who I am.”

Harry blinked up at him, astonished and confused. This was not what Harry had expected, at all, and it was throwing him for a loop.

Tom crouched down on the balls of his feet until he was at eye line with Harry, forearms resting on his knees and fingers loosely threaded, staring at Harry with a frightening and unwavering intensity that shook Harry to his core. Harry jerked back into the wall, his head making a thudding noise that he could barely feel, trapped under Tom’s steel gaze.

“I am Døkkálfr,” Tom hissed in Parseltongue, sharp and clear. “I made my claim, because you are mine, Harry Potter,” he hissed with ferocious possessiveness, a feral look in his eye that made Harry hold his breath for a moment, terrified.

Tom's gaze flickered to the bite on Harry’s neck, appraising it with a dark, possessive satisfaction, then back to Harry’s wide, stunned eyes.

“However,” Tom hissed, voice lowering to a near whisper. Tom then spoke slowly, coldly, “No matter what you may want from me, whether to feel better about yourself for claiming you were forced or to simply exist in denial in your own head, I do not care. Lord Voldemort does not rape.”

With that, Tom stood sharply, turned on his heel, and charged toward the fireplace. Tom threw in a handful of green powder – where the hell did that even come from? Harry thought helplessly – and stepped into the flames. A moment later, he was gone.

Gone.

He’d left the study.

With Harry sitting on the floor. Helplessly, humiliatingly aroused and suddenly cold.

After having chased Harry through the entire house, exploded doors and burning books and seriously way too much foam and deep gouging scratches on potentially priceless wood floors and large bites that felt devastatingly good –

Gone.

“What?!” Harry burst out helplessly into the room.

Chapter Text

Harry realised Tom wasn’t coming back to the study any time soon after he’d spent ten minutes sitting on the floor. During this time, he really, really tried to not judge himself for the last hour. He was failing rather spectacularly, yet he was trying his best nonetheless.

Harry cautiously approached the fireplace and inspected it for floo powder but, unsurprisingly, he’d found none. How Tom did half the things he did, Harry had no idea. Harry suspected most of the seemingly impossible things Tom managed to accomplish were likely developed for the sheer drama of it all, breaking the laws of physics and magic with unnecessary flourish, because Lord Voldemort was at his heart a massive, unrepentant, indomitable diva, Harry thought with vicious spite.

Who made perfectly innocent elvish men feel deeply and totally humiliated for absolutely no good reason at all. None at all.

A part of Harry felt some vague doubt about that last thought, but he crushed it down deep. Harry decided, after a moment’s contemplation, that he was going be mad about this. Yes, anger. That was the best path forward. Pride, and all that.

Harry stormed out of the study and followed the trail of debris that he and Tom had left in their wake.

“Does not rape?” Harry muttered to himself furiously. “What I want?” Harry raged harder, stomping across the floors with force, blasting a fallen painting out of his way. The occupants cried out as they were flung across the hall.

“The – the actual fucking audacity of it all,” Harry fumed, riling up. “How dare he? As if now, after nearly seven decades, he claims to be the bastion of basic decency and I’m the problem. Oh yes, my lord!” Harry said, shouting mockingly at no one, gesturing to the empty hallway with wide arms, “I totally consent to having my skin flayed and my eyeballs ripped out for not sneezing correctly, my lord, thank you my lord! Fucking get over yourself – ”

Harry stopped in his tracks just as he spotted a house elf, who looked at him from the end of the hallway he had just rounded into.

“Oh,” she said, tugging the edge of her starched white pillow case. “Hello.”

“Hi,” Harry breathed, suddenly flatfooted. “Sorry, I was talking to myself,” Harry trailed off, blushing. “I’m Harry,” he offered weakly.

“Mapsie, sir,” she replied, looking extremely uncomfortable.

The elf, Mapsie, was standing in a puddle of foam, which had sprayed everywhere with the exception of Tom’s face. There was a conspicuous head-shaped patch on the wall where foam was missing that made a part of Harry rather meanly smug inside. The gouge marks on the floor looked even deeper now that he had a moment to look at them. Tom’s nails must be quite sharp, he thought warily.

“Sorry,” Harry said, embarrassed. “For the mess.” He waved his hand in the general direction of said mess.

Mapsie just looked up at him with massive eyes, now tugging her ears.

“Thank you,” Harry said, “For dinner,” he clarified at her baffled look.

“Mapsie being doing her job,” Mapsie said, confused, and sounding a little offended.

“Oh,” Harry said, feeling like a dolt. “Right. Yes. Right.”

Harry realised that he had totally forgotten how to speak to elves who weren’t insane, six hundred year old, two feet tall demons. Damn. He missed Kreacher.

“Would you mind escorting me to the exit?” Harry asked politely, shifting on his feet.

Mapsie looked at him like he was insane. “The exit, sir?” She clarified.

“Yes, whichever nearest port of exit in this godforsaken house that does not have Voldemort lurking on the other side will do just fine,” Harry stated with false cheer.

Mapsie squeaked at Harry’s use of the word Voldemort and disappeared with a crack.

“Interesting,” Harry mused sarcastically to himself. “Apparently his house elf is terrified of the word Voldemort, her master’s literal name, but yes, sure, let’s pretend I’m the one with a problem.”

Harry eventually found the ink smudges he’d left on the wainscoting and followed them to the room he woke up in. The room was completely dark and strained even Harry’s improved eyesight. Merlin, today felt like it took years to get through. He slammed the bedroom door shut, stomped to the bed, and threw himself down on it.

He hadn’t noticed it when he awoke earlier, probably because of the overwhelming stench of blood, but the bed smelled nice. Really nice. It was soothing. Harry pressed his head into the fragrant pillows, burying himself in there. Who perfumed a bed? A diva, that’s who, Harry thought with vicious uncharitable fury.

Harry placed the palms of his hands over his eyes and sighed. And felt tears welling up.

“Nope!” Harry barked sharply, sitting up, refusing to cry. After a moment of composing himself, he moved off the bed and began exploring the room. There was not much to look at, but the armoire did have a few heavy cloaks. Harry realised after a moment, now that his blood has cooled from his anger, that he was actually quite cold. The fireplace in the bedroom was unlit and Harry had no interest in speaking to Mapsie again, nor finding out if she would even come if he called.

Harry pulled a cloak out of the armoire, the length much too big for him. It was heavy, made of wool, clearly well worn, black like the rest of the clothes in the room, and smelled faintly like wood smoke. Harry brought it to his face and sniffed. Like burning apple wood, he noted. And cloves. And fire whisky. Perhaps a hint of vanilla. Weird, Harry thought to himself with a frown.

Sighing, Harry wrapped himself in the cloak and felt immediately better. The warmth and scent went a long way to improving his mood and he suddenly felt immensely drained.

Harry approached the bedroom door and pressed his fingertips to it. A soft spoken spell later and the door sealed shut, a ward rippling from the door and over the walls of the room. It admittedly wouldn’t be much effort for Tom to get through, but it would make a hell of a noise when it was tampered with. Harry knows he likely won’t be able to stop Tom with wards, but he could at least be awake and prepared.

Harry went back to the bed and curled up under the covers. He arranged the cloak so it wrapped him tightly, burying his head in the hood and breathing deeply. The bite on his neck under his jaw ached and Harry refused to touch it, refused to acknowledge it. You are mine.

No, hush, Harry said to his mind. Let me sleep.

And if Harry felt a few tears break free, he steadfastly ignored them.

Harry meandered around the house after waking up and eating from the breakfast tray that Mapsie had left him. He started at the ground floor and made his way up. He tried to leave several times but found himself unable to get through the wards. He opened about three dozen doors and found more studies, lounges, a dining room, bedrooms, one particularly large library that would keep Hermione busy for at least a year, a ballroom, bathrooms, closets, and more. The house was immense, clearly magicked to be larger internally than it was on the outside, given that each floor was a different size.

It was actually really quite a nice house. Dark wood floors and walls. High ceilings. Natural light spilling into each room. Beautiful landscape paintings. Lots and lots of stained glass. Tons of dark leafy plants in corners. A few pretty floor rugs of different styles. Harry would almost call it near-Victorian. Art nouveau, Hermione would probably say. It wasn’t hideously ostentatious like Malfoy Manor. Or horribly stuffy and filled to the brim with tacky junk like Grimmauld Place (the troll leg umbrella stand leapt to mind).

Harry had yet to come across Tom’s bedroom, to his own relief.

Once Harry reached the owlery, he noticed the tawny owl was still gone. Perhaps Tom had blasted her out of the sky. Harry frowned, worried. He hoped she was alright. But also, if she had made it past Tom, it meant that Hogwarts was a long ways away. Owls were very fast when delivering letters.

The owlery was designed like a light house, up a set of spiral stairs from the top floor of the house. There were four arching windows on each wall, beautiful frames that peaked in a point. The windows opened outward, with stained glass framing the top. Gorgeous windows.

Harry lifted his hand and sent the most powerful blasting curse he knew at the window. The energy slammed into the window pane and was absorbed immediately, the house wards consuming the spell as if the energy were merely a pebble hitting a lake, rippling gently. Harry sent another blast, then another, then another, and the wards gently consumed each burst of magic. Harry grit his teeth. He pressed his fingers towards the only open window and, unlike the owl, he encountered a forceful ward. It wouldn’t let him through.

Once the wards stopped rippling gently, Harry looked out an arched window onto the grounds below, wondering where the hell he was.

It was nearing at least midday by the time Harry went back down to the ground floor. He tried to leave out the front door again, but the ward was, unsurprisingly, still up.

That left exploring the basement space below the ground floor.

Harry really, really didn’t want to do that. Brave as he felt, he also felt he had seen one too many scary muggle movies. It was always the basement.

Harry quietly entered the kitchen and went to the door that had a set of wooden stairs that led down into what he presumed was the cellars. Or, more likely, the dungeons. Like Malfoy Manor, it was pitch black and murky, unnaturally so. The staircase disappeared after a few metres, light sucked into the void.

Harry took a step forward and Mapsie appeared directly in front of him on the second stair.

Harry swore in surprise, stepping back.

“No, sirs Harry,” Mapsie said firmly.

Harry stared at her, taken aback. She hadn’t interrupted him all morning. Then again, when he found this door this morning, he hadn’t tried to go in.

“But,” Harry began protesting. Mapsie began walking toward him and Harry stepped backward quickly.

“Masters Riddle does not want sirs Harry in here,” Mapsie explained, closing the door behind her.

Masters Riddle? Harry repeated in his head, alarmed.

“Why not?” Harry asked urgently.

Mapsie sent him a firm look.

Harry looked the elf up and down. He could take her. Probably. She looked fairly young. House elves were creative with their magic so they tended to fight unpredictably, but Harry had just spent months getting the snot kicked out of him by Ilmr, so he likely could take her down.

“I wouldn’t, if I were you. Mapsie would win,” a voice drawled from the door of the kitchen.

Harry whipped around, hand reaching for his wand, and stopped abruptly when he realised he still didn’t have it. Harry’s hand clenched, furious. He didn’t need his wand, true, but the magic required with a wand helped conserve his magical core considerably. And when it came to Tom Riddle, he needed all the advantage he could get.

Tom leaned against the door frame on his shoulder, one ankle loosely crossed over the other. “Looking for this?” He asked slyly, pulling Harry’s wand out of his cloak pocket.

Harry bit his lip, suddenly terrified Tom would snap it.

Tom quirked an eyebrow at him, clearly skimming the thought from Harry’s mind and amused by it, and tossed the wand to Harry.

Harry snatched it out of the air, astonished, and ran his fingers down the wood, carefully inspecting for damage.

Harry looked up at Tom, amazed. “Why would you do that?” He asked, wary.

“You couldn’t win a fight against my house elf,” Tom said, sounding highly amused, the ‘let alone me’ left unspoken. “You’re hardly a threat even with your wand.”

Harry felt something burbling up in his chest, something that he was vaguely aware felt like homicidal intent. It was rather hard to tell through the red-pink crisp hue colouring his vision, though. His fingertips went numb. Huh. Might actually kill Tom, Harry thought to himself.

Harry raised his wand at Tom’s smug face, deciding on which spell would best mangle the jerk’s pretty features, and then the wand was abruptly gone.

Clutching air, Harry whipped around and stared at Mapsie, who had yanked the wand from his hand with magic and tucked it into a pocket sewn into her pillow case dress.

“No,” Mapsie said once more, wagging a finger, “Bad sirs Harrys.”

Harry gaped at her, shocked. “Give it to me,” Harry demanded, furious.

“No,” Mapsie said with a ringing tone of finality. “Sirs Harry be getting it back when sirs Harry being responsible.”

“See? Can’t win a fight with a house elf,” Tom pointed out drolly, unhelpfully, sounding extremely entertained.

Harry snapped his wrist and flung a spell in Tom’s direction, not even bothering to look as he did so as he was currently staring down an extremely unrepentant house elf, and felt just a smidgen smug when the door frame Tom was leaning against exploded.

Mapsie flinched and her eyes widened as her gaze flickered to the exploded door frame, then back to Harry.

“Give me my wand back, Mapsie,” Harry said firmly, tone brooking no room argument.

Mapsie’s eyes narrowed defiantly and she, once more, disappeared with a crack!

“Fuck!” Harry swore, turning back to Tom. Who was glaring at him with murder in his eyes, standing two feet away from the smoking door frame.

“Oh, calm down,” Harry snapped, incredibly pissed off, “You don’t even have a hair out of place.” Harry pushed past him and stormed down the hallway, intending to go to his room.

Tom collided with Harry, pushing him face-first into one of the walls and plastering his chest against Harry’s back. Tom slammed his hand against the wall by Harry’s face and wound his fingers into Harry’s hair. Firmly pulling back, Tom yanked until Harry’s neck was arched, Tom’s face pressed up against his.

“Try that again, Harry,” Tom whispered, his nose sliding down the side of Harry’s face. “And you will not like the result.” Teeth pressed down on the lobe of Harry’s ear, not biting hard but applying a firm pressure that made Harry’s knees weak.

Harry clenched his hands where they were crushed against his chest and the wall. He closed his eyes, breathing deeply and trying to remain calm. He would not make a fool out of himself this time.

“Counter offer: the next time I try, I won’t fucking miss,” Harry snarled.

“So crabby today,” Tom murmured in a patronising tone, sounding distracted. He pressed against Harry more firmly, somehow pushing Harry even harder into the wall. “Woke up on the wrong side of the bed?”

“Given it’s not my bed, yes, actually,” Harry hissed, digging his nails into the wall as Tom pulled Harry’s head to the side, teeth tracing down Harry’s neck. It wasn’t the side that had the bite mark and Harry flinched, viciously crushing a keening noise that threatened to spill out of his chest.

“Your bed, my bed, what’s the difference?” Tom asked, voice distant, distracted. He was inhaling deeply, mouth parted over Harry’s neck.

“Your bed?” Harry breathed, trying to maintain a modicum of decency by suppressing a moan when Tom carefully put his teeth over a straining muscle in Harry’s neck, not piercing skin but once more applying that firm pressure.

Tom agreed with a baritone growl, the noise vibrated into Harry’s back and chest, making him shudder through a breath. “And you smell so very nicely of me, Harry,” Tom murmured against Harry’s strained tendon. “Wearing my horcrux. Covered in me. Dripping in me. Such a good boy, Harry.”

Harry felt heat explode in his stomach, coiling heavily and spreading out to his limbs. Wow. Turns out that really, really does it for me, Harry thought to himself dazedly.

The words ‘wearing my horcrux’ drifted through Harry’s mind and Harry tensed harshly. He knows.

“Your bedroom is weird,” Harry said, trying to cling to sanity, changing tack, “It has nothing in it except clothes that fit me. That is weird, right?”

“Hm. And would you rather there be no clothes at all?” Tom asked, following it with a rather deep rumbling noise that sounded like a purr. The – what? Why was that so hot? Harry thought to himself helplessly, shivering. Tom pressed his hips into Harry’s arse, a firm hot heat grinding into Harry and making him squeak.

“I removed anything you could cause trouble with,” Tom then added, still sounding disconnected, distant. He continued inhaling against Harry’s neck, his jaw, face, against his hair.

Harry breathed shakily for a moment, realising with abrupt clarity that Tom was kind of getting seriously high on his scent. Harry recalled the overwhelming feeling back in the potion’s classroom, how Voldemort’s magic had nearly brought him to his knees, and shivered.

“I slept in your sheets, wore your cloak, and washed with your soap,” Harry offered, trying rather desperately to not press back into Tom, because he has honour, “And I think that’s getting me into trouble. So, if you were in charge of keeping me out of trouble, which I will admit is no easy feat, this thing that’s happening right is really your fault.”

Tom released Harry immediately, stepping back slightly. Harry was prepared this time and stayed on his feet, turning around quickly and leaning against the wall for support.

Tom looked wrecked, pupils blown until there was nearly no iris colour left and just bottomless black, skin unnaturally pale, lips parted as he continued to breathe through his mouth. He hadn’t moved very far from Harry, barely half a step back, as if he couldn’t force himself to add anymore distance between them.

“You’re really so possessive that me simply smelling like you has you in a hot mess?” Harry asked, crushing a rather strange and nearly overwhelming desire to tackle Tom. “You probably should see someone about that.”

Tom lifted his hands and pressed his palms against the wall on either side of Harry’s face, looming over him, only feeding the hot knot of want in Harry’s stomach rather than intimating him. Or it was doing both. Harry wasn’t sure. He thinks Tom might be irreversibly crossing some wires for him. Fear, arousal. Harry swallowed.

“You should learn to curb your language before I bite your insubordinate tongue out of your mouth,” Tom whispered coldly in Harry's face with a sharp smile, canines bared.

“That would require my tongue in your mouth, yes?” Harry asked, knowing he was really pushing the envelope but unable to stop, “Given that yesterday it was your tongue at the back of my throat the entire time, I don’t see how that’s a likely scenario.”

Tom gave Harry an abruptly pained look, as if he were trying very hard to not hurt Harry and it may actually be killing him.

That was actually… New. And kind of touching? Strangely. Interesting.

Harry looked up at Tom – at Voldemort – in surprise, realising that Tom was trying. Trying to what, Harry had zero idea. But he was not actively in the process of some ridiculous bizarrely complicated attempt on Harry’s life, as per usual, unless pressing Harry into a wall with a disconcertingly severe hard on was part of said murder attempt.

Harry narrowed his eyes at Tom, contemplating.

“I am not trying to kill you,” Tom bit out, grinding his teeth, skimming Harry’s thoughts.

“Yes, that, that’s what’s confusing me,” Harry agreed slowly. “This is fairly uncharted waters.”

Tom closed his eyes and leaned down to rest his forehead against Harry’s. “You are possibly the most infuriating person I have ever met and trying to not kill you is a fool’s errand,” Tom answered, followed by a heavy sigh.

Harry stared up at Tom as warm air fanned his face, trying to keep as still as possible as he reeled at the touch.

“Another anagram?” Harry asked, unsure what to say and clinging for something, anything.

“No,” Tom replied, pulling his head back until he could look at Harry in the eye. His jaw worked as he clenched.

“Just, just don’t move,” Harry said shortly, a strange itching feeling building in his gums, around his teeth and the palate of his mouth. “Can you not move, for two seconds?”

Tom was looking down at Harry, the grey in his eyes coming back slowly as his pupils returned to a normal size. He didn’t reply but he also didn’t move, so Harry took that as a yes.

Harry looked up at Tom, properly seeing him for the first time. The man had scared the living daylight out of him out of Malfoy Manor, all roaring instincts and the need to run burning a brand in his brain. But now. Now, Harry can see him, the drum a quiet beat in the back of his head. The bite, Harry realised. The claim. It’s satisfied. For now.

Tom was clearly skimming his mind because his eyebrow quirked, as if to say, obviously.

“This elvish thing is weird to me, alright?” Harry said, exhaling harshly. “It doesn’t make sense a lot of the time. Just… Let me figure it out. And close your eyes. Please.” Harry asked harshly through a whisper. “It’s embarrassing enough without an audience.”

Tom blinked at him slowly, contemplatively, a relaxed predator entertaining its prey.

“I thought I wasn’t a threat,” Harry added for good measure, raising his own eyebrow.

Harry could have sworn he saw Tom roll his eyes at him as his eyes closed. Ugh, Harry thought to himself. What am I even doing?

Even still, he took advantage of the situation, because how often did he have Voldemort standing in front of him, silent and eyes closed? Remarkable. Honestly, quite astounding, Harry thought with distant shock.

Harry looked up at Tom, looked at the edges and paleness of the creature. Tom was clearly Døkkálfr, eerie in his beauty and sharp, incredibly sharp edged. Much taller than him, broader. Pale lips that Harry knew hid dangerously sharp teeth. An aura of menacing that seemed to cloak him even when relaxed. Utterly Alpha Døkkálfr in every way.

Harry wondered if Tom had always been this way, if he tried to hide it or destroy it. Or if this was new with the resurrection. Could Harry’s own inheritance have pulled it through with the horcrux? Or some other means? Harry wasn’t sure. Their shared blood?

With astonishment, Harry realised that they didn’t share blood anymore. That was the previous Tom, the one he’d stabbed. This one, though… What made the blood curse irrelevant? Why could they touch?

Even though they had touched enough for Harry to know the blood curse was gone, Harry still lifted his hands cautiously until he could press his fingertips to the sides of Tom’s neck, the man tensing under him. Amazingly, he remained still, eyes closed. Why?

Did – did Tom not want to hurt him, kill him?

The thought rattled Harry to his bones. Despite the words of the horcrux and Tom, it hadn’t really hit Harry. Didn’t believe it. Couldn’t believe it. Because Voldemort had spent over sixteen years trying to kill him and he had yet to see evidence to the contrary. Abruptly, Harry realised he was holding the evidence in his hands, his fingers sliding over pale skin.

Harry felt something strange and foreign rise up inside of him, harsh in its heat and painful vulnerability. He recalled the horcrux’s words – inevitable. Whole. Timeless.

Harry just felt so exhausted all of a sudden, spiritually exhausted. He’s been chased for years by this thing and now, after everything, it’s… Over? Just begun? And now, now he has to choose. Choose what to do. Harry doesn’t know what to do, the Døkkálfr in his head whispering mate mate mate, his conscience screaming monster monster monster.

Harry realised with devastation that he wanted Tom. Sharply. Insatiably. Before, when Tom had been insane, it had been easy to kill him, strike him down. Because he had been insane. But this thing – this person, who was smart, dangerous, bizarrely funny in a horrifically disarming way, possessive, a murderer – This was Tom in front of him, not a fleeting spirit driven mad by years in Albania –

Harry felt something burning in him – oh, god, tears – no, no, not good. Harry clenched his jaw, willing them down. Harry noticed too late that his fingers were pressing down hard on Tom’s neck, nails digging in.

Tom’s eyes opened slightly, pupils refocusing on Harry’s face under dark eyelashes. Tom’s gaze was molten metal, relaxed, pleased.

“Are you crying, Harry?” Tom whispered in a tone that was confusing to Harry in it’s softness, making Harry feel burnt out inside.

“No,” Harry said harshly, voice coming out hoarse.

“Are you lying to me, Harry?” Tom continued to whisper, gaze flickering down to his lips.

“I’ve never lied in my entire life,” Harry immediately lied, petulant and annoyed because he was coming to realise that he was incredibly embarrassed and desperately confused. “And I find the insinuation otherwise insulting.”

Tom smiled at him softly, a quirking of his lips that was a little too close to a smirk, but still. A smile. Harry looked at him in astonishment.

“What did you say in the shed?” Harry asked, feeling uneasy and weakened by this version of Tom. He needed something else to hold onto, needed to regain control somehow.

“I said a lot of things,” Tom answered, pressing closer.

“When – when you first came in, you said something, min – min,” Harry said, trying to remember, his brain tingling and body tensing when Tom’s face moved past his and pressed into the side of his neck.

“Min bedre halvdel,” Tom supplied against Harry’s neck, not doing anything other than breathing against him. That alone sent Harry’s brain spinning, dragging his nails from Tom’s neck down to the top of his chest. Tom was pressing Harry bodily back into the wall, hands moving and gripping Harry’s hips.

“That,” Harry breathed. “What – what is that?”

“My better half,” Tom replied.

Harry’s thoughts stuttered to a stop. A shiver made its way down his spine and a warmth bloomed in his stomach, goosebumps breaking out across his skin.

“Oh,” Harry said, the noise punched out of him, leaving him breathless.

“Do you like that, Harry?” Tom purred, the noise vibrating into Harry’s chest, scraping his teeth down Harry’s neck.

“Absolutely not,” Harry lied, blinking wet eyes over Tom’s shoulder.

“Are you lying, Harry?” Tom whispered, nipping. He was a wall of heat against Harry, making it hard to think straight from where he pressed in harder.

Harry felt a keen rip out of his chest. “Never,” Harry breathed. “Remember?”

A laugh was vibrating against Harry’s chest, low and vibrating. “Did you lie to me when you said you wanted me to stop?” Tom then asked, sly.

Harry felt like his brain was melting, helplessly trying to find an answer. “I – I don’t know,” Harry answered, voice raw.

“That’s alright, Harry,” Tom replied softly, forgiving, “How about I bite you while you think about it?”

“Yeah, okay,” Harry heard himself saying, desperately wanting that so much –

Teeth sunk down in the flesh of his neck and Harry felt his eyes roll back in his head. A low whining noise was rumbling in his ears – is that me? Harry thought distantly – and he arched his back, Tom’s nails dragging under his thigh to his knee and pulling it over a hip.

Hips rocked against Harry’s arousal and Harry hissed, scrabbling at the chest under his nails, world going white and blissful –

The sharp teeth pulled out of Harry’s neck slowly, gently. Harry blinked at the ceiling, vision blurry, slowly grounding himself by leaning his head back on the wall and breathing slowly. Harry noted with slow clarity that he was hard, devastatingly hard against the stomach pressed against him, and there was a thick, hard weight pressed into his hip that he wanted to roll against.

“That’s a weapon,” Harry complained, voice barely a whisper. “And unfair.”

Tom licked the bite, worrying the flesh and pressing harder into Harry when he bucked at the touch, body sensitive and desperate.

“Perhaps,” Tom answered against his neck, sounding completely unapologetic. “Now, Harry, do you want me to stop?”

“I don’t know,” Harry said to the ceiling, breathless and body feeling like it was on fire. “Bite me again? I need more time to think about it.”

Tom didn’t reply for a moment, his mouth pressed against Harry’s neck. The body against Harry’s was tense, hard, each movement carefully controlled. Harry realised that Tom might be holding back – a lot.

“Not without an answer,” Tom said sharply, hand flexing at Harry’s knee where he held it against his hip.

“Is this the driving lovers to insanity bit?” Harry asked, digging a hand into Tom’s hair, holding Tom’s head to his neck. Don’t you dare move. “Loved that speech, by the way. Very dramatic. Ten out of ten for execution.”

There was a baritone growl rumbling against Harry’s chest, warning him.

“You are welcome to bait me all you want,” Tom hissed against his neck, danger screaming up Harry’s spine, “But, again, I do not think you will like the result.”

Harry paused. Wondered if he should even address that threat. Decided no, he does not want to.

“I like saying no to you. Need to,” Harry said in a rush, speaking before he could even think it out. “But I don’t want to and this is getting very confusing for me.”

Tom didn’t reply, but he did nip Harry’s neck, making Harry’s hand spasm where it was buried in Tom’s hair, the other on Tom’s shoulder clenching into flesh with his nails.

“And, and – obviously this Døkkálfr mate thing isn’t going away,” Harry said helplessly.

Tom was abruptly tenser against him, crushing him into the wood panelling on the wall until he could barely breathe. There was an intense atmosphere growing, making the air feel heavier and denser. Tom’s magic, Harry realised with vague awe.

“You are mine,” Tom hissed, harsh and loud, furious.

“Yes,” Harry said as he sighed in annoyance, mouth running without his permission, “I feel like we’ve established that. Thank you for that valued contribution.”

Tom bit down hard in punishment and Harry gasped in surprise, body jerking, nails pulling on Tom’s hair to no effect. Harry keened, loud and helpless, mouth working on a word that wouldn’t come out, toes curling –

Harry groaned against the wall, eyes closing in bliss, wondering distantly if he was going to climax from this alone. Would be humiliating, worth it, Harry thought to himself in a daze.

Tom’s teeth let go of Harry’s neck abruptly and he was hissing against Harry's skin in anger. “You’re a manipulative little shit,” Tom snarled.

“Not – not trying to manipulate you,” Harry said, feeling like he was under water, blinking damp eyes at the ceiling. “Actually trying to be honest, here. Besides, I get the impression you’re trying to manipulate me.”

“I thought you were always honest?” Tom said, sounding remarkably less like he was going to rip Harry’s jugular out. Harry breathed a sigh of relief.

“I am, always,” Harry said without missing a beat, noticed that Tom did not address the second part of that statement. “Hundred percent of the time. Swear.”

Tom huffed a soft laugh against Harry’s neck, sounding as if it were pulled out of him, that it surprised him.

“But you aren’t honest with me, ever, and I don’t trust you. I don’t even like you,” Harry continued, tensing, waiting for a reaction.

“That’s alright, Harry,” Tom replied soothingly, lips soft against his skin. “You will.”

You will.

“Are you absolutely sure no one’s ever called you cocky before?” Harry asked, immediately annoyed.

“Just one person,” Tom answered, letting Harry down slowly.

Harry felt his feet touch the ground, trying to lock his shaky knees. Tom was wrapped around him, despite no longer crushing Harry to the wall. Large hands gripped the bones of Harry’s hips, nails pressing into the flesh of Harry’s lower back, holding him in place. Tom’s head was bent down, perhaps uncomfortably so, as he continued to keep his lips pressed against Harry’s neck. Harry kept his hand in Tom’s hair, keeping him there, because the demon seemed less willing to curse Harry to kingdom come with his nose buried in Harry’s scent.

“And what happened to him?” Harry asked. Harry felt incredibly fidgety but he didn’t dare to move, instead plucking at the fabric between his fingers on Tom’s chest, the hair buried in Tom’s hair flexing slightly.

“Patience, Harry,” Tom said, a smile pressing into Harry’s skin. “You’ll find out.”

A shiver ran down Harry’s spine.

“Could I find out after lunch?” Harry asked.

Tom pulled back until he was staring at Harry with hooded eyes, lips red with blood. Harry hadn’t even realised that Tom had drawn blood, eyes tracking his mouth with sudden fascination, a shock of electricity bolting up his spine and leaving him shivering.

“You’re hungry,” Tom stated, sounding strangely perplexed by the idea.

“Yes, elves, we eat food,” Harry stated patiently. “I don’t know what you eat to sustain yourself, I assume the souls of naughty children, but I need a sandwich.” Harry was just managing to keep the rather uncomfortable eye contact as he stared up into mesmerising grey eyes, daring Tom to react.

A muscle under Tom’s eye twitched minutely.

Harry held his breath for a moment, then Tom sighed and stepped back again, letting Harry go entirely.

“Then I guess I must feed my elf,” Tom said, gesturing down the hallway to the kitchen. “Go on.”

Harry looked up at him in astonishment. Feed… my elf? “No retaliation, huh?” He asked, amazed. “Are you sure you’re Voldemort? Where’s the fire and brimstone? The screams of the damned? The megalomaniac supervillain speech that ends with – ”

The ring pulsed once on Harry’s finger, hard. Tom’s gaze flickered to it, then back to Harry.

Harry stopped. He stared up at Tom, saw the calm danger rippling under his skin, the heavy magical aura that cloaked him, the cold flint in his eye. Saw the patience that had never existed before in Voldemort, not to Harry’s memory.

He’s biding his time, Harry thought with sudden concern, a cold feeling of dread growing in his stomach.

“Tom, Voldemort,” Harry stated quietly, firm and serious. “What are you going to do with me?”

“Oh, Harry,” Tom said, tutting down his nose at Harry with a rather soft, terrifying smile, condescending. “Don’t you worry, sweetheart. We have all the time in the world. As I said, you’ll find out.”

Harry looked up at him, green clashing against grey, a dawning horror building in his chest.

Merlin, Harry thought, reeling, I'm in an insurmountable amount of shit, aren't I?

Tom grinned.

Chapter Text

True to his word, Tom let Harry go to the kitchen to eat. Tom summoned Mapsie to make Harry sandwiches; both Harry and the house elf pointedly did not address each other.

Tom watched their interaction, or lack thereof, with mild amusement, lips quirked in that damned smile. Harry threw Tom a crabby glare from where he was slowly eating at the table, the man lounging in a wood chair at the head of the kitchen table as if it were his divine right to be such an astonishing prick.

Tom’s eyebrow raised at that thought and Harry shot a smarmy smile at Tom, thinking loud and clear, Get out of my head.

Tom just released a sharp exhale through his nose, practically a laugh.

Jesus, Harry thought sharply, looking back down at his plate of crumbs as he worked through the last few bites slowly, making it last. Who the hell is this person?

But no, that wasn’t right. Harry knows this person. Had met him in second year, in the Diary. Tom Riddle, still obviously crazy but sans the brain-melting insanity of the last two decades. Perhaps even longer than that.

Harry slowly spun the Diadem on his ring finger as he chewed and stared down at his plate, mind aching with the events of the last hour.

Harry wondered how Tom was able to regain said sanity, how he could be sitting here and not ripping Harry’s head off, and just... Laughing at Harry like a semi-normal person. Just – just lounging there, chair pushed away from the table on an angle, tapping his nails in a rhythmic tempo on the grainy wood of the table top, watching Harry with an intense gaze through lowered eyelashes as Harry ate, the creep.

A migraine was beginning to build and thunder in warning in the back of Harry’s head. He was just so damned confused by this entire situation. Nothing had gone even remotely how he expected it to and he didn’t know what to do. Ilmr, Hermione, and Harry had not prepared for this situation and it was making Harry’s skin itch. This creature sitting a few feet away wasn’t anything he’d dealt with before outside of the Diary and the ground felt unstable where Harry sat.

Harry looked over to where Mapsie was chopping vegetables on the kitchen counter, the little elf standing on a rather large stool to do so. Harry tiled his head, considering. He would need to get on the elf’s good side if he had any hope of escaping. House elves tended to like Harry, eventually. Provided he wasn’t actively breaking one of their very many, bizarre, strict social codes of conduct.

Mapsie was punishing him, like Kreacher would. Practically being a parent. What would parents want to hear? Harry thought to himself, floundering a little from lack of experience. Ah.

“Mapsie,” Harry said gently, soothing. Harry heard Tom’s tapping nails still abruptly, the tempo cutting off, and ignored it. “I’m very sorry. I won’t do it again.”

Mapsie looked up at Harry with wide eyes, surprised. The knife in her hand paused in the air.

“I’ll be responsible,” Harry continued, looking at her and her only. “I’ll be good. I’ll behave.”

Tom was a statue in the corner of Harry's peripheral vision, could have been made of marble for how much he moved.

“Good,” Mapsie said severely. She then smiled at Harry shyly, her large eyes growing fond.

Harry carefully breathed, controlled, in and out. Tom hadn’t reacted other than to still and was a looming, ominous shadow in the edge of Harry’s vision.

“May I please have my wand back?” Harry asked, polite to a fault.

Mapsie nodded once, firmly. The wand appeared in front of Harry on the table; he didn’t pick it up. Harry looked back up to Mapsie.

“Thank you. You are an excellent housekeeper,” Harry added earnestly. Because it was the truth, she actually was, and he needed to compliment her. “And my stay here has been made both bearable and enjoyable by your hospitality and attention to detail.”

Mapsie squeaked, her flopped ears standing upright. Harry knew this look – it was house elf for pleased and blushing.

Perfect.

“Mapsie, leave us for a moment,” Tom snapped, his cold voice cutting harshly through the amicability developing between Harry and the house elf.

Mapsie immediately popped out of existence with a crack!

A stab of annoyance burst in Harry’s chest. Harry didn’t look over at Tom, remaining calm as he picked up his wand, fingers running over the sides. It was undamaged, thank Merlin, and he pressed his thumb into a small knot in the wood.

“I was speaking with her,” Harry said casually, keeping his eyes on his wand, turning it over in his hand. “That was rude. Learn manners.”

“I thought you said you were going to behave, Harry,” Tom asked, voice quiet and dangerous. His tone rose the hair on the nape of Harry’s neck.

Harry threw Tom a smirk. “For her?” he asked, “Sure.”

Tom’s pupils constricted, small pinpricks of black in a sea of molten gunmetal grey, his face expressionless. The air was heavy, dense, suffocating. Harry’s nose twitched, the scent of spice and ash briefly distracting him.

“You’ll behave for a house elf,” Tom drawled slowly, dangerously, a muscle in his jaw jumping, “But not for me. Your mate.”

Harry studied him for a moment. “Yes, because Mapsie doesn’t hurt me. She has boundaries, whereas you have excessively controlling rules. You require deference, she just asks for a modicum of decency. There’s a difference,” Harry explained, slow and clear.

Harry watched Tom blink at him slowly, lazily, an amused predator watching his prey before the strike.

“You have a control thing, don’t you?” Harry asked, following an urge in his instincts to be impudent.

Tom’s eyebrow twitched, a small arching that immediately smoothed out back to that emotionless mask. “You’re treading on dangerous ground,” Tom said icily.

Harry waved an upward palm through the air slowly at Tom as if to say, My point exactly.

“Would you like me to give you boundaries, Harry?” Tom asked, eyes near glowing, smoothly tilting his head slightly to the side as he inspected Harry, the icy fury fading away. What was left was… Contemplative. Calculating. “And hold you to them?”

Harry felt a knot of heat clench in his stomach, mind going blank for a moment. Uh – Harry thought to himself, dimly aware the atmosphere had shifted. Into what, he wasn’t sure.

The edge of Tom’s upper lip quirked into a smirk, cataloguing Harry’s reaction. He leaned back into his chair, spreading his knees further and resting his forearms on the armrests, lounging like a jungle cat as he pierced Harry with his intense gaze.

“Harry,” Tom said gently, tone smoother than honey, “Would you like me to explain the rules, the boundaries, and what happens to you if you don’t follow them? That way, when you inevitably break them, as we both know you will, you will know precisely the punishment you are asking me for, that you want from me.”

Harry gaped at Tom, lips parting and moving wordlessly. The punishment you are asking me for, want from me, turned over in his head loudly, a hot white light running up his spine that made his nerves ache.

What?!

“Def-definitely a control thing,” Harry managed to choke out, realising his fingernails were digging into the wood table top, cursing himself for stammering.

Tom smiled then, a full, terrible thing. Sharp canines on display, a baring of teeth. “Admission through projection,” he tutted, patronising. “Really, Harry. How mundane.”

Harry stood sharply, the chair clattering behind him, slapping his hands on the table as he leaned over it and hissed at Tom, the noise animalistic.

“Don’t run, Harry,” Tom commanded, voice ringing with steel authority even as he looked up at Harry with that damned lazy, predatory expression, exuding amusement.

Harry felt that he was about to snap something at Tom that he knew was going to regret even though the words hadn’t yet formed in his mind, before Harry stopped suddenly. Remembered that Tom had said that yesterday, too.

Don’t run, Harry.

“You have to chase, don’t you?” Harry asked, reeling as the realisation hit him. “The – the instincts. It makes you chase.”

“We might look like men, Harry,” Tom said softly, still looking deeply amused and too damn smug, Harry thought with annoyance, “But we are magical creatures. Døkkálfr. Our instincts are not separate from who we are, they are who we are. So, yes. If you run, as I know everything in your being is telling you to do, I will chase you. I will catch you. And I will have you. You know this, which is why you run.”

Harry stared at Tom in shock. And I will have you. Harry felt a shiver rip through him, his body responding to the words. Morgana.

“Wh – what do you mean?” Harry asked, stunned. “I thought Lord Voldemort doesn’t rape,” he threw back in Tom’s face with a vicious hiss, trying to regain a semblance of control.

Tom exhaled a huff of sardonic amusement through his nose, a short, terrible thing that made Harry feel a stab of embarrassment.

“You would say yes to me,” Tom said smoothly, confident, “Because, despite all of your complaints and protests, you want me, Harry Potter. Desperately. When the world fades away, when there is just me and you, you fall apart for me. This is not something that is being forced upon you, it is what you want. If you were not so caught up in your own laughable mirage of a moral compass, you would be on your knees for me now. You would beg me. You almost already do.”

Harry’s jaw flexed, fury clouding his gaze, a flush climbing up his neck, because it was infuriatingly true. “The Døkkálfr wants you,” Harry snapped, harsh. “I don’t want you.”

Tom’s eyes narrowed, irritation flashing across his features. “How many times must this be explained to you, Harry? There is no creature in your head controlling you, or a secondary personality telling you what to do, holding you hostage with commands. It is who you are. You are the Døkkálfr in your head.”

Harry stared at Tom, mind churning, his stomach clenching and fluttering as if he were falling from a great height, nails clinging to the table top to stay grounded. “That’s not possible,” Harry heard himself say.

And it wasn’t – it couldn’t be – the things Harry felt in his mind – they weren’t him –

“Why?” Tom asked, relentless, scratching at the wound he’d torn in Harry, “Because the seemingly terrible things that you want to do somehow fail to live up to a moral standard you claim to have? We are not human. Our morals and instincts do not match those of humans,” Tom spat, punctuating his statement with a brief, cold laugh. “The guilt you feel is a toxic, vestigial imprint of Dumbledore’s manipulations, clouding everything that you do. We are dark creatures, Harry Potter, and our scope of existence is outside of the world we were raised in. The sooner you understand that, the sooner you will stop unnecessarily, gratuitously punishing yourself, and myself as a consequence.”

Harry gaped at Tom wordlessly as he leaned over the table, nails digging into the wood until it splintered, so deeply offended and turned upside down and –

He’s manipulating me, Harry thought abruptly. The thought infuriated him, driving the war drums – when had they started? – louder in his head, blocking out rational thought. Harry felt himself bare his teeth at Tom, body trembling with fury.

How – how dare he?!

“You killed my parents and tried repeatedly to kill me for nearly two decades,” Harry hissed scathingly, so mad he could barely see straight. “And as a result of your horrible actions, I am now an elf who has been claimed by you, and have a soul shard in my fucking head. Don’t you dare tell me how I feel. Your psychopathy is not normal, Voldemort, and I refuse to let you tell me how I can and cannot consent to you. I do not chase punishment from you and it is deeply fucked up that you think that I do.”

Tom levelled Harry with an unimpressed stare, eyes hooded and gaze intense, looking so put together and calm that Harry nearly screamed, grinding his jaw. Harry felt completely feral, unable to stop, so devastatingly, righteously furious.

“You have kept me hostage in this godforsaken house,” Harry continued, unable to stop now that he had begun, “You’ve chased me, thrown me against countless surfaces, bitten me raw, and you have the audacity to tell me that I’m the one with a problem?” Harry seethed, nails growing long and black where they were splintering hard wood, his vision sharpening as his gaze warped, bent concave.

Harry felt completely out of control, something inside of him snapping after the stress of the last two days reached a breaking point. He was vaguely aware that he may be slightly overreacting, but he just simply doesn’t care.

“And now, after all that, you tell me I am gratuitously punishing myself and you as a consequence?” Harry snarled, magic the colour of black ink seeping out of his hands and staining the table, the wood beginning to smoke softly. “The actual audacity of that statement. You are so ridiculously out of touch with reality that I can barely even look at you, let alone tell you how fucking wrong you are because nothing seems to get through that astonishingly enormous ego of yours.”

Trembling with fury, Harry snarled at Tom’s bemused expression, the man otherwise unaffected. It wasn’t enough. Tom’s reaction wasn’t enough to satisfy the furious beast roaring inside Harry’s chest, his head, his soul. Harry wanted to hurt him.

Harry shoved off from the table, rounding on the man as he growled out furiously, “You know what? Given you’re so desperate to get off and you clearly have no problem jerking your own ego raw, how about you do us both a favour and just go fuck yourself, Tom Riddle.”

There was silence as Harry breathed harshly, so furious he could barely think, his magic filling the room and choking him with its punishing density.

Tom didn’t move, unnaturally still, eyes narrowing and lips sneering at Harry with distaste. Tom hissed in Parseltongue, vicious and commanding, “Get over here and get down on your knees. Now.”

A harsh, high-pitched cracking noise echoed in the kitchen like a gunshot, loud and shocking. The world shuttered for a second, going in and out violently. As Harry’s vision settled, Harry realised he was standing in front of Tom, between Tom’s knees, and had just struck him.

Four gouges traced across a cheek where Harry’s long nails had sliced into Tom during the strike, horrific horizontal marks that were beginning to swell with blood. Tom faced away from Harry, head snapped to the side by the force of the slap, and Harry stared at him with stunned, icy fear, the all-encompassing fury evaporating so quickly that Harry felt dizzy and hollow as it swept out of him.

Harry was vaguely aware of pain blooming in his sides. He realised Tom’s hands were wrapped around Harry’s hips in a crushing grip, Tom’s thumbs pressed hard against Harry’s hipbones and black Døkkálfr nails speared into Harry’s flesh at the base of his back, the touch hot where Harry knew blood was bubbling up.

Tom turned his head slowly back to face Harry. His eyes were black from edge to edge, sclera and iris consumed by the fathomless, bottomless shade, Tom's eyes burning coldly with something that Harry couldn’t decipher. A shiver of fear dripped down Harry’s spine, pooling cold and empty in Harry’s abdomen.

Tom’s terrifyingly blank expression accentuated the sharp lines of his face, severe and threatening. Harry leaned back slightly, muscles twitching but unable to move, kept in place by Tom’s sharp nails still sunken into his flesh.

Bright red blood began to drip down the lines on Tom’s face, a sharp, jarring contrast to Tom’s unnatural paleness, the glittering red trailing along the line of his jaw and dripping down into his lap with increasing speed.

Harry blinked at the blood, astounded.

He’d struck Tom. Had made him… Bleed.

Before Harry registered he was moving, Harry’s fingers lifted to the damaged cheek, lips parting in astonishment. Tom didn’t move, but rather stared at Harry with that horrible blank expression, his eyes so black and glossy that he looked demonic. Harry traced a gouge with his fingertip and felt something horribly like guilt roil in him.

What – why had he done this?

Harry felt the magic leave his finger tips without consciously aware of making a decision, acting on instinct and regret. Harry watched as the gouges on Tom’s cheek slowly stitching together until, a few moments later, they were gone without a mark. The blood remained, smeared on Tom’s cheek and down his neck, hot and tacky under Harry’s fingers.

“I – I’m sorry,” Harry said faintly, moving his hand until his palm was pressed against Tom’s healed check, staring helplessly at the blood coating his fingers. Harry’s eyes flickered up to meet Tom’s, willing him to understand. “I don’t – I didn’t mean to do that. I don’t know why I did that.”

Harry stared into Tom’s black eyes, willing the creature to see inside his head. To see the honesty. Harry wasn’t apologising to avoid Tom’s inevitable terrifying fury, but rather because Harry was horribly shaken – he really had not meant to do that.

Tom pulled Harry closer into his spread legs by the nails in Harry's flesh, making Harry shuffle forward. Harry looked down at the impassive face near his, blinking in dazed horror.

Tom’s black eyes were consuming Harry whole, making the world seem very small and far away, narrowing the peripheral until all Harry could see was Tom.

Tom remained silent as the grave, staring up at Harry as the young elf trembled. Harry inhaled sharply as Tom slowly pressed his face forward and gently kissed Harry.

Harry watched, wide eyed, as Tom kissed him softly, a chaste pressing of closed lips, the man’s black eyes never leaving his. Tom pulled back, expression severe and closed off.

“I upset my Døkkálfr,” Tom said quietly, his voice an echoing, inhuman sound, deep and cold. “Pushed him too far.”

“Yeah,” Harry breathed as his mind reeled, his hands moving to gently encircle Tom’s neck just under the man’s jaw to ground himself. “A bit.”

“And you punished me,” Tom continued, his eyes mesmerising and holding Harry captive, a mouse trapped under a viper’s gaze. “I found your boundaries.”

Harry blinked down at Tom in confusion. Punished him? Harry thought distantly, recalling the harsh slap.

“I don’t want to punish you,” Harry answered shakily, feeling hollow and raw.

“Nor I, you,” Tom replied, still so cold and inhuman, “And yet I will, when it is required.”

Harry stared down at Tom, astonished, unable to think. Abruptly, Harry realised he was feeling... Vulnerable. Wounded. Scared. Not of Tom, impossibly, given the creature whose legs he was standing between was immensely dangerous and had Harry trapped in his claws, quite literally. No... Harry was scared of himself. Because if he could attack like that, without thinking, without deciding to, what else would he do? What was he becoming?

Harry felt himself moving, climbing onto Tom until he was straddling spread legs, pushing Tom gently to lean back into the chair with the hold he had on Tom's neck so Harry could get onto his lap. The nails in his back hurt and Tom used his grip to pull Harry in closer, sliding Harry up his thighs until he was settled in the curve of his lap, Harry leaning back to look at him.

From this position, Harry was looking up at Tom, jaw slightly tilted back, still blinking at Tom with wide, stunned eyes. Submissive, Harry’s mind hissed in criticism. Harry ignored the thought.

“Manipulative little shit,” Tom stated as his icy facade shifted minutely, retreating just barely, his upper lip twitching in a mockery of a smirk and eyes still so black. “Are you trying to get me to forgive you, Harry?”

“I don’t think I need your forgiveness,” Harry whispered, the words tasting like iron, the scent of blood filling his mouth and nose, breathing it into his lungs, “But you may require mine.”

Tom smirked fully, then. A cruel, dangerous smirk that spoke of only horror for Harry.

Harry felt his numb fingers tingle, finger pads stroking down the back of Tom's neck. The scent of blood was consuming him, making it hard to think, and he wanted to - needs to -

Harry leaned forward, falling backward into himself as he let his instincts take over. Harry licked a broad stripe along Tom’s bloody jaw, tongue flat against the sharp line as he slowly dragged up the side of Tom's face. Harry paused at Tom’s ear, inhaling with an open mouth, scenting him.

The thumbs on Harry's hip bones ached, pressure hard. Harry felt a line of hard heat press into the crease of his trousers where he was seated tightly against Tom’s lap, the arousal clear.

Harry groaned softly, flexing against Tom, licking another stripe of blood and mind fading out until there was nothing but the scent of blood and Tom in his mouth and nose, a hard arousal pressing into him, nails sinking further into his flesh. Harry’s fingers were burying into hair, wrapping around strands tightly.

“Bite me, Harry,” Tom whispered in Parseltongue, the words hissed into Harry’s ear.

Harry’s breath hitched as he ran his lips against bloody flesh, wanting nothing more in that moment, instincts roaring. Harry moaned as his teeth were already sinking into flesh just under Tom’s ear, dangerously close to his jugular, before the words fully registered. The body under him tensed brutally, Harry whining helplessly as he squirmed in Tom’s lap, pleasure exploding in his mind, his chest, his soul.

A reverberating groan answered Harry, Tom’s tight grip pulling Harry down harder onto Tom’s arousal with a roll of hips.

“That’s enough,” Tom was saying, the words hard to hear over the beat of Harry’s heart.

Harry whined, protesting, pushing against Tom harder, sunk his teeth in deeper, chasing the dizzying array of pleasure that was melting him.

“That’s enough, Døkkálfr,” Tom hissed venomously, a growl reverberating up his chest and into Harry’s body.

Harry felt the world tilt abruptly, the nails pulling out of his back with no warning and making Harry cry out, his teeth unlatching from bruised flesh.

Harry felt himself lifted and slammed down onto his back on the table, crying out in surprise as he was winded. Tom leaned over Harry from between Harry's legs, snarling ferociously, pinning Harry to the wood with a hand pressed hard onto his chest, nails digging into his flesh. Baring his teeth in dominance as he kept Harry pinned on his back, warning Harry to stay still.

Had Harry been human, he knew the throw would have cracked his skull, but rather he felt a dull, pulsing ache at the back of his head that forcefully pulled him out of the chaotic war drum of instincts. Harry slowly blinked up at Tom, the back of his hands touching the table by his head where they had hit it as he’d been thrown.

Tom looked utterly inhuman, feral, aroused, out of control. A wrong move away from doing something they would both regret.

Harry felt as if he had just surfaced from a dream, the instincts hazy and dragging him along, leading him astray. Words bubbled up in Harry's throat and Harry couldn't stop them if he tried.

“You’re mine, Tom,” Harry said sharply as Tom bared his teeth in Harry’s face, instincts roaring, the animal in him screaming mineminemine. “Mine. Yes?”

There was a weighted pause as Harry stared up at Tom defiantly, daring him to challenge it. Harry had absolutely no idea why he’d said it, but it had come out. And it felt so devastatingly true that a not entirely controllable part of him was ready to gouge Tom’s eyes out if the bastard said no.

Tom looked down at Harry in contemplation, amusement beginning to spread across his features as the burning tension in the atmosphere began to fade away.

“Yes, Harry,” Tom said softly, humouring. The eerie black had started to recede out of his eyes, retreating until there was white sclera and grey iris again. “Feel better, little one?”

“No,” Harry snapped petulantly, baring his teeth. And yet, the feral, indescribable need inside of him was simmering down, soothed. Yes.

“Are you lying to me, Harry?” Tom asked, a small muscle above his lip jumping near imperceptibly as he looked down at Harry with a strange expression.

“Never,” Harry answered shortly, before realising with dawning amazement that Tom was looking at him with fondness.

This crazy bastard is actually fond of me, Harry thought to himself dazedly, a strange, unfamiliar warmth spreading through his stomach and into his chest in response.

Tom’s eyes narrowed as he skimmed that thought. Tom straightened up sharply and stepped back, righting his rumpled clothes with a wave. Harry propped himself up on his elbows, taking in the shocking sight of blood and mused hair, not daring to get off the table. A shiver of arousal rippled through him as Tom looked down at him, bloodied and gaze cold, an imprint of teeth on the side of his neck under his ear. He's - he's mine –

And then Tom started to leave.

“What the – where are you going?” Harry asked, appalled, getting up onto shaky legs. “Again with this?”

Tom paused at the doorway, throwing Harry an unimpressed look. “As you said, I’m a Dark Lord, Harry,” he drawled, lips quirking. “Very busy. Naughty children to eat.”

“Wait – if you’re leaving the house – can I leave, too?” Harry asked quickly, holding onto a back of a chair for support as his knees creaked.

Tom’s face twisted into pitying amusement and he replied, voice deep and hard, “No.”

“So this is a kidnapping,” Harry shot back, annoyed.

“Call it what you want, Harry,” Tom offered, smirking, “Just don’t get up to too much trouble while I’m gone. Which, as I say it, I understand that sounds like I am practically daring you, but I’m not. Sleep in my bed. Use my things. Make nice with my house elf. I don’t care. But, whatever you do, Harry, behave,” he growled with a glare, the word reverberating across the kitchen.

Harry watched Tom with narrowed eyes, gearing up to tell him exactly what he thought of that –

“Besides, Harry Potter,” Tom continued conversationally, “I thought you wanted Tom Riddle to go fuck himself?” Despite the veneer of humour in Tom’s tone and expression, there was a vast, echoing darkness just beneath it that froze Harry to the spot.

Harry’s parted lips moved but he couldn’t think of anything to say, horrified as the memory of shouting that at Voldemort flashed through his head.

Tom’s smirk slowly melted off his face and he stared at Harry for a terrifyingly long moment with an utterly blank expression, his face impassive and still, before he abruptly turned on his heel and left.

“Merlin,” Harry breathed. Yeah, Harry thought to himself with apprehension, I am going to pay for that.

Chapter Text

Harry scowled ferociously after Tom’s retreating form and slammed himself down into a chair, his momentary apprehension lost to building fury.

Sleep in my bed, if you want. Use my things. Make nice with my house elf. I don’t care. But, whatever you do, Harry, behave.

The – the audacity –

How dare that absolute git treat me like that – Harry snarled and slashed his hand through the air, a decorative pot in the kitchen flying across the room and smashing loudly against a far wall.

All at once and without warning, the fight in Harry dried up, his fury evaporating in a wisp of despair. He collapsed back into the chair limply and dropped his head into his hands.

As he breathed deeply and slowly, Harry processed what Tom had said. He thought about what was likely true and what was likely manipulation. Clearly, Tom believed what he was saying, however whether it was true was a completely separate consideration.

The memory of the cracking noise Tom’s face made against Harry’s hand abruptly reared in Harry’s mind and he cringed. Whatever Tom did to Harry because of that, Harry honestly didn’t care. It was the… The violence of it, really, that had shocked Harry. The speed at which he’d attacked, the depth of the gouges and brightness of the blood. It had been so immediate, instinctive. The animal in him had roared at the shock and cold demand of Tom’s words – Get on your knees. Now – as if Harry was – as if he were – well. That.

The creature inside him had attacked. Bad mate, the elf had been screaming in his head, hurting me.

Harry didn’t want to hit anyone, though. To have screaming matches. Especially not someone he was supposed to be mated to. Merlin. Harry didn’t – he didn’t want that kind of relationship, with anyone. A queasy feeling rose in his chest. Is that what Tom had meant when he said they were dark creatures? That they were cruel?

No – Ilmr had said that Døkkálfr mates cherished one another. Took care of one another. And Tom had been showing that, up until their argument. This – this wasn’t Døkkálfr. It couldn’t be. This was them, who and what the two of them were, two creatures tied to one another by fate and prophecy, angrily orbiting each other like opposite poles, unable to get away but unable to get closer.

Harry felt strangely detached as he thought about that, shivering. His brain was exhausted and overwhelmed from the argument. His teeth also tingled, the new bites on his neck pulsing with the beat of his heart. Harry shuddered as he realised there was dried blood cracking and flaking on his face, his lips. Tom’s blood. Morgana, that was disgusting.

Harry pushed back from the table and went to his room – ugh, no, Tom’s room – to shower. Once clean, Harry inspected the marks on his neck. There were large dark welting areas on his neck, two main spots that had been bitten over and over: high up on his neck under his jaw on one side and, on the other side, halfway down his neck. The bites were already starting to heal under the healing power of his elvish blood, but the first bite that Tom had made had black teeth imprints. The bite looked… Permanent. Tattoo-like.

Harry realised he felt oddly strange. Almost empty, as if he were seeing things as a passenger rather than in first person. Perhaps it was the stress of the situation cracking him, but it was a relief from the constant seesaw of emotions he had been through over the last few days and he leaned into it, letting himself feel numb. Harry stared at the tattoo imprint of Voldemort’s teeth on his neck and blinked slowly at the image, feeling very little other than blankly stunned.

Putting that out of his head for now, because Harry was not prepared to deal with that today, Harry turned away from his image to dress in fresh clothes.

He wrote a new letter, brief – “Update: I’m still fine, don’t come find me, I’ll be back soon. H.” Harry pressed a bit of his magic into the letter, a small imprint so it would be verified as legitimate.

The worst thing Harry could imagine was Ilmr and Hermione trying to come rescue him. He knows without a shadow of a doubt that this version of Voldemort would annihilate them. This situation… He was going to have to get out by himself.

Harry went to the owlery and frowned when he realised the tawny owl was still gone. It had been over a day. Either Harry was in another country, or the owl was gone. Harry felt a surge of numbness build at that thought. He shoved it away, defiant. He would not be defeated. Harry made his way back to the bedroom, contemplating what to do next.

Until he remembered Mapsie.

Of course.

“Mapsie!” Harry called.

The little elf appeared with a crack! She looked at Harry warily, as if she had heard Tom and Harry’s argument and feared inciting his mercurial wrath. To be fair, I was probably loud enough to be heard in the underworld, Harry thought to himself with a sigh. He frowned and shifted on his feet.

“I’m sorry for the… Loudness, earlier,” Harry said slowly, cautious. “I am still getting used to being here. Being with Vold – uh, with Riddle. We are very different people, with very different opinions, and we’re learning how to exist around each other. And it’s not going very… Erm, smoothly.”

Mapsie blinked at Harry with large eyes, tugging on the edge of an ear, not saying a word.

Well, she’s not left, Harry thought with a grimace.

“I noticed the owl hasn’t returned. I, erm, I have a letter for my friends. Just to let them know that I’m alive,” Harry said, treading very carefully. “I don’t know if you’re allowed to send letters. I’m – I’m not allowed to leave the house and I’m worried that they’re going to come looking for me. They’re very strong and will try to attack the house. Because they care about me. They likely won’t win and Riddle will… Well. You know. And I can’t live with that on my conscience.”

Mapsie looked incredibly close to disapparating, leaning back from him and shifting on her feet.

Harry quickly continued on, “I have a house elf – Kreacher. He’s – he’s the closest thing I have to family,” he said, voice going raw. Harry felt a tidal wave of emotions churning deep inside of him, threatening to burst out, and he pushed it down hard. Mapsie’s eyes went round with astonishment at Harry’s words. “He’s been the Black family elf for nearly six centuries. He’ll be desperate because I’m the last Black. He’ll be beside himself, thinking he’s lost me, thinking that he needs to do something.”

Mapsie was starting to look swayed, her round tennis-ball sized eyes going misty.

“I – please, Mapsie, if you could, I would be immensely grateful if you could take this letter to Dobby the house elf at Hogwarts. He will ensure that it gets to Kreacher,” Harry begged, holding out the letter to her. “You can read it, check it for spells – anything. I just can’t let them worry.”

“Mapsie is not meant to be sending letters, Misters Black,” Mapsie said uneasily, stepping from foot to foot.

Harry bit his tongue gently, hoping she would continue.

“But Mapsies know about worry for master,” she said, blinking big wet eyes. Worry for master? Harry repeated to himself in surprise. “And know how scared Mapsie would be if Masters Riddle went missing.”

Harry nodded at her, desperately willing her to say yes.

“I take this to Dobbies at Hogwarts,” Mapsie said, gingerly reaching out and taking the letter. “But you don’t let Masters Riddle know!” She commanded sharply, wagging the letter at him.

“Of course,” Harry said, incredibly agreeable with that idea. “Thank you, Mapsie. So much.”

Mapsie smiled up at him unsurely and then disapparated without another word.

“Merlin,” Harry said again for perhaps the thousandth time that day, sitting down hard on the foot of the bed. He was remarkably relieved at the idea he’d bought himself a couple more days.

The silence in the room made Harry start to remember the conversations he’d had with Tom earlier that day and he really didn’t want to do that.

Tom – can you hear me? Harry thought loudly in his head. The Diadem pulsed, once. Can I come in?

The world swirled sharply for a moment and then Harry was on his back in the heather field, the blue sky powdery and the scent of grass soothing. There weren’t any bombs today, just the sound of wind winding its way through long grass. Harry closed his eyes, sighing.

A small body snuggled up close to him and Harry smiled, wrapping an arm around small shoulders and cuddling the Diadem close. Adorable.

“I’m not actually a child, you do know that?” the Diadem said, his young voice petulant.

“Sure,” Harry said, huffing out a laugh as he threw an arm over his eyes.

“I’m being serious, Harry. I’m a soul shard of a very real adult trapped in my childhood. I revert sometimes, I know this, but it can be difficult when you are in such vivid childhood memories for decades,” the Diadem said sharply.

“Yes, I know,” Harry said with a sigh, though he hadn’t quite understood that. “Don’t get upset with me. I’m just tired. Also, don’t listen in to my interactions with Voldemort, child. It makes me feel like a creepy old man.”

The Diadem tensed against him. “I just said – ”

“I know,” Harry cut through harshly. “I know. But still. Icky. Just – don’t. Please.”

The Diadem grumbled, relenting. “I don’t really listen in to really anything. If I feel something wrong, I check in. I don’t like paying attention to the world outside. I get very… Angry. Jealous. That there’s a real world out there. And I’m in here.”

Harry pulled his arm off his eyes and looked down at the horcrux by his side. “Wish you could be a real boy?” Harry asked, his voice soft and coaxing despite the vague mockery of the words.

The Diadem sat up and hugged his knees, glaring down at Harry. “Even before I was a horcrux, I was never a real boy, Harry,” he said severely. “I’ve always been… This.”

Harry looked at the Diadem and realised he sounded strangely… Sad. As if Tom knew he was missing an essential part of the human existence and could never partake in it, and the awareness of this fact made him melancholy. Duhkha?

“Let’s not be morose,” Harry said, pushing the Diadem’s shoulder gently. “Want to play tag?”

Little Tom threw Harry a scathing look, bristling. “I absolutely do not,” he said severely. “I never played tag.”

“Voldemort said he likes to chase,” Harry said, shrugging, knowing he was being a little manipulative but not caring. “But suit yourself.”

The Diadem was silent for a moment. “I guess I could play tag with my Døkkálfr,” he said at last, the words a qui et grumble . “ Provided it’s more chase than tag.”

Harry grinned and jumped up, shoving the Diadem’s shoulder. “You’re it,” he laughed. Little Tom looked up at him with wide, offended red eyes, utterly appalled. Harry smirked tauntingly and then took off down the heather meadow as fast as he could run. The meadow looked like it went on forever, the sky melting into it in the distance.

Harry sharply dove to the left just as a little body flung past him, laughing as he dug his feet into the soil and changed direction, muscle and instincts agile from training with Ilmr. Harry ran as hard as he could, laughing breathlessly as he weaved and dodged the Diadem’s dives. His body, impossibly, didn’t feel tired – he was able to keep running, diving, pushing himself, for as long as he wanted in here.

Harry realised with a jolt that the Diadem could appear in front of him at any time, that he controlled this world with the omniscience and power of a god, but the little terror was actually trying, caught up in the ridiculousness of the game. It made something warm and happy bloom in Harry’s chest.

Harry took pity after nearly five minutes when he realised that small, malnourished Tom was no match for him. Harry spied a good spot to land, tripped over a lump of soil, and went down hard.

The Diadem leapt and landed on him, screeching, “Got you! Now you’re it!” He then jumped up and took off, a bat out of hell.

I revert sometimes, the Diadem had said.

Looks like it was one of those times. Harry laughed, delighting in the utter bizarreness of it all, and took off after him.

After countless rounds of tag until the Diadem got bored, Harry retreated from the Diadem’s dream world. Awaking with sore muscles, he realised he’d been lying down at the base of the bed for at least a couple of hours, the room dark and cold. Shivering, Harry got up and crawled into the covers, wrapping himself in the cloak and nuzzling into the warm scented fabric.

The next day was strangely quiet. By midday, Tom still hadn’t appeared. Harry felt himself on edge the entire time, half expecting him to jump out at Harry from around random doorways like a horrifying Døkkálfr boogeyman. Harry steeled his Gryffindor bravery and walked through the house with his head held high as he explored, looking for secret passageways. And if he peeked around corners before he rounded them, well, that was simply smart, not cowardice.

Harry went down to the kitchens around one in the afternoon, the grandfather clock in the entrance hall chiming the time loudly, echoing eerily throughout the house. Harry half expected to see Mapsie but was surprised to note that the kitchen was vacant. Harry let his eyes roam over the space, taking in the beautiful cabinetry and large wood stove. He frowned at the sight of blood on the gouged kitchen table and the shattered pot on the ground, still there from yesterday afternoon. Harry walked over to the stove and touched the back of his hand gently to its thick, cast iron surface.

Cold , Harry thought to himself. Odd. House elves always keep their stoves warm.

Perhaps Tom had discovered the letter. Harry shivered as he thought about what that meant for Mapsie.

No, Harry then thought, He won’t hurt her. Harry was not sure if that was denial, but it felt like his only comfort.

But – if Mapsie is gone for a bit… Harry thought to himself with a sudden epiphany. Harry’s head jerked toward the basement door, eyeing it. It was tucked into the far corner of the room, close to the large arching windows that let in bright beams of light. Harry cautiously approached the door, carefully keeping the entry to the kitchen in his peripheral vision. No one stopped him as he opened the door.

The basement was just as eerie as it had been yesterday. There was a thick, black darkness roiling like a veil from the fifth step down the wooden staircase. It looked like peering into a murky bay, visibility consumed by the cloudiness of the water.

Harry clenched his jaw. He really, really didn’t want to go down there. But where else was there to check? He had explored every inch of the house yesterday and today. He still needed to spend more time in each room to triple check for secrets . But the basement… It was very likely holding something of importance, given Mapsie had bullied him away from it yesterday.

Harry held his breath and took a step forward. He paused. No elf of either house or high variety came to stop him. Harry took another step and paused, now at the top stair. No one stopped him. Sort of wish someone was stopping me right now , Harry thought to himself with dread. Oh, come off it, Potter. Where’s your bravery? He thought angrily, jutting his jaw.

Steeling himself, Harry held his head high and began to walk down the staircase into the darkness. When his feet touched the fifth step, Harry paused again. The darkness lapped at his socked feet, ebbing like a tide, but it did not feel like anything. It wasn’t cold nor insidious or even palpable. It was just… There. If he couldn’t see it, he wouldn’t even know it was there.

Harry bolstered his courage, clenched his jaw, and walked down the stairs, refusing to watch as his legs, then hips, then torso disappeared into the pitch black veil.

Harry flinched sharply as his face buried itself into the darkness and then came out on the other side into blinding brightness. He recoiled back, pupils constricting sharply to accommodate for the sudden light, and he put his hand up to shadow his face. As the room slowly came into focus and Harry’s eyes adjusted, he gasped.

Filling the room on all sides was a ward. Not just any kind of ward, Harry realised. The house ward, the house stone. And it was beautiful. The room was enormous, a massive expanse that sprawled out in front of him, and it was filled from wall-to-wall with glowing spinning beams of golden light, geometric shapes that bloomed and ebbed as they pulsed and floated through the air. It looked like a projection of a constellation filling the room, glimmering against the walls and shimmering through the air with magic. Saturating it.

At the centre of the room was a ball of light that glowed with the brightness of the sun, too harsh to stare at directly. Harry focused on the air beside it and watched as flares of energy pulsed sharply out of it, feeding the energy of the room. Solar flares of magical energy echoed through the room, white and yellow light glimmering in fractured space and time, the shadows echoing the movements, as much part of the ward as the light.

Harry had never seen anything like it before. He admittedly was nowhere near at the same level in knowledge about runes and wards as Hermione, but even with his additional education and training, he was not even aware something like this could even exist.

Approaching carefully, Harry waded through the golden shapes as they exploded and imploded around him, the magic thick and gorgeous. He slunk around the far left wall of the room and trailed his fingers through the magic. It parted to his touch, leaving little rivulets of energy that rippled out and then was absorbed back into the complex patterns being thrown around the room.

It – it tasted like Tom’s magic. Voldemort’s magic. It was so heavy and dense and suffocating that it made Harry struggle to breathe and yet he inhaled with desperate gasps, feeling it infuse him from the inside out. The magic touched him curiously, pressed up against his body, filled him and only added to his magical core. Harry shivered as he felt it caress him, curious but not dangerous.

How? Harry thought to himself with astonishment. Why is it letting me so close?

Because, whatever this was, it was certainly alive. Perhaps not so much as to be capable of complex thought or even true sentience, but it was absolutely, without a shadow of a doubt, alive.

Something drew Harry’s attention, a familiar tingling that welcomed him like an old friend. His own magic. It was weaving through the wards, part of it, consumed and used by it. When I blasted the windows, Harry thought to himself with awe. It – it absorbed it. It recognises me.

But it was more than that. It recognised something in Harry that made it welcoming. And had Harry been considered an enemy, Harry has no shadow of a doubt that this ward would have eviscerated him to ash the moment he stepped past the murky veil. It recognised Harry as Tom’s.

The memory of the horcrux within him bloomed in his mind. Kreacher’s words all that time ago flashed across his mind, you be absorbing the horcrux – he had fused with it, become one with it –

The bite with black imprints pulsed on Harry’s neck, the claiming bite searing itself with sudden heat. As if the ward was saying – yes, yes – mine mine mine –

Harry shivered and closed his eyes, leaning back against the wall and absorbing the magic swirling around him. It was pure in a way that made him reel. Not innocent or untainted, but so completely thick and rich and raw that it left Harry breathless as he focused on it.

How could Voldemort possibly make something like this? Harry thought with astonishment.

“I’m a genius, Harry Potter,” Tom had said.

And – yes, alright, Harry knew that was true. Harry knew this in theory and objectively, despite Harry’s mocking protests. But to see it in action like this, to feel and touch and hear it sizzling and chiming around him in the vast room –

Something burned in Harry’s chest, in his stomach, roared up his spine until it filled his mind with aching heat.

This was not the creation of a broken man. No half-person could design and then actually implement something like this. It was simply impossible.

Voldemort had somehow healed, truly healed, Harry realised, the thought echoing hollowly through his head. He’s no longer the broken thing that destroyed Regulus.

It seemed impossible. There were still horcruxes out there. There was one on his finger, one still inside of him, for Merlin’s sake. And yet, the golden light that caressed his skin and saturated the room proved otherwise. Voldemort wasn’t a ruined creature that would take Harry down with him. He was alive and present and, despite missing several severe pieces of his soul, somehow whole.

Harry realised with abrupt shock that this is what the Diadem meant. This is what Harry was to Voldemort.

Sanity. Completeness . An anchor.

Something broken and painful rocked through Harry, a high-pitched whine ripping through his chest. It felt like desperation and want and – and it was the Døkkálfr in him – or, no, that wasn’t right, it was him.

I am the Døkkálfr, Harry thought slowly, reeling at the implication. They were his thoughts, his instincts, his need. Tom had said it and Harry had revolted against it hard, perhaps because it had rung so true.

Harry felt himself beginning to shake apart as he realised he could have Voldemort. Could have Tom. That Tom wanted him, needed him, relied on him for his life. He would cherish Harry, put him on a pedestal, would lock Harry in a house with him and make Harry feel like he’s falling in love with a monster. Because Tom desperately needed Harry. Perhaps because of the Døkkálfr in Tom demanding the claiming of his mate, perhaps because Tom refused to go back to whatever creature he had become.

Harry could have him, in the only way Tom could give himself to someone. Ownership, possessiveness, feral need and rage, the two of them orbiting each other until one died at the hands of the other, worshipping each other with teeth and hatred until they both disintegrated into ash. And Harry could accept it, take it, bury himself within it until there was nothing left but him and Tom.

Harry felt the dam holding back his emotions wash away under the tidal wave of this epiphany, hot tears streaking down his face and a rough sob catching in his throat.

Harry could have Tom.

Harry was at the precipice of something huge. He had to decide.

Because Harry could have him. Truly have him. He could have whatever Tom could give him. And Tom would give it to Harry, whatever was left in him, in whole.

But was it enough?

Harry sat in the library and looked down at a book, eyes unseeing. Night had fallen hours before and the house was cold, quiet, dark. Harry had numbly built a fire in the library fireplace, using his hands rather than magic, lighting the kindling gently and stoking it carefully until it roared. He had then sat down heavily on a settee after pulling a random book off a shelf, trying to distract himself.

I can have him, Harry thought distantly.

No. No. Harry could not have him. Not in the way Harry wanted someone. Harry could have a facsimile of love, of affection.

Tom Riddle can never give me what I want, Harry thought to himself numbly as he looked down at the book, unseeing . He can give me what I need, but not what I want.

Harry gave up and looked out the large window on the other side of the room, heavy green velvet curtains still pulled aside. Harry ignored his own reflection and stared up at the sliver of moon hanging in the sky, waxing crescent. He felt hopelessly confused, burnt out and empty from what he’d seen.

No monster can make a ward like that, Harry thought to himself distantly. Or, it could only be made by the greatest monster there ever existed, Harry amended. Something so terrible and great –

“When I told you to stay out of trouble, I did not anticipate you would morosely sulk in a dark library like a tortured Byronic hero,” Tom drawled wryly.

Harry jumped in fright, head whipping around to the doorway. Tom stood in the frame with his arms crossed, amusement slanting his lips.

“Or perhaps closer to a film noir detective,” Tom continued, walking smoothly into the room and settling himself on a plush armchair across from Harry, lithely sprawling out. “Please do not start narrating your life in choppy, short sentences,” Tom added with a smirk.

Film noir? Harry repeated to himself with astonishment as he watched the man.

“But, either way, this is a very odd reaction to being told to behave,” Tom continued to muse, inspecting his hand as he let the Døkkálfr black nails grow from his nail beds. “I expected to come back to my house on fire, not pouting.”

“I live to surprise,” Harry replied at last, turning his head back to the window and looking up at the moon.

“That you do,” Tom said with sardonic amusement.

“Did you ever watch Buster Keaton?” Harry asked quietly, a soft smile quirking his lips. Film noir detective rattled around in Harry’s head, perplexing him. It was so – so muggle. And made Harry feel a jolt of something that he couldn’t put his finger on. Harry often forget, Diadem or not, that Tom had grown up in muggle London. Tom was the quintessential wizard in all ways, pure radiating magic that suffocated with its cruel greatness at all times.

“I did not,” Tom answered darkly, tone growing annoyed.

“Charlie Chaplin?” Harry asked softly, still looking out of the window. He carefully did not look at their reflection, not willing to face it yet.

Tom was silent in response.

Harry felt his smile grow. It was a genuine thing, spreading across his lips as he imagined little Tom sitting in a dark, quiet cinema, watching a film legend spill himself across the screen with acrobatic aplomb.

“I like Charlie Chaplin,” Harry whispered. “I like films. I like muggles.”

Tom released a deep, quiet noise, vibrating and cold and irritated.

“I know you don’t,” Harry said to the window, still looking up to the moon, “And I don’t really care. I don’t want you to hurt them.”

“You do not get to dictate what I do and do not do,” Tom hissed, the ever-present black magic that spilled off him growing spiced and suffocating in mounting fury.

Harry let his gaze drag back to Tom, tired of fighting his own magnetism to the creature before him. Harry felt hopelessly drawn Voldemort and Harry was beginning to realise that it wasn’t entirely the fault of the Døkkálfr instincts in him. It was just – Tom. Him and Tom.

“I don’t want to control you,” Harry told Tom softly, looking into grey eyes and willing Tom to see the truth of the words in his mind. “I don’t want to hurt you, or punish you, or tell you what to do. But I will not agree with everything you say. I would ask that you at least listen to me. That you hear me and think about my opinion. That you don’t dismiss me as a stupid child. That you don’t try and control and manipulate me. Please,” Harry added quietly, looking down at Tom’s feet where they were spread on the floor.

Tom was quiet for a moment and Harry could see his head canting slightly as he contemplated Harry’s words, his grey eyes dark and piercing as he studied Harry.

“I am what I am, Harry,” Tom replied lowly, the words ringing oddly honest and filling the quiet library.

“I know,” Harry said, chest heaving through a sigh. “I know.”

“If you want me, you will have all of me,” Tom said coldly, “And no less.”

Harry closed his eyes and sighed again, softer this time. He opened his eyes slightly, looking down at the ground through his eyelashes. “Would you kiss me?” Harry asked quietly, not daring to look at Tom across the space between them. “Softly,” Harry clarified as an afterthought.

“Now, or in general?” Tom replied, amusement curling the words.

Harry felt his face twist in irritation and his gaze flickered up to Tom, glaring at the teasing tone.

“Whenever I need you to,” Harry said sharply, a blush burning across his face at the words as they rushed out of him.

Tom’s smirk slowly faded away and he stared at Harry with a contemplative expression. The Døkkálfr nails retreated until the blunt, human nails returned and he stood slowly. Harry didn’t dare move as Tom approached him and crouched down in front of Harry. He stared up at Harry with a sly look on his face, though it seemed strangely gentle to Harry. Teasing, but not cruel. Harry remained frozen on the settee, staring down at Tom with distant surprise echoing in the back of his mind.

“I would kiss you whenever you wanted me to,” Tom said, moving to take the book out of Harry’s hands. He closed it and put it aside on the settee next to Harry, not once looking away from Harry’s eyes, steel gaze boring into Harry with striking intensity. “And every time you needed me to.”

Harry frowned in irritation. He pushed to the edge of the settee, uncrossing his legs as he hooked his knees over the side. “Why?” Harry asked with annoyance. “Why?” He repeated harshly, something raw and desperate burning a hole in his chest.

“Because you are mine,” Tom whispered quietly, gaze breaking away to flicker down to Harry’s lips. “And I take care of my things.”

“I am not a thing,” Harry hissed, hackles raising.

“You are not a thing at all,” Tom agreed, his iron stare flickering back up to Harry’s eyes. “You are much, much more than that.”

Harry paused at Tom’s words. The library was quiet, oppressive, a strange tension building between them that was heady and overwhelming in its weight.

“I need you to,” Harry said quietly, thinking back to Tom’s words. I would kiss you whenever you wanted me to. And every time you needed me to.

“I know, elskling,” Tom replied softly. “But, this time, you will come to me.”

Harry glared down at Tom. He didn’t want to make the first move. It was so easy to just let things happen rather than take initiative. It was less embarrassing, made him feel less responsible somehow. And yet, Harry refused to let himself play victim here. He was not going to pretend that he was unwilling.

You are not a coward, Potter, Harry thought to himself, trying to steel his own nerves.

Tom’s smirk only grew as he skimmed the thought.

“I could ascribe many words to you, perhaps some of them not particularly kind,” Tom whispered softly, the words laced with sly humour, “And yet, my darling, coward will never be one.”

Harry quietly tsk’d in annoyance and scooted forward until he could press his feet to the ground. Harry lifted his hands to frame Tom’s face, his fingers cold to the heat of Tom’s skin. Tom stared up at him with predatory amusement, patiently waiting for Harry to move.

“Just,” Harry said before he cut himself off, feeling helplessly out of his own depth, “Softly.”

“Of course,” Tom agreed easily, amicable, raising a challenging brow as if he were incapable of anything else.

Harry rolled his eyes and then squeezed them shut after a moment, leaning forward before he could lose his nerve. Harry pressed his lips to Tom’s, guiding the face in his hands up to him. Harry shivered as their lips touched in a chaste kiss, a bolt of energy searing him from his chest to his lower abdomen, curling down deep and settling there.

Harry pulled back slightly, inhaling sharply and absorbing Tom’s scent, the spice and taste of it shrouding him in warmth and desire. Harry didn’t dare open his eyes, terrified that Tom would be looking at him, and he was not ready to face steel grey just yet. Harry pressed forward again and pressed another kiss to soft lips, not moving other than to feel.

As he reeled at the electricity of their touch, Harry felt Tom’s lips curve into a smile against his.

“You do not know what to do, do you?” Tom whispered against Harry’s lips. His tone was odd, as if he were learning something new.

“What do you mean?” Harry replied, leaning his forehead against Tom’s and letting Tom’s breath wash over him. Harry kept his eyes closed, inhaling Tom’s scent and letting it curl in his lungs, saturating him with warmth from the inside out. It felt like being in the basement, surrounded on all sides by Tom’s rich magic.

“You don’t kiss often,” Tom explained, oddly gentling. “After I saw what that brat Draco did to you, I thought you more experienced.”

Harry parted his eyelids slightly in annoyance and he glared at Tom through his eyelashes, the man so close he could barely focus on grey irises.

“When would I have had the time?” Harry huffed with a scoff, barely daring to break the peace between them and keeping his tone low, “Between the murder attempts? Let me see, when would I have found time to snog around the school?” Harry contemplated sarcastically, releasing quiet laugh. “Hm, would it have been while clinging onto my sanity and attempting to keep my grades up and having nightmares that kept me awake most nights – thank you for that, by the way,” Harry added added as an afterthought.

Forging on, Harry mused, “Maybe while being attacked by dementors and then being forced to participate in a wizarding tournament on pain of losing my magic… Oh, no, perhaps while running an underground duelling group? Ah, maybe between Snape’s detentions and Umbridge’s bullshit and oh, perhaps after… ”

Tom’s eyes narrowed and the skin around his eyes creased – he’s smiling at me, Harry thought with surprise, words fading away.

“Do not be offended, Harry,” Tom whispered with a teasing lilt, “I find it rather adorable. Show me.”

Harry frowned and pulled back but Tom followed him, placing his hands on the settee on either side of Harry’s hips. Tom knelt on the floor between Harry’s legs, rising up until he was eye-level with Harry. Harry let his hand slide across Tom’s jaw until he could stroke a thumb over the small imprint of teeth under Tom’s ear alongside the curve of his jaw, black teeth marks beginning to slowly develop in the scabbed flash.

“Show you what?” Harry asked distractedly, drawn to the mark on Tom’s neck. It made him feel – odd. Weirdly… Smug? Possessive, even.

“What you’ve done, darling,” Tom said softly. “Who you’ve let touch you.”

Harry’s gaze flickered back to Tom in surprise and the thoughts bubbled up before he could stop them. Cho’s sobbing kiss after DA practice that was awful and that one time he’d pressed a kiss to Ginny’s lips and felt nothing. Draco’s kiss that was more of an instinct-fuelled mauling that had filled Harry with shame and confusion and despair. The thoughts were jumbled, layered over one another, a cacophony of memories that Harry really did not want Voldemort to see.

Harry flushed darkly and looked away quickly.

“You asshole,” Harry hissed severely, glaring at a bookshelf.

“Oh, you sweet little thing,” Tom purred, pressing closer and sliding his hands up Harry’s hips, warm palms settling on his waist. “I’m going to tear you apart, aren’t I?”

Harry flushed and dug his nails into the nape of Tom’s neck, scowling at his reaction. “Shut up,” Harry snapped, embarrassment rising to the surface against his will. “Just because I don’t like having – having sex or kissing or whatever with just whomever,” Harry snipped petulantly, feeling oddly chastised and wounded. “Doesn’t mean that – that I – ”

“Come here,” Tom whispered against the side of Harry’s face, cutting off Harry’s awkward protests.

Harry grit his teeth and turned back to Tom. Harry inhaled sharply as Tom dove forward and captured Harry’s lips in a kiss, hands tightening on Harry’s waist to keep him in place. It was soft but not chaste, Tom coaxing Harry into gentle movements that left Harry reeling. Harry felt himself respond tentatively, unused to the movements and his mind going blissfully blank at the pleasure radiating from his lips. Harry could barely breathe, air catching in his chest, eyes slipping closed as he leaned forward and let Tom lead him.

“Oh, sweet little Harry,” Tom murmured against Harry’s lips, “I am going to ruin you.”

Harry shivered at Tom’s dark, wanton tone, ignoring the words in favour for pressing forward back into the kiss, chasing the blissful, mind-destroying heat that was searing its way through him.

Time passed strangely for Harry, lost to nipping bites on his lips and Tom tilting his head more so he could press against Harry more firmly, a hand sliding up Harry’s back until fingers were knotting in his hair, a forearm hooking around Harry’s lower back.

“Let me,” Tom whispered against Harry’s lips, nipping Harry’s bottom lip with sharp teeth.

Harry’s eyes parted in confusion and he stared glassily at Tom’s near-black eyes gazing at him through eyelashes. Harry parted his mouth to ask what he meant and then Tom’s tongue was pressing through his lips.

A noise that was desperate echoed in the room, moaning and wanton and keening – Harry realised distantly it was him. He gripped Tom’s hair in his fingers and reeled Tom in closer, relenting to a strange urge to crawl into Tom, make a home for himself there, fill Tom with himself until they couldn’t ever be separated.

A deep, baritone growl answered Harry’s noise and Harry whined helplessly, eyes rolling back into his head as Tom licked into his mouth, as desperate as Harry felt. Harry felt his toes curl as he was yanked closer by Tom’s grip on him, pulled flush with Tom’s body. Harry wrapped his thighs around Tom’s waist, tugging on soft locks to pull Tom impossibly closer.

“Not very soft,” Tom said against Harry’s lips as he pulled back slightly. His body was tense, muscles hard where Harry pressed up against him.

“Oh, for Merlin’s sake – fuck soft,” Harry snapped irritably, trying to chase Tom’s lips.

“No,” Tom countered with amusement, pulling back further. “I want to take my time with you, Harry.”

Harry growled at him, pulling Tom by his hair firmly to come back to him. Tom did not budge and Harry cracked his eyes again, glaring up at Tom.

Tom was gazing down at Harry with smug amusement – of course he is, Harry thought with annoyance – but his pupils were enormous, lips glossy and red, a pleased glint darkening his stare.

Harry felt himself go numb at the look, wanting it more than anything. It filled him with desperate, infuriating need.

“Tom,” Harry said quietly, his blush growing. “Just – Christ. Please, Tom.”

“I told you that you would beg for me, Harry Potter,” Tom taunted quietly as he smirked, biting the tip of his tongue, the words hissed with possessive, dark amusement. “Such a good boy for me.”

The words were a burst of icy water, drenching Harry until the roaring fire inside of him sizzled out in a pitiful wisp of smoke. Harry’s dignity roared and he curled back, stung.

Excuse me? Harry thought with appalled astonishment.

“Tom. Go to hell,” Harry replied softly, leaning forward to press a soft kiss to Tom’s lips. Harry then pulled back sharply, picked his book up from where Tom had set it on the settee, and flopped on his back. He cracked the book open and stared up at it, ignoring Tom.

Tom didn’t move a muscle, glaring at Harry with narrowed eyes from his knees on the floor.

“I asked nicely,” Harry said, his dismissive tone somewhat ruined by the hoarseness of his voice. “I was even behaving. And you were rude. So, never mind. Go away.”

Tom did not move.

“Seriously. I’m done. Leave,” Harry commanded, flicking a page as if he were reading. Harry realised with a start that the book wasn’t even in English. He’d been staring at it for hours while in thought and hadn’t even noticed. Harry refused to let it show, though, and continued pretending to read.

Tom snarled. “You dare – ” Tom began to hiss and Harry snapped his eyes to Tom, glaring at him in fury.

“Yes,” Harry replied severely in Parseltongue. “I dare. Get. Out.”

Tom appraised Harry with narrow eyes. They flashed bright red for a brief, terrifying moment, and then he was on his feet, storming out of the library before Harry barely registered he’d moved.

Harry huffed a noise once he was alone, blushing and squirming on the settee until he was more comfortable. His lips ached and despite the abrupt end of their interaction, Harry burned with heat and need and want. He was glad, though, that it had stopped. That Tom couldn’t resist being such a damned git. That Tom was just as proud and furious as he was.

Because Harry, in all honesty, wasn’t entirely sure that otherwise he would have stopped.

Softly, Harry had asked.

I am going to ruin you, Tom replied, with his words and even softer kisses, plush and gentling and generous and wanting, making Harry squirm and melt into nothing in the palm of his hand.

Tom had figured Harry out. Figured out that Harry was bravado and inexperience and blushing and pride. Tom was going to be so much worse now.

Harry flushed and threw the book across the library, groaning as he covered his eyes with his palms.

I am going to ruin you.