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Chapter Text

“I killed Snape,” Voldemort’s voice is high and reedy. Anger, desperation, fury in his snarling features. Harry’s certain, the scar would have split his head with pain, once. The Elder wand is loose in the monster’s grip.

Vindictive joy floods through Harry at the sight of the artefact, “But what if the wand never belonged to Snape? What if its allegiance was always with someone else...” he taunts. Later, he’ll admit, he had enjoyed that moment. That moment of him knowing more than the seemingly omniscient Lord Voldemort.

There is a moment there, when Voldemort’s features derail, shock etched into them. Before his supercilious snarl re-forms, before he spews reflexive denial. That moment, Harry has never been so in danger, has never felt more powerful. The stone pillar bites into his shoulder blades, cold. A sharp contrast to the scorching of Voldemort’s gaze. The older wizard prowls close like a predator. Feet light, noiseless, though his steps have lost some of their certainty. He is close enough for Harry to see the decay, now, the toll the destruction of the man’s Horcruxes has taken on him. The too-sharp cheekbones giving way to scales. His papery white, thin skin, disrupted by blueish veins that feather over his skin like rivers on a map.

The man towers over him, his breath tasting of coldness and fury. Harry had always known that there had to have been a significant reason the hat had sorted him into Gryffindor over any other House. He finds, once more, that inexplicable urge to do something recklessly, utterly stupid. High from the power he so rarely wields when confronted with this man, he taunts, “Come on, Tom. Let’s finish this the way we started!” He grips the older wizard close, sees the belated outrage.

This, certainly, qualifies as reckless stupidity.

But, he thinks, it might also just be strikingly poetic. “Together!” He says and jumps off the building.

‘Great!’ thinks Death. ‘Excellent opportunity.’

Lord Voldemort’s outcry of rage is swallowed up in the never-ending white of the space-in-between. They land in a heap of limbs, tangled in Voldemort’s garment on the floor. There is a cold numbness spreading through his left shoulder blade. The Dark Lord is close, pressed against him, an unnatural warmth fuelled by his magic seeping through his robes, pressing against Harry’s own. Tainting it. The fact that Harry knows this space, had been here before, is the only reason, he gathers his wits a moment sooner than his arch-nemesis and fumbles to get away.

The other, however, already has his wand out. Harry is never given the time to feel his in his fingers before the pain hits. Voldemort’s Crucio is distinctly different to Bellatrix’s, his thoughts shape blurrily. The Dark Lord’s Crucio feels like his skin is being peeled away, layer by hair-thin layer, until there is nothing left to remove. It feels like fire in his every vein, never in the same place and simultaneously everywhere. It feels like every bone in his skeleton is being fractured and the shards are embedding into his organs, it feels like he is drowning, and his skin is expanding beyond his frame, and also ripping because there is too little to cover him. It is too much.

Harry doesn’t know for how long he is subjected to the curse; might have been seconds, might have been hours. Something within him is reaching out, clinging to anything and everything that might offer him respite.

And then, something latches on.

It feels like something is dousing the flames, only a little relief at first, but it makes all the difference. And so, Harry pulls. It gets better and then, it gets worse.

And suddenly, he doesn’t just hear his own screams.

The pain is gone in an instant, instead, it feels like there is too little space in the ringing silence in his head; and too much to occupy it. Through the haze of the pain, he sees Voldemort staggering, sees him panting. The older wizard is, strangely, clawing at his chest, wand forgotten, his face an odd grimace of pain and pleasure. Then, his eyes snap back to Harry. The confusion in the man-shaped monster’s eyes, crimson red, bleeds away, is replaced by a mad rage once more. The Dark Lord opens his mouth again and Harry abandons searching for his wand in favour of bracing for the pain. It’s not like it’d help him anyhow. Nothing can shield against an Unforgivable.

“Stop! Stop,” a figure, not solid, cloaked in grey and black, steps between them. There is an eery quality to it, its voice seems to fill Harry’s head to the last corner. It echoes strangely in the shadows between thoughts. Harry fears the figure, on an instinctive level. Voldemort trains his wand on the intruder, while Harry uses the time to stand. He grabs his own wand. There is something wrong with him. No, something right. He feels as if his off-kilter axis is righted again. He has regained something that had been forcefully alienated from him, before.

“Where are we? What is this?” Voldemort demands, his usual snarl giving way to a peculiar uncertainty. Harry feels an unfamiliar icy fury well up in him. The hooded figure turns towards Harry, who is edging away from the both of them, putting roughly equal distances between both figures.

“My Lord.” Its deferential bow has something mocking about it. Harry does not know who that was meant to be addressing, he certainly had never been considered a lord. It does little to abate his fears.

He knows where they are; had been here before. The space-in-between still looks like King’s Cross to him, though he isn’t certain what the Dark Lord sees. This leaves only a single possibility. As the hooded figure seems disinclined to answer Voldemort’s questions, he answers, instead, “We’re dead.”

The words sound hollow, and false. Shouldn’t he be with his loved, were he truly dead? He had never imagined he’d be able to feel so much pain after he had died. He guesses religion had uncovered some truths after all – hell existed, it seemed.

“This is Death,” he gestures at the cloaked figure with his wand-less hand. This statement he knows to be true with an intuitive certainty. Curiously, Voldemort’s entire posture changes. Gone is the looseness to his pointing his wand at the intruder. Instead, fear, bright and clear, floods Harry’s senses, as it reshapes the older wizard’s stance. Panic pours off the man in waves, permeating the air so thickly, Harry can almost taste it. He can feel his own heartbeat speed up, to beat in fast-paced tandem to Voldemort’s own.

Ah, Voldemort fears Death. This realization allows Harry to disconnect from the feedback loop.

Hold on. He listens deep within himself, and sure enough, there it is. The pulsing, beating fragment – just a little out of rhythm – that does not belong to him. But is part of him yet again. The leech.

“What have you done?!” Anger spikes in Harry unnaturally sharp; flooding his senses and disintegrating coherent thought. His wand is raised again, furiously spitting sparks as he rounds on the older wizard. Voldemort merely glances at him briefly, wand trained on the hooded figure of Death, clearly deeming Harry the lesser threat. Voldemort’s attention only shifts back onto Harry once the younger wizard is close enough to press his own wand against the older one’s jugular, and even then, the man seems to be primarily concerned by the threat of Death rather than Harry. This, of course, further incenses Harry. “Why is it back?!” Harry demands furiously.

“By Salazar! What do you mean?” the older wizard grits out between clenched teeth, eyes still not fully leaving Death, even as Harry threatens him directly.

“The Horcrux!” Now, his attention is undoubtedly on Harry. “You destroyed it, and now it’s back! I can feel it.”

Voldemort’s slitted nostrils are flaring at Harry’s statement. Confusion, then disbelief, recognition and finally the familiar rage clouding his features. “In the forest–. That was… You dared to–.”

Voldemort levelling his wand in Harry’s face is interrupted by Death’s almost placating interjection, “Now, now. You cannot kill each other in here. Let’s not act hastily and remain calm–.”

Voldemort looks unhinged. “Yes? Let’s try that out!” He doesn’t allow the hooded figure any more time for a more convincing speech, his eyes glinting in dark promise, as he presses the death curse into Harry’s skin almost lovingly.

The two of them are blown apart.

Harry is still breathing. Everything hurts.

Though it’s more of a numbing pain rather than the torture the Dark Lord had subjected him to, previously. Tapping into the bond, he thinks Voldemort might feel the same. Bloody stupid! Punishing someone for destroying a Horcrux by trying to kill them. His head thumps back onto the undefined ground. Only Voldemort! He swears.

“That was unnecessary,” Death says calmly. “If you two could just–.”

But Voldemort is snarling again, and Harry blinks through a haze of red, the man’s fury gnawing at his insides, too. “Fine! I don’t have to kill him–, I can torture and maim!” Voldemort’s feverish roar increases in pitch, almost resembling a screech. Harry knows what will happen, but as usual, the older wizard will not be waylaid by reason. He doesn’t know what spurs him to goad the older wizard on, though. Well, he never claimed to be smart.

This answering Crucio isn’t held for very long. They both end up back on the ground, wheezing.

Death is staring down at the both of them, mouth pursed impatiently. It sighs, deeply. “What he feels, you do, and vice versa,” it states matter-of-factly. “Do keep up.” Harry is still gasping for the sweet relief of oxygen, but rights himself, nonetheless. So does Voldemort.

There is a fire burning brightly behind his opposite’s eyes, that he doesn’t really feel. Harry is tired of this. He dares the other man to object, as he stuffs his trusty wand into his back pocket.

The older Wizard sneers, but seems to agree to their wordlessly agreed-upon ceasefire, for now. Trains his deranged expression back unto Death. “Why are we here?” he asks Death instead and Harry feels how his demand is only a façade of courage. How strange to experience the other’s emotions, once more. Harry can’t say he’s missed it. Death bows its head again, either pensively or deferentially, Harry cannot quite tell. It’s somehow difficult to read Death’s emotions, they flit over its shadowed face, never fully manifesting, fluid.

“You are here–.” Its voice swells inside Harry’s head. “–because you two caused a rift in space-time.” A momentous pause. “And you need to correct the chaos the two of you have created…” The fluidity of Death seems to disintegrate further, and somehow, the shadow that is Death blends in with the unending white of the space surrounding them, wisps of smoke in its wake.

The next breath Harry takes, he chokes on the sweetness of the air in Diagon Alley. There is a thick throng of wizards and witches to surround him, pushing and pulling. Him, an island of shock in their midst. He searches within himself, the bond seems mostly silent now, dulled. Muted. And so, the curse hurled at him that makes his skin blister and pucker furiously where it hits square in his chest, catches him unawares. The wizard casting it has his teeth bared, skin inhumanly pale. Harry is fairly certain he has never met him.

The man is terrifying. Harry’s answer is a mere reflex, instinct saving him by the skin of his teeth. Then, screams and shouts start, as spell-fire flies between them, familiar. The vibrancy of the duel blots the people surrounding him out. A cacophony of sound and colour to distract the two of them.

When Harry’s viridian curse hits its mark, it is by chance. Aurors had apparated to the scene, to get the duel under control and Voldemort’s Protego had collapsed under an unexpected hit from behind. Harry had taken the opportunity offered, without much thought.

Then, everything is white again. Two lungs catching ragged breaths. In. Out. In–. “Less chaos. Not more!” a discarnate voice seethes.

The next time, he is mid-duel. Grindelwald his opponent. The dark wizard’s magic, thick, heavy and cloying. Oppressive. The Elder Wand in his opponent’s hand, bending magic to its wielder’s will, in uncanny proportions. This should have been his.

As the memories and impressions of his vessel shudder through him, Voldemort recognizes the body he is reincarnated in. He is Dumbledore. Mid-fight; with his former lover. Interesting.

His brother, Aberforth, at his side. His brother who, for the first time in many years, has deigned to speak to him and now, even fights alongside his hand. An unfamiliar warmth blooms through Voldemort’s vessel at the thought of his brother. His brother, who may not have forgiven him, but has banded with him, nonetheless. Aberforth, who should be–. He turns and finds his brother’s wide, curse-green eyes staring at him. Harry Potter!

Vicious fury rips through him and Voldemort shakes off the shackles of his vessel’s familial love, devotion and convictions.

He forgoes Grindelwald, to engage Harry Potter, instead. Distantly he thinks, this must make quite the image. The legendary Dumbledore attacking someone on his own side, the light side, his brother. Laughter bubbles up inside him at the irony. He knows he is casting spells Dumbledore’s wand would have never tasted the nature of.

No, that’s not true…? Memories flood again, leaving him staggering for an instant at the onslaught of them. The power, the desire to gain more, to prove himself. These are Albus Dumbledore’s memories, intermingled with his own. Interesting.

As he conjures up spells and curses so dark, they taint the air surrounding him, he feels the wand attempt to reject the manic, the crackling energy he forces through it. Feels it ultimately bend.

There is a beautifully determined set to his brother’s brow, Voldemort thinks, before his Crucio barrels through Harry Potter’s hastily erected shield, and hits.

And then, it’s white again.

Harry’s muscles are still seizing from the seconds of torture that leave his heart beating sluggishly and his blood syrupy. “Fuck you!” he wheezes at the older wizard sprawled out on the ground beside him. Here, they feel the bond again, and he knows Voldemort feels the aftereffects of his own curse, too.

Death appears, is contemplative. “Stronger bonded vessels...” It’s as much a question as it is a statement.

Chapter Text

The first impression Harry has, is the all-consuming hot drag of a tongue against hers. His? Pleasure zips through her, leaves her tingly. A press of plush lips, before she pulls away. Her opposite dives for her neck and attacks it with tongue and teeth. Harry knows she needs to be careful, unless she wants the Matron to see her sins. The moan bursts forth, unbidden. It’s a bloody good sin, that.

Then, awareness sets in, as Harry pushes to the surface of his vessel’s consciousness. Hers? The taller girl crushes herself against the vessel Harry inhabits, pressing open-mouthed kisses against her skin and biting down on the column of her throat. There is a vivifying warmth blooming in Harry’s chest and spreading through to his vessel’s limbs that is distinctly his own, a strange sense of absolute rightness at their intimate physical connection.

Maybe it’s this sensation, one that his vessel never experienced, that calls Harry’s attention away from the mind-numbing pleasure of the other girl’s almost frantic hands and soothing mouth. Her eyes flutter open to reveal Verena, her mind provides, pushing away from Harry’s vessel, as if dizzy. Harry involuntarily whines at the loss. Her girlfriend’s eyes are unfocused, pupils blown wide. She looks utterly debauched and there is something pulling deeply in Harry’s gut at the sight of her. Then, Harry’s opposite’s eyes sharpen. Verena’s skin is smooth and pale, and her hair is a glossy dark brown. Harry loves her passionately.

They are in a broom closet.

This is most certainly Voldemort.

Voldemort seems to come to a similar realization roughly at the same time Harry does, and Harry, pre-emptively, goes to strangle him. The shift in the pair’s centre of gravity makes them fall against the closet’s door, through which they tumble. They land in a heap of tangled limbs on the floor in front of it. Voldemort’s vessel screeches in anger, her eyes are blazing with fury. The two of them are Muggles, Harry dimly registers, yet the air is crackling with their innate power lashing out, straining against their vessel’s non-magical limitations.

Voldemort uses her superior strength to roll on top of Harry. She is perched on Harry’s torso, her heavier weight aiding her, as she presses her thighs onto Harry’s vessel’s upper arms to restrict her movement; skirt flared across parted thighs and pushed up slightly higher than necessarily decent. It’s quite the visual. Harry’s vessel’s… breasts are somewhat squished underneath Voldemort’s weight though, which is truly uncomfortable.

“What the hell are you doing?” Harry hisses up at her, somewhat perplexed, still aroused. A cruel smirk crosses Voldemort’s expression, which is utterly him and not his vessel. Harry’s own vessel’s mind is appalled at seeing Verena’s smile stretched so obscenely by hatred. This battling of impressions inside Harry’s head is quite disconcerting.

“Killing you!” Voldemort snarls and constricts her throat viciously. And Harry starts bucking and screaming and scratching to get her off, wand-less magic aiding her slightly. Fingers prying at her girlfriend’s fingers ineffectually.

This is getting old quickly.

Death seems to agree. Neither Harry nor Voldemort gets very far, before everything is white again.

Voldemort rubs his throat, when the two of them sit up and Harry feels vindicated, though his own throat is smarting, too. He’s a little mortified at the feedback of rather distracting memories that flit in between them, thanks to their previous vessels’ intimate relationship. Harry’s blood is still pulsing from both vicious anger and arousal, which makes it difficult to meet Voldemort’s eyes.

Their wands are beside them, Harry’s hand twitches towards it. The urge to ignore the bond and try and see is strong; see, who of them is able to withstand a Crucio for longer than the other. There is a not-insignificant part within Harry, willing to bet that Voldemort would break first – less experience. He might also be better at compartmentalizing the bond, having been aware of it for longer…

The intensity of this dark temptation feels foreign though. With difficulty, Harry realizes that his own volatile emotions are heightened by his mortal enemy and the man’s soul shard within himself. Harry forces himself to pull away, to pull back and distance himself. To not give in to the sweet pull of violent anger. It has been quite some time since Harry has felt such frenzied rage. It’s frightening. It feels like he’s losing himself.

“This is not working!” Death bites out, managing to appear as a strange hybrid between a frustrated, disappointed parent and a menacing entity, whom they have crossed – repeatedly. Harry’s left shoulder is twinging. But the discomfort is drowned out by Voldemort’s ill-veiled tremor of fear, which invokes a feeling of resentful spite. Schadenfreude, an awareness within him supplies. Harry has certainly never heard of that word, himself. A sneer from the other end, which feels like it is Voldemort’s. Harry pushes him out resolutely.

“You are meant to work together, to end the chaos you’ve created, not generate a million alternate realities…” Death cuts itself off, as if having said too much. Harry isn’t sure what that might mean. Not that he particularly cares, amidst the clusterfuck he finds himself in. Voldemort seems very interested, though. And for the first time, Harry realizes that Voldemort’s greedy curiosity is laughably easy to decipher. He startles at the humanity of it. It looks oddly unsettling on his monstrous face.

Death redirects its gaze towards Harry, first pensive, then mirthful. It bodes nothing good.

There is the, by now all too familiar, first breath before Harry blinks his new eyes open. He’s bracing for pain, when a realization sets in. He is in a nursery. The wallpaper is kept in neutral shades of green and crème. It’s dark outside. His vessel is about to leave behind a toddler in a crib, to sleep.

A sense of premonition courses through Harry’s veins. This cannot be! He is certain of what he’ll find even before he confirms it, by allowing himself to look.

The toddler – Theodore, his vessel remembers – had been drifting off to sleep, but is now fully alert once more. Large eyes blink up at him, from the round-cheeked face of his son. Eerily intelligent for a not-yet-one-year-old.

Of bloody course! Lord Voldemort. A toddler.

Harry’s startled laughter causes the toddler’s brow to crinkle, its eyes to narrow dangerously. The most dangerous individual alive, trapped in plump layers of fat surrounding the fragile bones of a human infant. For all its faults, Death certainly has a sense of humour. It feels oddly vindicating.

Harry’s forehead pinches in phantom pain. This certainly shouldn’t be possible! The bond had always been silent once the two of them obtained vessels.

The items in the nursery start rattling. Harry can feel the blanket of suffocating dark magic spread through the room, twisting everything it touches. Harry’s sense of alarm has him drawing his wand – he is a wizard in this body, thankfully. A shield charm is cast, before Harry is conscious of it. A myriad of hexes on the tip of Harry’s tongue, just waiting for the permission to be cast, for unforgiving cruelty. He is ready for however Voldemort may choose to attack him.

There is an odd beat, where the cacophony of sounds inside the room swells, but the toddler’s eye’s manic glint subdues to confusion. A strange shiver runs through Voldemort’s vessel, then the rattling stops abruptly.

Harry’s Protego fizzles out of existence. Why isn’t Voldemort attacking him? The toddler clearly lacks a wand, but Harry had seen Voldemort create feats of magic wandlessly, that Harry could only dream of.

A plaintive sound escapes the little human, and suddenly, the boy’s little legs quiver, his eyes glaze over and the body sags to the side as if its strings were cut.

Some paternal instinct has Harry rush to the crib, fingers clenching around the painted wood of the rail. The diminutive body lies on its side, pale, but there is a noticeable raising and lowering of its chest, that calms some instinctual worry with Harry. Oh. Voldemort’s vessel must not be equipped to handle the physical strain of the Dark Lord’s wandless casting.

The not-quite-black lashes flutter on top of colourless cheeks. The little body heaves in a deeper breath, and its eyes open. He looks bewildered first, and then murderous once more.

There is a moment of weakness then; a moment of burning vindictiveness, that has Harry raise his wand. His hand is steady, even though Harry feels it shouldn’t be, in light of the crime he wants to commit. The impulse to hurt Voldemort isn’t new, but never has Voldemort not been able to defend himself. Harry’s focus narrows on the toddler’s eyes – they widen, some of the fury giving way to surprise. He can almost taste the goading sweetness of his revenge. Even though this body has never been on the receiving end of the Dark Lord’s Cruciatus curse, his mind remembers it with vivid clarity.

But then, instead of to fear, Voldemort’s vessel’s countenance changes. The pale pink lips of the boy twist into a smile. The toddler’s eyes egg him on. If a toddler could tauntingly sneer, that would be how Harry characterizes his face.

Harry falters. Disgust is the first emotion that floods through him.

Since when is he able to stomach violence so easily? Harry remembers a time, when the only ‘offensive’ spell in his repertoire had been an Expelliarmus. When his mind had baulked at the casual use of violence that Voldemort and his followers employed to get their way. When he had defined the Dark side, by their proclivity to employ it, when it suited their needs. He almost doesn’t recognize that version of himself anymore.

His wand dips.

Shame is the second emotion that drowns him. This toddler may be the vessel for Voldemort’s mind, but the body is helpless, nonetheless. Unable to defend itself.

Killing Voldemort would surely eject them from these vessels, but what would be the point? To get in a hit against his arch-enemy? Death would simply reincarnate them once more.

A thought crosses Harry’s mind, that leaves him nauseated in the wake of it. He hadn’t really had time to consider the implications of their actions, before, when both of them had always immediately been drawn into life-and-death battles upon recognizing one another. But, now that Harry does have the time to think, he realizes that he doesn’t know how many memories their vessels retain after Harry and Voldemort left them.

Had he murdered that man on Diagon Alley in the name of defending himself against Voldemort? The thought is dizzying.

His gaze is involuntarily drawn to his vessel’s son once more. The toddler has broken eye contact and struggles to sit up – it’s something Voldemort knows how to do, of course, but his body doesn’t yet. A frustrated sound escapes the body as it collapses in an undignified heap. The little face pulls into an angry grimace, cheeks blown out. The resulting expression is cute, rather than menacing.

And Harry realizes that he can’t leave this child with memories of his father torturing him. That he shouldn’t have ever even considered it.

The toddler looks up at him once more, head cocked in an eerily calculating, knowing manner that is fundamentally at odds with the vessel’s age and body. Harry shivers, sick with himself. Never has he been gladder about the fact that they cannot read one another’s minds in these vessels, for he knows with startling certainty that Voldemort would have rejoiced, if he knew of the extent of Harry’s violent desires; his corruption. Never has he felt closer to his counterpart, never more alike him, more similar. It frightens him, frankly, that he is able to even conceive of this rush of emotions. That he can empathize with the madness that he is sometimes able to feel burn through him; though usually, he accesses it second-hand.

Harry wrenches himself away, horrified at himself, and leaves the child. He leaves the house, combs through unknown streets aimlessly. His mind is numb for quite a while, but eventually, other bodily sensations make sense again. The first thing he notices is the slight drizzle, which leaves him shivering in his too-thin shirt. The second, are the strange looks, he receives. Discreetly, he looks down his unfamiliar body and sighs. No wonder, people had stared, less than surreptitiously. His thin white shirt had turned see-through in the fine spray of the rain.

Harry ducks into an unoccupied side street. There is a trashcan there, with loose items within it. He eyes a piece of tattered fabric in one of the trashcans speculatively – a cleaning charm, he would manage, but the transfiguration necessary to make a jacket is probably beyond his abilities. He curses his inattentiveness in any subject apart from Defence Against the Dark Arts. Another way, Voldemort had thoroughly altered the way his life had played out so far.

The heated thought dissipates quickly, though. He is left feeling cold and tired. At the notion of returning to his home, his stomach turns, though. He isn’t ready yet. He sighs. A heating charm would have to do the trick. He can simply ignore the strange looks. Harry points the unfamiliar, dark-wooded wand at himself and mumbles the incantation, before he pockets it again. Then he makes a decision, and goes to hunt down the remaining pieces of the puzzle, that are this life.

He discerns that he is a single father, that the mother to this child had died in child-bed. Diving into this body’s memories, he realizes the utter, all-encompassing love the father has for his son. It clashes jarringly with his own intentions and emotions. It also, with finality, erases the possibility to simply end this reincarnation, by virtue of a well-placed viridian curse.

He had briefly considered it. Hermione had called it a rather ‘humane option’, after all. But the temptation turns bitter when he realizes that he would end these vessels’ lives unjustly; that the child Voldemort currently occupies has not even lived yet. That he would not be able to stomach this ‘easy' way out.

He could give the child away, he muses, trailing through a throng of unaware Muggles. Though that would only postpone the issue – Voldemort would hunt him down, the second his body acquired the ability to reliably move itself. Besides, Harry feels his stomach twist with guilt, at the thought of them eventually being allowed to leave these vessels and rendering a whole childhood destroyed, simply because he was weak in this. Harry curses, ignoring the scandalized glare of another parent.

Amidst the pushing people, a lone, darkly-clad figure stands, breath bated. This gamble may be paying off.

Harry feels cold, despite his heating charm. Maybe it had worn off? No. He can still feel the tingle of magic across his skin. Curse its superficiality. Harry knows why he didn’t enjoy having to rely on this charm, usually. He reapplies it, in any case.

Perhaps, he could care for the child, and ignore the fact that the individual living inside it was Voldemort. He sighs once more, wishing he wasn’t in this position. Wishing, his life could be easy, or at least easier, for once. But he knows, he’ll have to do this, if he intends to ever look at himself in the mirror again, and not be disgusted.

Thus, Harry retraces his steps carefully, if a little reluctantly, entering the child’s bedroom. He approaches the crib on quiet soles before he realizes that there is no need. The toddler has managed to stand, though he needs the crib’s lattice to avoid falling. The toddler – his son – watches him approach, large eyes unblinking, not missing any of Harry’s movements. The tilted head, intelligent, waiting, paints a picture that Harry would have expected from the man’s real self. It is in stark contrast to the boy’s frog-shaped hoodie connected to his shockingly-green romper.

Harry can’t help the bout of hysteria that bubbles up in his throat. He will take care of this incarnation of the Dark Lord! How could he ever have anticipated that? Well. Harry searches for the necessary strength within himself. He takes the last step to come to a stop in front of the crib.

This time, Harry allows the foreign feelings of love and care – his vessel’s – welling up in him to overtake his own conscious. He reaches out for the small thing cautiously. Large grey-blue eyes, deceivingly innocent in their roundness, stare at him, as he holds him out in front of his face awkwardly. Harry’s innate ineptitude in handling children is not overcome by his vessel’s instincts. Harry bristles at the reflex to clutch it close. What to do now?

The toddler’s expression twists into a snarl, skin furrowing over a cute button nose. Tiny, smooth hands reach out towards his face. Harry deliberates whether this might be a trap, but while he considers, the toddler starts twisting, face as if impatient. Its mien does not quite suit a toddler. Reluctantly, Harry brings the thing closer. Once within reach, a hand is deliberately set onto his face.

A beating, pulsing warmth flares alive between them with viciousness. It almost seems alive. Then, Harry is overwhelmed by an out-of-body frustration, and gnawing hunger. The hand falls away.

Harry blinks his eyes open disoriented. Instead of the safe distance, he had held the child before, it is now pressed close to his chest. There is still a lingering warmth remaining, but it’s dulled, maybe because their contact is separated by fabric. Harry is momentarily stunned by the realization that… the child is hungry.

The thing in his arms scowls again, and reaches out, with a distinct air of eagerness. But Harry pushes it away and out of reach once more. Harry doesn’t particularly fancy experiencing this strange bond between them more often than absolutely necessary. It’s discomforting enough that he is now hyperaware of its existence.

He grumbles in annoyance at the thing’s persistent wiggling and sifts through his vessel’s memories to divine the information necessary to feed the child.  As he prepares the milk formula, he wishes that he could return to the many years, when he had been blessedly unaware of the Horcrux residing inside him.

Once the toddler is fed, its lids grow heavy immediately. Harry puts it back into the crib. Well. He runs a shaky hand through his mussed tresses. This isn’t too bad. He can probably do this.

He would likely never quite rid himself of the fear over an attempt at gleeful assassination. But at least initially, the knowledge that Harry is still far too strong for him to over-power, will stay his hand, Harry thinks, as he looks down on the bundle sleeping in its ridiculous pyjamas. He leaves the room wearily.

Harry knows the time this remains to be true, is finite. He has seen the toddler eye his wand contemplatively. For now, they are at an impasse. Perhaps they’ll leave these vessels before Voldemort gets the chance to attack. They have never remained in bodies for a long time. His shoulder twinges meanly. Surely, he’ll be fine, he thinks before he falls into an uneasy sleep in a strange bed. After all, how are they supposed to make any significant progress in this constellation?

As it turns out, Death is intent on keeping them in this incarnation for much, much longer than Harry thought.

Worse, even without magic or complete faculty of his legs and bowels, the child makes Harry’s life a living hell. Even months into their stalemate, it doesn’t hesitate to show Harry his absolute displeasure at having to rely on him for survival. Luckily, Voldemort despises relying on the bond as much as Harry does. But that by no means limits his ability to communicate his needs.

He bites Harry, once his teeth come in; is a fussy eater without rhyme or reason, scorning foods that he happily ate the day before, and keeps the older wizard awake throughout tiring nights by throwing tantrums with a glee, that Harry comes to associate with the child. More than once, Harry is tempted to drown the little shit in his bathwater. But instead of leaving, he finds himself cajoling the child into compromises and trades.

Though at the end of a long day, Harry is willing to admit that he is not innocent in their mutual antagonizing: he begins to call him Voldie. He riles up the darkest wizard of all time, by infantilizing him and fawning over his objective cuteness. Voldemort, predictably, hates it.

But while Harry realizes he derives his joy partially from seeing the older wizard suffer dramatically in his baby-ness, there is another, not insignificant part of himself, that takes to caring for the child with disturbing ease. Sometimes, it takes Harry until he is back in his bed, alone, to be able to discern his own from his vessel’s inclinations.

More than that, it is frightening, how much stronger the urge to seek out the blooming warmth of their bond gets, with increased exposure. In the beginning, Harry had believed that only he felt good when it connected, since Voldemort never showed any outward indication of it affecting him as it did Harry. It is unsettling how similar it was, to the feeling he had discovered inside his previous vessel, if only briefly. The latter thought being one, that Harry firmly pushes aside for later consideration.

He had hypothesized instead, that the reason only he feels good when they come into contact, is because he houses the splintered piece of Voldemort’s soul. Eventually, Harry realizes that this assumption is very much not true. Regardless of how much Voldemort pretends to despise it, every time his vessel tires and his control on his vessel’s impulses slips, the toddler buries himself in Harry’s chest almost instinctively. The warmth brings calm. Harry figures that he affords them both a shred of dignity by pretending not to notice.

Oh, well. At least their time stuck in these vessels isn’t boring.

As Death continues refusing to release them, Harry finds himself in a routine of disturbingly mundane daily tasks such as bottle-feeding his charge and changing the Dark Lord’s nappies. Eventually, the two of them settle into a rhythm that gradually turns Harry’s genuine irritation at his archenemy’s mannerisms into fond exasperation. It helps that the toddler looks nothing like the towering, chalk-faced monster with scorching red eyes of Harry’s nightmares. And, that he’s become a true master at strategically using the bond to lull the little devil to sleep.

Unfortunately, this strategy works less well, when Voldemort’s vessel is wide awake. Case in Point; Harry’s pleading eyes meet Voldie’s severely unimpressed stare, as Harry tries to coax him into eating his tomatoes.

Harry wants to tear his hair out.

As soon as Voldemort’s body gains the capacity to sit, he delves into literature research with a fervour that Harry could never hope to emulate. The realization that Voldemort is a bookworm is as surprising, as the scene is achingly familiar. Memories of them, the Golden Trio, back in Hogwarts, when it was still safe to be there, pouring over tomes, flood through him. Nostalgia tastes of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans and smells like the remnants of burnt cards in the air after a satisfying round of Exploding Snap.

In crass juxtaposition, Harry’s afternoons, now, are filled with an unhinged dark wizard. The very same, coincidentally, who brought their innocence to a close, is sitting across their living space looking very calm and focused.

Harry immediately tries to undermine the routine that emerges, once he takes note of it. Unfortunately, Voldemort is very persuasive if he wants to be, despite being trapped as a toddler. And so, Harry wisely elects to lose that particular battle and allow the pyjama-clad menace his reading time, each afternoon. He can enact his rebellion in other ways.

Whether Voldie notices his nostalgic melancholy, or not, he doesn’t remark on it. Harry feels a little spiteful towards the other wizard for having taken all of this away from him – the opportunities, friendships and the chance of an unspoiled childhood. He might never return. The thought hurts. It has taken Harry quite some time to grapple with the truth of it. But now that he has done so, admitted it, the thought is impossible to dismiss. Maybe that is why he doesn’t feel like helping Voldemort much in his research.

Voldemort sends Harry, who is lounging on their couch, feet propped up against the wall, a withering glare. Harry, the mature adult he is, pulls a face and lights up their furnace with a quick flick of his wand and a mumbled Incendio. If his spell flies through the air a little too close to the toddler’s head for comfort, well… Harry claims innocence until ill-intention is proven. Voldie scowls at his antics and turns away to his book.

“If only we knew what the point of this… exercise is!” the Dark-Lord-imprisoned-in-a-toddler laments exasperatedly in that lilting speech of his, that, Harry admits, is genuinely adorable. Though, Harry can empathize with the three-year-old’s frustration, he picks up Voldie’s mushroom in hopes of him miraculously deigning to eat something that Harry prepared. Hoping for a small miracle.

Voldie’s haughty refusal is expected by now, yet the thoughtful expression that hushes over his face, in response to anything Harry does, is not. “What did Death say? ‘We caused a rift in space-time… Correct to the chaos, the two of you created’…” Voldie paraphrases Death’s cryptic directions, his adorable lisp struggling with articulation. “Which Chaos?” he muses, “Both of us have caused it…”

Harry feels a headache approaching. “Yes” he snaps, “but, as we discussed multiple times–”

“Ad nauseam…” the little shit interjects, smirking innocently. Harry breathes deeply, suppressing the flare of irritation at being chided for poor vocabulary.

“As we discussed ad nauseam,” he humours the other. “– we don’t agree on what said chaos might be…” It was a discussion they often had.

Voldemort nods, self-importantly. “Assuming, Death meant Horcruxes…” begins Voldemort. Harry’s head snaps up. He had previously suggested that Death might have taken offence to Voldemort’s Horcruxes. The toddler had proceeded to read a book on soul magic.

Though Harry had assumed that this idea of his, had been dismissed, once Voldie had finished the book and not brought it up again. Now, though, it seems like Voldemort had seen merit in his idea and had simply elected not to tell Harry. Out of pride. Harry loosens his grip on the colourful spoon deliberately. He’d learned that he wouldn’t get Voldie to cooperate if he highlighted the other’s flaws.

“Alright,” he says slowly. “Assuming the chaos Death referenced, was created by Horcruxes… There isn’t anything we can do about that particular issue, then, am I right? It’s not like there is a way to fix the state of your soul’s Horcruxed-ness,” he says, enjoying the toddler’s immediate petulant scowl.

Harry laughs lightly at the toddler’s predictability. Voldemort, who is deeply unimpressed, ignores the piece of Broccoli hovering in front of his face, of course. “It’s a soul split. The term Horcrux refers to the vessels of said soul shards… The terminology is not difficult to learn, Harry,” the toddler half-hisses, half-lisps.

Harry sighs, well aware that he shouldn’t push the toddler. Not, when he had basically admitted that Harry had been correct, out-right. Well. Practically out-right. Out-right enough to satisfy his petty sense of dogmatism.

“I’ve heard of remorse allowing a soul to fuse once more,” says Harry doubtful. He remembers the wizened, white-bearded face of Dumbledore, who had always praised the allegedly near-fantastical power of love in conquering all. He wonders when he’d turned so cynical. Voldemort looks similarly unconvinced; with a little of additional derision, as spice. The toddler picks up a slice of apple, that he had claimed to hate a mere three days ago.

“Hmmm, perhaps that would assuage Death’s desire for less… chaos,” muses Voldie, after finishing his mouthful with an air of sophistication. Harry can tell from the way the boy’s mouth tightens around the word, how little he appreciates his feat of creating seven Horcruxes to be considered mere chaos. Harry is confused. The statement has seemingly very little to do with Harry’s.

“What do you mean?” asks Harry, exasperated.

The toddler fixes Harry by looking down his nose. “Isn’t it obvious?” he asks, his lilting voice just shy of insulting.

Harry looks up at the now-familiar ceiling. “Make it more so,” he says through gritted teeth. Then, he forces his face to stretch into a pleading smile, he doesn’t feel. To be truthful, Harry is shocked that Voldemort is even considering this at all – he’d thought the Dark Lord would not want to give up his Horcruxes in any way.

His surprise must show because the child sneers at him haughtily. Voldie is pretending to be ambivalent about the continued existence of his tethers to immortality.

Right. Like that was believable.

Harry knows the farce to be one. He remembers the moment Voldemort’s soul shard had reattached to Harry in the space in between. The moment had come with a sharp wave, an assault of Voldemort’s emotions and thoughts, impressions. A distinct voice that had been silenced ever since he had gone to meet the Dark Lord in the forbidden forest. A voice Harry had always believed to be a part of himself.

He had felt the man’s wonder at the return of feeling. Comparable, perhaps, to a phantom limb. One that the man had never known to miss. And he hadn’t, had he? The shard lodged deep inside Harry, ever since the Dark Lord had attempted to kill Harry, had gone unnoticed by Voldemort. Harry had felt the sharp surprise when he had revealed its existence. The man’s dawning realization that something was wrong with his soul. That he had been too numb, too mutilated to have felt it, when he had initially separated the soul from Harry, by virtue of a killing curse.

Voldemort cares. Very much. He is unsettled by the thought that since he missed this, it wasn’t inconceivable he might have missed other, momentous secrets. Harry supposes his desperate wish for immortality conflicted with the unacknowledged fear that splitting his soul had done more, than merely tether him to existence. His loss, thinks Harry, a little unforgiving and tries the carrots. Voldie rejects them.

“If I reduced the number of Horcruxes, I would still be guaranteed immortality… One or two, maybe three Horcruxes, surely, are not enough to send this world into chaos,” the little boy muses, grey-blue eyes sharp in a familiar way; intelligent. Harry thinks the man’s casual manner in discussing the state of one’s soul being violently torn apart is a little misplaced. But the toddler looks at him, as if baiting Harry into a comment. He bites his tongue and instead lifts the fork-full of food pleadingly, before he gives up. He sets the children’s fork back down onto Voldie’s plate, sighing loudly.

“It would have the positive side-effect of you not going bat-shit crazy,” Harry mentions casually. Voldemort, predictably, does not appreciate that sentiment. “But, I was under the impression that the forming of a Horcrux is irreversible,” Harry asks, well aware that, between the two of them, Voldemort was the expert in soul magic, in spite of his current youthful appearance.

“It’s true that one cannot reassemble a soul once it has been split…” the child muses, the thoughtful expression contrasting crassly with his soft toddler features.

The expression is rather adorable, and Harry tells him so, tapping a tiny nose. Voldemort’s dark glare promising a violent death, is the other wizard’s only response. Harry is very thankful that their connection does not persevere as strongly in their vessels, as it does in the space in between, for it saves him from Voldemort discerning just how honest these observations have become. The little pest is growing on him.

The boy sits in his highchair, spine straight, very Voldemort-esque, large head resting on his pudgy arms; gaze pensively focused onto a spot somewhere outside of their apartment. Harry, having given up on feeding his… son, starts eating his own, now cold, food. The boy eventually turns back towards him and has the gall to appear appalled at Harry’s audacity at neglecting his child’s being fed. Harry wants to strangle the bastard.

It is on one of those nights, not a week later, that Harry finds himself slouching on their sofa and listening to Voldemort ranting, half-heartedly. The little blue flames, Harry had been taught how to conjure up by Hermione, crackling merrily in their designated space in the corner of the living room. It is all he will allow, to remind him of back home. How strange is it, that this scenario here, with his arch-enemy, reminds him of his best friend so strongly, his heart is aching?

Voldemort had commanded Harry to purchase several more tomes, one of which the toddler is lying in front of. Voldie’s eyebrows are scrunched in concentration, when he stoops to inform Harry of his theory, “I ascertained, as we had discussed previously, that Horcruxes are indeed irreversible.” Harry sighs at this. Stares at the blue flames. A connection to what he has lost. Why him? What terrible crime had he ever committed, to be trapped in reliving these endless reincarnations with his enemy?

“But–,” and the Voldemort-toddler looks strangely shrewd at this, “there is a theory on time. Created by Muggles, I will admit…” he doesn’t look comfortable with this acknowledgement, yet it must have some merit, because Voldemort presses on, “It is called the butterfly effect. An aspect of chaos theory…” Voldemort says, as if any of these words should mean something to Harry.

Voldemort takes in his incomprehension and sighs. “The butterfly effect is the dependence on initial conditions, in which a small change in one state of a deterministic, nonlinear system can result in large differences in a later state...” he recites, which helps Harry’s understanding very little. “A very small change in initial conditions can create a significantly different outcome…” Voldemort’s words are heavy with both condescension and implication.

Harry blinks.

“Perhaps, if the creation of some Horcruxes can be prevented, we might fortuitously affect our future to an extent that Death is willing to let us go. More than that, we could go on living our lives, hating one another, without Death’s troublesome meddling.”

In the shadows of the room, Death is almost vibrating out of its skin with anticipation.

Understanding courses through Harry.

“That is, of course, only a viable option if neither the theory of Euchronia nor that of Determinism apply…” Voldemort says.

“Of course,” Harry echoes sarcastically. He’s sure Voldemort does this on purpose – throws around obscure terminology to maintain a sense of superiority. But. Does this mean, what he thinks it might mean?

“I won’t attempt to explain the intricacies of the theories on time to you, but the basics should be simple enough to grasp,” the Voldemort-toddler sneers haughtily, aware that Harry struggles to understand, if its smirk is anything to judge by. Harry pretends not to have noticed the insult.

“No more nappies?” he thus asks, almost unable to believe this suspiciously simple solution.

Voldemort’s eyes glitter dangerously. “Precisely!” the boy agrees, smile shark-like. Harry barely suppresses a shiver. It is dangerously easy to forget that the toddler is not as harmless as his exterior appears. Although the two of them had spent over two years in their present reincarnations – the longest time they had inhabited a vessel by far, and had formed somewhat of a reluctant truce, Harry should stay wary.

He allows himself to ponder the possibility for a few moments, the seductive simplicity of what the Dark Lord has suggested. It seems too easy. Harry is left suspicious. “And why, Voldie, would you agree to such a thing?” He can’t imagine that the Voldemort he had known, would ever deign to consider getting rid of any of his Horcruxes; his ties to immortality. There must be something else. Some ulterior motivation.

Should he suggest Voldemort re-joining with all his soul fragments? He can almost see the toddler’s murderous glare. Similar, but different to what he’s seeing right now – the toddler’s eyes flare with anger at the nickname Harry has forced upon him, ever since they found themselves in these bodies. The boy assumes what might have looked like a secretive expression on an adult, but looks comical on his pudgy face. Harry coos and pinches his cheek. He is cute. Cute when he’s harmless and trapped in baby fat.

The boy’s eyes promise pain for an instant before his cherubic features smoothen out again, leaving no trace of the man’s temper. Harry feels giddy laughter bubble up. The Dark Lord really is helpless in this body, Harry should enjoy it as long as he can.

This is the problem precisely, he thinks. Sometime in the last two and a half years, Harry has stopped being afraid of his oh-so dark arch-nemesis. Not too long ago, Harry would not have hesitated in at least trying to convince Voldemort into giving up all his Horcruxes. He would have tried near anything. Now, he knows the other’s character much better; knows that the suggestion would not only be fruitless but, worse, upset the tentative stalemate they are in.

Is it okay that he pushes away his overarching goal, of defeating Voldemort, in favour of maintaining some semblance of peace, now? He knows he should feel guilty for it. But such determination is difficult to uphold, when one is responsible for one’s enemy in a very primal way. Suddenly the flickering of the little blue flame appears mocking. He flicks his wand angrily, and the familiar warmth dies with it. The toddler watches him, head cocked, eyes curious. Harry ducks his head to avoid the other.

It doesn’t matter if his friends, if the Order, wouldn’t understand. They are not here, with him, now; have never been in Harry’s position. It is important that he keeps a level head. He is, after all, under no false impression that Voldemort isn’t merely biding his time. Harry is certain his opposite will rein in his emotions until they’ve broken this reincarnation cycle. After that, all bets are off. Harry shivers in nervous premonition.

“You mean, apart from breaking free from these endless reincarnations with an utterly absurd individual as my sole companion?” the toddler asks in his lisp, which ruins the question’s intended effect. Harry refrains from snickering, startled at the other’s humour, and tries to simply remain looking at the toddler evenly. He has learned the Dark Lord’s weakness in the prolonged time together – enjoying hearing himself talk, a bit too much. This is one of the surest ways to understand the other’s motivations.

“If I avoided inadvertently fulfilling the thrice-damned prophecy, by not disposing of your line–,” Harry ignores the callousness Voldemort employs, in favour of listening to his every word, heart beating traitorously fast. “– if I didn’t fail in killing you as a babe, and thus you didn’t rise to undeserved fame…” the toddler’s features are almost dulcet in their faux-benignity, “I’d say it would be a win-win, wouldn’t you?” Voldemort’s benevolent features sharpen slightly, reminding Harry of who he is, once more.

“You’d have me out of the way and your immortality…” Harry breathes, reluctantly impressed by his opposite’s cunning. The child nods self-satisfied. Another one of Harry’s problems: Voldemort is such a contradicting mess – the darkest wizard of all time inhabiting a toddler’s body. The rush of affection for this incarnation no longer surprises Harry.

Said problem is likely the far more dangerous one, Harry muses, pretending to mull over Voldemort’s words. He is never really sure, whether that fondness is his own, or his vessel’s. Privately, Harry knew that he would agree to the other’s proposal, the moment the other had phrased it. This plan tempts with anonymity, with insignificance. He would no longer have to be the Chosen One – a pretty name for a child soldier, he thinks with more than a little bitterness. He knows he should feel different, but he cares too little about whether Voldemort is immortal or not, and too much about their returning to their time. Of course, the thought of Voldemort not dying makes him… uncomfortable, but he worries more about Voldemort’s designs for the wizarding world… If it really came down to it, Harry is sure, he would be able to oppose Voldemort once more.

And, who knows? Maybe this exposure to the other is actually helpful – getting to know his opponent could only help him in fighting him, right? Should he have to. Anyways, the fewer Horcruxes, the fewer things they have to search and destroy. He might grow up as a normal child. With loving parents? The temptation of it all is syrupy and sweet.

They discuss a strategy for a little longer before Voldie’s large eyes start drooping with exhaustion. As he has come to expect by now, Voldie reaches out his plump arms for Harry to pick him up. Sighing, the older wizard complies. Harry, once more, wonders about the nature of the warmth blooming inside himself, as Voldie burrows into Harry’s neck drowsily. He readies the toddler for bed and keeps that secret pondering close to his heart. It feels too much like compliance. Too much like hope. Too much like a new beginning.

When they wake up, they are Harry Potter and Lord Voldemort again, in the space in between. It is shocking to be faced with the true self of the toddler he had been caring for all this time.

It feels a little bit like loss. He pushes that thought away. Voldemort stretches his unnaturally tall body, bones popping, robes stretching over a concave stomach and bony shoulders. He looks terribly different. Here, the threat of Voldemort listening to his thoughts is ever-present, and Harry is loath to reveal his strange attachment to their previous incarnations. It helps that Voldemort seems to have put in place his own, admittedly much stronger Occlumency shields.

“You know, if we don’t have to prevent every Horcrux, let’s go for one of the middle ones. I mean, maybe you wouldn’t have created the later ones, if you didn’t go crazy, Voldie,” Harry voices – the last thought he had as the toddler’s father, before falling asleep the previous night. Voldemort almost manages to smother his twitch of annoyance at the nickname.

“Congratulations, Potter! You have used your remarkably few mental faculties and have arrived at the most obvious conclusion,” Voldemort drawls with a condescending smirk. Harry feigns deafness and smiles unconcernedly, because, for all of Voldemort’s sneering and posturing he can’t help but notice, the other has not yet drawn his wand again. He feels almost fond.

Hold on.

That thought serves to distract him from Voldemort’s unsettlingly, piercing red stare. Not only are these traitorous emotions at the forefront of his mind, but he also shouldn’t feel them for Lord Voldemort, and definitely not for him in this body. The vessel’s familial affection must’ve left traces–. Harry cuts himself off; wrenches his thoughts away forcibly.

The darkness in the unending white congeals and the untenable body of Death forms.

Harry feels relieved at the sight. Even though the older wizard’s Legilimency had always far outperformed Harry’s own Occlumency skills, thoughts of Death might be sufficient to distract Voldemort. These strange thoughts should be safe, for now. At least, in case he merely attempts any low level, passive Legilimency.

Harry is well-aware that his mind isn’t safe from a direct attack here, in his own body and mind. This bond they have goes deeper than one might successfully occlude all thoughts and emotions against. But Voldemort would need direct eye contact for thoughts that go deeper than the surface. At least, that’s what he hopes to be the truth – assumptions pieced together by snippets of knowledge passed on by Dumbledore and his friends in his previous life.

It’s not like he had asked Voldie about that. Harry gulps. Such a question might have had prompted Voldie to try and see… And, frankly, he hadn’t, and still didn’t feel like being a guinea pig.

Thus, he is glad when Voldemort turns his shrewd eyes towards Death. Harry can feel that Voldemort’s fear of Death itself has somewhat abated, now that they know what Death’s objective is. Well. At least they think they do.

Death’s sly smile makes Harry think that maybe they don’t. Regardless, Death is utterly deferential towards them and heeds their wishes to be reincarnated close to Tom Riddle in 1945.

Voldemort wakes up somewhat groggily. His body is lying on a cold, polished wooden floor. The air is dusty and slightly musky, perhaps from the ancient artefacts that surround him. He can hear their seductive whispers at the edge of his consciousness. They draw him in, as dark magic always does. Early morning light filters through less-than-clean windows and bathes the room in little, cool light and more shadow. His vessel is wrought with tiredness that goes bone-deep. His thoughts are strangely slow; mellow.

There is a rattling on the door, then a creaking and the front door opens. The person that steps inside is backlit. Voldemort sees the dust particles floating through the air, as the breeze disturbs them. “Mr. Burke,” the stranger says. His voice is even, formal, and betrays nothing of his contempt.

The latter emotion becomes obvious though, as Voldemort pieces together who he and the stranger are.

Tom Riddle, well-dressed in a charcoal grey robe, himself in his younger years, is stood before him. He remembers, now, how little he cared for this vessel. They are in Borgin and Burke’s, in 1945, perhaps not quite a year before he had murdered Hepzibah Smith for her possession of both the Slytherin locket and Hufflepuff’s cup.

An entire year! Death must not be particularly confident in their abilities.

Tom Riddle doesn’t sneer, doesn’t help him up; doesn’t ask why he has found his employer lying in his shop. Tom Riddle looks unmoved.

Voldemort finds himself glad for his younger self’s apathy and utter disinterest towards his vessel. Though, he could do without the aches and pains of his host. He hopes that a similar fate has befallen Harry Potter, but he can’t help but think that Death has his favourite.

Voldemort directs his younger self towards cleaning their itinerary and considers the best course of action. He must discern just how well acquainted his younger self is with the Hufflepuff descendant already. Whether young Riddle has ascertained Hepzibah Smith’s possession of the Slytherin locket by now, or whether he is merely aware of her having the cup at this point in time. Any hopes of influencing his younger version to forget the Hogwarts’ founder’s heirlooms are immediately discarded – Tom Riddle never cared about and would never be swayed by Caractacus Burke, Pure-blood or not.

There is no bell chiming to signal the entry of the third wizard, but something drags Voldemort’s contemplative gaze away from young Tom Riddle and towards the door, seconds before he enters. A young man, wind-swept and bright-cheeked, stands in the entryway of their shop. He looks utterly out of place; has perhaps barely graduated Hogwarts.

Voldemort knows that Harry Potter inhabits this body even before his curse-green eyes meet his. It’s in the way the youth holds himself, in the way he strides straight towards him, single-minded. Voldemort has wondered before how Potter discerned his vessel’s identities so quickly every time. As far as he knows, he doesn’t reincarnate with a striking feature, such as Harry Potter’s famous eyes.

It’s disconcerting as always, when Voldemort’s vessel’s memories don’t align with his own. Voldemort knew the boy from school. The boy had been a rather nondescript Hufflepuff, not worth of Tom Riddle’s attention, hadn’t it been for his ill-advised bragging of his relation to Helga Hufflepuff. His mind distantly knows that that boy didn’t have green eyes, but his vessel insists this factoid to have always been the case.

The disconnect is not as strong in this, as in his previous vessel. Probably because they had been mere acquaintances; had never even conversed. Voldemort shudders promptly reminded just how disconcerting it had been, two lives ago.

Potter stops in front of Voldemort’s body, eyes suddenly questioning. He acknowledges the younger wizard’s gaze by a slight tilt of his head. Relief sweeps through Potter’s expression almost palpably. How riveting. Such a telling reaction.

“Thank god!” the younger wizard breathes. “I almost feared I wouldn’t find you, at first,” Potter reaches out, seemingly unconcerned. A slender hand finds his lower arm.

It is a movement far too intimate. To entitled! Bearable, maybe, when he had relied on the other’s goodwill for survival. The desire to punish the boy for his easy trusting crashes through Voldemort. It obliterates his vessel’s sleepy complacency. This. This feels right. To lash out, to repay the mortification moment for moment–.

But then–. Voldemort’s intent is swept away with the warmth that floods through him at their contact, washing away his bloodthirst. He struggles to clamp down on it. It leaves him staggering, trying to sort through his vessel’s emotions, and his own. This persistent, lulling warmth… It’s bewildering. He steps backwards, stiffly, to regain his bearing.

They are not alone. His younger alias is watching them with barely-concealed interest.

Potter’s face falls. He puts a distance between them, as if Voldemort had burned him. Good. That’s how he should be. Afraid. Voldemort’s nails impress indents into the roughened skin of his palm. This bond and its influence on his emotions are an issue. They have an alliance for mere convenience. Nothing more.

“Zacharias Smith, right?” Tom Riddle intones, even voice obscuring his surprise. Potter startles. Eyes going wide at the sudden appearance of Voldemort’s younger self at their side. Voldemort sees the boy blink once, twice. There is a curious flush on Potter’s skin. Is he caught unawares? Did Potter not expect a younger version of himself to immediately jump at the chance to befriend a descendent of Hufflepuff? Burke’s thoughts slow Voldemort’s innate inquisitiveness. He would grit his teeth, and shake his head to rid himself of this… sluggishness, were he alone.

Young Tom Riddle peruses both of them with newfound interest. His eyes are bright. Almost feverish. “I didn’t know you frequented this shop… One might assume that since you are so well acquainted with Mr. Burke, you would also be very well aware of the fact that Mr. Burke works here every single day,” Tom Riddle’s voice does well, to betray neither his curiosity nor his mystification. There are tells only Voldemort himself would likely pick up on. Something about the intonation of his younger self’s interest strikes him as off, though. But what is it exactly?

Voldemort realizes the cause belatedly. He curses his counterpart’s carelessness, and his younger self’s astuteness. As Tom Riddle stalks closer, he does so almost predatorily; with a singular focus on the younger wizard in front of Voldemort. His body suggests itself into Potter’s personal space as he leans against the till almost casually; body carefully controlled with something akin a serpentine grace. Riddle’s eyes are bright with curiosity, examining Potter’s telling stiffening at the proximity. Following Potter’s subsequent, slightly confused glance towards Voldemort with great interest. Head cocked slightly.

Of course, his younger self would pay attention to the ostensible, utterly unprecedented closeness between them.

Burke had extended young Tom Riddle far too many freedoms; small leniencies his younger self had always been quick to exploit. Harry Potter stares at Voldemort’s younger self, wide-eyed, something palpable in his gaze. Riddle has picked up on it, too. Though, in contrast to Voldemort, he seems to understand–. Voldemort racks his brain. Burke’s thoughts yielding to sluggish confusion. Where has he seen this emotion before?

Then, something shutters close in Harry Potter’s usually expressive eyes, and he glowers at Riddle with barely masked contempt. Said emotion is simple for Voldemort to parse. His younger self is tall, next to his would-be enemy, and hollow-cheeked. He smiles down at Potter’s vessel genially, but Voldemort can see the tightness that lingers in the corners of his mouth that divulges his progressing distance from humanity. Voldemort wonders why he can see the tells now, why no one else could. Not even Tom Riddle himself had seen it, then, how the repeated splitting of his soul affected him.

There is an opportunistic greediness in his eyes. It seems as if Riddle has not had much luck in ensnaring Hepzibah Smith yet.

“No matter,” young Riddle smooths over, smiling charmingly with slightly too many teeth. The young man in front of Voldemort stiffens. Green eyes blazing in unconcealed defiance. There is a certain tilt to Potter’s chin that Voldemort hasn’t seen in quite some time. Ah, how interesting to see his arch-nemesis' dislike so freely. How delightfully obvious. Exploitable.

“What can I help you with, Mr. Smith?” Young Riddle asks smoothly, if slightly mechanically, as he focuses on the other young man too intensely.

Potter, predictably, flounders and Voldemort finds himself growing irritated at his counterpart’s lack of cunning. At least Potter eyed avoid his younger self’s probing stare.

“Mr. Smith had inquired about our having specific books concerning a rather delicate matter.” Before Riddle is able to offer his help in searching for the desired literature, Voldemort cuts off his sleek younger self, and directs Potter himself. If only, to make his displeasure at his lack of secrecy known.

After he guides him into a somewhat secluded corner of the shop and takes the necessary privacy precautions, Potter seems appropriately chastised, yet, intriguingly, grateful at Voldemort having ‘saved him’. Voldemort doesn’t even attempt to understand this imbecilic notion.

“So, what’s the plan for this mission?” asks Potter. “What should I do?” His eyes are bright; he’s chewing on his bottom lip – so obvious in his nervousness. No, Voldemort is certain Potter wouldn’t be able to do much good. His younger version would divine their plot immediately.

“It’s most certainly not a mission, Potter,” he grouses. The boy’s eyes widen in genuine surprise before he clamps his mouth shut. The sight of this makes Voldemort feel strange. Sort of sickly. He dismisses it; has more important issues to consider.

The fact is, Voldemort doesn’t know how they are to guarantee success in what Potter persists in calling ‘their mission’. It’s been too long since he has been Tom Riddle himself. He isn’t certain whether it is his vessel’s influence or the number of Horcruxes that separate him from who he used to be, but he no longer relates to his younger self. Said understanding is vital, though – Tom Marvolo Riddle’s motivations had never been the most straightforward, obvious choice. He had always thought in manifold possibilities, had obscured plans within other plans, had alternated hiding what he truly wanted one time, and blatantly revealing his desires, in another.

He needs to watch his younger self. Needs to observe and plot.

One thing he is certain with regards to Riddle’s wishes is, that he wants those artefacts. He remembers quite clearly what they had meant to a young Riddle. That they had symbolized pride and pedigree. And Voldemort finds himself loathe to give them up, too. For a plethora of reasons.

He considers the younger wizard. Neither he nor Potter are born into vessels that have a chance of diverting Riddle’s attention away from the founder’s artefacts in Hepzibah Smith’s possession permanently. The thought, that any version of Voldemort would have ever given up a chance at immortality for any reason, is frankly laughable.

No, any attention towards Potter would inevitably lead Riddle to the artefacts themselves, which would lead to the creation of the Horcrux eventually. Or wouldn’t it? Perhaps he doesn’t need to prevent his younger self from obtaining the objects, but merely from killing Hepzibah Smith. It had been her death that had fuelled the splitting of his soul, after all. He needs to obtain some more reliable sources on time to be sure that this works; needs to develop the necessary Arithmancy. He does not enjoy having to consult Muggle theories, yet he enjoys fumbling about in the metaphorical dark, even less.

It would be a delicate balancing act. But, the way Potter had scorned young Riddle and turned towards him, instead, could be exploitable. Voldemort privately jeers at Potter’s weakness. How easily the boy is manipulated! The thought is heady and pervasive. To misconstrue a truce borne of necessity so easily. It is almost offensive.

Potter’s vivid green eyes are oh-so eager. No. Potter should not be close to his younger version. The boy is far too simple to read, Voldemort decides. Potter would likely stumble into the casting-end of young Riddle’s wand, himself. No. He needs to work solitarily.

When he informs Potter of his plans to do so, the boy refuses. Finally, the mistrust that Voldemort had almost missed in the younger wizard’s countenance rears his head; feebly. Voldemort wants to laugh in delight. He does not, of course. That would be counterproductive. In the end, they agree that Potter will claim to conduct research in the shop, to explain his previous uncharacteristic appearance. He does not think that Potter researching about time, or Death, or why they are here has many merits, but it will keep the boy occupied, nonetheless.

Potter sounds almost threatening, as he eyes Voldemort with lovely, obvious dubiety and claims to ‘keep tabs on him, too’. Amusing.

It works out such that Potter lingers around in the back of the shop, thumbing through tomes on obscure magics. Riddle doesn’t question this outright, but Voldemort can tell that his leniency towards Potter’s “freeloading” mystifies him. Yet, instead of offering his opinion towards his employer, Riddle accepts his decision. Predictably, he attempts to exploit the opportunity to try and catch Potter’s attention. If Riddle weren’t his own younger self, Voldemort would consider it quite amusing to observe – Potter rebuffs him outright and young Riddle’s frustration is palpable.

Their interaction’s dynamic shift though, eventually. Slowly at first – Potter no longer stiffens when his younger self makes a comment and Riddle no longer scrutinizes Potter’s vessel quite so blatantly – and then bafflingly quickly all of a sudden.

One morning, the moment Potter ambles into their shop, Riddle’s notice becomes unerring, unmistakable. Where he might have attempted aimless small-talk with the both of them before, his interest, now, zeroes in on Potter and remains there. Surprisingly, Potter’s behaviour, too, changes. Instead of clipped answers and a cold tone, Potter flushes and practically hides behind his books.

Even more astounding, on another occasion – Voldemort had been out, sourcing an item himself for a change – he enters the shop to find Riddle leaned against the wall, next to the couch that Potter has made his. His younger self’s posture is loose and relaxed – if Voldemort didn’t know better, he’d almost characterize it as slouching – but his gaze’s attentiveness belies that façade. They are conversing in low voices and Riddle leans down, far into Potter’s space, to point out something in the book Potter is reading. His nearness lingers and his mouth curls into an almost-forgotten smile.

Potter stiffens as Voldemort allows the door to fall close audibly. He looks like a deer caught in headlights. Riddle rights himself, too. With a decadent slowness that Voldemort remembers from his younger years; when he had still needed beauty to attract support. Whatever is his younger version doing that for, now? The feeling is queer. Voldemort doesn’t enjoy not comprehending another individual’s emotions. Worse, he remembers a time, when nothing had been easier but to do so; to map someone’s wishes and dreams and aspirations, and draw them up; play them like one would an instrument.

Once more, he curses his vessel for its thought’s sluggishness. He had been right to disregard his former employer, as Riddle does him now. He is missing something about his younger self’s peculiar interest and Potter’s confounding response. Something has shifted between the three of them. He had thought to understand their dynamic well – Riddle was after Potter for his vessel’s familial ties and Potter, while identifying Riddle as ‘the enemy’, had allowed himself to be lulled into a misplaced sense of companionship with Voldemort. It grates on him that he seems to not parse their interactions correctly.

He sends his younger version on a follow-up visitation that he had supposed to have been doing himself.

Potter ambles close eventually. “Voldemort?” he asks, eyes evasive. “I noticed, a few days ago, in the pub that… I wondered, whether–, I just kind of got the feeling that–, I mean I’m only asking because you are kind of my only frame of reference for this time and–,” he cuts himself off once more. Voldemort is about to snap at Potter’s incompetence at articulating a single coherent sentence.

Potter’s eyes flit to his, before he ducks his head once more, flushing. Salazar! What had gotten into the boy?

Potter’s voice is rushed as he says, “I get the feeling that this time is still very homophobic?”

Voldemort stills. He knows he does; knows that it probably does not look natural on the doddery, old Caractacus Burke at all; that this inhuman lack of movement is all he himself. When Potter’s eyes snap up and widen, he forces himself to relax his body, muscle for muscle. It’s not as if the boy could know…

The boy runs his fingers through his hair nervously, as he hurries to add, “I didn’t ask to insult your time, or anything… I had just been, you know, wondering, whether I needed to be careful with my behaviour... It’s not as if Binns taught us these kinds of things, right?” An awkward little laugh to cap that sentence.

Voldemort is a Dark Lord, who has lived on this earth for multiple decades. He has few enemies that aren’t merely annoyances, and even fewer things he fears. Still. Potter, likely unknowing, likely unintentionally, touched the one subject that still makes him uncomfortable to consider. Voldemort holds his breath for a few instances, before he peruses the younger wizard on the other side of the till.

He clears his throat, “While it may be true that Britain’s wizarding community of this time is a little less… accepting of certain lifestyles, I am sure you will be fine, Potter. It is considered absolutely taboo to accuse someone of sodomy… In most distinguished circles these kinds of unpalatable allegations don’t even occur.” His voice is factual; almost clinical.

Potter’s eyes widen once more. A realization settles over his features, that Voldemort, yet again, cannot decipher without the use of Legilimency. And currently, he does not think that he could probe into Potter’s mind without the bond subverting his Occlumency and revealing his own thoughts. Potter looks at him as if he’s seeing him in an entirely new light. He wonders what might have occurred for Potter to ask him such things. An old, familiar dread curdles in his stomach.

He is glad, then, when his younger version strolls back into the shop with deliberate grace, and Potter’s attention is diverted, once more.

There are two instances, which occur in rapid succession to one another, that call into question the somewhat threadbare, tentative truce between Lord Voldemort and Harry Potter. One of them Voldemort merely observes. The other, he instigates, annoyance at their situation and frustration at their lack of progress itching under his skin.

The first one happens, when Riddle tasks Potter with summoning a stack of tomes from across the room. Voldemort and his younger version had unanimously decided to make use of Potter’s presence as the shop’s menial labour force in exchange for his freeloading. Potter had grumbled and glared, but Voldemort had noted with more than a little condescension tinting his amusement, that the tasks Potter was given served to work off some of his pent-up energy. The boy was not suited for stationary tasks, such as reading. Though, in spite of this, his runic designs were improving.

Thus, on this particular day, Riddle and Potter were redecorating. Or rather, young Riddle voiced instructions in a lazy drawl and Potter fulfilled them. This led to Potter complying with the task Riddle had set by, almost mindlessly, flicking his wand. Though instead of summoning the books, they exploded in shreds of paper. Riddle drops the stack of papers that had been in his hand and gapes at the mess Potter had created, first, before examining the shaken wizard with furrowed brows.

“What the hell?” Potter breathes, incredulous.

The Muggle exclamation draws a raised brow from his younger version. Voldemort wants to strangle Potter for his bumbling incompetence. He makes use of Riddle’s preoccupation by wandlessly repairing the battered books. A mere handful show resistance to a simple repair charm.

“You exude plenty magical might to master a simple summoning charm, Zacharias. Hand me your wand! Ashwood and unicorn hair?” Voldemort hears Riddle inquire, testing the wand’s give. Potter’s forehead scrunches as he presumably searches for the memory, before he hums his assent. Voldemort sees Potter giving his wand a dismayed glare. He looks curiously betrayed.

“My wand has been, uh, resisting me recently. No idea why. But this has certainly never happened before…” Potter says. Ah. That explains everything. Voldemort’s younger version seems to think along similar lines, eyebrows climbing and climbing, atypically expressive. He hums contemplatively, and hands the wand back towards Voldemort’s companion. His eyes taking in Potter’s frustrated, and somewhat careless putting away of his wand, with new interest.

Clearly, Potter has little knowledge about what he’s just revealed. Riddle shoots Voldemort’s vessel a portentous look, which Potter catches sight of. Thus, it is no surprise that Potter corners him, as he is about to close the shop, later that same day. “Tell me why Zacharias’ wand resists me!” he demands, eyes thinning in annoyance. “I know you and Riddle know why, and he won’t tell me!”

Why had Potter asked Riddle first, Voldemort wonders distantly? And, why didn’t Riddle tell him the only possible interpretation for Zacharias’ wand no longer working for Potter?

Voldemort is tired. It is almost laughable how strongly the physical wiles of this lowly body affect him. “This might be something you could waste your own time reading about, rather than doing so to mine,” Voldemort responds, rather curtly, before moving towards his home. Unfortunately, Harry Potter does not heed his advice, and, instead, follows him.

Everything within him itches to tell the boy, to ruin him. It would be a delight to see all of the boy’s self-righteous notions tumble like a deck of Muggle cards. Yet, he knows he needs Potter to remain nice and quiet, needs to keep the boy believing that they were pursuing the same goal. He cannot convince Death to let them go if Potter opposes him at every turn.

By the time, Voldemort has reached his, admittedly close-by, apartment, Harry Potter has still not blessed him with his absence. Truly, Gryffindor stubbornness is not a personality trait, it should be considered an affliction, he thinks. “Potter!” he cuts off the younger wizard’s insistence. Snarling, he says, “I had a long day. I want to end it quietly. Preferably without having to see your face.”

It is in moments like these that he almost feels like himself; almost doesn’t feel Burke’s bone-deep tiredness weighing him down. It would be so easy. Merely a little nudge into the right direction and Potter would come to the correct conclusion by himself.

The, by now familiar, stubborn set to Potter’s jaw deepens. “Tell me!” the younger wizard demands. There is a new undercurrent of nervousness in the boy’s frame. By the looks of it, the boy already has an inkling of what it means if a unicorn hair-core wand resists a wizard. That this type of wand-core is a useful conduit only to mostly light-magic aligned wixens. Well, if that is the case… Voldemort will enjoy this.

The opportunity is simply too tempting. He leans in, relishes how the younger wizard’s breath hitches. Oh, how he missed that look on the other’s face. He feels a smile stretching his dry lips far enough for the delicate skin to rip and bleed – surely a grotesque look on Burke’s face. “Ash wands cleave to their one true master. The wixens best suited to them are not lightly swayed from their beliefs,” he begins, enjoying how Harry Potter nearly sags in relief before Voldemort deals the true blow. “But in combination with Unicorn hair… Let’s just say, Harry, dear–,” he near croons, “were I to try it, I could likely not even conjure sparks.”

Voldemort thoroughly enjoys Harry’s face blanching, before the boy disapparates on the spot.

Harry Potter reappears sooner than Voldemort would have liked. He is just setting the table to have dinner in peace, when Potter pushes the door to his meagre kitchen open. He should have put up blood wards to keep the boy out.

“I know what you’re doing! Or rather, what you’re trying to insinuate,” says Harry Potter with Harry Potter-esque defiance.

Voldemort feels his face stretch into a smile at seeing his opposite so affected. He had clearly struck a nerve. “I am not insinuating anything–,” he is appreciative of the boy’s growing grasp on his vocabulary. “We’re not too dissimilar, Harry. Less so, than you’d like to think. That is a fact.”

Would he see the memory of the boy inhabiting Nagini in his 5th year, were he to spy into the boy’s mind, now? He had been transmitted flashes of the boy’s fear of turning dark, back then. Delectable. Or would he see the terror Harry Potter had felt when he, the light side’s Chosen One, realized that he enjoyed violence or the thrum of a duel?

Once more, he is taken aback at just how obvious it had been. Had he had the mind, the patience, to see. Retrospectively, it is almost terrifying that he had not realized the nature of their connection earlier.

“No, we are!” Potter disagrees, very confident; Tempting him to answer; to point out every single, intimate detail he has seen of Potter’s impulses; to pry apart the boy’s self-righteousness layer by layer. He wonders whether Harry Potter is aware that he had not even suggested, much less insisted, on destroying all of his Horcruxes – the sole way to ultimately prevail over him.

The boy must be aware that he is not honestly giving up on his vision merely because Death, whom he had conquered, and an irksome schoolboy, who should have died long ago, decided to challenge him. Potter had spent long enough in his company to know that he was biding his time, at best. The boy showed such a pitiable weakness. What did it say about him, that his morality was compromised so easily, that mere exposure to Voldemort and his ideas relativised his irritating moral compunctions? What might that naïve fool Dumbledore think, if he saw him, now?

Would his former professor be rendered aghast by the seamlessness with which Harry Potter had taken to collaborating with his mortal enemy? Or would he worry more about the ease with which Potter spent time in proximity of charming Tom Riddle? What might Dumbledore think of the strange shift in his younger self’s interactions with Potter? The precise nature of which, Voldemort had yet to categorize.

It is oh, so tempting to voice all of them, but his last thought stops Voldemort. What if–? What if, he might make use of this truly perplexing ease with which young Riddle and Potter took to working in one another’s proximity? He considers the younger wizard once more. Suddenly seeing the opportunity Death has gifted them with new eyes. This idea might have some merit. Harry Potter’s vessel is unremarkable in all but his eyes, that is certainly true, but his position as a familial relation might be exploitable. Perhaps he had been too quick to reject that possible avenue.

He doesn’t know why his younger self would decide to, and had done to an extent, become acquainted with Zacharias Smith. Perhaps Riddle thought that Potter’s vessel was more malleable than his aunt, or he hadn’t had too much luck charming Hepzibah Smith, yet. Voldemort remembers a time in his own younger years, where the Hufflepuff descendant had been tediously paranoid about revealing her collection of artefacts. And then, another, when he had been forced into adopting a truly humiliating farce to please her. He shudders at the mere memory of powdery air, a cluttered room and a monstrous woman that resembled a tent, more than a member of the same species as him.

On second thought, maybe he understands precisely, why his younger self is more than willing to reroute his plans, even if that encapsulates the indirect angle of charming the woman’s nephew.

“You’re staring!” the boy grouses, before he flops down onto a chair next to Voldemort’s dining table, the fight drained out of him by Voldemort’s contemplative silence. “I allowed a version of you, Voldemort, to grow up, when you would have killed me on sight,” he says, a mulish set to his bottom lip. The boy’s uncanny green eyes meet his for but a second, before they skitter away. Voldemort doesn’t deny the claim. Though he wants to pry. The temptation to do so is tugging at his very being, but he makes a decision, instead.

“I said ‘not too dissimilar’, if I remember correctly,” he allows. “Your ability to perform the Unforgivables flawlessly is more than proof of that, Harry–,” He cannot help the slight. Potter’s arms cross, recalcitrant. “– not that you are in any danger of becoming the next Dark Lord. Not that you, or anyone for that matter, could ever surpass me.”

The boy mumbles something too low for Voldemort to hear. It’s no matter. He begins moving once more, and finishes setting the table, now for two people. Potter fails to conceal his surprise, but he accepts the offering of food, nonetheless. Is he aware of his action’s implications, Voldemort wonders? Does he know that he is about to strike a deal with his enemy?

He allows the boy in front of him to eat his dinner in a strange mockery of their past lives, before he steeples his fingers and fixes the boy with a look. Harry Potter notices the shift in the atmosphere immediately, eyes turning wary. “None of that matters, Harry. I can call you Harry, can’t I?” Voldemort asks as if he hadn’t simply taken these liberties before.

The boy’s eyebrows rise in dubiety. He plops a grape into his mouth. “Sure thing, Vee,” he says. The monster within Voldemort rages at the boy’s insolence. He wants to–. He reins in the urge forcibly, and instead paints a collegial smile onto his features. The scabbed-over split in his lip begins bleeding once more.

And so it happens, with the taste of copper on his tongue, that they agree to a plan. Voldemort even lowers himself to calling it a mission – a concession that makes Harry Potter beam gratingly.

As offensively hare-brained, as Potter’s proposal of simply stealing the locket from his vessel’s aunt and giving it to Tom Riddle is, Lord Voldemort is able to accredit him some foresight. Initially, Potter stares at him as if he’d grown three heads overnight. “Riddle, uh, your younger self would never believe me, if I simply handed him the locket to him or pretended to not know its’ true value,” he says.

Voldemort considers that, trying to empathize with how his younger self might have thought. “But if I brought the locket to his attention and your ability to… obtain it,” Voldemort conjectures, “– you might have to simply pretend to be sufficiently susceptible by his subsequent attempts at friendship.” He ignores Potter’s oddly-timed clearing of his throat.

Yes. He can envision his younger self attempting to garner his heirloom this way. The more he thinks about it, the clearer the image becomes – Tom Riddle had likely already garnered that Potter was alone in this time, that he was in need of a good friend. Well. That precise thought might not have occurred to him, but he can’t imagine Riddle having missed how much time Potter’s vessel spent in the shop, and not in the company of similar age. If he were in Riddle’s position it would be too easy a decision to befriend the lone boy and… dispossess him of the artefacts. This way, a version of Voldemort would be in the possession of them and able to turn them into Horcruxes once more, after finishing this game with Death.

“Bloody brilliant!” Potter exclaims fervently, “His ego would be stoked just enough for it to be believable to him, to you–, er, well, to young Riddle.”

Well. He wouldn’t have phrased it like that. But, yes. Voldemort can appreciate cunning in anyone. Not that he would ever verbalize such a compliment without ulterior designs.

The boy casts a Tempus and grimaces, before he licks his lips nervously. “Okay, I suppose I should pay my aunt a visit then, shouldn’t I? Tomorrow,” he asks, cringing.

Good boy. Voldemort flashes him a winning smile that feels strange on stiff features. Potter looks thoroughly disquieted. “Obtain only the locket,” Voldemort says, gesturing at his own vessel, “Burke merely knew of her possession of that particular artefact–.” And, though the loss of the other smarts, the Slytherin heirloom is the truly important one, he thinks. “Do you know where it is?”

The flushed look of disquiet he receives in answer, is explained by a mumbled revelation about a Pensieve and Hokey’s memories. Ah, the house-elf, he remembers distantly, the one he had framed. The memories are vague, misty. He must have deemed that character unimportant in the grander plot in younger years, for him to have forgotten. Irritation sparks within him at the violation of his privacy at the hand of Albus Dumbledore, but he maintains control of himself.

The man is dead. No reason to hold a grudge any longer… Though he can’t help but wonder gleefully, if the man’s spotless reputation had been tainted by his possession of him, and his subsequent attack of his former professor’s brother. That thought allows for a modicum of satisfaction to smother his immediate thirst for retribution.

“Wait, how do I, you know, get it? All while making sure Hepzibah doesn’t realize that it’s gone?” Potter asks, frowning. A myriad of delightful ways to make that happen flash through Voldemort’s mind, though many of them are likely far too advanced and too magically complicated for young Harry to even conceive of. Not to mention firmly part of the Dark Arts.

Some of his joviality must show on his face, since Potter’s vessel’s face scrunches up amusingly. The urge to tempt the young wizard draws him out of his vessel’s lethargy, he licks his front teeth and grins by approximation. Prior anger still fuelling his actions. “A few well-placed Obliviates might go a long way…” he suggests, reaching over the table and lifting the younger wizard’s chin to see the full extent of the boy’s outrage.

He ignores the now familiar warmth blooming, and enjoys the way the boy’s eyes lid slightly, before he is indignantly jerking his chin out of Voldemort’s grasp. “I’m sure they taught you plenty of useful things in school, Golden Boy,” he taunts and stands. “Clear the table. We will reconvene once you have my locket,” he says and leaves Harry Potter’s spluttering vessel behind, satisfied.

It goes far better than expected, although the boy grouches and grimaces and complains over his suggested methods. The boy glares at him for three days until, on the fourth, he turns up at Voldemort’s apartment with the item heavy in his pockets. He did well; behaved very Slytherin. Voldemort tells him so and enjoys both Harry’s shame and indignation. His corruption is a beautiful fall to watch.

Voldemort places a steaming cup of black tea into Potter’s line of sight. The boy is staring at the alluring item in the middle of the table, catching all of his apartment’s dim light, as if it offended him. It is almost surreal to see the item once more; to feel the slightly dented gold and to trace the emerald-studded front. Voldemort, instinctively, listens out for the faint throb of his soul shard’s pulse. Of course, his younger version has not yet made this particular Horcrux yet, so there is nothing to feel. How had he never realized the negligence with which he had handled his Horcruxes, before?

Looking back up, he finds Harry Potter’s unsettling shade of green-eyed stare fixed on him. Potter’s expression is unreadable. He is tempted to try and suss out the boy’s surface emotions via Legilimency. Though that would likely violate some of the boy’s pretty delusions of privacy and respect. And that would probably not be very conducive to Potter agreeing to work with him. “I don’t think I will ever understand why you are so doggedly obsessed with your ancestry,” says the boy as his attention falls away.

The boy’s tone had not been indicative of a question, likely aware, that Voldemort would do quite a few things before it would even occur to him to reveal something about his own psyche. The words bring back memories he had been convinced he had forgotten. Some of which he had wanted to forget. He thinks of other children being chosen for adoptions and of himself, being better than them all; he remembers a younger self in used robes, and a House that cared more for pedigree than talent. Well. Until he was sorted into it, at least.

Voldemort returns the item back to its spot in the centre of his dining table. “Take it. It is meaningless to me, now,” he says and even that feels like a grand admission. Though the statement rings true; this heritage no longer feels inalienable from his identity, and the item must find its way into Riddle’s hands more than it needs to reside in his own. Strangely enough, he knows that Potter would not betray this thin sliver of self extended. This realization is momentarily arresting.

The boy slips it into his pocket wordlessly and sips his tea, as Voldemort sips his own. Potter’s face looks ponderous. It is a rare look on him. Then he grimaces, mind returning to his body, “Do you mind if I prepare dinner? I prefer to take my tea with some food and milk, if I’m honest.” The boy has already risen to stand, “’s too bitter, otherwise,” and begun to set the table. Harry Potter doesn’t wait for Voldemort’s permission. Voldemort sits, staring at the empty space left behind by something, that meant everything to a former version of himself.

He wonders why the boy’s presumptiveness doesn’t anger him. Burke’s thoughts are slow with leniency. After they’re done, he cleans the table, distantly considering that he might have just inadvertently passed one of Potter’s own tests.

A few days later, Voldemort invites Riddle into the same space, in which he has spent his recent evenings with Potter. The pretext being that Riddle had successfully obtained, or more accurately pilfered, an artefact that had been especially difficult to access. The space feels different when there are different people inhabiting it. Perhaps it’s a change in light, or a change in temperature. The room feels less warm, somehow; the dining table seems empty.

Voldemort isn’t certain why this is something Burke’s mind would notice, for he is sure that such sentimentalities would never occur to himself. Such a notion seems alien to him. He can tell Riddle would much rather be anywhere than in Burke’s apartment, but he joins his employer, donning a thin veneer of companionability.

Over a celebratory bottle of wine, which he despises the taste of, he tells young Riddle of their mother’s selling the Slytherin locket to his vessel. He doesn’t mention her name, of course, and is less crude than Burke would have been. Although he has little compassion for young Riddle, it still sits ill with him to besmirch his only direct blood-relation to the wizarding world. He tells him of then selling it to Hepzibah Smith. Riddle, of course, had heard of unreliable rumours of the woman having obtained the Slytherin locket, but as Voldemort inadvertently confirms it, he sees his younger self’s fury and greed.

He can see how Riddle, how he himself might have once felt this way. But he simply does not, now. He is more than merely his heritage, more than a weakened ancestry of inbred half-squibs, that he had leaned on to be valued in Pure-blood circles.

It is more than that though. As Voldemort watches his younger self’s inhuman rage crack his mask of geniality open, it is with academic curiosity. It is sobering, how he merely feels a faint echo of these emotions, himself. Voldemort has to finally acknowledge, just how splitting his soul has crippled him.

He finds himself briefly wondering what Potter’s reaction to Riddle’s behaviour now might be. For certain, the boy would display his personal brand of righteous indignation at Voldemort’s methods, he thinks, and be very reluctant in acknowledging his appreciation of their mission’s success. He pictures the boy’s upset at seeing Riddle’s near-animalistic rage. It would be a moment to savour. He hides his satisfied smirk behind the wine glass.

Young Tom Riddle leaves him soon, thereafter; regards him with what might be new-found esteem. Voldemort smothers his derision. “I wondered about the true reason, for keeping that little menace close,” his younger version says, as he is about to leave. There is something off about his younger self’s phrasing, that Voldemort chews on for a moment, before dismissing it. It feels a shade less distasteful than he might’ve expected.

This strange thought notwithstanding, Voldemort feigns surprise at Riddle wanting to regain an item that the shop had sold previously. “Surely you are suspecting, sir, of the true nature of this locket,” Riddle says, all smooth charisma. “And as such, it is invaluable. Anyone would only benefit from… possessing it.” Voldemort allows the dark grin, now, which Riddle returns, unaware, that it’s not Zacharias Smith, who is being duped.

Voldemort is pleased with the developments – Tom Riddle had been obvious in his plan to ingratiate himself with Harry Potter’s vessel. He suspects that the attempts at amicability he’d seen from his younger self had been with the ultimate goal, of obtaining Hufflepuff’s cup through the boy, in mind. Thus, it hadn’t been difficult at all to hint at the possibility of Riddle doing the same and obtaining the locket, in addition to the cup, by confirming to him Smith’s possession of the artefact. He goes to bed, satisfied.

On the following day, it takes a surprisingly long duration of time until Riddle shows any intention of enacting his plan. Harry Potter ambles into the shop around mid-morning, grabs the tome he had been reading with less care than one should, when handling such a valuable item, and flops himself onto the couch in his corner. Only later, when Riddle’s shift is about to end, something happens that could be considered out of the norm.

A young man of similar age to Riddle, Voldemort faintly remembers him to have been a friend of his, though he fails to recall the boy’s name, stops by the store. To his utter bafflement, the young man’s eyes show recognition when he spies Harry Potter’s form. “Smith!” he greets Voldemort’s mortal enemy genially and asks, “Have you seen Riddle? We were meant to spend the evening at the Leaky.”

It takes Harry to greet the man back, for Voldemort to recall the wizard’s name – Mulciber. Jonathan Mulciber! One of his year mates, and a member of his following when they had still called themselves Knights of Walpurgis. The reminder of how many details he has forgotten is cold, harrowing. Harry’s face, in contrast, is sunny as he closes the book he had been reading with a satisfied sigh, places it next to the couch carelessly, and strolls towards Riddle’s associate.

“Nah,” Harry says, stretching his neck. His choice of words is informal. “He’s still out. Probably schmoozing someone’s chattels out of their pockets, you know how it is.” The two of them share a chuckle that screams of familiarity. How in Salazar’s name did Mulciber come to know Harry Potter?

His younger self enters the shop, cleaning his fingers with a cloth, covered in suspicious stains. Voldemort sees his younger version’s face soften into something a little less disgusted with his environment as he takes in the room’s occupants. “Ah, Mulciber,” Riddle says, clearly pleased to see his friend already waiting for him. Voldemort himself is only given a straight-faced nod, that maybe lingers at the end, but Riddle steps into the circle that Mulciber and Potter’s vessel have inadvertently formed. “Zacharias,” he greets finally; rests a hand on Harry’s shoulder.

His perspective offers Voldemort an excellent view of Mulciber’s rising brows – a rather obvious indication that he is not the sole person surprised by his younger self’s weighty warmth and implicit intimacy. To Voldemort’s further bafflement, Potter doesn’t shy away, doesn’t rebuff Riddle, as if such obvious haptic contact were a common occurrence when it came to Tom Riddle.

“Mulciber and I were planning on going out for a pint, Zacharias, fancy joining us?” Riddle asks with the ease of someone, who wasn’t far too tactile with a fellow adult of the same gender, for polite company. Harry assents and the three of them leave the shop leaving a bewildered Voldemort behind, though not without nodding him goodbye.

This is only the first instance that causes Voldemort to consider, privately, that he might have miscalculated.

The next day, Harry is in the shop, again. When Voldemort sees his younger self’s incredulous and then ill-concealed thrilled expression, he realizes that something must have occurred without him having been aware of it. A lesser wizard might not have noticed the subtle shift between the impersonal sleazy charm, his younger self usually employed to captivate everyone surrounding him, to the directed approach he used on Potter, now.

Though, Voldemort has forgotten a lot about his younger self, this, he recognizes. What surprises him is the readiness with which his younger version resorts to–, well, coquetry, to reach his goal. It is with more than a little mortification that he sees his younger self taking the meaning of the word ingratiate a little too far. He would have expected something less shameless. Although, then he remembers how he obtained the Hogwarts’ founders’ heirlooms, initially, and is forced to concede that he should have perhaps seen such an approach coming. Voldemort would be more appalled, if he wasn’t so disappointed at his younger self’s lack of suaveness.

This dance goes on for a few days. Harry Potter appears to try his best to evade Riddle’s less than inconspicuously intrusive, personal questions. He is flicking through dusty old tomes at a speed that reveals just how little focus he directs at the texts.

Young Riddle is almost sprawled on the sofa beside the stiff-postured young man and leans into his space, sporadically, to comment on specific passages Potter is reading, or murmur things into his ears. Potter flinches. There is an easy grin to Riddle’s expression; something disconcerting and confident. He doesn’t appear bothered at all by Harry’s obvious discomfort.

Voldemort doesn’t know how to feel about his younger self’s antics and thus, tries to ignore them for the most part. The slow nature of his vessel’s thoughts aiding him. Though, this day, Riddle’s proximity is too conspicuous to ignore. His younger self’s arm is thrown across the sofa’s backrest in a manner too casual for it to have been truly accidental. Voldemort, who is busy manning the till too far away, cannot decipher what is spoken in low voices, but he does see Riddle’s fingers brushing against Potter’s neck momentarily. His younger self’s eyes meet his for a moment, and he leans far into Potter’s space and murmurs something into Harry’s ears.

Verdant eyes meet his, before Harry Potter snaps the book shut and glares at Riddle. He stands decisively – Riddle’s hand falls back unto the cushion, as if its strings were cut – his ears red. Harry stomps over towards him and slams the book down on the counter with more force than necessary.

There is a rush of something that closes off Voldemort’s throat for a moment. If he didn’t know better, he might have called that something apprehension. That thought is laughable, though. “I’m leaving, before I strangle him,” Harry grinds out between clenched teeth, and then, just low enough for Riddle not to hear, “Keep this for me, Vee?”

Then he stomps out, hands shoved deep into the pockets of the Muggle jeans underneath his wonky robes and Voldemort is taken aback by his own relief. Relief of what? Voldemort catches sight of his younger self once more. He is staring at the space left by Harry’s exiting the store strangely–, strangely fond? Voldemort is near certain he is misinterpreting. He must be.

Riddle’s face goes through a myriad of complicated emotions before his eyes settle at Voldemort’s vessel. Something like contempt briefly flickers in his otherwise calm eyes.

Then, the young wizard stands abruptly and strides towards the door with all of his youthful grace. Sometimes Voldemort almost misses his younger self’s body. If only for its’ ability to charm. No matter how queerly he has put it to use, recently. There is something to be said about his own ability to inspire awe and fear with a simple glance, though.

Riddle stops at the door, “I’ll be back tomorrow,” he says before he shoots his employer a carefully blank glance as well, and hurries after the retreating figure.

Voldemort in Caractacus Burke’s body resigns himself to a longer time imprisoned in this ageing body as he closes the shop and makes for his apartment. The combination of Riddle’s almost offensive pursuing and Harry’s stubborn resistance, makes it unlikely that Riddle could ever be convinced, that Harry did not have an ulterior motive.

It appears less and less likely that his younger self will acquire the locket, without him killing anyone and thus inadvertently creating the Horcrux they wanted to prevent from forming. Upon arriving at his vessel’s home, he notices once more, how empty it is. How much longer will he have to participate in this irritating game? How long until Death allows him to leave this body behind? He sighs, dusty air scraping along his dry throat. Even though he has lived through this time once before, it feels very dissonant to his current sense of self.

Dismissing his melancholy, he makes himself a tea and settles down to read the tome Harry had so callously treated before. In his slightly dingy kitchen, he loses track of time.

It may have been a few hours later, the black of the evening had already swallowed up the dying sun, when he hears frantic knocking on his apartment’s door. He opens it to reveal a bright-eyed Potter, his hair mussed, and a ridiculously big grin stretched too far across his face.

“Mission successful!” he says excitedly, eyes latching onto Voldemort. Surprise courses through him. Impossibly, the smile widens further. “He has the locket, Vee, he has gotten it! No one was killed and I’m pretty sure he is not even suspicious!”

Stunned, Voldemort gestures him inside his kitchen, and the young man paces across the small space. “The prat–, er, sorry, Riddle followed me to my apartment…” To say Voldemort is baffled by this turn of events, is an understatement. Voldemort admits himself to be mildly impressed. “– and I just left it out in the open in obvious disregard,” there is a hesitation in his words and an evasiveness in his gaze that make Voldemort think that Potter is not quite telling the full truth.

Wait. Dread slows his blood.

No.

He must be wrong. Riddle did not acknowledge his–.

And Potter–! Never. He dismisses the thought.

This was Harry Potter they were talking about. Hogwarts Golden Boy and saviour of the Light side. His, and by extension, Tom Riddle’s mortal enemy…

“He just took it and snuck away! I mean, yes, bad manners, but can you believe it?” Harry states the comment on his younger self’s manners with a furrow in his brows to show distaste, but his forehead smooths again.

He doesn’t allow for much time to question him on the specifics, which Voldemort notices of course, but permits for now. If only because he believes they will wake up in the space in between soon and he can simply fish for the unmodified memories, then.

The young man prepares dinner for the both of them, as he had been wont to do since their last incarnations. As usual, Voldemort aids by making tea. Sitting in his dingy kitchen across from Harry, who is chatting excitedly, Voldemort allows for his gaze to wander across the surfaces that had become his over the past few months. The boy across from him is bathed in the warm light of the old-fashioned lamp hanging from the ceiling. He realizes that this is likely their last night in these vessels, and somehow this makes him feel strange. He dismisses the latter thought. This must yet again be one of his vessel’s sentiments.

Harry agrees, though he inexplicably seems to quiet at the thought of leaving this particular vessel. Voldemort has no such qualms and doesn’t care much for Harry’s incorrigible fancies. “We should prevent the creation of the Ring-Horcrux, next,” he muses as Harry stares out of the window.

He seems lost, far away in his thoughts. His face appears strangely melancholy. It’s a disconcerting look on the youth, Voldemort thinks, he is too used to intense emotion on this particular face. Shortly before he falls asleep, Voldemort wonders when an evening spent with his arch-nemesis had become so familiar it implied a routine.

A routine meant allowing someone else so far into one’s day to day that he noticed details about them. Voldemort had never been personal with anyone else. The closest having been his most loyal Death Eaters who could perhaps claim they knew his tells when his anger became fury. Never like this, though. The thought sat peculiarly with him.

When Harry opens his eyes to the endless white again, there is a second, where he sees Voldemort stagger. He wonders why but for an instance, before he is hit, too. An intense, pleasurable warmth blooms inside his head, viciously, spreads into every recess of his self, drags him under.

A barrage of emotions floods through him. He is vaguely astounded by the sheer amount of feelings he can experience, by the multifacetedness of his impressions. There are memories! A wave of memories that he had thought forgotten, deemed unimportant, had lost.

He sees a few snippets of himself and… his younger self? Sitting side by side, too close, in a bar. A carousel of mild contempt, pity… and arousal pulling him along. For a second, he allows himself to ride the tide of these sensations. The scent of Riddle’s skin. The warm press of an arm against another.

Harry feels a weirdly out of body coolness of air scraping along a throat that is not his.

Shite.

Harry forces a ragged breath into his own lungs. The lines between their two consciousnesses are blurred. He does not know when he ends, and Voldemort begins.

The press of a bookshelf between his shoulder blades. Flushed cheeks. A stack of papers, the Locket. Riddle’s greedy gaze.

Harry wrenches himself away from Voldemort’s mind. “Vee!” he chokes out. There is a coolness of sweat on his own brow that he can feel now. That seems to be the trigger, necessary to shake the other man out of his reverie, too. Harry feels the man’s Occlumency shields coming down almost like a physical sensation. The cut-off of that embarrassing feedback between their minds feels like abrupt radio-silence. There is not even a trickle of bleed-through seeping through.

The next thought that is distinctly Harry’s own is ‘Whoa.’ Voldemort looks noticeably changed. More human somehow. ‘Is that a nose?’

With his slightly softened features, Voldemort looks closer than ever to the version of Tom Riddle they had just left behind.

Shite.

Riddle. Voldemort had seen the memories.

Mortification is white and hot. Harry’s stomach tightens with dread and his face feels heated with what is likely a very noticeable flush.

Voldemort stares at him almost comically blank.

“It worked! You got some of your soul shards back, Vee,” Harry tries – an obvious distraction.

He can see Voldemort’s face transforming as the realization sets in. There is a faint widening of his eyes. He looks incredulous. Merlin! He had really not guessed it then, had he? Then, a twitch around his mouth that could be either displeasure or derision, before it quite palpably settles on mockery.

Harry flounders. How does he explain this?

How does he explain that the Riddle they had met in Borgin and Burke’s had been so far removed from the man across from him, it had been too easy to pretend that he was just a pretty face? That he had been more than aware that Riddle had been manipulating him, just as much as he had been manipulating Riddle in turn and that really, he had just been doing his job?

Luckily, Death appears before he has the chance to subject himself to Voldemort’s scoffing, and with it, that faint sense of coldness that Death always seems to bring.

Harry suggests they get reincarnated quite quickly, and Voldemort seems willing to drop the subject for now. His blood-red eyes are bright with curiosity, scorn and something else that Harry can’t quite parse. They promise a return to the subject at hand, eventually.

Finally, after far too much time in the space in between for comfort and the ever-present threat of Voldemort combing through Harry’s thoughts, Death agrees to sending them into the appropriate time to prevent the Ring-Horcrux.

Chapter Text

When Harry opens his eyes again, she finds a familiar pair of green eyes staring back at her. Apart from that, nothing about her exterior reminds her of what her true self looks like.

Neither the act of the incarnation itself nor the flood of memories becomes easier, with each time she lives through them. She can discern from his vessel’s memories, that Harry is inhabiting the body of Mary Riddle, Voldemort’s grandmother. The sharp intake of breath behind her alerts her to Voldemort inhabiting… Thomas Riddle, her husband.

Harry’s vessel was apparently in the process of applying some lipstick with her husband watching her get ready for the day. As his eyes open, Voldemort’s rigidity bleeds into the casual familiarity that had been her husband’s posture before.

Harry watches him through the mirror. Superficially, there is extraordinarily little of Tom Riddle’s in his grandfather. Her husband’s hair is a greying sandy blonde, shorn at the sides and parted off-centre almost militarily, endowing him with an air of sternness. His eyes are a cool blue. Both she and her husband are tall – a trait that is also found in Tom Riddle – so it’s difficult to say, whom he takes after more.

The longer Harry allows herself to observe, the more similarities she finds, though. Thomas Riddle’s features resemble his grandchild’s faintly. The high cheekbones, the aristocratic nose, the bow to his slightly uneven lips – the bottom fuller than the top. They are almost too young to be grandparents, both somewhere between 35 and 45, Harry guesses. Harry curses the deity that deemed it fair to bestow such beauty on the Riddle line. Thomas Riddle looks distinguished.

That thought almost makes Harry blush. Voldemort’s gaze finds Harry’s and the quirk in his brow is achingly familiar. So is his sneer, “Muggles,” distaste clear in his features.

Harry sighs exasperated. She feels her magic core still, Voldemort shouldn’t complain. Just as they did the last time, they inhabited nonmagical vessels, their magic seems to be such an intrinsic part of who they are, it manifests with them. And Voldemort is more than capable of accessing it, even when lacking a wand. As it stands, all they must do is pretend not to possess magic.

Harry’s focus returns to the woman staring back at her. It is increasingly strange to think of herself as male, Harry realizes. Harry’s vessel’s thoughts are combining with his own self of sense to create something new. The pronoun she is so ingrained in Harry’s vessel’s sense of self, Harry feels it to be fitting even as they share consciousnesses. It is alienating in some ways and fitting in others.

She looks at herself for a few long moments. Riddle’s colouring is obviously passed down through her. Her short bob is artfully coiffed, curled in a style Harry knows he’ll never be able to replicate. A glossy deep brown, the shade so like Tom’s own, it is distracting. Their similarity is disrupted by her starkly green eyes, peering out through soot-coloured, long lashes. Harry almost finds herself mourning the deep grey irises her memories tell her, this vessel had had.

“We’re his… your grandparents…” Harry says, turning to face her husband. Death certainly has a strange sense of propriety.

“Good morning, dear wife,” Voldemort responds, a sardonic grin gracing his features. “Femininity suits you, Harry.” Voldemort’s slightly leering gaze trails down her figure, before they snap back to her eyes.

“Pfff…” Harry responds eloquently, refusing to squirm under the scrutiny. This. Is weird. “I’m your grandmother,” she scrunches up her nose. “This is really just an elaborate compliment to your own genes, isn’t it, Vee?”

Voldemort’s smirk widens, though it loses some of its mean edge. Harry knew it. Any version of Voldemort, he had so far had the pleasure of knowing, danced the line between pride and narcissism as if it were an achievement to land on the latter side of it. The thought does not come to Harry without that damnable tinge of fondness. The man huffs a laugh.

“What is the date?” she asks instead, twisting back towards the mirror to carefully dab some of the blackened crimson onto her lips. “We’re still alive… Sometime before I end the Riddles, I suppose,” Voldemort replies evenly, settling back unto his hands, unabashed gaze unwaveringly on Harry. Right. Harry supposes this particular murder streak would be the thing they should avoid from happening.

They ascertain that the date is a mere few weeks before Tom Riddle is scheduled to make an appearance in Little Hangleton, leaving a trail of corpses in his wake.

There is a wild glint in Voldemort’s vessel’s eye when he tells her that he plans to go visit Morfin Gaunt. Tom’s uncle. The expression is startlingly unfamiliar to Harry’s vessel, but intimately known to Harry. They head down towards the village and the Gaunt house, the balmy, midday, summer air contrasting with Voldemort’s frigid posture. A frown is permanently etched into his handsome features.

Harry had had to coax Voldemort into allowing her to accompany him. She had insisted, wary of the things the unpredictable man would do when faced with his uncle. To assuage him, she had admitted that she already knew what would await them, from Dumbledore’s memories in the Pensieve, which in turn had sent Voldemort into a typical, if unpredicted, fit of rage. Harry hadn’t known the man would react this way. She had already told him, a reincarnation prior, that Dumbledore had shown her memories of Tom and Hepzibah Smith, after all.

Voldemort still hadn’t calmed down completely, his fists balled and his stride long enough, to force Harry to hurry to keep up. She should have known he would not react kindly to Dumbledore’s sharing of these particular memories. She should have guessed that they were specially guarded by Voldemort, even if the man himself wasn’t aware of his own protectiveness towards them.

She cringes a little recalling how they had discussed what they had seen; how the elderly man had passed judgement so easily. How Harry, himself, had been outraged at young Tom Riddle framing his only uncle for a murder he himself had committed.

Now, she thinks she might pity Voldemort a little. Harry, having been told all her life by everyone that counted that her parents had been positively heroic in their fight against Voldemort, had never been disappointed in her ancestors. And while she places less value in lineage than Voldemort clearly did, she doesn’t know how she would have reacted in his stead.

The house is as decrepit as Harry remembers. The snake she had seen in the memories, though, is no longer nailed to the front door. The nail is slightly off-centre on the wooden door. It must’ve rotten off, then. The thought turns Harry’s stomach a little. “Wait!” She grabs her husband’s, well, Voldemort’s, arm and forces him to a stop.

His thinned lips are the only obvious tell of the anger that Harry is unable to clearly discern in her opposite’s eyes. If Harry weren’t able to almost taste Voldemort’s magical signature, she might have been fooled by his deceptively calm exterior. As it stands, she is intimately acquainted with the way his posture is deceivingly languid, yet aggressive; ready to strike. For a moment, she doesn’t know where that certainty comes from; how she tastes his imminent anger like tar in the air.

Then, she remembers; is able to successfully distinguish his from hers. Harry, not the vessel, has seen Voldemort like this. His propensity for violence cloaked in deliberate looseness; in opposition to him. Her heart flutters nervously at the familiar sight. His almost tangible strength draws her in, as much as it is terrifying. Or perhaps, it is simply the thought that in this case, Voldemort’s fury is not directed at Harry, primarily.

She asks, “He will attack us, won’t he?” her voice not as even as it could be, even though Morfin Gaunt is the last person she is truly afraid of. It’s the breadth of possibility she feels pouring from her companion in noxious waves of dark magic.

A sneer is all the response Voldemort offers before he glides free of her again. His movement is smooth, almost animalistic in anger; the muscles in his jaw jumping, as he twists back towards the door, decisively.

Then, he hesitates for a fraction of a second; doesn’t look at her. “Maybe you should wait outside,” Voldemort’s voice promises darkness as he steps towards the door and pushes it open without flourish.

It’s merely a suggestion, and thus, Harry decides to ignore it.

She can hear a confused bellow before she steps into the room behind Voldemort. In contrast to the memory in the Pensieve, Morfin doesn’t attack them immediately, likely because he doesn’t recognize them instantly.

Then he does. His wand and a knife are drawn, his footing is unsure. He seems drunk now, too. Morfin’s wand hand points at them unwaveringly, though.

Voldemort doesn’t react, doesn’t flinch at the threat. Not that Harry would have expected anything less. They are wandless, though, and thus technically vulnerable, Harry thinks. The man’s volatile gaze is focussed unerringly on his uncle, disgust obvious. His boiling fury giving way to obvious loathing.

Morfin’s rage transforms into an off-kilter, rather sloppy smile, a few seconds before a spray of red leaves his wand. Distantly, Harry thinks that neither the aim nor the pronunciation of his stunning charm is well performed, allowing the both of them to evenly step out of harm’s way.

Voldemort’s frown hardens to hatred and Harry can tell he will counter-attack, from the way his magic almost congeals around him in a cloud of black. His face promises him to be merciless.

Harry’s heart rate elevates abruptly and her Protego to shield the staggering Morfin is performed, before she has made the executive decision to do so.

“Stop!” Harry chokes out. Her shield wavers as Voldemort’s green spell batters against it. Miraculously, it remains intact. She steps between them, ignoring the flummoxed wizard behind him. Her pulse is rushing in her ears. Voldemort looks like he doesn’t recognize her for a moment before his eyes focus on Harry in surprise and then, again, rage.

“Step aside, Harry,” he growls out, lowly, the threat clear.

A weak jinx hits Harry’s shield from behind, which separates Morfin from both Voldemort and Harry. Apparently, he has finally gathered his wits, which is annoying, but ultimately not threatening.

“Step aside, Harry,” Voldemort bites out, once more, impatience fanning his wrath, “I will kill him, and we both know that I have more control over my magic than you do. So, do us both a favour and step aside!” Voldemort has more restraint than Harry would have accredited him. Her pulse is pounding in her ears. What to do now? She clearly hadn’t thought this through. With every passing moment, Voldemort looks more and more willing to simply off her, to get to his uncle.

The slurs stemming from Morfin go ignored by both of them.

When Morfin hits her shield with an Avada Kedavra of his own, though, weak as it might be, Harry’s deliberation is cut short, abruptly. Her patience snaps. She turns in annoyance and drops the shield, a mere fraction of an instance before she stuns Voldemort’s uncle. The spell is woefully overpowered. Morfin’s slackening body flies through the room and crashes against the back wall in a sickening crunch.

Er, right. Voldemort appears to have been correct in his assessment of her control. Harry twists back, both angry and sheepish.

The man’s face is unreadable, though the rage has noticeably dimmed. There might even be a hint of a terrible smile tugging on the left corner of his mouth. “You could have just said you wanted to play with him a little, before I kill him,” Voldemort almost croons and steps closer towards her and the body; eyes alight with cold intent.

Harry suppresses her full-body shiver. This Voldemort she knows. She had almost forgotten he existed underneath the layers of his previous incarnations. Some part of Voldemort enjoys this; revels in what he considers just retribution. “Stop. Please,” she repeats again, placing her hand on his chest softly to stop his advance when he is about to step past her. Voldemort looks down at her in irritation. Harry’s heart is in her throat. Why would she think that he would ever consider her opinion in this? Why is this terrible feeling constricting her chest in expectation that–, that?

 “This is not your family matter, Potter. Don’t debate me on this.” Potter. She hadn’t been aware he had taken to calling her by her first name until now. There is a finality in his voice that makes Harry acquiesce.

Strangely enough, she genuinely feels both disappointed and saddened by Voldemort’s adherence to his vicious anger, so different than he had been as the somewhat mellow Mr. Burke, or the sly toddler, he had impersonated previously. Though, really, she should have known; should have known that the Voldemort she had fought against, the one that was vicious and unhinged, was still very much part of the man that she had spent the last months with.

Suddenly it’s hard to meet the other man’s eyes. Harry feels a little sick at how susceptible she still is to his manipulation.

Voldemort shoots her another unreadable glance before he steps around Harry and crouches down in front of the body.

Nothing happens for a few moments, then, “It would avoid Riddle’s disappointment and his discovery of his… my father’s family.”

Voldemort’s voice is factual and Harry’s heart aches. In spite of her knowledge that Voldemort has not done much to earn her compassion, Harry can’t help it. “It would prevent the creation of the second Horcrux,” Voldemort says.

Hope claws at her chest with renewed seductive sweetness. And Harry... Harry finds herself wanting to give into it. Maybe that is the most damning thing about this whole situation. She curses her hero-complex. The temptation of redemption.

Harry sighs defeatedly – whether at her own foolishness, or his, she doesn’t know – and steps closer, not refuting the truth of his statements. She places a hand on Thomas Riddle’s shoulder. Voldemort tenses underneath her hand, before he relaxes again. She can never forgive him for what he’s done to her or to the entire wizarding world. But maybe she can offer something else to this man. This man, who chooses to stay his hand this very second. Because she asked him to.

Voldemort’s face is stony. “There might be another way.” Harry doesn’t say whether her way is better or worse. Because frankly, she doesn’t know.

But she knows that Morfin, Voldemort’s last living magical relative, doesn’t have to die and that, maybe, it is kinder this way.

She doesn’t know whether Voldemort is capable of such kindness. And so, Harry leaves the two men behind and steps outside the stiflingly dark house and chooses to offer acceptance of this choice. Only this choice. Regardless, of what side Voldemort chooses to land on.

The air outside is bright with summer. Cicadas are chirping in the unkempt lawn in front of the small run-down shack that belongs to the Gaunts. She breathes deeply. And once more, when it doesn’t work fully. This isn’t her fight. And Voldemort had been right. It’s not even her family. But she thinks that, maybe, she could forgive herself, if she made Voldemort her problem. Not that he deserves it. But Harry knows that she is likely already in too deep, anyway, to make her not hold out hope for him.

A long while later, Voldemort joins her.

“You’re incorrigible,” he sneers, though it lacks his usual venom. Something within Harry seizes at the sight.

In his long, elegant hands, he carries a short, slightly bent wand. Morfin’s. Harry peers inside the shaded house. Morfin is still on the ground, yet there is faint movement in his chest and his eyes are glazed over, unfocused.

Voldemort hasn’t killed him.

He almost certainly delved into his mind, though. And from the looks of it, he hasn’t been gentle. Harry gulps. It’s certainly ‘another way’ of dealing with Morfin, but had it been a kinder option?

“Take it.” Voldemort holds out the wand, revulsion clear on his face. The man doesn’t meet Harry’s eyes directly. “I obliviated him.” Then, he shoves his hands into his pockets and strides away. Barely repressed frustration obvious in his tense bearing.

They don’t talk until dinner is set for them both to take jointly. The housemaids fluttering around them, their mutual silence apparently not unusual. A butler brings them a delicious-smelling dinner and explains its contents briefly, before they are alone again. Seated on opposite ends of a large ebony table, the surface spotless and polished, it feels like an insurmountable distance.

“I placed a powerful Confundus on him. This, in combination with my Legilimency will leave his mind shattered in a still-able body,” Voldemort finally offers almost clinically. Now, he doesn’t hesitate in looking directly into Harry’s eyes. Unapologetic, level-headed, allowing Harry no false impression of kindness. As if daring her to argue. “It might have been kinder to simply end his pathetic existence,” he finishes lightly. Unbothered. Focuses back on his steak.

Harry cringes slightly and then hurries to smooth out her expression and takes a bite of her own steak. Voldemort is a cruel man. But maybe this is the best Harry can get? She believes the conversation to be over and doesn’t comment, silently vowing to order one of their superfluous maids to care for the man. Death by negligence is still murder.

Shortly thereafter, Voldemort dabs his mouth almost daintily and Harry hurries to finish her last few bites, too. She moves to pick up their cutlery and plates, mindlessly, before she remembers that the Riddles have butlers and maids for these things… She had been responsible for cleaning the table as part of their routine in the two incarnations prior. The thought sits queerly with her.

This leaves her with little else to do and far too many thoughts and emotions to work through. Harry resolves to keep some distance from him for the remaining evening, because from the way Voldemort’s face is pinched and pensive, she gathers he might need some space to do the same.

“This is awkward,” says Harry. The statement spoken before she has had time to fully think about it. Voldemort, in his own grandfather’s body, looks up from the book he’s reading, a pair of glasses perched low on his nose. He is pyjama-clad, one of these old-fashioned, pinstriped models, in dove grey. The bed’s duvet is covering his lower body already. Harry’s maid had laid out an evening robe for her to wear over the top of her own nightwear when she’d been absorbed in her evening ablutions. The assumption for her to sleep in the precise room, Voldemort has already taken, obvious.

A hint of a smile surrounds her husband’s mouth. “What is, dear?” Harry chokes on the endearment. Voldemort takes his glasses off, grinning, sets the book onto the bedside table on what is clearly his side of their bed and returns to watching Harry.

Harry shuffles on the spot. The domesticity of it all is unsettling. She feels warm under the oppressive fluffiness of her robe’s collar. “Uh. I guess there are plenty of other bedrooms in this Manor,” she says. “I could just–.”

“And alert our staff that there is something off about us? By breaking our night-time routine?” asks Voldemort with faux-concern, dripping with oversaturated sweetness. At least his behaviour has lightened, compared to this afternoon, Harry thinks.

She knows she’s blushing by the way her face warms. She also doesn’t have to search very deeply in her vessel’s mind to ascertain just how, unlike the vessel, such behaviour would be. The Riddles were as snobbish as they were concerned with maintaining an impression of domestic peace. Truly unsociable towards anyone but those they considered their own.

The skin surrounding Voldemort’s eyes crinkles with silent amusement. It’s a good look on him. “Don’t be a prude, Harry. I won’t bite.” He lifts the duvet that’s on her side of the bed in an unspoken challenge. Harry shakes her head at the notion of there being a side that’s irrefutably hers in Voldemort’s bed, and gathers her gryffindorian courage to slip into bed beside him. At least Voldemort hadn’t alluded to her previous interactions with Tom Riddle. Small victories, she thinks.

“– Much.” Voldemort’s Cheshire grin widens. Harry levels him with a glare and lays down on her side, back towards him. His amusement is almost tangible.

She is not willing to engage with him in this. “Shut up,” she bites, and Voldemort mercifully remains wordless as he settles into his side of the bed, too. Somehow this ogling of Voldemort’s feels strangely displaced. Not essentially disingenuous – Mary would not have expected anything less from her husband – but Harry wonders why Voldemort gives in so easily into a sentiment that was so clearly not his own.

And besides, it’s not that she’s never shared a bed with anyone, it’s the thought of sharing it with him. Luckily, the muted bond prevents them from pulling each other into their respective dreams, but Harry doesn’t wish to allow Voldemort – her counter-part, her arch-nemesis, her mortal enemy – front seats to any nightmares she might have. And… it’s too intimate.

There are several long moments of silence in which Harry presses her eyes closed in hopes of finding sleep quickly. The silence only serves to render her more attuned to her bedpartner’s even breaths, though. It is a shock when Voldemort’s voice cuts through their silent stale-mate. “Your display of the wandless Protego was quite impressive, today,” he says evenly, no emotion obviously discernible.

Harry’s eyes fly open in surprise. “With the nature of your true wand, it’s not that much of a surprise, I guess,” Voldemort muses. “But the stun was over-powered...” He manages to sound dismissive enough to cause Harry to twist around and face him in the now dark room, outrage on her tongue.

At least she managed it. Wandless magic was considered quite advanced!

Instead of a reprimand, her breath hitches as she finds his face startlingly close. Smooth. Ambiguous. Eyes bright in the moonlight filtering through the large windows. “I’ll teach you to hone your ability,” Voldemort decides finally.

Harry has still not recovered, but if Voldemort notices, he doesn’t comment. She swallows. His gaze is assessing before there is a minuscule smile to be found in the twitch of his mouth. Why, she wants to ask. Why would he help her, strengthen his enemy? Or–, is it rather an issue of Voldemort no longer viewing Harry as an enemy? It fits what she knows of Voldemort, to want to support magical strength in whomever he finds it.

Maybe this should make her proud instead of wary. It feels like the man is offering much more. Thus, she thanks him, voice croaky.

She wonders who has last seen Voldemort like this. So close. Unguarded, in a way… Or as close to unguarded, as she can call someone, who can kill without a wand. She shivers thinking about the effortless colour of Voldemort’s curse, she has seen too many times, now.

Likely not in a long time, she thinks. Had Voldemort ever taken lovers? Had been intimate with them beyond the physical? Her encounter with Riddle in her previous life makes her think, maybe not. It doesn’t sit well with her how her brain latches onto that particular thought. Or how she feels vaguely privileged by it.

Hours later, Harry finally finds an uneasy sleep.

They start with their lessons immediately. Harry thinks it’s likely because, they both haven’t quite figured out what to do with Tom Riddle, yet. They haven’t quite accepted that they’re honestly on the same side, now. Not ‘on the same side’ as they had been in their last incarnation, which had been more of a convoluted mess of tricks and machinations and tests, that had miraculously worked out in their favour. They have to figure out, how a true alliance may take form. This delves deeper into Tom Riddle’s psyche; this feels intimate in a way they both are not really ready for, Harry thinks.

The two of them tell their staff that they are retiring into what is the Riddle Manor’s drawing-room, asking to not be disturbed. It wouldn’t bode well for them if their magical abilities were found out.

Harry is surprisingly talented at wandless magic, it turns out. Her spells are usually vastly overpowered though. This causes the transfiguration of an entire desk, instead of simply the item lying on top of it, meant to be altered. Instead of moving singular chess pieces, as per instruction, Harry causes the chessboard to splinter apart.

Voldemort is not amused. She does comparably worse with non-verbal spells, which are more useful during duelling, as Voldemort explains. He is a good teacher, if an exceedingly strict one, and Harry has little difficulty imagining him having done quite well as Hogwarts’ Defence teacher.  He doesn’t tolerate her slacking and expects only the best.

In the end, he seems reluctantly impressed, nonetheless. But Harry is probably more so. It is terrifying to see Voldemort easily wielding his power. Whenever he casts, his magic spreads around him almost as if a physical force, the air turning heavy and oppressive, his magic suffocating in its darkness. Their ceasefire makes it too easy to forget that her opposite is quite possibly the most powerful magic-user in all of Britain, Harry thinks, her own prowess seemingly a mere child’s play in comparison.

They finish the session sometime in the late afternoon and Harry feels utterly drained. A small fire crackling in the fireplace. Harry settles down close to it. Regardless of the season, the day’s proceedings have left her cold. “Magical exhaustion,” Voldemort comments idly, leafing through a book he’s found in the manor’s library as they settle into their vessel’s evening routine with surprising ease.

Harry once more worries how much of their vessel’s character influences their behaviour while they inhabit them. She looks over at Voldemort and finds him frowning down at his book. The selection the library offers is extensive, yet exclusively contains Muggle-works. The purse of Voldemort’s lips leaves little of his opinion to the imagination.

That is very in-character for the Dark Lord. Harry laughs lightly, causing Voldemort to look up in mild curiosity. The complete absence of Voldemort’s easily triggered anger at perceived insults is momentarily arresting. She waves him away and resolves to find out how far-reaching their vessel’s influence is.

Harry allows for a few moments of silence musing over how to succeed in their mission. Voldemort is lost in his thoughts, too, Harry notes. Their butler offers Voldemort a glass of wine, passing over offering Harry the same. This seems to amuse Voldemort and he does so instead, ignoring the butler’s surprised stare. Harry is caught unawares – neither the vessel, nor Harry, wouldn’t have expected such cavalier behaviour. She accepts, but then barely drinks a sip. It feels weird to sit around in front of a fire drinking wine, with Lord Voldemort of all people. Harry feels her familiar restlessness overtake her.

She takes out Morfin’s wand and examines it. It is stiffer than Harry’s own and shorter. It feels wrong in her hand.

She suddenly misses her holly wand with surprising intensity. “Why did you say that given my wand, the strength of my wandless Protego wasn’t surprising?” she asks finally. “Isn’t that a little paradoxical?”

Voldemort doesn’t look up. “Not at all,” he says simply. A beat. “You know, of course, that holly wands are exceptionally well suited to protective spells and warding. And as they allow you to perform these types of spells particularly strongly, they teach the carrying wizard to cast them powerfully, even if they don’t have their wands with them…” he trails off, voice even, as if this were common sense.

His face transforms into a grimace, as he takes in Harry’s expression. He sighs deeply, taking offense. “I forgot that they taught you absolutely nothing in that school, Harry,” his voice conveys genuine sorrow. Harry grits her teeth at his theatrical display, somewhat embarrassed. It’s sort of his fault, that she never focused on any subject but DADA.

“This one,” Voldemort points at the wand in Harry’s hand. “Is a hawthorn and dragon-heartstring wand…” Voldemort states; face as if he had just bitten into a lemon. Harry nods in overexaggerated understanding. Her lack of verbal answer causes Voldemort to peer back at her over the rim of his reading glasses. His expression is one of belittling condescension, now, “You don’t know what that means, either, do you?”

Harry shrugs sheepishly, which causes Voldemort’s lips to twitch slightly in either irritation or amusement, and yet another mumbled lament of the state of Hogwarts’ curriculum. This is followed by a long-suffering sigh, before he elaborates, “Hawthorn wood usually stands for a conflicted wizard. In… Morfin’s case, his conflict might have lain in his conviction of his superiority based on his ancestry and his paradoxical utter lack of talent for magic… Who knows,” the dismissive gesture belies the fact that Voldemort had clearly contemplated this extensively. “When handled badly, these wands backfire,” his callous tone reveals his disregard for his relative. “Dragon-heartstring can produce wands with great power, lend themselves to the Dark Arts, but are fickle in their allegiance… The combination makes for a wand as lacking as his owner,” he concludes, his expression is clear in his aversion.

Yet again, it shocks Harry, how well-read Voldemort is. She feels transported back to Hogwarts and Hermione lecturing them about something or other. Just how long will she have spent away from her friends? Once they return to their own lives, how much will have changed? Harry casts a glance at Voldemort; at how he is now. How much will remain the same?

It doesn’t feel good to consider and thus, she casts her thoughts away from her depressive musings and towards the occurrences of the past several days.

Harry decides to comment neither on Voldemort’s remarkable literacy, nor on his evident disdain for his relative. Instead, she thinks of how Voldemort had adhered to her suggestion the day before and finds a surprising affection flood through her. She realizes, she has not yet thanked him for listening to her. Voldemort’s gaze yesterday strongly warning her from commenting, yet she feels the need to acknowledge it somehow.

And so, she does so, if haltingly. It still feels a little fragile, this thing between them.

Voldemort levels her with an even stare. “Did you take away all of his memories of your family?” Harry asks. If he did, Tom Riddle wouldn’t think to visit Riddle Manor to kill his ancestors and their work in preventing this particular Horcrux would be finished. If not, young Tom Riddle might still seek them out to enact his revenge.

“No,” Voldemort admits though there is no shame in his voice at acknowledging his limitations. “There were too many memories. My younger self will simply delve into his mind and find this… us.”

Harry sighs. It would have been too easy if that worked, of course.  She curses fate internally.

Voldemort looks away again, “I hated Tom Riddle Sr. for never seeking me out, as a child,” he says unexpectedly, eyes far away. Harry’s heart is in her throat suddenly. It feels significant that he is saying this. “I had… have little regard for my mother, because she was too weak to be there for me, but I hated Riddle,” Voldemort’s voice is calm, yet his eyes contradict this.

Harry doesn’t know what to add, so she agrees cautiously; treads carefully. “He knew that your mother was pregnant by his child and never sought you out. Hate… would be understandable.”

Voldemort doesn’t acknowledge her words, though his lips thin and his brow furrows darkly. “But this scum… my uncle–.” The words are pressed out with no little anger. “– He was convinced Merope Gaunt had dosed my father with Amortentia–,”

Harry cringes, remembers a similar conversation with Dumbledore. “– Which makes Riddle Sr. a victim,” she thus says hesitantly.

Voldemort nods absentmindedly. “That excuses very little, though.” His nostrils flare suddenly, and his eyes glint angrily.

Harry finds herself agreeing. It wasn’t fair that Tom Riddle Jr. had been punished for his mother’s faults. An idea begins to form in her mind.

“And my mother–,” Voldemort grinds out from between gritted teeth, “–was so weak. They called her a squib. She was the family’s maid…” Voldemort’s voice shakes with barely suppressed rage and self-depreciation.

Harry remains quiet. She remembers the first memory she’s ever seen of the Gaunts in the Pensieve, of Merope Gaunt’s pitiful screams as her male family members beat her for the sole crime of falling in love with a Muggle. “Morfin and Marvolo didn’t treat her well,” she thus says, voice as even, as non-judgemental as possible, though her heart aches; Unsure whether Voldemort had stumbled over this memory, too; whether it was the only one of its’ kind, whether it carried the same implications when obtained from the perpetrator’s mind.

Voldemort sips his drink, his face bitter. “Maybe you shouldn’t judge either of your parents too harshly,” Harry suggests carefully, observant of how Voldemort’s nostrils flare. The censure obvious in his body’s every line. “They were both victims of a complicated web of manipulations and misdeeds and neither stopped to consider what this left you with…” she hurries to add. “So, I’m sorry that this was your childhood,” she concludes, and she means it. “But no human is without fault, Vee.” She thinks of the man that was so afraid of death that he decided to kill a toddler based on a half-heard prophecy. Harry feels a little spiteful. But she pushes it down. It’s an old hurt.

Voldemort downs the last of his drink, grimacing. “It doesn’t matter,” he states, with finality. “It can’t be changed. This childhood made me who I am.” he looks almost proud to have persevered and Harry can empathize with this twisted logic. But her heart hurts at the thought of the prize he paid for his parents’ faults.

They are both silent. It’s a pensive silence. Not necessarily uncomfortable. But extended for longer than they usually spend in one another’s company. They are both strangely vulnerable. So similar in their childhood of robbed opportunities. Two parts of a whole, out to hunt and hurt and kill one another. Well, no longer, she supposes.

“There might be a way…” she says, unthinkingly echoing her suggestion in front of the Gaunt’s house. “Although no one can change your past anymore…” she flounders, “We might change something in the life of this Tom Riddle.”

Voldemort’s face is stony but unsurprised. He knew Harry would suggest something like this, then. “We might reach out to Tom and offer him a family. A house, and an inheritance,” she suggests gently.

“No,” comes Voldemort’s immediate, monosyllabic rejection.

“It is what you always wanted as a child, isn’t it? A family. A claim to your name…” she expands.

“Yes… But I didn’t care for a Muggle pedigree. They were… we are supposed to only be that. It’s a bad idea.”

Harry hums non-confrontationally, “And what about the money? You just claimed you consider it your father’s greatest crime against you to have never tried to contact you. Why not force him to do so? We aren’t Muggles after all…” Tom Riddle Sr. lives in London, now, in the company of a mistress, if his vessel remembers correctly. “If we pressured him as his parents…” Another Harry would be shocked at her casual insinuation of using one of the Unforgivables.

“Riddle Sr. will not be in contact with my younger self,” Voldemort interjects coldly.

Something suspiciously like hope crawls up Harry’s chest and forces her heart into a faster cadence. “And what about his grandparents?” she asks.

Voldemort remains silent. His eyes show irritation, but there is an underlying warmth in his exasperation.

‘You’re incorrigible’ he had called her the day prior. Harry feels very incorrigible, now. There is a long pause and Voldemort’s jaw clenches distractingly, then a defeatist sigh. “Fine.”

Due to their supposed Muggle-nature, Harry and Voldemort chose not to use quill and parchment as they pour over their letter. Voldemort insists on a fountain pen and quality paper, though. Harry picks her battles.

They explain their reaching out with the Muggle authorities having contacted them as they are the only remaining relatives of Morfin Gaunt, whose mental health is unfortunately deteriorating. Voldemort snorts a derisive laugh at that, while writing. That they only recently found out about his existence, which they are devastated about. That they contacted Tom’s headmaster, that they know of magic in the most abstract terms. The story is somewhat far-fetched, Harry thinks privately, but she can’t think of an alternative, either. They say that they are anxious to meet their only living descendant. Voldemort insists on stating quite blatantly that they have a house and a fortune to offer.

Tom Riddle refuses them outright.

“Foolish boy,” Voldemort grits out through clenched teeth. Harry is devastated, but does her best to ignore Voldemort’s I-told-you-so-energy. She pens him another letter in secret. Maybe she shouldn’t have expected anything else, but she had secretly hoped that the Blitz would render Tom Riddle desperate enough to wish to avoid Muggle London. She can only imagine that the war had not been kind to London’s orphans. She supposes Riddle’s arrogant disregard for Muggles outweighs the fear for his physical safety. She thus offers them to open a trust fund.

Harry receives no reply for almost ten days. Ten days, that leave her antsy and irritable.

But, then. “He replied, Vee!” she rushes into her husband’s study. Voldemort had somehow managed to conjure up what he calls ‘proper literature’ and a self-inking quill. His posture straightens as she interrupts his peace, waving a piece of parchment.

His hand stills and he fixes her with a glare through his vessel’s glasses. “You wrote him,” he says. The evenness in his tone expressing his displeasure at her going behind his back.

Harry smiles, choosing to ignore his sensibilities. “He agreed to meet at Diagon Alley… To open a trust fund at Gringotts,” she says, a little breathily.

Voldemort’s lips purse in consideration; clearly weighing their options. It is quite obvious that Riddle aims to interact with them as little as possible, while reaping the benefits of their wealth. Harry considers the boy’s willingness to do so, great progress. “Very well,” he acquiesces finally.

‘Go to Charing Cross Road in London, the crossing near Tottenham Court Road.’ The letter states curtly in Tom’s familiarly slanted lettering. Not an inkblot visible on his letter, Harry thinks, distantly envious. ‘You won’t, of course, be able to see the entrance of the Leaky Cauldron, which is exclusive to wizards and witches.’ His tone is haughty. Voldemort’s molars click audibly. Harry barely suppresses a smile. ‘Wait there at 11 am on the 13^th of June.’

Harry hums happily, penning their response, while Voldemort pours himself a drink irately.

The two of them wait for Voldemort’s younger self in front of the Leaky Cauldron. Harry feels a little antsy. Though, why that is, she isn’t certain of. They have nothing to fear, really. The worst that could happen with the future Dark Lord reconnecting with his family, would be them dying at his hand, which doesn’t particularly bother Harry. If their penchants for reincarnation is anything to judge by, dying would not be permanent.

She is almost envious of young Tom Riddle. Harry herself never had any family to reach out to her, to offer her a family; belonging. And while she is very aware that the sole cause for her own lack of family is stood behind her looking utterly unaffected, she cannot fault young Tom Riddle for the crimes of his older self.

She had felt different when faced with the Riddle, whom Harry had become acquainted with, in Borgin and Burke’s, though. But the Riddle they are about to meet has so far only created one Horcrux. Harry knows from the memories Dumbledore had shared with her, just how little the boy had yet to share with the man that would later terrorize wizarding Britain.

Harry finds herself hoping that him being offered familial love could somehow change everything about his character, about her own future. It would have changed so much for Harry, had she experienced that. Well, she had, sort of… with her chosen family.

The thought of Ron, Hermione, Sirius and Remus makes her giddy with warmth. This burgeoning hope is perhaps foolish, she admits. Voldemort thinks so. She remembers how he had grimaced the evening prior when she had brought that notion up. How he had meanly insinuated exploiting Harry’s compassion. How he had sneered and taunted and hurt her. How his derision had been so familiar. Yet, she thinks, in the wake of his defensiveness, he had become strangely quiet and withdrawn.

Voldemort shifts behind her, a hand falling to her side. A dulled, predictable warmth, blooms at the point of subtle contact, which alerts her to it much more than the weight of Voldemort’s hand itself. It’s not a foreign gesture per se. Their vessels engaged in such little moments of physical comfort often, though Harry is aware that Voldemort rarely did something without ulterior motive.

A quick glance upwards reveals Voldemort’s vessel’s face to be utterly smooth, no hint of emotion visible. Almost too even, she muses. Suddenly, the reason is more than obvious.

“You’re nervous, Vee, aren’t you?” she asks. Surprised at her inability to have noticed this before.

Voldemort’s face darkens momentarily, before a well-practised dismissive nonchalance replaces the expression, as he gazes back down at her.

Harry clamps down at her elation at observing such an honest reaction, her hand finding his on her waist. His hand spasms underneath hers and he snaps it away, the instant she removes hers. “It’s okay. Me, too,” she confides easily.

His expression softens minutely, in response, and he rakes a hand through his close-cropped hair. He doesn’t voice his emotions. It doesn’t matter, Harry thinks. A few lives ago, she would have never thought to see such an expression on his face at all.

A clearing of his throat is all that alerts them to Tom Riddle’s arrival.

Harry almost flinches at the sight of him.

The boy looks eerily similar to the Tom Riddle they had just left behind in their previous life. So similar, in fact, Harry feels heat rise to her face first. It shakes his consciousness into dissonance between Harry and his vessel. At second glance, his cheeks were less sharp than his mid-20s self, there was something less… piercing in his calculative gaze, Harry thinks.

He is punctual, as expected. Dressed in unassuming robes over very neat clothes. They don’t reveal his lack of wealth immediately, only upon closer inspection, Harry thinks she is able to discern a well-concealed magical trace of an expertly executed transfiguration. Blimey, Riddle wielded magic masterfully even at such an unassuming age, Harry thinks, impressed. It makes her guarded. Just how similar was the boy to the later Voldemort already?

Riddle’s face is carefully void of expression. His gaze is scrutinizing; his focus on Voldemort, who stares back in an equally unimpressed fashion. Harry and her vessel smooth into one thought once more. Harry feels something terribly close to affection clawing at her insides.

The two fools were certainly very similar in certain aspects, though she is sure Voldemort would never acknowledge that. It makes Harry smile a little. The two of them are positively heart-warming.

Then, Tom’s eyes trail over Harry. The boy clearly recognizing the colouring they share, before his eyes widen slightly. Then, Harry notices a prodding at her consciousness. Legilimency – executed perhaps a little clumsily. She is glad for his amateurism, because Harry would certainly have never noticed his older self doing the same.

The boy leaves traces, Harry realizes astonished. Now, that she recognizes Riddle’s presence in her thoughts, it is less than unobtrusive. She can clearly tell, for example, that Riddle is surprised by the vividness of her eyes, that he wonders, whether she has dormant magical abilities.

Harry seizes, her skill at Occlumency is subpar at best and the boy would surely notice if she abruptly threw him out of her mindscape. Yet, if Riddle found out who they were, if he discovered–.

Distantly, Harry feels a hand clamping down firmly on the exposed skin of her shoulder, and suddenly there is another exceedingly familiar presence in her mind. The same warmth that always floods through her when touching, now suffuses through her veins with unprecedented poignancy, like syrupy comfort. Voldemort!

The man sorts through her memories carefully, pushing and pulling images of his father to the forefront, creating artificial astonishment at the physical similarities father and son share. Harry’s complicated relationship with Tom Riddle Sr. bubbles to the surface of her consciousness and Voldemort allows that too, though he tints it slightly more resentful. Finally, he gently dissuades his younger self’s interest in the curious shade of Harry’s eyes and carefully blankets any traces of her magical core. Harry shivers at the delicate intimacy of the act.

A few moments later Riddle retracts his presence. Harry almost sags against Voldemort in relief. Surprised by her own implicit trust. “You must be Tom,” she says, her voice shaky before she can get a hold of herself.

The boy nods jerkily, appears slightly wary. He pushes his hands into the pockets of his trousers, clearly dissuading any attempt at a handshake or another type of physical welcoming. He looks incredibly young this way. His eyes were on her, still, curious, his stature still a little smaller than what he would look like later.

“This is… Thomas,” she introduces Voldemort, who nods at his younger self stoically. Harry suppresses the urge to roll her eyes. “And I am Ha – Mary,” she coughs delicately to hide her mistake. Voldemort peers down at her and she feels his amusement seep through the mental connection that is still in place, his emotions outwardly only perceptible in the faint curling up of his mouth.

“You’re my father’s parents?” Riddle asks somewhat stilted.

Harry nods. “You… look exactly like him,” she allows finally.

Voldemort’s eyes tighten and his hand drops from her shoulder, while Riddle sneers in derision. The loss feels cold. But, she thinks she sees something in the momentarily self-conscious set of Riddle’s shoulders that renews her hope. Harry knows from her own childhood just how strong an orphan’s yearning for a family could be and, suddenly, compassion and her own longing threaten to overwhelm her. She is faintly aware that this might be a very artful manipulation of Riddle’s. She reels slightly at her willingness to throw caution into the wind, but–.

To both Voldemort’s and his younger self’s clear horror, her eyes suddenly start swimming with unshed tears. She draws the boy in for a quick hug that is only reciprocated in a panicked widening of the boy’s eyes. His reaction is disarmingly honest in its uncertainty.

Harry can’t help but shoot him a small smile, before she shuffles back. She is left immediately embarrassed at the boy’s obvious reluctance in his stiffened posture and the judgement in Voldemort’s cocked brow.

“You better lead the way, then,” Voldemort comments drily, finally looking at Riddle. And Harry is eternally grateful for his lack of comment and their muted bond.

Riddle does lead the way, spine straightening haughtily, the second they step into his world. And even if Harry hides it better than Voldemort, she, too, finds Riddle’s slightly exaggerated descriptions of the wizarding world, amusing. His wanting to impress them is strangely endearing.

They follow the sure-footed Riddle through the Leaky Cauldron and into Diagon Alley. If they truly were Muggles, Riddle’s lack of clemency in his pace, would have certainly left them stunned at the onslaught of impressions assaulting them upon their entry. As it stands, Harry tries to ensure to appear appropriately awed and coos at every non-Muggle detail, while Voldemort allows for his gaze to wander in characteristic reservedness. Her reactions, predictably, cause a much more favourable reaction in Riddle, who seems not-so-secretly pleased at her faux-awe.

In Gringotts, they confirm their vessel’s relationship with Riddle by use of a blood ritual, at which Harry shows herself appropriately distressed. There is a twitch in the set of Voldemort’s mouth at her antics. She makes sure to pinch him in chiding when the others’ heads are turned away, which magics a slightly overdone expression of contriteness unto his features. Regardless, Voldemort seems overall less stiff than he did before, apparently content with Harry dominating their side of the interaction entirely. Harry is exceedingly pleased with herself.

As they name the sum they wish to exchange for galleons, Tom Riddle’s choke is clearly audible. Harry, too, is slightly stunned by the sum, but Voldemort clearly has little qualms with transferring roughly half of the Riddle family’s estimated worth to their heir.

He simply raises a challenging eyebrow at Harry’s surprise, a vengeful smile gracing his expression. And Harry snaps her own mouth shut. Of course, he would feel twistedly retaliatory at his grandparent’s wealth and funnel it back to himself… well, his younger self. What a strange man with even stranger intrigues, she thinks vaguely indulgent.

The goblin is the only one seemingly unaffected by the transfer, though his eyes gain an interested gleam, and sets up a means for communication with Tom to settle future issues regarding his vault. The boy nods somewhat numb-looking, before shooting Voldemort a quick contemplative look. The man, in turn, settles back behind Harry.

When it’s all set and done, Harry finds herself at a loss. Ideally, they would establish prolonged contact with Tom, but from his written interactions, it is very clear the boy does not intend to engage in it. Nevertheless, Harry tries again a final time, inviting him to come to Riddle Manor for a weekend. The boy refuses outright, citing his inability to leave the campus. His current presence is belying his statement, of course.

Though, he tells the lie with an air of self-assured evenness, which would surely fool his Muggle grandparents, both Voldemort and she knows the farce to be exactly that. She can see Voldemort’s mouth thinning in displeasure. “Fine,” she says, allowing for her disappointment to permeate her tone. Curiously, this is what causes Riddle to fidget almost imperceptibly. She leans in and presses a kiss on his cheek. “The offer still stands,” she says before withdrawing.

The boy’s eyes are wide, only momentarily. “Don’t be a stranger,” she hooks her arms with Voldemort’s vessel and pulls him away, before he loses the rapidly thinning hold, he maintains on his ire.

“That foolish child,” he spits with surprising vitriol, the second they leave Diagon Alley. “And his ill-conceived Legilimency–,” he pushes an agitated hand through his orderly hair. “He could have damaged your mind, had I not controlled his clumsy… fumbling!”

Harry is momentarily blind-sighted at the undercurrent of steel in Voldemort’s harsh judgement of his former self. “Hush, nothing happened,” she soothes. He twists out of her grasp to glower down at her and while Harry’s vessel is by no means short, Voldemort’s flashing eyes are intimidating. His ire is sufficient to remind her of the way he had been before. She barely manages to smother her instinctive flinching back.

To his credit, Voldemort notices the minuscule movement, eyes softening. “It’s okay,” she tries again. “You shielded my mind. Thank you.”

He nods, teeth gritted, turning away from her again. Regaining his composure, slowly. “Did he get a read on you, too?” she asks.

A condescending smile breaks through Voldemort’s building façade of calm, tearing it down again. His eyes gleam dangerously. Her heart beats furiously at the terrible way he grinned, when he pleased. “He tried,” he says.

“Vee?” she almost whines, flopping down on the couch, next to Voldemort’s form. Sides touching, rumpling the notes in his lap. A sigh and a faintly disapproving glance are all the answer she receives. “We should write him a letter again, Vee.”

Voldemort returns to his notes, evidently intent on ignoring her. Harry pouts and steals a glance at what he’s written. From what she can glean, it’s his theories on the nature of time and souls. Mostly, it seems like gibberish.

The assortment of books idly floating around Voldemort seem old and enticingly forbidden. She no longer minds the tempting press of Dark whispers, she used to find oh-so disturbing, in a different time. Perhaps that alone should worry her. It doesn’t.

Voldemort idly flicks his wrist and a book to his left flips through its dusty pages to open on an entirely different part of the book. There are esoteric diagrams of star constellations and obscure runic arrays depicted on the already yellowing pages; the script is in a language Harry cannot read. Voldemort purses his lips, squinting slightly, before copying down something in his neat, if slightly extravagant hand.

Harry gives up on trying to make sense of it. She grabs a book whose magical signature seems to almost caress her consciousness, and browses through it. This one’s contents are on branches of magic she has never even heard of. She gasps, “Did you steal this from the Department of Mysteries?”

Voldemort grins absentmindedly and reaches for another book, brows furrowing as he compares what is written between the two. “Stolen is a strong word,” he drawls. “Borrowed.” Harry snorts but lets the book go again and flops backwards against the backrest.

Fine. Stealing books is probably not worth quarrelling over, she concedes. The reason she approached Voldemort comes to mind once more, and with it, a sense of urgency returns.  “Don’t you care that Riddle is scheduled to kill his entire family tomorrow?” Harry asks, nibbling on his lower lip.

“No,” comes Voldemort’s unhelpfully curt response. Harry grits her teeth, annoyed at his unwillingness to extrapolate. Voldemort sighs again. “He won’t come tomorrow,” he says with a tone that leaves no room for argument. “We’ve already interfered enough to prevent that.”

Harry’s disbelief must show quite clearly. For, if they had prevented his murder spree, surely, they’d be back in the space in between already.

Voldemort removes his glasses delicately and pinches his nose in irritation at her lack of faith. Harry finds she quite likes that look of irritation on his face; likes how it lacks true harshness. “He won’t kill us now, although he might still kill Tom Riddle Sr,” he explains as if lecturing a toddler.

Harry contemplates that and finds herself agreeing with the assessment reluctantly.

Then a smile twists her mouth uncontrollably. “If this little interaction worked to stop him from hating us, it just means we have to be relentless! Smother him in love, such that he can’t help but leave us all be,” she cackles at Voldemort’s faintly disgusted expression. “Thanks for giving me permission to contact him. I know you wanted me to not go behind your back,” she almost sing-songs as she hurries out of the reach of his ire.

Voldemort’s face is stormy. The stinging hex misses her narrowly. “You’re infuriating,” he growls as she closes the door behind her, giggling.

Tom Riddle is susceptible to further manipulation through monetary means, it turns out. Though this in itself isn’t necessarily a fact Harry rejoices in, she does, when he deigns to answer her letters thereafter. His phrasing remains laconic, yet his letters have noticeably lost some of their previous cutting. And although it poses a whole avalanche of additional issues, it is the first true sign of progress, to Harry, when he inquires after his mother’s family. They’ve previously told him via owl that the two of them are currently the sole care providers for Morfin Gaunt – a half-truth, Harry feels a surprising absence of guilt over. Voldemort looks at her appraisingly as she reads him her slightly twisted words, and it feels like a compliment.

Her answer is lengthy, carefully arranged not to reveal more than Muggles who are aware of magic could conceivably understand, drafted with input from Voldemort. She explains that Tom Riddle Sr. had shown a sudden diversion from his then-fiancé towards Tom’s mother. They briefly describe their son’s unexpected and very much irresponsible infatuation with Tom’s mother, Merope Gaunt. That the pair had eloped and left for London quite unanticipatedly.

They don’t spell it out to be the scandal it had been, though that notion shines through their words barely veiled. They tell the story of Riddle Sr.’s sudden reappearance and his description of having been taken in by Merope Gaunt, which sounds just dubious enough to make Riddle question the innocence of the whirl-wind romance. They reinforce that they hadn’t known of Tom’s existence until they had been informed of it by the Ministry, upon discovery of Morfin’s declining mental health. That they are excited and proud to have an heir, regardless of the circumstances.

This is a phrasing, Voldemort insisted on and Harry agrees, mystified at Voldemort’s callous willingness to manipulate his former self so thoroughly. It sounds somewhat stilted. It’s perfect.

In retrospect, Harry thinks they might have overdone it. It had been almost two weeks without Riddle’s answer. Voldemort disagrees firmly.

The date Tom Riddle had originally killed his family comes and passes, innocuous.

Then, on one lazy Saturday afternoon, it happens. It is late August, the oppressive heat makes Harry sluggish and even Voldemort has taken to simply wearing a thin white shirt, pushed up to reveal surprisingly corded forearms. It is no longer as crisp as it had been in the morning, when he’d first put it on.

The hair in Harry’s nape is slightly wet with perspiration and she has long given up on the careful arrangement of strands her vessel had preferred, before Harry had taken to inhabiting her body. It is in mild disarray, which suits Harry, who has spent the majority of her life with Potter-hair, just fine. The air feels heavy with electricity and as she overlooks the valley that is Little Hangleton, she finds storm clouds gathering thickly and approaching rapidly.

On that one lazy Saturday afternoon, Tom Marvolo Riddle visits them. Haunted. Usually impeccable clothes, in disarray. Eyes wild. Both Harry and Voldemort notice the disturbance of the deliberately-weak wards they had erected to surround Riddle Manor. The magic signature is easily traceable to be Voldemort’s younger self’s. Harry intercepts Voldemort rising to greet him, gently pushes him back into his seat, and moves to welcome the intruder herself.

Despite them having exchanged quite a few letters, Tom Riddle Jr. has few qualms about threatening her at wand point. “Show me where I can find Morfin Gaunt!” the boy demands, laced heavily with compulsion, unresponsive to Harry’s attempt at pacification.

She finds herself discomfited by seeing the boy so affected. Voldemort strolls out of the drawing-room deceptively calm, brows raised in a mockery of surprise, though Harry can see the muscles in his forearm jumping at the boy’s actions. Harry would feel flattered by his looking out for her if she didn’t know precisely that he was mostly annoyed at his younger self’s lack of appropriate subservience in the face of a more capable wizard.

Tom trains his wand on his grandfather, immediately, in a show of faux-strength. Harry would take offence at not being perceived as a threat worth minding, if she didn’t see the young wizard’s magic pulsing, furious, ashamed – disgust turned selfward. “I’ll get the information one way or another,” the boy says, though he chokes on the words.

She knows she is much less fearful than she should be, were she whom Riddle thought her to be, but she approaches the boy carefully. Luckily, the boy doesn’t seem to realize, distraught as he is. “Tom,” she says gently. “It’s okay. We can show you.”

The boy looks at her again, his eyes alight with desperation. His wand wobbles slightly. She cannot presume to know how he feels. The young Riddle she’d seen in the Pensieve had been much more imperturbable. The boy in front of her is vulnerable. Another step and she gathers him in a loose approximation of an embrace. He is almost as tall as her, though his body feels almost frail, now.

Over his fraught younger self’s shoulder, she finds Voldemort’s gaze. He sneers at his younger self’s emotionality with derision, but at the realization of being caught, some of the meanness in his face loosens.

When the boy pulls away, his face is impenetrable, no sign of his previous outburst remaining. “Do you want us to show you the way now, or whenever you are more in charge of yourself?” Voldemort asks, leaning against the wall casually, arms crossed in front of his chest. Though his words are biting, his tone is comparably mild.

The boy glowers at him, nonetheless. “Now,” he grits out.

“Now, sir,” Voldemort adds, deceptively calm. Harry rolls her eyes, while the future Dark Lord flushes with anger. Though, as Voldemort smirks antagonizing, Harry finds herself silently agreeing that a slightly angry Tom Riddle is preferable to the volatile emotive version of the boy.

The walk through the rapidly darkening town occurs mostly in silence, Harry’s hand is clasped over Voldemort’s forearm – an awkward approximation of hand-holding. She ignores the calming warmth of their contact and pushes her admonishment at his derisiveness through the mental link, instead.

Voldemort snorts almost imperceptibly. Then, he pushes the mental image of her hugging his younger self somewhat ineptly and while Harry herself cringes away from the image initially, she tastes the undercurrent of gratitude under the more obvious arrogance and scorn. He pulls her hand more securely into the crook of his arm.

Then, there is another memory, of himself. A slightly warped version of the memory she had seen in Dumbledore’s Pensieve. The perspective is different, she sees through his eyes. Feels the rush of his pulse at the thought of reconnecting with his Slytherin ancestry, and the crushing of disgust and disappointment when the door gives way to the disaster behind it. His fury had been as consuming as it had been inhumane. He hadn’t known of his family’s habits then.

Communicating like this isn’t just convenient, Harry finds she doesn’t particularly mind it anymore, either. The warmth that flows between their two minds is somewhat comforting, she thinks dimly, and Vee’s mental presence is familiar enough by now that she doesn’t fear it any longer.

There is an unspoken agreement between the two of them – this Tom Riddle will not find out about his family the same way. It feels like something imperfect, a compromise, of sorts, yet it undeniably suits them.

They reach the shack, the Gaunts had called their family home. Tom Riddle examines it, void of expression as Voldemort pushes open the door.

Thanks to Harry’s directing one of the maids to care for Tom Riddle’s uncle, the house is mercifully clean. Morfin Gaunt sits in an armchair motionlessly. His gaze is glazed over, lacks focus. Harry steps aside and young Riddle strides inside, gait even, eyes unblinking. His eyes take in the room. Morfin’s gaze seems to recognize… something, finally. His gaze latches on Tom’s face. Then, it falls away uselessly.

The three of them stand in the small, shadowy room, watching the sunken figure that is Tom Riddle’s uncle. Harry reckons they all share a sense of discomfiture at the respective other two sharing this moment with them. Thus, Harry pulls Voldemort outside to give Riddle a semblance of privacy.

They hear Morfin’s groan at the pain of Riddle’s ruthless Legilimency before having fully left the shack.

The summer air has cooled. The storm-laden weather seemingly having passed the valley by, the air no longer is as oppressive as it had before. Harry feels incomparably lighter. Voldemort’s grin is as vengeful as it is dark, too many teeth glinting in the dying sun’s weak light. She knows Voldemort simultaneously thinks that the boy deserves this moment, and yet does not. It is arresting, to have someone so terrible on her side, Harry thinks, shivering.

The boy who leaves the shack after Morfin’s grunts subside, isn’t the same as the one who went inside, although he looks outwardly unchanged. Tom Riddle doesn’t quite meet Harry’s eyes anymore and is even more withdrawn.

Upon arriving at the Manor, Harry offers the boy to spend the night, but only after Voldemort’s even insistence, the boy agrees to stay. The boy looks vaguely sick during dinner, pushing around his food, rather than eating it before Harry allows him to retire early. Though Harry and Voldemort finish their dinner, they turn in earlier than usual, too; neither mentioning the ring glinting on Tom Marvolo Riddle’s hand. Both lost in thoughts.

Harry tries to convince Voldemort’s younger self to stay with them until the beginning of the following week and like before, Tom appears to follow her gentle directive only once Vee strengthens her request with his own input. This grates, but is ultimately a product of the time, Harry figures. More importantly, Tom’s relative pliancy speaks volumes about how shaken the boy is.

Tom’s hurt manifests in confrontationality and cruelty. Fortunately, Harry has extensive experience in dealing with someone who lashes out aggressively when afraid or in pain. Unfortunately, Voldemort does not.

The situation isn’t helped by Voldemort’s apparent intent on antagonizing Tom. Harry wonders why Voldemort shows such obvious dislike for the boy, he himself used to be. She thinks the reason might be some convoluted mix of self-depreciation and envy at this version of himself being offered chances that he never experienced himself. Not that Voldemort would ever admit to such feelings or even recognize them in himself.

Sometime during the following day, Harry walks into the drawing-room to be met with icy silence. Voldemort is reading a Muggle book, in order to keep the appearance of being non-magical. He clearly hates it. Tom is thumbing through an Ancient Runes textbook that Harry thinks he likely knows inside-out already. Perhaps he has learned to be wary of displaying his magical abilities in front of Muggles from his time in the orphanage. Both are clearly predominantly preoccupied with more-or-less covertly sneering at one another while the other isn’t watching, rather than actually deriving any input from their respective readings.

Harry sighs, stopping in the doorjamb, undecided about whether to disturb them. Her past attempts at something resembling a civil conversation between all three members of the family had ended in vicious shouting matches between Vee and his younger self. Ultimately, Harry thinks that it could be worse. Neither of them seems particularly pleased with being in intimate proximity with the other, but. Well.

She watches Tom’s hand thumb over the edge of his worn, second-hand copy of the book he is leafing through. The black stone set inside the old gold inlet of the Gaunt ring catches the sun’s light for a moment, and with it, Harry’s attention.

Suddenly, Harry’s sense of self is shaken from her setting as Mary Riddle. A foreign, cold fire burns through him, which concentrates, as this particular cold is wont to do, on his left shoulder. A desire to hold it, touch it again, and the aching need to see the ones he had lost, ravages all of Harry’s thought.

Harry’s breath catches drily in his vessel’s throat, he moves the body closer to the source, the focal point of–.

“Dear?” Voldemort’s voice shakes Harry out of his trance-like state. A warm hand appears on the bony part of his wrist. Tom Riddle looks up at Harry, confused, as he almost looms over the boy. Then, Voldemort pulls him close, “Are you alright?” he asks. The burning cold ebbs away and with it the disconcerting feeling of dissonance, leaving her empty for the familiar warmth of her companion to take over. She blinks.

Voldemort’s eyes follow where she is still looking. “You took the Gaunt Ring, then,” he says, voice flat, not betraying any emotion.

“It does appear so… It’s mine, by birthright,” Riddle says, just as even.

Voldemort scoffs and his next statement leaves Harry jerking away slightly, reeling. Why is he picking this battle, Harry wonders? Didn’t Voldemort himself place the utmost importance on his ancestry, too? Did he no longer? Now that Harry thought about it, he had allowed her to keep the Slytherin Locket, too; had proclaimed the item to have been meaningless. Had the man meant more than merely the lack of a soul shard inside it?

With a nonchalantly dismissive gesture, he says, “It’s a pity you put so much weight on your ancestry, if that is all they are…”

There is no doubt about what Voldemort means by that.

Tom Riddle flinches almost unnoticeably. Then he straightens, a haughty jut to his chin.

Voldemort’s younger self is evidently not as well versed in hiding his anger, as his older version is. Harry observes him deliberately unclenching his bloodless hands. There is a hardness around the pull of his mouth that cannot stem from anything but fury. “I am Salazar Slytherin’s heir,” he says, the words weighty. “Any part of my magical lineage is worth more than being the descendant of a worthless Muggle like you!” he sneers, staring challengingly into Voldemort’s face. The temperature drops with the boy’s rolling magic.

“Tom!” Harry tries, only to be ignored by either version of Tom Riddle.

To absolutely no one’s surprise, Voldemort does not refute that claim. He does, however, raise his sculpted, ash-blonde eyebrow mockingly, humming non-committally. “You must be exceedingly proud, then.”

“Vee!” Harry admonishes. There is no need to be this cruel. Honestly, Voldemort’s flip-flopping between wanting his past self to have an easier childhood and him endlessly antagonizing the boy for it, is unnecessary at best and counterproductive to their mission at worst. Voldemort, trailing an errant hand along her clothed shoulder, steps away seemingly unbothered, to pick up the paper he had previously dropped.

The boy is shaking with barely repressed rage, his magic tight around him, almost ready to snap. “You know, boy–,” Voldemort says with an air of unconcernedness, as if he couldn't practically taste Tom’s fury in the air. The man is already halfway across the room as he pauses his long gait, to continue, “– there is something to be said about people that do not have to rely on others to be extraordinary.” Voldemort’s half-profile is human for but a moment, before he turns and looks back at his younger self, eyes glinting darkly.

Riddle chokes on his indignancy as Harry sighs, torn between admonition and sudden affection. Of course.

She looks at Tom Riddle once more and sits next to where he had risen from the couch. Tom sits down, too, with a practised air of deliberation. The surly slope of his minuscule pout, though, makes him look his age. “I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you didn’t mean to reject all of us Muggles quite as vehemently as you did,” Harry says with all the gentleness she can muster. She knows that Tom had a difficult childhood growing up among Muggles, who didn’t understand him, but so did Harry. She knows that Riddle is mentally capable of recognizing that a subsample of people’s characteristics cannot be extrapolated to the majority. She doesn’t understand why Tom refuses to acknowledge that truth.

“It’s all I ever wanted–,” the young wizard says next to her, absentmindedly fingering the ring adorning his hands. His gaze snaps to her, eyes glazed over with a madness that makes Harry want to physically recoil. “– to be recognized for the power I possess…” Harry feels the oppressiveness of Tom Riddle’s might. It’s terrifying. And you need Salazar Slytherin for that, she wonders, despairing. Why couldn’t he see the reality of his strength? Harry was sure not even Dumbledore had ever felt as imposing as Tom Riddle did. And Riddle’s core was yet developing.

Regardless, she was pretending to be a Muggle, and thus unaware of Riddle’s magical presence. So, Harry leaned over towards her grandson, slightly, and placed a hand on his cooler ones.

“I’m not going to apologize,” Riddle says stubbornly, hand stiffening underneath hers.

“Of course not,” says Harry, once more overcome with that stupid rush of affection. She really was an idiot for feeling the way she did about either of them. To Harry, Tom Riddle was many things and, sometimes, she found it all too easy to forget that he had been just a teenager at some point in his life, as well. “Just… Try and not react to his goading… For all of our sakes, Tom.”

Tom’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “He’s a right prick,” he bit out, pulling his hands out of hers and crossing his arms in front of his chest. Was he aware of just how defensive this pose looked? Dumbledore had always described Tom Riddle’s façade as near perfect. While his older self, whom Harry had met in Zacharias Smith’s body, had certainly seemed to have perfected his suave veneer, Harry couldn’t help but think that this teenaged version of Tom was not all that unflappable.

Smothering her snicker, she allowed, “He’s… exacting.”

The boy merely stared at her dubiously. “If you say so,” he finally said, derision soaking his tone. Then, after a few seconds of deliberation, he cocked his head curiously and asked, “Why is it that you call him Vee, Mary? That doesn’t come to mind at all, as a nickname for someone named Thomas Riddle…”

Harry mentally curses. Of course, Tom Riddle would be astute enough to notice something like that. “It’s a long story…” she tries deflecting, remembering Voldemort’s presuming familiarity, that night in Burke’s kitchen.

Tom must’ve seen something on her face, because the corners of his mouth pull downward in faint disgust. He almost seems to cringe away from her. “Right. Never mind I asked…” he quickly stands and strides out of the room, presumably to antagonize Voldemort a little more.

Unfortunately, this incident is not the last of Tom and Voldemort clashing.

On the final day prior to Tom’s return to Hogwarts, the boy seems possibly even more temperamental than he had been previously. He is pushing his food from one side of his plate to the other, when Harry’s insistence for the boy to eat something, makes him explode, unexpectedly. “Why are you doing this?” he spits. The loathing ‘for me’ singes the air, unspoken. Voldemort folds the newspaper he had been reading, with a distinct lack of patience. “You don’t know what she’s done,” the boy chokes out, eyes wild, nostrils flaring.

She?

“You know nothing of what she has done! You’re nothing but dull-witted Muggles, who are unaware of just how little power you have against any of us!”

Ah, Harry cringes. Merope Gaunt. Voldemort must’ve come to a similar conclusion, his face darkening.

The boy’s power is flaring, the air turning stifling with self-hatred. “Tom,” Voldemort’s voice is as quiet as it is cutting. His upper lip is twitching as his ire rises to meet his younger self’s. “We know quite certainly the… broad strokes of your parents’ sudden limerence.”

Tom stands abruptly, eyes flaring red, as his face grimaces into a snarl. And Harry is reminded again, that he has already broken his soul once, in this time. The anger on his face is too raw for him to be whole. For a moment, Harry aches for him and the disaster that awaits the wizarding world.

The boy rounds on his older self, “You think you do, old man?” his eyes flash with something that looks a lot like desperate joy at his destruction, at his self-sabotage. “Or should I tell you exactly, how my inbred whore of a mother, brought your pathetic son to heel by use of a love potion? Or how he, the filth that he is, left her, aware of her unborn child?”

This pain, Harry wouldn’t wish anyone.

The narrowing of Voldemort’s eyes is a warning. Instead, it eggs Riddle on. Every item within the room begins to shake, while Riddle’s control finally snaps, fully. The boy turns towards her, now. “Meanwhile you two are here, playing house, imagining yourself lucky at finally having an heir!” his voice breaks in the end. Harry notices Voldemort’s magic blanketing the items that would have otherwise exploded all over the room, suffocating his younger self’s untargeted accidental magic brutally.

Riddle’s harsh breathing echoes through the deafening silence in the aftermath of his outburst. Voldemort is clutching his newspaper with a strength that bleeds the skin around his knuckles white.

“Tom. You are not your parents,” Harry says, as the silence dims the fury in Riddle’s eyes. She sees the flare of Riddle’s fear at her voice. Fear of finally being denounced, now that he spelt the terrible truth of his ancestry out, so succinctly. His desperate gaze seems to clutch, and cling and ache for her acceptance. Oh, what terrible, terrible things Tom Riddle was capable of doing to himself.

No wonder someone with such pain felt the need to inflict pain to others, too. “– Just as much as we are not our children,” she says with a long glance at Voldemort. She wishes he would understand that the thing he had done for this younger version of himself if with a lot of grumbling and groaning, had been ultimately kind; that this act, by extension, made some part of him kind, too. Well. Maybe not holistically kind, exactly, but that he had the possibility for it.

And finally, she sets some of her own hurts free. Her own guilt at her falling into step with her parents’ murderer so easily. The shame at how seamlessly she has gone from hating, to working with, to finally accepting him; their murderer – because she had accepted him, and their shared past, even if it hurt still. She let go of the possibility of her parents’ judgement at their similarities, at how much she had grown to... like him.

There were a few key differences between Voldemort and her, she thinks. A few, crucial distinctions in their experiences, which allowed her to find a family and love, while Voldemort had been driven to hate and fear.

“We shouldn’t be judged by their actions. Nothing about them makes us inevitable, I think. What matters is how we choose to act. That's who we really are. It’s a path we can always forge anew,” she says, and it rings in the silence between the three of them. Voldemort’s face is closed off again, yet there is something undeniably… soft, around the corners of his eyes.

Her eyes find Riddle, whose shoulders curl in, in shame and his eyes are begging, latching onto her words.

“You should come to stay with us, during your summer holidays,” Harry states gently insistent. And finally, Tom Marvolo Riddle agrees.

Harry knew with a bone-deep certainty that they wouldn’t be able to spend much more time in the vessels of Tom Riddle’s grandparents, once the boy had agreed with his proposal. But as the two of them open their eyes in the space in between, he, –he?

Yes, he – finds himself mourning the loss of them. He is almost envious of the missed opportunity of seeing Riddle grow up. His sorrow is quickly swept up in the ecstasy pouring through their connection. Voldemort is staggering as the shard of his soul, prevented from ever having split apart, joins its mangled remainders. Both of them are left panting in the wake of it.

“Very well done,” Death croons from behind them. Its voice is as haunting as ever. Death lets its head fall back, revealing some of its shifting, blurry face, before it snaps back in an unnaturally jerky fashion. Something like a pleased grin stretches over its eery features.

Harry feels Voldemort seizing, rather than seeing it – his counterpart’s features are stiff in practised emotionlessness. Come to think of it, he resembles his more human self progressively stronger. His cheeks are still too sharp to be human, but his eyes have lost some of their crazed lustre. They are less red, mellowed to a murky darkened brown and something about his face is less… jagged.

Voldemort's face twitches before he turns towards Harry fully, raising a perfectly sculpted brow. Satisfied amusement plays in the recess of Harry’s mind.

Right. The bond. Damn him. Harry refuses to flush at his musings. He pushes a few pointed, admittedly petty, thoughts about Voldemort’s apparent age through the bond. To both his frustration and his glee, Voldemort doesn’t react.

Death barks out a laugh, startling in its abruptness. It grates, is breathy yet echoes through the white emptiness and through Harry’s skull. “Almost perfect,” it whispers. Glee in its voice and features. It sets Harry on edge. Voldemort seems to agree, subtly incensed and wary. They still are not certain of Death’s motive.

Chapter Text

“Where to next, then?” Death croons deferentially at Harry.

They have been working in reverse chronological order, so far, and thus–.

“We need to inhabit two students at Hogwarts, in the year of 1941,” Voldemort interrupts Harry. “Roughly a year before I create my first Horcrux,” he expands.

Death smiles benignly. “Is that to your wishes, too?” it asks with flourish, eyes flaring.

Harry nods numbly and rolls his shoulder, self-conscious at that tenacious, itching cold in his left shoulder. Death smiles at him strangely as he does so, which makes him want to scratch it out even more. But he knows if he reached for the spot, he’d find nothing. He had checked his shoulder in their previous life.

Harry shakes his head. He can feel Voldemort’s boiling ire throbbing in his scar at needing Harry’s confirmation. It’s far from the head-splitting pain of his rage, but it is insistent enough to blot out his other discomforts. The cold in his shoulder recedes momentarily.

It allows him to think for a short time. “Wait!” he interrupts Death’s sweeping gesture with a half-formed idea on the tip of his tongue. “Could you reincarnate us in people that don’t exist yet?” he asks. “All this… being affected by someone else’s memories and character is… a little confusing.” He doesn’t meet Voldemort’s surprised eyes.

Death seems disproportionately annoyed at his request, before it falls into a deep bow, which serves to obscure its features. Why does Harry feel like he’s being duped? “No memories? Of course,” it croons.

The next breath they draw is rather dusty. It is evening already, the moon is shining through a large window. Headmaster Dippet turns at their choked-out surprise and asks whether they are alright. Voldemort reassures the man and cuffs his younger sibling in his side. It seems as if Death had heeded Harry’s wish – he has no memories of someone else’s past rushing through him, obscuring his own emotions. The only pre-determined, defining features of their vessels are their relation and their joining Hogwarts as transfer students, part-way through their education.

If he hadn’t known that Harry inhabited the vessel to his left, from his choked gasping, the boy’s unnaturally green eyes would have given it away. Again, the boy always managed to retain this specific physical characteristic. Voldemort has not given up on trying to understand how Death’s magic functions, but he is willing to postpone this research until after they are done with this insanity. He acknowledges his body and feels a faint annoyance flare at the sight of a roughly 17-year-old student. Tom Riddle should be roughly 15 or 16, and being two years older is only a hindrance. He feels a migraine approaching. It is never simple when one relies on anyone else, or in the case of Death, anything else, to do the job precisely.

Dippet, meanwhile, gestures for Harry – Harrison Alarie, his mind intercepts – to sit and get sorted into a House. His eyes find the other boy.

Ah. Alarie. They shall be Pure-bloods, then.

Harry’s vessel is younger than his own in this incarnation, roughly by three years, Voldemort estimates. As old as Tom Riddle should be, now. Apart from his striking eyes, Harry’s vessel looks nothing like his inhabitant, instead of tan skin and a shock of black hair, he now has dark blonde hair and fine features. His memories conjure up his own self, hair a few shades lighter than his younger siblings, skin even paler. Just as aristocratic. Good.

“Gryffindor!” the hat rips him from his musings and Voldemort finds himself irritated at the younger boy’s self-satisfied grin. This sorting is petty and complicates their mission unnecessarily. He grinds his teeth. Harry’s grin simply widens cheekily, which looks so distinctly like he did in his previous vessel, Voldemort can’t help the fondness that floods him.

By Hecate, the insufferable git had been right. Their vessels did affect their emotions! Clearly, some of that inexcusable attachment lingered. It was preposterous to think, this nauseating emotion should be his own!

“Valentin?” the headmaster questions, pointing at the tattered Hat. Voldemort’s initial confusion diffuses as he realizes that he himself is addressed. He sits and as he turns to accept the hat, he finds a younger version of Dumbledore. The man must have been standing behind the two of them the entire time. How did he miss him?

The man’s piercing stare is disconcerting. Voldemort feels anger, thankfully his own, flood his system. The not-yet-headmaster is examining the two of them as if already aware, that there was something not quite right about Harry and him.

Voldemort evens out his features; he hasn’t had cause to control his expressions for a long time. He has almost forgotten how Tom Riddle wore it as a second skin well into adulthood. His constructed physicality and preceding reputation as the Dark Lord causing fear in the beholder.

And after that. Well… There hadn’t been much need to guard one’s expressions around an air-headed, oblivious, dense–. Harry, the fool, takes one of Dumbledore’s offered lemon drops. Voldemort is almost relieved at the isolating silence shrouding him, as the head is lowered over his head.

The hat hums and hahs into his ears incessantly before deciding on the House Voldemort knew he would be sorted into. Dippet congratulates the two of them, insipid as ever, and asks Dumbledore to escort them to their new dormitories. Trailing after his former professor and Harry, who, predictably, has already managed to endear himself to the other man, Voldemort cannot help but feel a nostalgic sentimentality at the sight of these halls. Stones he knows like the back of his hand, turns he could walk asleep. Such useless whimsicalities.

As if reading his mind, Harry falls into step with him and smiles softly.

The next morning comes with cautious distance from some of his dorm-mates and arrogant condescension from others. Mostly, it comes with a vexing volume of idle chatter in the great hall. This, he hadn’t missed. He sits somewhat apart from the other members of his house, taking the first day to survey the status quo. His sibling is already part of an extensive group of inane Gryffindors – Voldemort is almost unable to control his sneer. Of course. The boy is Gryffindor through and through.

Tom Riddle sits a few meters away amidst his followers, established as the clear leader by this age already. It is both gratifying and disturbing to behold himself at such a young age. Gratifying, because the same Pure-bloods that sneered down at him during the beginning of their education at Hogwarts, now cower at the boy’s feet. Disturbing, because Voldemort can now see the thin veneer, behind which his younger counterpart hides behind; he can see how desperately a younger version of himself clutches at the threads of power.

The boy still retains some of his youth, face yet a little round, eyes sharp, demeanour condescendingly bemused. The others surrounding him, laughing at something he had said. Avery and Rosier are seated next to the younger version of him, vying for his attention. Voldemort feels distantly disgusted by such a weak-minded following. Now, as he did then, he despises them.

“So!” A gust of air and a peppy sitting down on the bench next to him disrupt Voldemort’s musings. Harry – who else – has assumed the liberty to sit beside him. He leans close, “What’s the plan? How do we stop mini-murder-Riddle from, you know, doing the mini-murder, Vee?” The boy’s eyes sparkle mischievously.

Mischievously!

Harry Potter is well aware of just how much this nickname grates on his nerves.

Voldemort breathes deeply, unclenches his fingers from his cup of black tea and takes a sip for serenity. It wouldn’t do to punish the boy. As much as it grates, he needs the dolt. He had been doing a good job, so far.

Voldemort sets down his cup, delicately, opens his mouth to delineate his plan when, “Aww, don’t look so put out.” Voldemort, with purposeful poise, intercepts the boy’s hand, which had been on its way to… pet his head. Morgana, the boy was positively vexatious, today!

The younger, infuriatingly, grins up at him through long, blonde lashes.

“I will tell you at a more… opportune time. There are too many people here, you fool,” he says exasperated, dropping his opposite’s hand belatedly. Harry looks up at him in what might be warm amusement before he ducks away faintly apologetic.

This makes him feel… something uncomfortable. He does not enjoy the feeling. Voldemort’s now empty hands are itching for his wand.

He stands and leaves the snickering git alone.

Voldemort impresses his fellow seven-years during classes, of course, which has the intended effect of catching the attention of some of Riddle’s older followers and thus, of the boy himself.

Unfortunately, said intended effect has a secondary consequence, namely, that he is now subjected to their attention. Their dull-headed ineptitude grinds on him. During dinner, he is still mercifully left alone – a reprieve, which is guaranteed not to remain so for long. He has already seen his younger self’s inevitably curious stare.

Harry joins him again, breaking away from his friends and their subsequent mistrustful glances, red-cheeked and bright-eyed, to sit in front of him and chafingly steal his pumpkin juice. “Don’t you have somewhere else to be, Harry?” he asks with faux-charm.

“Nah,” the boy shrugs unconcernedly. “Don’t you have a plan to share with me?” the boy asks instead. He saves himself the infuriating nickname this time.

Voldemort stares down the younger, considering whether there is use in not telling him, whether he can twist Harry’s unawareness to his benefit. Deciding that the boy likely won’t stay away, if he doesn’t let him in on his plans, he sighs before saying, “I am in the process of ingratiating myself in Riddle’s company. Magical strength and a Pure-blooded background are what I was after back then, after all”

Harry looks across the Slytherin table towards Voldemort’s younger self. His jovial expression leaves, rendering him pensive; face tinged in a complicated emotion, Voldemort cannot quite parse. It resembles the boy’s emotion back when he felt that mystifying feeling of loss, which had soaked the bond during their last encounter with Death.

Two of Riddle’s followers – Avery and Nott, Voldemort remembers – stand.

Harry twists back towards Voldemort again, a smug grin on his face once more, “Predictable as ever, then, I take it.” It rankles merely somewhat. Voldemort considers his younger self, too, now. Even if Voldemort would never concede it to the dullard directly, he sees very little of himself in his younger self. Thus, Voldemort chooses to leave the sentiment uncommented, even as Harry’s grin widens.

Then, there is some commotion between Avery and Nott, causing one of them to stumble against Harry and spilling Voldemort’s pumpkin juice all over the boy’s robes. They do so, in such a crude imitation of an accident, it is almost offensive. “I do apologize. Never mind those two, they are just so clumsy,” the dulcet voice of Callidora Greengrass appears behind Voldemort. She allows for an artful moment to allow her spurious apology to settle, “Allow us to help you make the right kind of acquaintance–, Alarie, was it? I’m Callidora, Pure-blood of the ancient and noble House Greengrass.”

Voldemort hadn’t noticed her approaching. The young woman’s heavy-lidded gaze is on Harry, in obvious distaste, before her features turn flirtatious as she takes in Voldemort’s vessel. The two boys sneer down at Harry, making the fact that this was everything but an accident, starkly obvious.

Greengrass places an assuming hand on Voldemort’s shoulder. Voldemort finds Harry staring at the appendage for a second, before finding his eyes. From the boy’s barely concealed, crookedly amused grin, Voldemort knows his own rage at the entitled gesture must be obvious.

Voldemort’s heart stops for a second in pride and pleasure. He did this. This slightly dark, slightly vindictive side of Harry’s had been beginning to show in their past life. He hadn’t worried, per se, rather wondered, if that would be one of the characteristics that were Harry or his previous vessel’s.

Harry’s grin gains an edge of faux-sweetness and widens into innocence, as his eyes move up to take in the girl behind Voldemort. Voldemort remembers Greengrass, she was known for her rather… loose morals. He finds himself deeply annoyed by his house-mates’ posturing. Voldemort crosses his arms in hopes of Greengrass getting his subliminal messaging and removing her offending appendage before he did so. With a well-placed cutting curse. He reminds himself that it wouldn’t do, to dole out curses on his first day. He can see his younger self’s interested glance out of the corner of his eyes.

“Oh, no worries. I’m sure it was a mistake,” Harry waves away the girl’s fake concern and cleans his robes with a quick Scourgify. Non-verbal. Wandless.

Voldemort can tell, by the widening of Avery’s and Nott’s eyes, that they find this display of power impressive. Voldemort feels his upper lip twitch in annoyance. Such a casual display of magical might is difficult to explain and far beyond any of the surrounding student’s abilities.

Harry plasters on an even wider smile and twists to shake the two older boys’ hands in obviously Muggle introduction. The two of them grumble perplexedly, before they take his hand and then, finally, the three of them leave, blessedly. Harry’s face returns to a saner level of grinning. He sighs deeply, “Slytherins…” he says with what might be more fondness than honest annoyance. Voldemort finds himself secretly agreeing.

The attention of his younger self’s entire group, bar Riddle himself, is undoubtedly on the two of them from then on. Predictable, Voldemort thinks, not entirely satisfied by his younger self. Though, then he considers his younger self’s volatility in their previous life. Maybe this Riddle would be easier to handle. “Come!” he commands quietly and rises, leaving his half-eaten dinner behind, with even, measured steps. Harry Potter scrambles to follow him.

“And what is my role in all of this?” Harry asks, his voice cutting through the silence that had filled the unused classroom, following Voldemort’s speech.

“Nothing. It would probably be easiest, if you stayed as far away from me as possible. I need to get close to… myself, and that will be much more laborious if I associate myself with Gryffindors.” They tended to hex students from that house on sight.

Harry nods, grinning for some incomprehensible reason. Someone should tell him how inane that looked on these new features. Voldemort sighs.

“Right, and once you’ve… gotten close to him, how will you convince him, not to open the chamber of secrets? Are you… gonna say pretty please?” the younger boy asks.

Voldemort has to consciously smooth out his pinched features at his distaste for both Harry’s peasant-like phrasing and his part in the mission. Salazar, he really needs practice at this charming act. He had gotten far too comfortable with everyone shivering in fear at a mere mention of his.

“No,” he grinds out, fighting for an even tone. Harry gazes back at him expectantly.

He levels Harry with a stare, “I will give him something else to focus on. A different means to achieving the power he desires.” Harry is staring at him wide-eyed. He looks spooked. “I know what he wants the most, after all,” Voldemort’s voice trails off, the inuendo saturating the air.

There is a moment in which Voldemort is not certain, whether his opposite has understood. Then, though, Harry’s face turns ruddy with… incredulity? And suddenly there are tears in his eyes. “You’re planning to seduce your younger self?” he wheezes out between peals of laughter.

The Dark Lord is not offended by the boy’s plebian inability to comprehend such simple matters.

He feels his mouth pull into a sardonic smile. “You don’t exactly have the moral high ground to judge me on seducing a version of Tom Riddle, do you?” he asks pointedly, enjoying the pretty flush that creeps across his opposite’s features. It’s the first time he’s acknowledged the things that Harry had let bleed through the bond after their first mission. It appears, Harry does not enjoy being reminded.

The younger boy’s features rearrange from mortified, to incensed, to defiant. “That. Was different. He was, uh, persistent,” Harry clears his throat. The flush regrettably calms, before he meets Voldemort’s eyes head-on again.

Voldemort understands such a sacrifice. How could he not? He had been lying awake contemplating his options the past few days, searching for alternative paths to success. “It was in the name of the mission,” he allows. He doesn’t ponder how he has taken to adopting Harry’s inane terminology to describe their unfortunate fate of being reborn repeatedly.

Harry’s mouth drops open in a shocked oh. Harry’s eyes searching Voldemort’s face. “You’re serious!” he breathes, eyes going wide. “The poor boy is fifteen! And you’re like… seventy, or something.” Harry clutches his metaphorical pearls to his chest in an approximation of a scandalized virgin. Voldemort is decidedly not amused at the boy’s inane antics. Though, inexplicably, he seems to struggle suppressing his smile as the boy’s theatrics suddenly devolve into laughter.

“Only you, Vee–,” he pushes out between inelegant fits of chortling. One hand of his using Voldemort’s frame to steady himself. “Only you would think that seducing your own self is the best course of action! That is so incredibly narcissistic, I should start calling you The Vain Lord. Capitalized...” he trails off, chuckling and looking up at Voldemort through tear-clumped lashes. He sounds so disgustingly affectionate, Voldemort finds it difficult to take offence.

“Had I known you were so keen to do the honours…” Voldemort suggests, an eyebrow arched, smiling vindictively at Harry’s wide-eyed shock.

But then, surprisingly, the boy’s eyes squint slyly. “You know, I actually think this version might like me,” he says, eyebrows waggling stupidly. Which. This thought doesn’t sit right with Voldemort. It doesn’t matter that both previous versions of himself had shown themselves irritatingly susceptible to the chaos, that is Harry Potter.

“I think it easier if I go after him,” he counters, unwilling to further this discussion. “Run along, now. And don’t call too much attention to yourself, Harry,” Voldemort says imperiously. Harry bites his lips, as if smothering an objection, but ultimately heeds his wishes.

He finds himself returning to the Slytherin common rooms uncharacteristically smiling.

He had underappreciated just how gruelling this mission would be. Tom Riddle clearly does not deem him worthy of his attention. Not that he had expected it to be easy, he had known that his younger version would consider another student, that strongly rivalled or even surpassed his academic brilliance and magic potency, a threat. Yet, he remembered just how bored he had been with his goons, then, and how deeply he had longed to find an equal. Or at least a second in command, with a pedigree worthy of that title. Mulciber had been a good, loyal acquaintance, but like many others, he failed to display the appropriate level of magical finesse. He’d thought Riddle would possess the foresight to at least attempt to recruit his older version.

To his utter surprise, any reaction the boy had displayed so far, could, at best, be classified as apathetic politeness. A politeness, which had turned to distance, ever since Greengrass had remarked that Voldemort seemed to not spare any female students any attention.

He sighed, leaning back on the bench he was sitting on and stared into the darkening night. Admittedly, the easy sleaziness he had employed, during his time as a student, did not come naturally to Voldemort any longer. Having long since outgrown these pathetic means to maintain power. But he would have thought Riddle would at least appreciate the manipulative attention his younger self was so fond of utilizing, himself.

“There you are.” As always lately, Voldemort’s soothing calm is unceremoniously disturbed by none other than Harry Potter. “I was looking for you everywhere during lunch.” Harry’s voice is tentative, as if he’s aware of Voldemort’s preference for solitude, but chooses to ignore his wishes.

Voldemort gathers his splayed outer robes towards his side of the bench, not verbally articulating his permission for the younger to sit. The boy sits, mercifully quiet. The sun finally dips behind the Forbidden Forest’s crowns, thus dusking the grass planes surrounding the castle with an eery, bloodied orange, that bleeds the saturation from the world surrounding the two of them.

In the end, he doesn’t know why he tells the boy of his recent difficulties, but he supposes it only aids them in their mission. Harry, regrettably, does not appreciate the intricacies of his struggles.

“You’re telling me that you’re surprised Riddle doesn’t fall for the same charming bullshittery, he prides himself on?” the boy presses out, his laugh twisting from incredulous to delighted.

Well. He wouldn’t have phrased it so crudely, but in essence, yes. Voldemort patiently waits for the boy to quiet, tapping his fingers on his leg to assuage the urge to jinx the boy for his audacity. “I have tortured greater men for lesser offences, Potter,” he states pointedly, which causes the boy to double over with mirth, once more. The boy’s hand lands on Voldemort’s exposed forearm to catch himself.

Maybe it is the warmth, or the genuine mirth, that spreads at their contact, which stills Voldemort’s wand hand. “Are you quite done?” Voldemort asks drily, trying to suppress his own smile at the boy’s useless dabbing away of stray tears on wet lashes. Wishing to see Harry Potter cry used to have an entirely different meaning.

He admits his strategy might have been a little short-sighted. Though he maintains that figuring out a person’s ideal and catering to it, should be the simplest way to endear oneself to another. Harry shrugs, when he says so, and studies his face intently. His gaze is piercing, but not unkind.

It doesn’t make him wish for the boy to deferentially avert it; he carries no desire for the boy to humble himself.

Huh. Who would have thought?

The boy inflates his cheeks and dispels the air making a popping sound, before he leans back into the wooden bench’s backrest, seeming almost surprised by whatever he has found. Voldemort smothers his curiosity.

“Maybe you should simply try to be yourself, Vee?” Harry suggests, almost painfully careful. “Honesty, in my experience, usually makes for better friendships.”

Dismissing such ludicrous of a statement, Voldemort snorts at the boy’s naiveté and folds his arms in front of his chest. Riddle would not have wanted to associate himself with the man he would later become. And, well. It’s not friendship he’s aiming at, after all.

There may be something like pity in Harry Potter’s gaze, but Voldemort doesn’t care to discuss his complex relationship with his younger self. Luckily, Harry has developed an uncanny ability to know when not to press an issue.

They sit side by side, letting the curfew pass in a silence that changes from uncomfortable to companionable. At some point, Harry conjures up his handy little blue flames to fight the cold creeping in, both unwilling to return to their respective dorm rooms just yet.

The Mudblood’s, Voldemort remembers. ‘Hermione’s’ the boy had corrected then, having sounded oddly wistful. Voldemort never cared about what he left behind, never wondered how their time would be once they returned to it. He had always prioritized his immortality above everything else – rendering him an eternity to realize his aspirations to become the greatest wizard alive. But his companion clearly did worry about his incessant little friends.

Voldemort is feeling uncharitable, then. Something vicious tingles on the tip of his tongue. Instead, he swallows it down, doesn’t mention it. To leave the fragile peace between them undisturbed.

“Hogwarts was my first home, too, you know?” the boy says suddenly. “But it is so… strange to be back again,” Harry’s voice sounds like he’s revealing a dirty secret. As if he were betraying the castle by voicing his emotions.

Voldemort watches the boy beside him. His demeanour is no longer peaceful, even if he looks calm, superficially. Voldemort bids him to continue by a silent quirk of a brow. He does not reveal that it is disconcerting for him, too. Likely similar to his former adversary, his attachment to the castle had been intense. Unlike for Potter, though, it had eventually been reduced to a symbol, a locale to eviscerate his enemies.

“I’ve been on the run throughout my 7^th year–. And even though that was fucking scary–,” beside him, Harry chokes out a strangled laugh, his hand finding his inexplicably tousled hairs and mussing them further. “– And then, Dumbledore–. I mean–, my whole life, really, I’d been made to be… Was thrust into this role of saviour–,” A mirthless grimace. His eyes find Voldemort’s directly and he doesn’t flinch, doesn’t cower away. But Harry Potter doesn’t accuse, either. “Only to find out that I would have to die.”

The uncompromising words ring in the silence.

Admirably, Harry Potter’s voice does not waver. He is angry, hurt. And he wears these emotions unrepentantly; for all to perceive. Voldemort can see the boy’s eyes flare with unnatural green intensity; can feel the boy’s magic contract violently around his slender frame. It’s intoxicating in its promise of savagery. The boy would be a great asset.

Then, he exhales slowly and the tension bleeds away, even as his hurt remains behind. Voldemort is promptly reminded, why the boy would be an atrocious weapon. He fights against his own violent instincts, doesn’t relish in the destruction as Voldemort would. The thought is as maddening, as it is relieving. This erosive anger doesn’t suit him, even if he would be glorious, brandishing it.

“It felt so natural to hate you,” the boy’s voice has lost all his vitriol. “You were the cause and effect of all the terrible things, which happened in my life.”

Voldemort inclines his head, admitting to his crimes, unwilling to lie or pretend. They seemed the only way, then. He doesn’t know how he would have behaved, now. Cannot make fanciful promises of being a changed man.

Well. He could. But he feels disinclined to lie, right at this moment.

Instead, he says, “It doesn’t compare, since it wasn’t by your choice. But, Salazar, you were the worst thing to happen to me, too.” And it rings frighteningly true. Underneath the layer of disbelieving hubris, he had been terrified, back then. The boy had felt like his prophesied end.

Surprisingly, the statement isn’t met with red-gold, gryffindorian outrage, but with an incredulous laugh. A beat. Then, the tell-tale signs of the boy’s mischief. “Were, Vee? Careful, I might get the idea, that you like me now.” Harry leans in, winking obnoxiously.

Voldemort doesn’t react by cursing the boy, as he rightly should. And the boy retracts back into his own space, seemingly self-satisfied. “Brat,” Voldemort says, to Harry’s evident amusement.

“But I do wonder–,” he drowns out Harry’s chortle. “If you were born to be my demise…” Harry’s gaze is serious, now, bright with attention. “Whether… The prophecy–. Maybe that was fate trying to correct my… exceeding ambitions,” Voldemort trails off and Harry nods in thoughtful agreement. The boy is handsome like this, staring into the distance, his previous levity fading swiftly. Voldemort looks away.

The sprawling Forbidden Forest is close. Uncanny sounds beckoning from its unexplored depths. It feels easier to admit to such a thought when the boy’s gaze is not on him, Voldemort thinks.

There is something utterly unsettling about Harry Potter’s attention. They had spent more time in one another’s company, than Voldemort had ever done before, with anyone. The boy likely knew him better than anyone else. And worse, he had quite literally seen inside his mind. The two of them knew each other’s past, their worst impulses; were intimately acquainted with them.

He feels a dark humour rise in him at that thought, a sardonic smile stretches his lips. Oh, the irony that was their lives. What did he have to lose? The boy knew he didn’t regret what he’d done. He was quite literally unable to incriminate himself further. With him, there was no point in pretending to be someone he wasn’t.

“I feel, though, as if I–, my past self had always spiralled towards this,” he says, feeling in his bones, just how true the sentiment was. He catches Harry’s eyes for a mere instance. His cloying fear to see pity is mitigated. There is only understanding in the boy’s gaze. “It feels deterministic, almost, in retrospect. Creating Horcruxes and the concomitant mental decline–,” he stumbles over that slightly. “–it didn’t necessarily divert me from my goal, but instead, served to push me further down that path.”

The boy’s eyebrows rise so far, they are almost hidden underneath that blonde fringe of his. Though there is a twitch to his mouth, he does not contest the point. They stare out into the darkness again. After a small infinity, the boy sighs in word-less acquittance.

Does he rage internally? Is he screaming on the inside about self-made fate? Or, does he think about that inconsolable, inhuman rage of Tom Riddle’s, they had seen in their previous life? Voldemort has spent long hours, wondering whether there was a point of no return. A point before which, he would have been able to let his goal rest. Whether he could have ever been satisfied with his progress and just… let it be? Live a content life? Perhaps join the Ministry, even? Argue for his vision of their society with words and arguments, rather than might?

He wonders whether part of their mission’s goal was, to find that switch that Tom Riddle needed, needs, not to become Lord Voldemort. It feels so inevitable, though, he doesn’t know what that point might have been. Now with most of his soul parts reassembled, it is easier to see that somewhere between his third and fourth Horcrux he had truly lost himself. But the persistence of Harry’s scar proves that all the pieces he had managed to reunite so far, had not been sufficient to stop him from becoming Voldemort.

Weak.

Harry is silent for a long time, as well. “Does it feel different, now that you have parts of your soul back?” The boy takes his hand carefully deliberate. “Why does this feel so… good? It never used to.”

It seems that for all the amicable traits Harry Potter has revealed in their time together, there is a reason why he was, and is, sorted into Gryffindor. Voldemort doesn’t exclusively hate this… bravery. It is true. This warmth that spreads between them, that turns his blood syrupy and his heartbeat sluggish, is diametrically opposite to the ‘I can touch you, now’, in the night of his resurrection. He had seen the boy visit the place, back in their previous vessels, though of course, the large tombstone meant for the Riddle family had not yet been erected.

Voldemort feels too raw to acknowledge the truth of it. Harry’s honest eyes are irritating; the hope within them, chafing. Voldemort does not want to see it. Because maybe then, he’d be tempted to live up to the Golden Boy’s monumental expectations.

Maybe Riddle had it right after all. A charming façade is a lie, necessary to protect what is underneath. Right now, Voldemort feels very much like he has to protect himself from Harry Potter.

Perhaps that last thought is why he says, “If you wanted an excuse to touch me, Potter, you could have just said” He grabs the boy’s chin with his free hand and leans close, whispers into his ear. His breath must be fanning the boy’s ear warmly in the cooling air, because Harry can barely suppress a shiver.

As he pulls back, he’s slightly disappointed though. Harry’s face is utterly unimpressed and suddenly, the extent of physical contact between them seems like a colossal mistake. He drops the boy’s chin hastily, cursing internally, as the boy’s expression changes to vaguely triumphant.

And. The boy doesn’t let it go.

This irritating, presumptive, invasive, rampant hand still is on his own. He wants to hex it off.

Green eyes boring into his, Harry Potter is cataloguing his every expression. It’s a losing fight, Voldemort thinks. The boy knows too much. His wand hand itches again. Is this what having a companion is like? It’s uncomfortable, because it’s intimate and it brings to light, forces him to acknowledge, his own failings. He doesn’t like it. It’s difficult to curb the urge to hoard secrets, after a lifetime of protecting them jealously.

But then, Harry’s expression softens slightly. And while it is still unyielding, it lacks the triumph. Whom is he kidding – he knows the boy feels exactly the same.

A soul split is a soul of longing. It wants to be complete. The boy must despise the pervasive draw to one another just as he does. It’s a small but not insignificant comfort that they share this particular weakness. And thus, for maybe the first time in an exceptionally long time, Voldemort chooses to be truthful about something that could be viably used against him.

“Yes. Though it’s difficult to say, how, exactly. I didn’t feel my lack of sanity back then and I don’t feel sane now, though I probably have more soul than remained after the creation of the first three Horcruxes,” He expects a joke from Harry, something questioning his current sanity. It doesn’t come. “I have a theory, at what happens whenever the creation of one of my Horcruxes is prevented and the respective piece of my soul rejoins…”

The boy is unerringly attentive. Voldemort kills the unbecoming urge to fidget. “I feel more… I was never truly empathetic, human emotion seemed always a little foreign to me, I didn’t–, don’t understand the depth of grief, or the consumedness of love. I find it pitiable to be bound by such shackles–,” he laughs darkly. Anyone listening would, should be appalled.

Harry doesn’t judge, is simply attentive to his words. “– but I no longer feel hollow. There is no longer a lack of such emotions. Maybe I’m merely numbed to them. I am aware that they exist, even if I don’t feel them in their full breadth. And with you pulling back my soul shard into you... it has been similar. I feel some of what I… lost, when that shard broke off, because of you being a living Horcrux. Because of that connection.”

It pulls me towards you, is what he is not saying. It makes me want to attain the possibility for such emotions.

Harry looks oddly nervous. He thinks, the boy might know already. “Back then there was only my focus on my end-goal – ambition. But even when I killed you in that forest–,” He gestures to the sprawling line of trees not too far from them. Harry shivers. “– when I thought I had eviscerated my greatest adversity, there was no relish. Only an insatiable want for more… power, I guess.”

Harry swallows, but he doesn’t look pitying. “It’s difficult if one no longer truly knows what one is fighting for,” the boy offers, breaking his silence. Voldemort is mystified. His impression of the Harry Potter, that had been, is devoid of such uncertainty. “When we were on the run… I–, we always fought for a good life, for a better future. For a long time, it felt like I made the present worse, by fighting.”

Ah, there it is. Something within Voldemort still thrills at seeing Harry struggle with his own morality. Or rather his complicated relationship with what he thinks he should feel. It’s a part of himself, Voldemort knows, Harry doesn’t condone. It’s the part that makes the boy oh-so-interesting.

The boy looks at him fleetingly and Voldemort knows his dark amusement must show on his face, because Harry’s expression hardens in defiance. Which, admittedly, is delightful too. “Then again, the future you wanted… want would not have been great for wizards and witches like Hermione, or me. Or even you, if you had been honest!” the boy’s words rise in volume with his irritation. “Why did you ever want blood supremacy, by the way? Tell me, I never understood!” the boy challenges him.

Voldemort knows he is smiling widely. Uncontrolledly. He knows it isn’t one of the smiles that attracts lesser men like moths to light, there is nothing honeyed sweet about it. It’s predatory. Yet Harry Potter doesn’t rear back, as he should. Instead, the boy’s frown deepens. The boy had never been as afraid as he should have been. Idly, he wonders at his endearment at such an observation.

 “It was a means to an end,” he says, brutally honest, enjoying the boy’s immediate reaction.

Harry is incredulous first; turns stone-faced, second. “You are a bigoted, mean old bastard, who worst of all, doesn’t even believe what he’s preaching!” he spits out, in stunning outrage. The persistent, green of his eyes almost eaten up by the widened black in their centre. Harry Potter had always known all facets of his person. A gift. A weakness.

Voldemort doesn’t deny it. Never claims to be anything he wasn’t. The boy sits, as if all the air had left him, when he doesn’t defend himself.

“Pure-blood support meant power and political backing and their concerns largely overlapped with mine,” he says blithely, while Harry looks like he would much rather wring his neck. Nevertheless, his opposite allows him to speak, doesn’t try to interfere. How curious.

“What I wanted to fight for were, are, valid concerns. We have a decline in magical might and waning numbers of wizards and witches, unjustified persecution of certain branches of magic and creatures deemed dark, ever more acutely felt in your time than in my youth… a dilution of our traditions by Muggle infiltration – in short, the wizarding society is stagnant. Meanwhile, Muggles, who outnumber us ten thousand to one and have procured technological advancements–.” A cold shiver crawls down his spine thinking about the bombings he’d experienced in his time at the orphanage. Unadulterated fury rips through him. He almost revels in the familiarity of the emotion. He has not felt this way for too long.

To his surprise, Harry Potter, the Golden Boy, Dumbledore’s puppet, the so-called Saviour of their world, his ultimate adversary, doesn’t refute his claims. Instead, the boy looks like he’s very uncomfortable, as he nods in tentative agreement.

It surprises Voldemort, shocks him out of his tirade.

“You are probably right about all of this, but, seriously, Vee? The way you suggest correcting these issues, is not the way to go about it,” there is an obstinate, uncompromising, almost immovable edge to the set of his jaw as he says this, staring Voldemort down. Or at least valiantly attempting to do so. “The statue of secrecy is perfectly fine to protect us from Muggles, whom we, might I remind you, would never win against. Because, as you so rightly pointed out, they outnumber us so incredibly,” Voldemort crosses his arms in front of his chest, his lips thin and he breathes in to interject. Harry doesn’t let him.

“You and I both know that procreating with Muggles or Muggleborn wizards or witches makes for very strong offspring,” he says quickly, not allowing Voldemort to interrupt. “You know this,” he insists. Voldemort’s mouth closes, though his teeth ache from the tightness of his clenched jaw. “– And you know that magical abilities can lay dormant for many generations before they manifest again, as they did in my mother’s line, for example,” Harry says, and Voldemort acknowledges the statement with a tilt of his head.

“Therefore, we’ll have to deal with magical children being born into non-magical families, which inevitably leads to contact between magical and non-magical humans. There is simply no way around it… One could perhaps outlaw the former, but Muggle-borns will unavoidably crop up by birth.” Harry takes a fortifying breath.

Voldemort is content with listening to what the boy has to say for the moment. There is no denying the truth of what the boy says, even if he doesn’t like to hear it. “Now, the real issue to me seems to lie in how we deal with these instances of inescapable contact,” Harry concludes passionately.

Voldemort sneers, remembering his own childhood. The ostracization, the bullying, the fear. He remembers what he’s seen in Harry’s own head, too. “Surely you agree that we need to protect magical children from their non-magical environment, which simply cannot understand them,” he thus drawls. Harry’s spine straightens in response.

Oh? How interesting these reactions of the boy are. Harry Potter breathes in deeply once more and fixes him with an unsettlingly earnest glare, before he tells Voldemort of his Mud-, Muggle-born friend, Hermione.

Voldemort is aware, of course, of the manipulation the boy is attempting. Harry Potter is about as subtle as a sledgehammer. Nonetheless, the boy makes sure to carefully highlight the nuances with relation to Muggle acceptance of their magic manifesting during childhood. He argues for earlier initiation of Muggle-borns into magical schooling, for background checks regarding their familial situation and a revision of the Muggle-Studies curriculum.

Harry Potter argues with the intensity and distinction of someone who has had these discussions many times in the past, who clearly has spent quite a bit of time considering the options. And while he makes a few very convincing arguments, Voldemort fundamentally doesn’t share the boy’s belief that adjustments in these few key matters would be able to change the wizarding world overall.

Both are too stubborn and detailed to concede their side fully, but somehow, they manage to not fight the argument out until the very end. Voldemort will acknowledge, that the discussion had been interesting in spite of their diverging opinions, and that the boy’s arguments had been stimulating.

It devolves into quiet then, between them. Both lost in their thoughts. The moon is already far past its zenith and with the quiet, fatigue crawls in. Maybe it is this that lowers his inhibitions, this that causes Voldemort to think that maybe, maybe having someone that feels familiar – Voldemort refuses to call the insipid teenager a friend, he’s not sunk that low – isn’t all bad.

The next day Voldemort is, to his surprise, exhausted. In his rebuilt body, human necessities like sleep and sustenance had mattered little and it is truly disquieting to acknowledge the unaccustomed strain posed by spending most of the night awake. Harry Potter, the sole saving grace to his misery, does not seem to fare much better – in contrast to the past few days, the boy doesn’t choose to sit with him during breakfast and can be found indelicately yawning more often than usual. During the day’s first lesson he feels a sudden weight in the pocket of his outer robes that, when he takes the item out, reveals itself to be a small, unassuming vial of Pepperup potion. ‘I’m sure the curriculum is dull to you, even more than it is for me. Drink, you mean, old bastard.’ the attached tag reads. He allows himself the smile and downs the potion quickly.

After the many, tediously slow classes are over, Voldemort settles in an armchair close to the fireplace in the common room, to fend off the dungeon’s perpetual chill. Riddle and his gang arrive shortly thereafter and thus, Voldemort summons one of the darker tomes from the restricted section, making sure to use his wand and voice the incantation, as to not call too much attention to himself – magic overcoming the wards on Hogwarts’ own library is unusual enough, he judges. The reading contains a wonderful conglomeration of dark curses and spells that he is sure Riddle hasn’t read yet. It’s pleasing enough, to leaf through again.

The casual show of power does not go unnoticed, of course. Voldemort is satisfied to observe a few of Riddle’s gang shooting him less than covert glances. His triumph causes a small quirk of his mouth, as he allows the Common Room’s chatter to fade into the background.

Yet, to Voldemort’s utter frustration, his younger version doesn’t deign himself to approach him. Instead, Tom Riddle sends the older Malfoy and, to his mounting ire, Greengrass. “That was quite an impressive feat of magic,” Abraxas Malfoy drawls at him in a distinctly condescending manner, which Voldemort doesn’t appreciate. He is fairly certain, Malfoy is too magically inept to realize the depth of power it takes to rip through wards as strong as Hogwarts’. He attempts to smile benignly and not openly show his scorn. To his irritation, it seems to work and Greengrass titters appealingly and settles on the armrest of his chair.

From the corner of his vision, Voldemort can tell Riddle is avidly interested, by the way he exudes nonchalance like a cloying perfume. “Is that you who noticed, or someone with a decent aptitude for magic?” asks Voldemort and settles into the comfortable armchair lazily.

Indignation becomes a Malfoy, he decides, pretty as they are. He allows his gaze to drift from Malfoy to his younger self impolitely and smiles in acknowledgement when their stares finally meet. The curiosity, the visceral greed for power, is clearly evident in Riddle’s gaze for but a moment, before his face shutters down. He turns to engage Mulciber in quiet conversation. Annoyance crawls up Voldemort’s throat at the boy so blatantly disregarding his open challenge and he reluctantly returns his attention towards Malfoy, who has by now mercifully caught himself.

The blonde’s entire demeanour screams haughtiness. Though, in a despicable display of weakness, he seems unable to contain his grimace, at Voldemort’s clear dismissal. Callidora Greengrass is tittering highly beside him, and leans in, despite his prior disregard of hers. Her chest presses against his shoulder in the process.

Her eyes shine vindictively – ah, a perceived slight, what a shame – which contrasts bizarrely with her admittedly lovely smile. Voldemort sighs his annoyance and dismisses either of them by propping open his book, yet again. “Now, now Alarie–,” she murmurs just loud enough for both him and Malfoy to hear.

He longs for the satisfaction of the Unforgivables just about now. “–there are surely more productive uses of your time, than snubbing your betters,” She twirls a strand of her insufferably fragranced hair around her manicured finger, before letting it drag invitingly along the seam of his school robes. Harry would surely disapprove of a good round of Crucio. Voldemort curbs the urge, barely, and flips another page in hopes of shortening his suffering without resorting to his wand.

The woman beside him huffs annoyedly at his utter lack of reaction, while Malfoy appears vaguely vindicated at being called someone’s better. Her smile turns ugly with the slight as she pulls back and issues a laughable threat, “You should really take greater care whom you bestow your attention unto… One might get the wrong idea…”

Voldemort cannot smother his sneer, now. Why, again, is he reining in his anger? Clearly, playing the charming yet ultimately submissive magical asset, does little to attract Riddle’s attention sustainedly. He almost laughs aloud at the memory of Harry’s advice. Being himself sounds wonderful, right about now. These Pure-blooded brats needed to be taught a lesson, anyway. Voldemort finds himself mirthful, as he remembers earnest eyes and a careful suggestion that he hadn’t liked to consider at the time. The urge to draw his wand is tempting him oh, so sweetly. But, he is aware, such conduct is ultimately not conducive to the mission’s end goal.

He bemoans the limitations of his situation and thus opts for the less harmful and much less fulfilling. “I don’t care for your attention, Greengrass. Please, bother someone else with your vexing flirtations,” he says, his words in sharp contrast with his velvet smile. It is a warning as much as it is a rebuke, as any good Slytherin would be able to tell.

The young witch stares at him before ruddy outrage rises to her cheeks. The slight does not go unnoticed within the Slytherin student body, whispers starting all over the common room. Voldemort turns his attention back onto the book, in an attempt to calm his blood-thirst.

He prepares to tune out her inevitable retort – clearly, her instinct for self-preservation was less well developed – just as a young student steps into room and approaches him hastily. “Alarie? H–, Ha– Harry is asking for you to meet him outside,” the boy studders out and Voldemort closes his tome with immediate relief. By Morgana, a few more minutes in the company of these thrice-cursed pompous, yet utterly naïve children and his threadbare composure would have snapped.

He casts the messenger a thankful smile, he only half feels and strides towards the door.

Harry brings Treacle Tarts, because he desperately wishes for Voldemort to join him in dying an untimely death, apparently. His smile, though a little tumultuous, is a welcome distraction. Some of the boy’s ever-present energetic tension bleeds from his frame, as he finds Voldemort stepping out of the common room.

Voldemort settles against the crudely-hewn stone wall close to the common room entrance casually and dutifully accepts the slice of tart. “While I greatly appreciate the gift–,” he lifts the tart, smiling a little sarcastically – both well aware of his dislike for sweets. “– Please tell me you have something riveting to tell and distract me from the collection of dullards inside.” He allows his head to rest against the cold stone.

Harry smothers his snort inelegantly in his tart. “That bad, huh?” the boy asks, oddly less gloating and more defeated than Voldemort would have ordinarily expected, at the admission of his dislike. His eyes find the younger, picking at his tart somewhat unhappily. This is utterly untypical behaviour. For some, incomprehensible reason, Voldemort finds that intolerable.

Voldemort waits for the younger to reveal the cause of his malcontent. “Can’t you just be happy I want to talk to you?” Harry snaps defensively. Ah, something happened then, Voldemort thinks. He does not rise to the occasion. Simply eyeing the younger patiently while he shuffles and chews evasively.

Eventually, the boy offers having been discussing with his own distant relatives – Charlus Potter and Euphemia Sayre, Gryffindor and Ravenclaw – who had revealed himself to be quite the Pure-blood supremacists. Voldemort decides to heed the younger boy’s pleading gaze. The only sign of his schadenfreude is the twitching of his lips. In an attempt at mercifulness, any comments, as Harry stares at the floor between them, as if it had personally insulted him, are smothered.

The boy looks honestly lost and somewhat desolate, disillusioned at his ancestors’ views being a product of their time, no doubt. Morgana, how did one deal with this?

“Have a bite of your tart, you’ll feel better,” Voldemort says a little stilted and with as little inflection as possible. He watches the younger take a bite and chew aggressively. Then, he sighs. Harry only looks marginally better. He does not like this… helpless feeling. By Salazar, dealing with teenaged boys was difficult! Voldemort pinches the bridge of his nose in frustration before he reaches out, crosses the space between their bodies and pats the boy’s shoulder awkwardly. He’d seen other people use this gesture to comfort another. This was correct, right?

Harry’s head snaps up at the atypical gesture and while Voldemort is successful in curbing the reflex to pull away, he fails to suppress a telling twitch. Harry’s eyes are wide with shock, before they turn molten bright with unsettling intensity. His face is fluid with obvious emotion, before he ducks almost abashedly. “You suck at comforting, Vee,” he says and now, Voldemort does pull his hand away abruptly. The remark stings, even if voiced with obvious affection. Harry gently catches his hand halfway retreated and squeezes it, before dropping it. “Thank you.”

Voldemort doesn’t know what to say and, thus, takes a bite of his own slice. He promptly grimaces in dislike. Harry giggles softly and takes a bite, too, now markedly more content. His eyes are shining with warmth.

The boy tells him that he feels woefully stranded at the wrong time, and admits to Voldemort feeling like an ‘anchor’, his only constant. The admittance causing Harry to pink delightfully honestly.

And oh, how Voldemort enjoys eliciting these indubitably honest responses out of Harry. There is a moment, an inflexible, intrinsic impulse of dark satisfaction as he considers just how easily the boy’s affections are given, how effortlessly the boy takes to Voldemort corrupting him.

Though, when the boy looks up at him again, he appears disarmingly unrepentant about his acknowledgment. Something within Voldemort thrums with a different nuance of contentment. There is something heady in that power, too, that Harry willingly affords him. It is calmer, yet no less seductive. Utterly foreign. Somewhat soothing, maybe.

They stand beside the entrance to the common room together, with Voldemort enjoying Harry’s flushed cheeks and Harry enjoying his tarte. Voldemort feels somewhat calmed now, his ire at their situation no longer itching in the tips of his fingers, persuading him to draw his wand. Harry engages him in easy banter. The familiar wet coolness of the dungeon’s stone wall digging into his back is grounding.

It is then, when the snake etched into the wall to the side of them solidifies and reveals the obscured door to the Slytherin Common Room. As Riddle and his gang step into the corridor, Voldemort knows his quiet was to be short-lived. While Harry doesn’t acknowledge the company besides a slight tensing in his shoulders, obvious only to Voldemort, he regards the group with patronizing distaste. Riddle’s narrowed eyes are on the two of them, quite obviously, before he lowly says something to a few of them.

Voldemort sighs for what feels like the billionth time that day and fixes his attention back unto the younger Gryffindor in front of him. Harry smiles up at him sweetly, but there is an intriguing, nervous sharpness to his previously carefree expression. Odd. The boy pushes a strand of hair back self-consciously and flushes again. Is it Riddle that causes this jumpiness? Voldemort can’t help but huff a laugh.

“By Merlin’s beard, Vee, eat your damn tart,” the boy voices in an endearing mix of poutiness and mortification. Voldemort has the sudden urge to… pinch that protruding bottom lip.

A trio – Lestrange, Avery and Nott – separates from the remaining group gathered to surround Riddle and steers close to Voldemort and Harry. It is with preposterously abysmal veiling that the three of them push Harry into Voldemort’s chest, as they pass.

“Ooof.” Suddenly, Voldemort has a face-full of Harry’s dark blonde hair.

“Watch whom you’re associating yourself with, Alarie!” one of them grunts in Voldemort’s direction, “We don’t associate with blood-traitors and muggle-lovers!” Shamefully, instead of immediate retaliation, Voldemort is swept along in the overwhelming warmth encompassing him by virtue of the near full-body contact with his living Horcrux.

In the end, it’s that disturbingly good feeling, that snaps Voldemort out of it. That, and the sticky, zesty mess, Harry’s treacle tart leaves against his pristine pullover, due to being flattened by the impact of Harry colliding against him. Voldemort rights Harry carefully, pushes him backwards. He is stunned momentarily by how Harry’s face is crumbling in abject dejection. He had been under the impression that Harry was unbothered by such inconsequential bullying.

A quiet rage builds within him. He remembers having been bullied as a first-year by virtue of his Muggle name, remembers the snippets he’s seen of Harry’s youth. How dare anyone hurt him, how dare anyone touch what was his?

“My treacle tart!” Harry moans distressed.

Voldemort feels solace crashing through him, leaving him light-headed in its wake. He closes his eyes for a moment, searches for a calm he does not possess, before he looks at his brother again. “You’re insufferable,” he says, though he knows the tone lacks barb. The little git has the audacity to look sheepish. “Have mine,” he sighs and hands him his piece of the inedibly sweet treat. The youth’s face transforms into utter delight, and he takes a bite, moaning audibly. Which–.

“You sound indecent,” he says, wryly, enjoying the way Harry’s eyes widen and his cheeks flush briefly.

“Only to you,” the boy says with an inordinate amount of cheek to accompany the statement. Voldemort cannot suppress the urge to roll his eyes. But he finds himself relieved at the smile on Harry’s features, even if it came into existence by such an utterly juvenile reason. “Merlin, I am so simple. These are the way to my heart, without a doubt!” Harry lifts the tart worshippingly, before he takes another cherishing bite.

“What can I say? I’m charming,” he replies drily and chuckles softly at his opposite’s adoring fixation of the baked treat in his hands.

Harry’s curse-green eyes focus on him again and his smile turns teasing. His eyes crinkle in the corners with obvious mirth. “That you are, Vee… charming. I’d feel bad for stealing this from you, if I didn’t know that you abhorred everything sweet.” While he smiles up at Voldemort almost dulcet in his innocence, Harry’s intonation makes it clear that he thinks charming is one of the last characteristics, he would ascribe Voldemort with. Yet somehow, Voldemort finds himself unbothered by it. He knows charming. It is rarely honest.

Someone behind Harry is choked by their outrage, shattering Harry’s and his serenity. Right. Riddle’s henchmen. Voldemort flicks his wand to clean the treacle tart of himself, before he fingers the bone-white yew wand, his incarnation had been able to bring, as if absent-minded. Deceivingly peaceful.

Harry’s eyes are drawn to the movement immediately. It is satisfying that he is able to recognize the tells of Voldemort’s ire, still, in spite of it rarely being directed at him nowadays. Malfoy, Mulciber and Riddle, too, have now abandoned their feigned indifference to the commotion. To their misfortune, they are less attuned to Voldemort’s tells. He is under no delusion that this particular instance of petty bullying had not been enacted under Riddle’s – his younger self’s – orders. It tiresome to observe these behavioural patterns, this meaningless vying for power within Slytherin.

He isn’t sure yet, whether the bullying is aimed at Harry, or himself. Harry would be an obvious target – he is a Gryffindor, clearly communing with him, a Slytherin, which undermines the fragile House rivalry. Yet, Harry has also displayed his recently honed ability to perform nonverbal, wandless magic, which is an ability far beyond most of what Hogwarts’ students could ever dream of wielding. Meanwhile, Voldemort has not displayed his not inconsiderable might. Perhaps his younger self is sussing out, whether Harry is his weakness, Voldemort muses.

“Stop,” there is a grounding touch on his wand arm, accompanied by the now-familiar, sugary warmth. “They’re not really worth it, Vee,” Harry soothes.

For a moment, Voldemort thinks that Harry might be right, that he should remain above these childish games, focus on their end goal. He is aware that provoking Riddle publicly is not conducive to garnering his affection.

Then, a cold, disbelieving laugh sounds through the cool dungeon corridors. “Inverts!” a supercilious voice shouts out, almost cutting itself off with disbelieving, malicious, eager glee.

Malfoy. Years of practice are the only thing that prevents Voldemort from reacting to that word. He knows the grip on his wand is casual, yet; that he shows no outward response. Silence permeates the corridor, soaks the air. The slur almost echoing in the space left behind. The words virulent. Then, a vicious cackle. “They’re faggots!” Lestrange adds sounding delighted and surprised. “And we are sharing a room with one of those…”

Voldemort observes his surroundings, committing everyone’s face to memory.

Harry’s is blank, which is a rarity, but this is not the time to be gleeful about it. Malfoy and Greengrass wear their haughty disgust openly. Lestrange appears joyful at discerning someone’s weakness. Mulciber’s face is even, if slightly curious. And Tom Riddle’s is–. Well.

Tom Marvolo Riddle looks like he’s fighting hard to maintain an even composure, looks like all his blood has left his face, looks afraid and hateful. Suddenly Voldemort remembers how it had been, how it had felt, to live as 5^th year Tom Riddle. How wrong it had felt, how panicked he had been, when he realized that he could not make himself want feminine softness, the way his friends were describing it. He feels a moment of pity, for the boy that had hoped homophobia was a Muggle, a catholic notion. For the boy who had been thrust into Slytherin with its Pure-blood society, where young men were made to marry even younger girls.

Voldemort feels bone-weary tiredness. He had almost forgotten just how deeply ingrained these emotions had been. It has been so long.

Then, his younger version sneers at him twistedly. Harry’s magic coalesces. Malfoy and Lestrange, dense as they are, carry themselves encouraged by both of their lack of defence and young Riddle’s endorsement, and advance, wands drawn. Harry’s anger is building, and Voldemort tunes out the derogatory slurs thrown around. They aren’t words Voldemort hadn’t told himself in his youth. He knows them all.

“Stop!” Harry’s word cuts through the cacophony of voices, magic lashing out. Everyone, including him, is forced to stagger backwards a step. The boy looks up, and his green eyes are vivid with fury. Vibrant. Scorching. He is magnificent in his anger. Malevolent. “How dare you?” the boy seethes at everyone and no one specifically. His magic, usually a light caress has turned heavy and oppressive, deafening. His outraged eyes narrow on the group of students opposing them, every portrait surrounding them shivers, the wooden floor below them groans. The flecks of dust floating lazily in the air still under the avalanche, that is Harry Potter’s magic.

This display momentarily impresses even Voldemort. But as he sees Riddle’s gang recuperating, he knows he has to intervene, or else Harry Potter will either wreak havoc on minors or hold an impromptu impassioned speech. And while, he would enjoy seeing either, he knows Harry wouldn’t forgive himself for the first and the latter is simply too out of its time.

Thus, “Call back your dogs, Riddle,” is all he says, “They are unnecessarily endangering themselves.” The threat is clear, he won’t calm Harry down. Riddle stiffens, pale-faced, before his face grimaces incriminatingly and he too, throws a slur at them. Harry’s eyes go cold at that, and Voldemort wonders why it is this, that to Harry, is irredeemable.

The boy’s posture is proud, spine straight. His chin high. Then, he fixes Riddle head-on. Disappointment burning brightly. “I expected better from you,” he says, and leaves, robes billowing.

Riddle – as Voldemort thought he might – tries for condescending derision. And although he can see the terror, the despair, the falseness shining clear through his younger version’s haughtiness, Voldemort’s patience slips. “Oh, by Morgana! We’re brothers,” he snaps at Riddle, ignoring the surprised gasps and widening eyes surrounding them. Eyes narrowing at Riddle’s surprised expression, before he spins around and finds Harry with measured steps. Running does not become a Slytherin.

“I keep forgetting that he doesn’t know us yet,” Harry says, when he finds the boy sitting next to the Black Lake, picking a long blade of grass apart, leaf by leaf. Face desolate.

The days that follow are characterised by their deceptive calm. Harry is withdrawn; studious when Voldemort convinces him to join him in the library. He is excitable, only, when taught magic by Voldemort.

And while Voldemort wouldn’t usually mind a more silent companion, Harry’s newfound disposition is utterly untypical. It grates on Voldemort and thus he devotes more time and effort to showing Harry new spells, discussing magical theory or simply lecturing him to supplement what he perceives to be an astonishingly negligent Hogwarts curriculum. Harry, to no one’s surprise, takes better to practical displays rather than theoretical discussions, but alas, they find themselves in the library, the first time Riddle approaches them.

“Vincent? Could you help me with something?” Voldemort doesn’t react to the use of this vessel’s name, at first, as he is rarely addressed by it. Harry, to Voldemort’s ire and secret delight, has resolved to address him by the nickname he conceived of. Teachers, in turn, address him by his last name. Thus, it takes Harry unceremoniously elbowing him to call to his attention, that he is being spoken to.

Tom Riddle doesn’t show his annoyance at being ignored, his gaze is inquisitive and almost sweet – the perfect curious student. He’s evidently donning his ‘poster-child’ persona that could not be phonier, as both Harry and Voldemort are aware. A quick glance at Harry reveals that the boy is hiding his amusement from Riddle’s vantage point. Voldemort settles back into his chair, too intrigued at what Riddle may be playing at, despite himself.

“Sure, Riddle. How can I help you?” he offers in a perfect show of politely reserved geniality. Riddle’s jaw clenches in at Voldemort’s omission of his first name. The irritation is quickly smoothed over by a pleasant smile, as the boy takes the opportunity to sit directly across Harry, who finally meets his gaze as well.

They exchange somewhat stilted nods of respective acknowledgement. Harry abandons any pretence of continuing with his essay and watches the two Slytherins interact with what appears to be a mixture of mirth and wariness. Satisfied with either boy’s attention, Riddle opens the book he had been carrying and poses a question that reveals the farce to be one. Voldemort is absolutely certain he had mastered the Charm in question in his third year.

Voldemort smothers his distaste and answers as patiently and as succinctly as possible, all while Riddle merely pretends to pay attention. Voldemort can see how he observes Harry through his lashes. Harry, in turn, stares back, unabashedly curious.

Voldemort, annoyed at the obvious waste of his time and Riddle’s clear inattentiveness, asks Riddle whether he understood, to shorten their interaction. Riddle recites the material flawlessly – just as Voldemort expected. However, to Voldemort’s surprise, the boy doesn’t leave, after thanking him for his help. Instead, he amiably asks whether he would be allowed to join them during their study session.

Voldemort allows it after Harry nods tonelessly. They both become spectators of Riddle’s easy, smooth charm. The boy laughs delightfully, jokes tastefully, and deflects Voldemort’s increasingly exasperated comments artfully. Harry’s expression, meanwhile, hardens slightly, which Voldemort is almost certain goes unnoticed by his younger self.

And so, it doesn’t surprise him, when Harry catches his attention by tapping his shoulder sooner rather than later, and excuses himself to leave for the Gryffindor Common Rooms. Riddle’s eyes follow Harry, as the boy packs up his schoolwork with stiff movements. Harry avoids either of their eyes and leaves so quickly, he might be fleeing. Riddle’s expression is unreadable. Unsurprisingly, Riddle follows his year-mate, not long thereafter.

It’s only after they have both left that Voldemort admits that his own, almost… proprietorial insistence on solving this mission himself, might not have been the most straight promising method of preventing his younger version’s creation of his first Horcrux. His companion had to be Harry fucking Potter, hadn’t he?! He grimaces and abandons his own coursework, too.

Voldemort hears of Riddle cornering Harry, only post-factum. Harry storms towards him, his hand clutched tightly around the strap of his leather book bag. Riddle, despite being the same age as Harry’s vessel, easily keeps up despite not seeming hurried at all, by virtue of his longer legs. Mulciber – hands shoved in his pockets, donning an outwardly indifferent expression that is belied by the amused gleam in his heavy-lidded eyes – trails them lazily.

Both Harry and, to Voldemort’s shame, Riddle are coloured in interesting shades of pink. Riddle finally spotting Voldemort, grabs Harry by his long-sleeved arm and forces him to a stop. For the nth time, Voldemort bemoans his younger self’s lack of opacity.

His eyes glint dangerously in Voldemort’s direction, before narrowing and focussing on Harry with single-minded intensity. One might almost mistake it for hatred, Voldemort muses faintly, preoccupied with the array of complicated emotions that hurry over Harry Potter’s face. Finally, his expression settles on outrage in response to Riddle’s hissed statement, too low for Voldemort to hear, and Harry rips his arm away. There is something to be said about the intensity in the boy’s green gaze as he twists to find Voldemort. It’s both disconcerting and invigorating.

He should have known that his plan of focussing Riddle’s attention on himself was doomed to fail with Harry present, shouldn’t he? Fate had played him in a truly extraordinary feat of irony, when it had decided that any version of himself would orient around Harry Potter, just as much as he influenced the path the boy’s life took.

His self-ironic amusement must show on his face, because Harry’s face softens a little, before he dramatically throws his arms into the air, venting his frustration. “Riddle is being persistent!” Harry presses out between gritted teeth, before he bodily flings himself at a surprised Voldemort.

Arms full of his mortal enemy was truly not something, he would have anticipated prior to this game with Death, Voldemort thinks. But. Oh, well. He pats the boy’s dark blond mob of hair comfortingly. The syrupy warmth spreads between them.

“What did the dolt do this time?” he asks, voice soaked with faux-compassion and lightened by laughter at Harry’s seething gaze, which is belied by his red-tinged ears. He remembers that look about Harry from back in that dusty old shop filled with dark magical artefacts. Riddle splutters beside them, going ignored by Voldemort and Harry, both.

“Shut it, Vee,” Harry’s eyes narrow in warning before he huffs and buries his face in Voldemort’s school robes again, arms tightening. It’s not… unpleasant. “He asked how I knew he was–”

Harry trails off and Voldemort looks over to find Riddle’s horrified expression, mouth agape. “– A closeted homosexual,” he finishes dryly, in Harry’s stead.

His younger self’s eyes narrow dangerously, before he quickly surveys their surroundings, the corridor largely empty save for two Ravenclaw girls, who, for all their apparent interest, are too far away to have caught the statement. Voldemort almost feels pity at his younger self’s obvious distress. Almost.

“This will be your end, Alarie!” his younger self gasps out, mortification and anger almost choking him.

“– Then, he proceeded to invite me to the Slug Club, at wand-point!” Harry continues, as if not having heard Voldemort’s younger self, eyes widening in outrage.

“The audacity,” Voldemort agrees indulgingly. Mulciber, leaning against the wall is unable to quiet his chortle. “No manners–,” Voldemort lists in continuation.

“– An utterly narcissistic, vain ponce!” Harry adds, nodding furiously. Riddle is gaping at them, face stormy.

“That’s not the way to woo someone, Riddle,” Voldemort chides mildly, looking down at Riddle’s incredulous face at his unconcerned tone. “Harry clearly doesn’t want to go to Slughorn’s party with you. And threatening at wand-point does not constitute consent,” he almost tuts. Harry muffles his chuckle in Voldemort’s robe.

Riddle rights himself, anger obvious in the tense line of his shoulders. For all that he is, Voldemort was, a tall fifteen-year-old, his current vessel still towers over his younger self. It’s oddly satisfying. “I’ll have you know, I asked him as a friend–.” Mulciber outright laughs in the background, which is penalised through a dark look of Riddle’s. “He is clearly… powerful and could use connections in the wizarding world’s Pure-blood society.”

Voldemort is faced with the bizarre sight of a younger version of himself attempting to impress him through his connections. It’s horrifyingly immature and undignified.

He hums in non-committal agreement. “I’m sure…” He knows his disregard and utter condescension is leaking into his voice, because Harry looks up at him sharply, reprimanding, previous mirth leaving his features quickly.

Riddle looks ready to throw around curses.

“Get your friend, Mulciber. Before I lose my patience and make use of my own wand,” Voldemort advises darkly. Harry’s eyes narrow in rebuke. Luckily for Riddle, his friend has some modicum of sense of self-preservation and pulls a cursing Tom Riddle away from Voldemort.

Harry looks up at him, unfazed, brows furrowing slightly. “That was a little too mean, Vee. He is you,” he admonishes slightly but burrows back into Voldemort’s robes.

Voldemort does not suppress the sigh, confirming Harry’s thoughts, “Unfettered by time,” he allows. Unfettered by you, he doesn’t say. He hadn’t anticipated the extent of the self-loathing he would experience at the sight of his younger self, either. His hands find the hair on his head. They are much longer than in his previous bodies and a strange diversion from his baldness in his self-built body. He is not ready to discuss these emotions, now, though. They are too new, too raw. He is still grappling with them, himself. Luckily, Harry seems to understand.

His hand land on the younger boy’s upper back and finally, he hugs him back.

It shouldn’t surprise him, that the incident causes Riddle to become clingy, instead of turning him away from Harry. Riddle wears his disregard for his unknown older self on his sleeve. And thus, Voldemort finds himself in not only Harry’s, but also, reluctantly, in Riddle’s company. As he has been doing in all their incarnations, Tom Marvolo Riddle displays a disturbing tenacity in his attempts at making Harry James Potter like him.

“You cannot in all honesty tell me that you’ve mastered the Patronus charm when you were thirteen, Harry. This is utterly ridiculous!” Riddle’s voice carries over the grass planes between the castle and the Black Lake, where Voldemort is currently languishing, cutting through his peace.

“Why ridiculous?” Harry’s tone rings, clear in him approaching the end of his patience.

“You are being serious?!” Riddle asks incredulous, as Harry flops down on the ground next to Voldemort and rummages through his bag for a quill and parchment.

While Voldemort would ordinarily relish some time spent with Harry, quietly studying alongside the boy, this conversation leaves him intrigued. “A Patronus?” he thus asks. Harry’s green eyes flick to him, realization setting in. This is one of the areas Voldemort is willing to readily admit himself lacking, but to master such a complicated Charm at such a young age… It’s, well, impressive. Harry colours slightly under the weight of Voldemort’s gaze.

“Prove it… A corporeal one!” sounds Riddle’s obnoxious voice from where he is still stood beside Harry. The challenged wizard huffs and fishes for his wand, closing his eyes for a moment, gathering his power. Harry’s magic, as usual, is calming and warmth, gentle in its caress. He voices the incantation steadily, eyes blazing with power.

Silvery light seeps out of the tip of his wand, before it solidifies into a corporeal Patronus. “See,” Harry says unconcerned, if still a little exasperated, turning pointedly towards Riddle. “I didn’t lie. It’s a stag. The same as my… ah, godfather’s,” he says scratching his neck, obvious in his lie.

There is a shocked silence. Then, “This is not a stag.”

Voldemort is not sure who of them voices the statement, but he thinks it might have been himself, given that Riddle is still standing there, mouth agape. Harry’s head swivels around to face his Patronus, a surprised sound on his lips. Something like shock, then sorrow crosses his features, as he examines the shimmering form of a snake. Riddle flops to the ground next to Harry. “Are you sure, the Hat didn’t sort you into Slytherin?” he asks.

Harry grimaces, eyes not yet leaving his Patronus. “It tried…” he mumbles, uncaring of Riddle’s narrow-minded objections.

Truly?

“I wasn’t aware Patroni changed form,” Voldemort inquires, academically curious.

A dusting of pink appears on Harry’s face before he hurries to flick his wand, as if unwilling for either version of Voldemort to observe any longer. “They don’t. Usually…” the boy in their middle says quietly. “Unless the person casting changes… fundamentally.”

Ah. That explains it.

Voldemort doesn’t know what to say, how to make this better, how to assuage Harry’s guilt for something, Voldemort feels Harry should not be wrecked by; that Voldemort secretly rejoices in. Though, it’s comforting to confirm that not only Voldemort himself had been subject to change.

Never has he been more appreciative of young Riddle’s relative obliviousness, as when the younger him asks Harry for tutoring, instead of noticing any of the other inconsistencies the two siblings had just revealed. “Oh, please! If you can manage, Alarie, I can too,” claims Riddle, an assumption Voldemort scoffs at.

While Harry tries to refuse, surely as conscious as Voldemort is, of the high risk for Riddle’s ego to be bruised upon his failure, he finds himself wondering if he has changed enough, for magic to allow him this. He tries that kindness thing, Harry usually advocates for. “You should teach us, Harry,” he says, ignoring how Riddle shows himself exaggeratedly surprised, at his easy agreement with his younger self. “It will, at the very least, be amusing to see Riddle fail,” he adds. Because, well, the kindness thing really only goes so far.

Harry looks stunned and then, intriguingly, flattered. Riddle is obviously nettled that Voldemort is joining them and Voldemort is curious. In the end, Riddle suggests they meet at the room of requirement after Quidditch practice – both Voldemort and Riddle show the appropriate amount of dislike at the sport – to practice the Charm.

The silence between Riddle and Voldemort is unanimous – though Riddle, in addition, seems slightly mutinous – while Voldemort finds himself only mildly tickled. Thankfully, Riddle does not attempt to make meaningless conversation – a characteristic of his own, that Voldemort congratulates himself on.

He wonders idly whether it should offend him that his younger version does not deem him worthy of his charm. He would never tell the boy outright, but he suspects Riddle’s rejection of Voldemort has less to do with Voldemort himself, and more with his importance in Harry Potter’s life. He had, after all, not been one to share what he coveted. It was frankly embarrassing that all his former selves seem hellbent on befriending Harry, and irritating, how little worship they showed him.

Luckily, he himself was removed from such mortal afflictions.

He considers his younger self. The boy was not yet prone to the erratic outbursts he had shown in their previous incarnations. Were there any other changes in his persona caused by the creation of Horcruxes? Why had he never noticed them, while he had undergone them? It is a concerning thought.

Displeasure at his younger self’s failures had been a constant companion, ever since they had started their little game with Death, but Voldemort finds it displeased him less, now, than it had previously. He wonders whether that is due to his leniency with more of his soul combined, or whether the erratic, explosive, unpredictable nature of the selves he had come to know simply angered him more.

Tom Riddle was yet so clueless, ambling towards his fate. And while he yet lacked some of that hardened, single-minded, inhumane stringency with which he had pursued his convictions, he found this version’s seed of… softness – he struggled with naming it as such – worth nurturing. That was not to say that his previous self’s behaviour didn’t irritate him like a raw nerve.

Voldemort tries to remember whether he had already rejected his given name in the privacy of his friends. The memory is hazy, it feels like a lifetime away, that he had donned the name of Voldemort.

“I have never heard of the Alarie family. Are you two –?” Riddle surprises him by asking.

Pure-blooded? That was an uncharacteristically non-circumvently phrased, truly, a rather uncouth question. Voldemort is aware that Riddle is fishing for information. “It’s a French name,” he thus supplies vaguely.

He sees Riddle gritting his teeth at his deliberate obtuseness. “So, you two are Pure-bloods?” Riddle is forced to ask frankly.

There is a calculating glint in his younger self’s eyes when Voldemort nods noncommittally. The boy’s smile turns sly. “Of course, I shouldn’t have asked. Someone so… powerful couldn’t be anything but.”

Voldemort is caught off-guard by his desire to crush this particular notion, aware as he is of his years-long exploitation of blood-supremacists’ foolish notions. “I’m sure,” he drawls. The look of astonishment on Riddle’s face is only present for a short instant, whisked away by a careful mask of haughty disinterest. The boy’s curious eyes belie him. “Riddle, huh,” Voldemort enunciates, examining his offensively unassuming, almond-shaped nails.

Riddle’s energy shifts immediately, his magic swirling, as if to protect its owner. “Quite the plebian name, don’t you think? Almost Muggle…”

If Voldemort were a better man, he wouldn’t enjoy the utter look of horror, then rage, on Riddle’s face, as his magic turns deafening.

“I’ll show you power, Alarie,” Riddle bites out. Voldemort is mildly impressed by the boy’s relative composure. His younger self’s magic, although powerful, of course, is nothing in comparison to his own. It swirls wildly, yet doesn’t lash out. Voldemort smiles, licking his lip. Ah, how he missed this, the addictiveness that used to come with it. He had been so uncontrolled, unaware of his own limitations.

If Voldemort’s magic is black, Riddle’s was a deep charcoal grey, yet. To be later altered by the violation of his soul. It is by no means less powerful than it had been in his youth, quite the contrary, but different. This, now, is intoxicating.

Riddle’s control is visibly slipping at Voldemort’s unforced nonchalance. Although everything within him strains to see how far the boy can extend himself at this point in time, he is sure Harry wouldn’t appreciate a destroyed seventh floor. Maybe it is time to absolve the boy.

“I didn’t say you were… weak,” he allows, thus.

Riddle’s look of wide-eyed surprise is laughable.

“Vee!” Harry’s hair is wet from just having showered and his face shows a dusting of red, probably from the nippy cold of the outside. “I told you not to bully Riddle!” Harry admonishes, panting slightly. Impossibly, the boy’s hair defies gravity, even when wet. “I should have known not to leave you alone with this twat! S’rry, Riddle,” Harry apologizes.

“I did no such thing,” Voldemort defends himself half-heartedly and dries Harry’s hair absentmindedly, enjoying how Harry shivers bodily in response.

“Please,” Harry’s tone drips with dubiety. He turns towards Riddle, then, a hesitation on his face that doesn’t suit Harry Potter at all. “You know there is no shame in… not getting every single incantation perfectly right, Riddle?” he says, clearly offending his year-mate. “I mean, what are the chances of you actually encountering a dementor?” He scratches his neck, clumsy in his attempt to dissuade Voldemort’s younger self from attempting the spell.

Voldemort should have told him that suggesting, he might not be able to do something, was the near-certain path, to get any version of himself to attempt exactly that. As it stood, he only sighed when his younger self straightens up and demands Harry teach them, at once.

“It’s not that difficult really…” Harry starts. “Merlin, I’m bad at this!” Voldemort makes sure to convey the full extent of his unimpressedness at Harry’s fumbling.

Harry doesn’t shrink away, but instead straightens his spine and gathers his thoughts. Good. “Well, you simply need to conjure up a powerfully happy memory. Something that perhaps impacted you strongly… It doesn’t have to be fully formed,” he scratches his nape again, obvious in his discomfort.

“What’s yours?” Riddle – the epitome of tact – asks. Voldemort is no longer surprised at Riddle having abandoned any attempt of deceiving Harry. Well, Voldemort supposes, to his younger self it must seem like Harry saw through him exceedingly well, anyways.

“My, uh, my mother… It’s one of the first memories I have of my parents,” Harry says quietly.

Riddle sends him a questioning gaze as Harry turns away, busying himself with something. Huh, he would have suspected something simplistically sentimental, such as his first time flying, or his insipid friends. Or at least pretend a memory of such nature to be the one responsible for his Patronus. Though considering it, Harry’s candour shouldn’t surprise him – he had always been foolishly open with his secrets. Too trusting for his well-being. Something that almost feels like regret, rises like bile.

Harry turns around and smiles at Voldemort, not allowing the strange feeling to fester in Voldemort’s chest. And even though there is something crooked about his smile, an old hurt shining through from underneath, it is warm. In a different time, he would have scoffed.

“Let’s try you first, Vee,” Harry directs, looking disgustingly sincere. “What is your happiest memory?”

The surreality of his certainty sweeps him up for a moment. He is certain. Voldemort is certain that he can perform the spell this time. For the first time in his life. Just as certain, as he had been, that he would fail, when he first attempted it.

It is a feeling in his gut, a bone-deep knowledge that the memory that would produce his Patronus now, was one of true happiness. Untainted by greed, or power, or entitlement. It’s not even a memory, precisely, but rather an amalgamation of different moments in time that make him feel… different, whole, maybe. Himself.

And he knows he will never share them with anyone else. Because, despite himself, they are all with him.

And so, “My first time casting an unforgivable,” says Voldemort evenly and relishes in Harry’s expression sliding off his face. It’s a small lie in the face of the overbearing truth. Silence rings through the room.

Riddle clears his throat uncomfortably. “Did you just… attempt humour?” Harry asks after overcoming his own stunned silence.

“You’ll never know,” Voldemort croons, exaggeratedly, winking at the younger wizards, before voicing the incantation. It tastes like ash in his mouth. The warmth that floods him, ever so reminiscent of Harry, is disgustingly weakening. He grits his teeth through it.

“Woah,” Harry says dumbly.

“What’s with all the snake Patroni?” Riddle adds, just a little more eloquently.

A large silver serpent curls through the air, lazily. Upon closer inspection, Voldemort is able to discern runic markings on the Patronus’ hide, identifying it as a basilisk. Well, at least that made sense. Harry’s eyes are not on the Patronus for long, before they flick away to find him again. The disbelief in the boy’s gaze, curiously, doesn’t offend him.

Harry’s gushing sentimentality, however, does. A little, at least. Not really.

Riddle instead looks greedy, his features sharpened by the cool silvery light emitted by his Patronus, and Voldemort wonders for a moment when he had stopped feeling this way. Harry is babbling excitedly before him, eyes radiating genuine warmth and so, so much hope. It sickens Voldemort briefly, to see the contrast between the two boys.

He envies Harry Potter for the gifts bestowed upon him, for the love and trust he has experienced already, in the mere two decades he'd lived. And something within him aches for the boy he had been. Voldemort is by no means delusional about his own contribution to his fate; how his own actions had led him down the path, his cunning and ambition forging it... Yet, for a moment, he truly wishes they would succeed in their mission; provide this version of Riddle something to hold onto; an anchor. He flicks his wand and his first corporeal Patronus vanishes.

"Harry,” Voldemort says in an attempt to divert the boy’s unwavering attention. It feels like an unscratchable itch, like his skin is too tight and like his discomfort is threatening to tip into anger. Harry, as is typical for him, ignores his interjection and looks like he would combust if he couldn’t pour any more excitement into his exclamations.

"Help Riddle, before he cries,” Voldemort interrupts yet another gush of Harry’s praise.

Outraged shock from Riddle behind them, "I do not–!”

They both ignore it. Harry looks at him, the avalanche of praise stopped, for now. The alternative is, impossibly, even worse. Appreciation is clear in his opposite’s eyes, something like pride and warmth and hope. It makes Voldemort uncomfortable. Makes him want to tear villages down and murder and maim, just to escape the heaviness of this boy's expectation.

He does none of that, of course. "You are a mean old bastard,” Harry says, softly, as if genuinely fond of him, Voldemort.

Then Harry, finally, turns and Voldemort should be rejoicing at being freed of Harry Potter’s suffocating optimism. Instead, he remembers, how it is to feel greedy again.

He needs to leave the room suddenly; sees how Harry looks at Riddle, confident now, that the boy would be able to conjure a Patronus, because his older version had shown him that Voldemort has it within him to do so. There is something to be said, Voldemort thinks as he steps outside the Room of Requirement, about having this unwavering optimism, this unrelenting offering of a helping hand, this friendship focused solely on you. Maybe, Voldemort understands why Riddles in every time crave it. That doesn’t mean he forgives them, for monopolizing Harry Potter’s time.

The next morning during breakfast, Riddle surprises him. He waves him over with a stilted motion. “Alarie, come… Sit,” he directs, when Voldemort doesn’t immediately react. It’s far too early for Riddle’s machinations, Voldemort thinks, disgruntled. He had not spent the whole night, awake thinking, but he was uncommonly tired that morning.

“I’d rather not, Riddle,” he drawls, admittedly enjoying the dark looks he is sent, and makes for a seat a few paces away from his younger version and his cronies. As he passes Mulciber, though, the boy shoots him an amused grin and scoots to the side to make space for him.

With much of his soul restored, Voldemort remembers Mulciber as having been one of his closest acquaintances, both during their time in Hogwarts and as a Death Eater. He had even spent a moment mourning as the man later died in the crossfire caused by one of his raids. Now, the boy’s allegiance lies with his younger self, though. Voldemort finds he has little patience for him.

Meanwhile, Riddle remains sitting, seemingly unbothered by his rejection. He looks up at him, donning a very fake, utterly angelic smile. “Please, sit,” he insists, his voice even laced with a little compulsion. The boy should really have learned his lesson, Voldemort thinks. But, he is intrigued despite himself. Maybe he should allow his younger self to play this particular little game, just to uncover Riddle’s motif.

The others look mystified at Riddle’s obvious deviation from the way he had treated Voldemort before. His friends, those who know Riddle well enough to have been on the receiving end of his threats, appear a little cowed at the hard glint in the boy’s eyes, barely concealed by his genial smile. Mulciber’s face is tilted towards him and lazily amused.

Voldemort sits and not five minutes later, Harry rushes into the hall. Late. Typical. His necktie is askew, his hair ruffled and the pink to his cheeks gives him a harried look, as is common for him, in the mornings. The boy waves at some of his friends almost a little reluctantly – Voldemort feels petty delight curling in his stomach as he remembers Harry’s dismayed expression, at finding out that his own ancestors were Pure-blood supporters. Neither is the satisfaction at his brother’s eyes sweeping the Slytherin table, in evident search of him, undeniable. Mulciber, beside him, laughs quietly at the boy’s obvious double-take, at seeing Riddle and Voldemort sitting in close proximity of one another.

“Oh, Riddle, you are so precious,” says Harry, as he flops down next to Voldemort’s younger self without flourish, opposite of himself, and grins at the group of Slytherins surrounding him.

Riddle continues eating, as if unaware of Harry.

“What are you doing here, Alarie? Get back to your fellow blood-traitors and the scum you belong with!” Lestrange sneers at Harry. Nott and Malfoy, at least, possess the intelligence to look for his reaction somewhat concernedly. They are right to fear him, of course. But for now, Voldemort is content with observing.

Harry smiles warmly at him, before he turns towards Lestrange. "Rude! Besides, Riddle wants me here,” he says blithely and with utter confidence.

"I never invited you to sit with us,” Riddle responds and continues eating, picking up a finely cut piece of bacon daintily.

"You might as well have done so, inviting Vee to sit with you... A clear ploy to get me to do the same,” Harry rightly deduces and winks at Riddle, before he grins at Vee in an attempt to share his mischief.

And while it is exhilarating seeing Riddle’s game so obviously called out, Voldemort is horrified to see that his younger self pinks a little, visibly trying to maintain his air of unaffectedness. “If you think so,” Riddle says evenly and spears another piece of bacon. Harry smiles self-satisfied and serves himself a bagel and some sausages. ‘That’s not a no,’ he mouths over at Voldemort. The remainder of Riddles cronies clearly expected a different outcome.

“You’re ridiculous,” Voldemort says, faintly fond and takes a sip of his coffee.

“And you’re a boggart, ‘cos I’m the secret weapon against you,” Harry sing-songs happily. Malfoy gasps appalled.

And. Malfoy might be right on this one, Voldemort thinks, this abysmal level of punnery deserves to be punished. “Desist,” Voldemort says, passing Harry more pumpkin juice.

“Oh, no. My heart!” Harry clutches his chest theatrically, the jug of juice in his left hand. “Fine, but only because you asked so nicely.”

The other Slytherins look vaguely horrified.

“Pass me the bagels?” Riddle asks. There is a satisfied set to his shoulders now, when there hadn’t been before.

The next day, Voldemort sits away from the group with deliberation. Harry drops a kiss on his cheek, as he flops into the seat next to him. His giggle merely intensifies at Voldemort’s dark glare. Riddle shoots them a slightly mutinous look, as he spears a sausage onto his fork. It’s a good day, Voldemort decides.

To Voldemort’s horror, Riddle’s tenaciousness does not relent. And while part of him would savour the possibility of conclusively demonstrating his superiority over his younger self, he, in contrast to young Riddle, is willing to admit that their petty rivalry over Harry’s affections is a little juvenile. And so, he bears Harry Potters obvious attempts at stifling the emerging rivalry, by bullying the two of them into spending their time with Harry together, with dignity and only a minute amount of long-suffering sighing. If he is honest, Riddle’s knights’ evident indecision at how they should treat Harry serves as entertainment, too.

He is surprised, however, at the lengths his younger self is willing to go to, to lay claim to Harry.

Voldemort finds Tom and Harry doing what can only be described as sucking face later that week, as he tries the Room of Requirement, in his search of Harry. Riddle is halfway to unbuttoning Harry’s school shirt, his ever-untidy necktie loosened. The two of them have, clearly, failed to ask the room for privacy.

To his surprise, he feels a whole host of emotions, which he really, really should investigate thoroughly. At a later date. For now, it’s safe to settle for the predominant one – and forgo the curl of arousal in his gut at seeing Harry wrecked at the hands of a version of himself, or the flare of possessive irritation – amusement.

Thus, he laughs, loudly. Harry flinches at the sound comically, a delightfully guilty flush spreading over his features (at being caught?), clearly discernible by the reddening of his ears even from his vantage point. His younger version pinks, too, though it’s covered by a healthy amount of ire at Voldemort interrupting them.

“Vee,” Harry whines without turning around at them, his hands fisting the material of Riddle’s second-hand uniform. Unexpectedly, Voldemort needs nothing more that moment, than for Harry to turn around and look at him.

“Will you leave, Alarie?” young Tom Riddle seethes, clearly put out, at being thwarted by Voldemort.

Oh, Voldemort enjoys this! He grins at his younger version meanly, stepping closer and tugging on the loosened collar at the back of Harry’s uniform. “Now. What kind of older brother would I be, if I allowed Harry to spread his legs for just anyone?” he croons lowly, enjoying the sight of pebbled flesh at Harry Potter’s nape.

The boy doesn’t resist his man-handling much. Though, as he falls against his chest and looks up at him, Voldemort promptly knows that he had committed a mistake. A colossal miscalculation.

Harry’s characteristic green eyes are wide, pupils blown; devouring the irises, leaving a mere sliver of green to surround them. His expression is utterly unexpected, pliant, his mouth lax and wet. It feels like a physical blow to his stomach, this expression. Harry’s want is so desperately obvious. And despite that, he looks so delectably ashamed. And, maybe, aroused by that shame. The breathy moan that he expels upon making contact with Voldemort’s chest does things to him. The sound burned into his memory forever, now.

It’s all too much, all of a sudden. He is not prepared for that. He needs to leave now. Immediately. He had not expected... Panic is clawing at his chest at the intensity of… whatever this is.

He is aware, that it must look like he had touched hot pokers, as his hand drops from the point of contact. Abrupt. He knows, because Harry’s expression clears instantly, and the horrible, terribly aroused expression gives way to caution. He knows, because as he takes a step away from Harry Potter, who is pretending to be his younger brother, as he rakes a horrifyingly shaky hand through his light blond tresses, Riddle’s outrage morphs into genuine confusion.

Voldemort knows he does a terrible job at pretending his hasty retreat is anything, but him fleeing.

Later that evening, Harry hesitatingly settles into a seat on the couch next to him, still flushed, avoiding his eyes. Voldemort had been undividedly focused on his reading. He thanks any deity in existence for having proffered him some time to consider how he should behave. Since, at the very least, his uncoordinated leaving, at his unforeseen reaction to Harry Potter, had been… undignified. Also, when had Harry become a fixture in the Slytherin common room?

“Vee? Are we… okay?” Harry asks in a quiet, private voice. Tom Riddle does an amicable job, pretending not to shoot the pair of them furrow-browed, questioning looks. Not. It truly doesn’t even amount to a valiant effort, Voldemort thinks.

He is surprised the boy has decided to clear the air so soon… Alas, he is a Gryffindor through and through; solves issues head-on, rather than the Slytherin approach of avoiding an issue until it went away, or could be exploited, alternatively.

The boy’s fidgeting would be endearing if Voldemort didn’t feel like his skin was too tight. He doesn’t enjoy feeling so wholly unravelled.

“I can stop… if it bothers you,” the boy worries his hands in his lap. “It’s just a distraction, Vee,” his tone is down-right pleading.

Voldemort shuts his tome decisively. Harry flinches and his eyes meet Voldemort’s immediately. “Harry,” he says. Because really, it’s already decided. Voldemort doesn’t have time to agonize over his newfound attraction to Harry Potter of all people. And he decidedly does not feel satisfied or victorious at Harry offering to stop, oh, so sweetly. These types of feelings are thoroughly below him and not worth the effort to sort through.

“Do I need to teach you the contraceptive charm, Harry?” he tries. Projecting as much reserve, amusement, and condescension into his words as possible – exclusively these… safe emotions. No others. Because, truly, these emotions are all he should feel.

Emotions hush over Harry’s face and there is a terrible moment, where Voldemort finds himself hoping to identify disappointment in them. The boy seems to settle on exasperation, which only carries an edge of careful deliberation. It looks almost natural on his features. A good imitation of what the boy might have looked like, before. Before Voldemort miss-stepped so terribly.

“You made that up. That one doesn’t exist,” Harry states with utter conviction. And Voldemort grins, maybe even honestly, because this role is infinitely easier to wear.

“Also. We’re both… men,” the last word is hushed, likely a result of their current lack of privacy.

Voldemort feels his smirk widening to something dangerous. There is such a charm, of course – it has its uses in disease prevention. Harry splutters as he realizes Voldemort is serious. Well. As serious as one can be, discussing safe-sex practices with one’s former mortal enemy. “You’d be surprised by its usefulness. Magic has its way sometimes,” he says ominously with just the correct amount of gaiety. Harry stares at him wide-eyed.

Voldemort does not think about how similar this expression is to the one the boy wore earlier that day.

“Teach me, then, anyways… For academic reasons. It, uh, it might come in handy, you know,” Harry says, and Voldemort breathes more easily as Harry, too, falls into his role seamlessly. He laughs near effortlessly, and Harry joins, the boy, too, having almost cast off his previous unease. This is so much better, Voldemort thinks. This… friendship is preferred, by both of them, to the alternative; to whatever this complicated other thing had the possibility of devolving into. Out of sight; out of mind.

Harry giggles a final time and makes to stand. He casts a look at Voldemort then, which has little to do with his role of Harry Alarie. Well, he supposes the structure is similar to a smile his role would wear – saturated with genuine warmth and affection. Yet, there is something in the undertones, a curiosity, maybe – a question? – that is utterly Harry Potter. And Voldemort finds himself distressingly unprepared for it.

The boy leans forward then, into his space, face closer than it has any right to be. Gaze penetrating and uncharacteristically perceptive. His lips etch up into a lazy smile tinged with far too much self-satisfaction for comfort. A hand finds his neck, the weight warm and demanding as fingers card into the short hairs there.

“Don’t worry, Vee. I’ll still sit with you,” Harry says, and his smile is all cheek then. Crassly exploiting a rare moment in which Lord Voldemort is rendered speechless, he ducks out of the Common Room and, thus, the reach of Voldemort’s revenge for the cheek.

The three of them come to a somewhat mutual agreement. None of them mention, or even allude to, the novel facet to Harry’s and Riddle’s relationship when together. If they all pretend that no one had seen anything, surely nothing of consequence had occurred. This suits Voldemort just fine. More than that, Riddle still shows himself absurdly jealous by his clear inability to monopolize Harry’s attention, which Voldemort tries to not feel too smug about.

Unfortunately, this development does not distract Riddle from his search for the chamber of secrets and his inquisitiveness regarding his lineage.

It is in June, the air already brightening with warmth, the days sun-drenched and spent lazily languishing on the planes surrounding the Black Lake, when the first petrification occurs.

Harry and Voldemort are enjoying the post-exams’ indolence outside. This, in itself, is not an unexpected occurrence – Voldemort remembers similar days, back in his time, when he had been responsible for unleashing the Basilisk. What does startle the pair of them, though, is that the incident occurs in their immediate vicinity.

Voldemort is taking notes using a self-inking quill, with a heavy tome balanced precariously on his knee, made possible by a feather-light charm. Meanwhile, Harry is sketching mindlessly onto a parchment, which had been intended for his potions essay. He is charming the resulting doodles to dance over their surface and perform increasingly rude gestures. Tom Riddle and his goons are practising a visually impressive, but ultimately useless spell a few paces away. Voldemort notices that his younger self manages to be almost surreptitious in his vying for Harry’s attention. He casts a cooling charm on the both of them, aiming to make his flare of annoyance more bearable. Harry hums gratefully.

The lulling calm is pierced sharply by a high-pitched screech followed by Lucretia Black’s alarmed outcry.

Harry, who had evidently initially dismissed the exclamation, as one of playful joy, looks up at the girl’s voice, which is clearly marked by panic. Orion Black and his Gryffindor friends – the boy had been rather eclectic throughout his schooling, Voldemort remembers – had been cooling down in the lake within eyesight of where Voldemort and Harry are idly lounging in the shade of a towering cedar tree. The boy is notably absent, now.

In what looks to be a half-instinctual reaction, likely honed by years on the run, Harry stands and runs to where two of the second years are caged in their unnatural state of inertia. They are floating in the Black Lake, robes buoying around them almost hauntingly, faces turned downward. The students surrounding them stand shock-still.

Only moments later, Voldemort realizes what had happened. In contrast to what had occurred in his timeline, the Basilisk must not have petrified students inside the castle. It must’ve unintentionally attacked the two students playing in the Black Lake, with the water obscuring its fatal gaze. Unfortunately, the two students caught in semi-permanent immobility, had been playing in the Black Lake and were consequently drowning.

It is academic curiosity, but also his lack of empathetic instinct, which makes him hesitate for a moment, before he, too, springs to action.

Harry, the bleeding heart he is, is already standing in the shallow waters of the lake, wand drawn as he levitates the first child out of the water’s deceptive calm.

“Don’t look into the water, Harry,” Voldemort hisses under his breath, having finally caught up with his companion. Harry pales in realisation, and nods. His brows furrow determinedly as he casts out a second levitation charm blindly. He misses once. Twice.

“There is water trapped in the boy’s lungs and he can’t cough it out since he can’t move, Vee.” Harry’s voice, as usual, is collected under duress, as he tries again and the spell catches, the second body rising out of the waves. “Don’t you have something up your genius sleeve, to dislodge the water?” the younger boy asks him, voice coloured with hope.

It hits Voldemort suddenly that the boy doesn’t even question his allegiance in this. Harry does not ask whether Voldemort had been at all involved with the release of the basilisk. He could let the two suffer; there is no benefit to him, either way. But Harry knows, before Voldemort himself does, that he would help the two students.

Harry shoots him a quick, utterly confident gaze. The boy’s foolish trust in him is reorientating.

Voldemort pushes away the uncalled-for affection and turns towards the first rigid body, thinking fast. A heating charm might evaporate the water, though there could be permanent damage… He stalls.

“Vee, do it now!” Harry’s voice is insistent now, though only due to temporal limitations. “They’re drowning!” There is unbridled confidence in Voldemort’s abilities in the boy’s tone, and maybe that is, what pushes Voldemort to kneel beside the boy.

“I need a Glacius on the perimeter of their chests,” Voldemort directs after a fleeting moment of deliberation. “It needs to be delicate… Though the risk of frostbite is probably preferred over me boiling their insides, Harry. Can you do that?” Harry finds his eyes, nods once, wide-eyed yet undeterred, as he points his wand at the first child.

Voldemort presses the tip of his yew wand to the boy’s chest and imagines human anatomy. He thinks about the precise location his magic needs to be targeted at. Gritting his teeth, he voices the incantation causing vapour to evaporate softly from the boy’s mouth, which is frozen in an eternal scream. He cancels the charm sooner, rather than later.

While magic comes to the two of them easily, calling minuscule tendrils forth is difficult for the both of them, their might so easily lending itself to large outbursts.

Harry confirms the boy’s breathing by listening to his slightly rattling pulls of air. His counterpart wipes the sweat off his brow and nods grimly at Voldemort, as they set to repeat their actions on the other one of the Basilisk’s victims.

When they are finally done, Harry slumps against Voldemort, uncaring of the crowd that has gathered around them. “By Merlin’s bollocks, Vee, I’ve never been more grateful for your exactitude when teaching me, than I am now!” he sighs, before brandishing his wand a final time, to conjure a Patronus alerting Hogwarts’ resident Mediwizard.

Voldemort pats the boy’s hair, absentmindedly fond. He searches for his younger self. Tom Marvolo Riddle looks as shaken as Voldemort himself had been, when he had first uncovered the Chamber of Secrets and realized the uncontrollability of the monster residing inside it.

Riddle is pale as a sheet, shoulders drawn up, his throat visibly working to swallow down bile. Voldemort knows it’s neither the time nor the place, but ire overcomes him at the sight of his younger self. He had, perhaps foolishly, hoped that the infatuation his younger self had shown for Harry Potter would be enough to dissuade the boy from searching for his ancestry, from uncovering his heritage. Perhaps he is even disappointed.

Hogwarts staff arrive in a flurry of robes. Both Harry and he are awarded much praise for their quick thinking and impressively finical work. While Voldemort does his utmost to divert praise away from the two of them, he sees Harry staring at his younger self in like-minded frustration.

“What do we do?” Harry hisses at him, pulling him into an empty classroom, as soon as the initial barrage of questions and praise had ebbed away. The boy looks as determined, now, as he did disappointed. Voldemort sighs. In all honesty, even if he’d hoped Riddle would be distracted, he had never honestly believed his younger self’s desire to investigate his ancestry to be sustainably curbed. The opening of the Chamber, he had anticipated being somewhat postponed, though. Its timing coincided with his initial opening eerily well.

Then, he remembers the blazing eyes of Riddle, having taken offence at his comments about their surname. It had certainly not been his intention then to cause this, yet… A cold shiver runs down his spine, and a certainty, that feels too much like fate, boils low in his gut.

“What do we do to convince Riddle to keep the Chamber closed, Vee?” Harry’s question is more pressing, now. Harry Potter is looking at him, desperate, resolute and utterly trusting, and suddenly –.

Suddenly, it is unbearable. This faith in him.

“I don’t know! I don’t know, okay,” he twists to face Harry, whose eyes go wide. Voldemort notices belatedly that his tone has slipped into Parseltongue. He strides away from Harry’s excruciatingly open gaze. Can’t stand it. Paces. Doesn’t he know whom he is talking to? Whom he is asking for help from? He is Lord Voldemort, regardless of the shell, his mind currently inhabits. He is Tom Riddle, arguably the one responsible, and –.

Harry’s hand is at the crook of his elbow. “Hey,” the younger says softly, pulling on his sleeve to make him halt. “This wasn’t your fault, Vee, you know that, right?”

As if he cared about two meaningless names, to be forgotten in the tide of time! Voldemort doesn’t stifle his sneer, but Harry, unrelenting, continues. “I don’t think I thanked you today,” he says, agonizingly soft. “You didn’t have to help those people, yet you did. And it wasn’t an easy feat, either.” The boy’s eyes are large and gratified. As if he had proved any of Harry’s silly notions right today.

The boy’s eyes make Voldemort want to wreck him, to punish him for being so trusting. In him! Him, of all people. Wasn’t Riddle’s opening of the Chamber enough proof that he should not be trusted, soul whole, or worse still splintered?

“Well, having these two boys die, would have simply given Riddle the chance to make his first two Horcruxes already, Harry. Don’t be stupid,” he dismisses the other brutally, “I didn’t do it for them.” Harry’s face dims slightly, but the boy doesn’t let go.

There is something convinced, something utterly certain in Harry’s face. “Setting the Basilisk free had been an accident, back when you did it, too, right?” Harry asks instead of responding to Voldemort’s rebuke.

Voldemort’s anger leaves at once. Why lie? To attempt to maintain a veneer of senseless brutality? Harry does not appear to be persuadable, in any case. He sighs in admittance. “Back then, I had merely wanted the proof of my lineage,” he admits what feels like a significant secret.

Harry bites his lower lip in consideration. Shoots him a hesitant glance through his pale lashes. “We might try to give him time… Maybe he’ll realize he needs to stop, by himself, and set the Basilisk back to sleep,” the younger wizard suggests. Voldemort is not sure whether he ascribes Riddle that amount of forethought, but Harry’s face shows too much grim, yet hopeful determination, to voice his concerns.

When the second petrification occurs, Voldemort doesn’t wait to see Harry’s crumpled face. He doesn’t want to see the desolation on his usually so believing features. Something of Harry’s unthinking penchant to storm into confrontations headfirst must have rubbed off on Voldemort, because he finds himself in front of the entrance to the Chamber in the girl’s bathroom on the fourth floor. Muscle memory and nostalgia guiding him through the labyrinthine corridors leading to the Chamber. Half-formed plans of chastising the Basilisk into inaction, or ordering him to sleep himself, die as he sees a lone figure in the wet Chamber. The mouth of Salazar’s statue opens.

In retrospect, his sole wise move had been to send a Patronus to Harry immediately. Every other action, thereafter, could arguably be classified as foolish.

Riddle turns, eyes slit, deranged. Greedy. It’s sickening how drunk the youth is on his own power. “Wha–. Who are you?” he asks, furious somebody could snub his birthright, both well-aware that only a Parselmouth could have entered the Chamber. It’s sickening how much the boy fears losing what sets him apart from others.

Voldemort tries to convince Riddle of closing the Chamber and setting the Basilisk asleep through words, at first. But, their argument devolves quickly. The duel that ensues should have ended swiftly, had Voldemort not shown restraint. Had he not made the mistake of turning, when he heard the heavy body of the king of snakes. Had he not seen the water inside the ancient stone encased pools reverberate with the massive body’s movement. Had he not looked.

In the end, Voldemort realizes, Harry had been right after all. Dying was painless. And faster than falling asleep.

Voldemort finds himself in the endless white again. This time alone. He is strangely calm. The silence is deafening, it swathes his voice like cotton. Voldemort feels no pain, no panic. He isn’t afraid. This is what his greatest fear is like. He wonders. He is back in the body he had been in, the last time they were in the space in between.

There is nothing to do, but to wait. Wait for time to pass in a timeless dimension. It gives him the space to think, at least. The Basilisk must have no longer recognized him as Slytherin’s heir. Curious, how that worked. The heirship must be bound to blood, because Voldemort in Riddle’s body had been able to look the Basilisk in the eye without harm.

Yet he had died, foolishly unafraid. He laughs for a long time. Then, he wonders if this nondimensionality will eventually drive him insane. Is Harry still a Parselmouth after Voldemort removed his soul shard back in the forest? Were the powers conferred when he regained the shard still the same as before? Would he be able to enter the Chamber and dissuade Riddle? Would he live out his life in that time?

Eventually – he doesn’t know how long it has been, for he doesn’t hunger, thirst or tire – the white congeals next to the path he is walking. The nothingness around him takes blurry shapes, dissolves again. Then, he feels it. Obliterating euphoria. Singeing Pain.

Harry Potter sucks in a sharp breath, as the pain numbs abruptly, and he finds himself no longer in Hogwarts. “Vee,” he breathes, relieved. The white, insubstantial shadows solidify, as Death joins them.

Chapter Text

The tall form of Voldemort is bent in half. Death is looking down at the wizard with abject disdain.

“How do you feel? Did it work? Does it feel like the last Horcrux rejoined?” Harry excitedly asks. His left shoulder stings coldly, as always in the space in between. He ignores it.

“What happened?” Voldemort presses out between deep gulps of breath, before he rights himself with Harry’s help. He shoots Death an inquisitive glare. “Finally decided to join me?” Voldemort says, though his voice is less genuinely angered and more calculating. “Also, this pain?” he prompts looking down at the smaller wizard, who is still propping up.

“Felt that, huh?” Harry grimaces. His own death could have gone smoother. Voldemort, who now looks remarkably like an older, more distinguished version of the frantic boy Harry left behind, raises a sculpted brow. Harry chooses to ignore that particular thought. It doesn’t lead him anywhere. “That, ah, was Basilisk venom.”

Voldemort looks at him blankly and Harry feels very judged. A judgement, that is clearly not in his favour. ‘I couldn’t leave you dead alone, could I’ is what he wants to say. Luckily, he doesn’t. His mind must be addled. The warmth between their touching bodies deadens the creeping cold in his shoulder and makes him want to bury himself in Voldemort’s chest.

Now that he considers it, it is probably time to remove himself.

Harry is not keen on embarrassing himself any more than he’s already done. Voldemort frowns in displeasure as Harry tries to step away, as nonchalantly as possible. “So, soul, or no soul?” he asks, in an attempt of deflection.

He shouldn’t have bothered though; the answer is quite clear. Voldemort’s skin has lost some more of its pallidness, his high cheekbones are less hollow, his eyes are almost free of red. Harry questions his sanity as he realizes he misses them. “I think so,” Voldemort says. “But more importantly, how did you manage it?”

Harry sighs, hesitant, before he steps close to Voldemort again. “See for yourself, Vee,” he offers. Voldemort is taken aback for but a moment, evident by the way a blank expression settles in place, before he carefully, carefully bridges the remaining gap and brushes away Harry’s hair. Harry smothers his fidgeting. This is okay, he reminds himself. Voldemort’s cool hand brushes over his cheekbones before it settles on Harry’s neck. Green eyes meet grey ones and Harry Potter feels it everywhere, the moment Voldemort dives into mind.

Harry comes running down to the chamber, hurried by a familiar Patronus, which suddenly disintegrates. In the echoing Chamber, he finds Voldemort on the ground, unmoving, his robes soaked in the uninvitingly frigid water on the Chamber’s floor. There is no outward sign of a fight, no physical wounds visible. Yet, even if it weren’t for Riddle kneeling beside the man, that had played Harry’s sibling, hysterical, or the abruptly disintegrated Patronus, Harry would know with certainty that Voldemort’s vessel is dead.

There is the lingering taste of Voldemort’s spellfire in the air, so similar to Riddle’s and yet, so different. Well-known. Cold. Cooling? The space surrounding the vessel’s body is noticeably void of Voldemort’s deafening magical signature. Riddle’s wand is pointed at the body’s chest. ‘Enervate’ he hears. Then, ‘Rennervate’. The boy’s tone has taken on a frantic quality.

That’s the moment, he notices Harry approaching. An aborted movement as if to hide the body. Eyes wide, pleading, guilty as he chokes out Harry’s name. The latter notion strikes Harry as surprising.

He approaches the two figures warily. He’s certain Myrtle’s death hadn’t been intentional. But… Had Voldemort just inadvertently provided his younger self with the opportunity to create his first Horcrux? Disbelieving laughter crawls up his windpipe. Wouldn’t that be ironic?! Or, had Voldemort planned that all along? Hadn’t he initially stated that he didn’t want to prevent himself from creating all Horcruxes? Harry hated that he only doubted the man, now. Had pushed any misgivings aside, before. The man hadn’t given him reason to do so, so far.

In the space-in-between, Harry feels Voldemort’s mind retract for an instant, before he dives back into the memory. Their awarenesses, once more, slot together as if they belong.

He looks at the boy’s face again. Tom Riddle looks genuinely stricken. It’s a look that strikes Harry as tragic.

“I wasn’t… He looked back at the Basilisk. I–. It all happened so fast!” The boy’s tone is high, very unlike his usual collected, velvety voice. He looks back at Voldemort’s vessel, points his wand at his chest, tries a different spell.

The boy had known what he was dealing with, but he hadn’t known. Why did fate always have to choose Tom Marvolo Riddle? Couldn’t it have been anyone else, to whom these revelations had to occur? Harry’s heart is heavy. “That won’t work Tom,” he says as gently as possible, as he is kneeling next to the body and stills Riddle’s wand hand.

The boy’s eyes find his again and instead of slumping in defeat, now, there is a crazed, almost deranged determination in his eyes. “There must be! I can conquer death, I can. I promise.”

Bone-deep wariness suffuses Harry. Is this the beginning of the end, he wonders? He looks at Voldemort’s vessel’s face, pushes away his fringe, loose now. A strange melancholy echoes through Harry’s mind, then. He’d liked this life. Liked these vessels. Liked the easy companionship they provided. “Ah, don’t worry about him. He’ll be fine,” Harry attempts to soothe. Probably. Hopefully.

He looks back up, as he hears Riddle choke on his breath. There is confusion on the other boy’s face.

“I don’t understand you at all, Alarie. I just… killed your brother, didn’t I?” Harry hums in agreement, though the uncaring sound only furthers Riddle’s confusion. “This body is certainly dead. Though probably not at your hands, since it wasn’t your intent…” he speculates, optimistic. There is relief on the other boy’s face and then calculation, a mad gleam. Unexpectedly, Harry finds himself at wand-point, again. Riddle has stood to tower over Harry.

“What are you?” the boy asks, deceptively calm for all that his pronunciation has almost slipped into the language of snakes. “Tell me, now!” Riddle’s voice is insistent with compulsion laced heavily throughout the words. “Why is it that you don’t care about your beloved older brother?! I don’t believe for a second that your true allegiance lies with me! Why is it that you and he were able to enter the Chamber of Secrets? My birthright! Or–. Is this what this was all about? Did you want me to find the Basilisk for you and use it? Are you a practitioner of the Dark, after all?” Riddle’s magic flares at that. “Don’t lie to me!” It’s a pre-emptive threat. For all that Harry has made no move to draw his wand, to Riddle, his mere existence must be a threat. Sparks of electricity jump into Harry’s skin, where the wand makes contact with his chest.

Harry is unable to stifle his surprised laughter. Riddle’s nose is flared, his eyes wide and wild. His school robe billows by virtue of an immaterial wind his magic conjures up. “Not a Dark Lord, no,” Harry says, laughter in his voice. Riddle calms somewhat. “But a Basilisk is unable to truly kill me, or Vee,” he shares unconcernedly and closes Voldemort’s vessels eyes, for a final time. In this he is certain. He would have felt Voldemort passing, had that been the case.

He could obliviate the younger version of Voldemort. That’s the option Vee would have opted for, surely. But Harry fears that Riddle’s sense of self is too strongly interwoven with his search for his heritage – he would either only postpone Riddle finding the Chamber again, or be forced to take too much. The latter alternative would leave Riddle’s self in tatters. Neither option sounds particularly good. Harry purses his lips in consideration. The Harry Potter way it is, then.

“We came here for you, Tom. For all of this.” He gestures towards their surroundings. Riddle’s eyes flare as he kneels back on the ground beside Voldemort’s dead body.

“You came for me?” disbelief in his voice. “For this?” he asks, excitedly. “To help me use the Basilisk?” his tone is greedy and breaks on the last syllable.

Voldemort’s presence in Harry’s head sneers. Both feel the truth of Harry’s grief and disappointment resonate through their shared mind. But the feeling is not immediate, as though watching a scene through the warming, calming rays of sun, that is Harry’s affection.

“No,” Harry’s tone is final for all that it lacks cutting. The cold of the water seeps through his outer robes and his trousers. “We came here to prevent this,” Harry’s voice is tired but gentle. “To prevent you from murdering someone. To prevent you from making a Horcrux, Tom.” For all of Harry’s softly-worded gentleness, Riddle rears back as the words hit.

“How do you know about that?” he half spits, half seethes, wand raised yet again. Afraid.

A long sigh. “That, I am afraid, must remain a secret,” Harry says patiently. Then, a sliver of humour that Tom Riddle cannot yet share, “Some version of you already knows.” A smile, then Harry’s mind darkens with intent. “Know this. The path you are on… It will lead you somewhere you never wanted to end. You will do things–,” he cuts himself off. How to end this sentence?

Things I’ll never forgive… But no, neither does Harry say that, nor does he truly believe it. The hurt at his parents’ death only echoes faintly. It’s a pain of lost possibilities. But there is also hope. Hope so strong, Voldemort’s hand at his neck falters for a moment. “– You will do things that are near impossible to forgive or forget, Riddle.”

Riddle seems stunned, jaw slack. Harry stands and squeezes the young boy’s limp shoulder, before he moves to the now, close-mouthed statue of Salazar Slytherin. “Hogwarts used to be my home, as much as it is yours. If people die at your hand, here, if people find bodies, the school will be closed.” He shoots a pointed gaze over at Vincent Alarie’s body, before he switches to Parselmouth with ease and calls forth the snake.

“It was nice knowing you, before all of this,” Harry says over his shoulder, grinning. Mysteriously. Incomprehensibly. He is sure Riddle only understands half of what he’s saying. Well. That can’t be helped. He walks towards the large snake fearlessly, blindly, and reaches out. The Basilisk, confused, opens its mouth in warning and Harry Potter, deliberately, pricks his finger on one of the snake’s razor-sharp teeth.

The subsequent scorching pain is even more overwhelming first-hand, and Voldemort pulls away briskly. Harry struggles for a moment to remember how to breathe. The loss of the connection is unearthing.

Voldemort appears to have fewer difficulties. “You couldn’t have just opened your eyes, could you?” is the first thing he asks Harry, eyebrow raised in abject bafflement.

Harry knows he’s pouting – Voldemort’s gaze drops to his lower lip for but a second – and he crosses his arms in front of his chest. Ignores the way his cheeks heat at the gaze. “Well, you are not really the authority to judge me on dramatics, Vee!” he counters petulantly. “I needed to make sure that this death was self-chosen, as to not give Riddle more… ammunition, in case my convincing wasn’t enough.” Voldemort rolls his eyes at him and his traitorous heart beats double at the familiar sight.

The cold stings in his left shoulder again, which recentres him swiftly. Death clears its throat. “As heart-warming as that was–,” there is a distinct condescension to its tone. “And believe me, it was. You, Master Potter, are still a Horcrux.”

Harry’s hand flies to his forehead and, sure enough, he discerns the raised skin of the scar. Right, he’d still felt that inexplicable warmth and sense of belonging when he had been in contact with Voldemort, which could only stem from a persisting bond. But why?

Voldemort’s gaze is narrowed, closed off, towards Death, pensive.

“Another reincarnation it is then,” Death claps its skeleton hands in malicious joviality. Which is a sight that is simply bizarre. “Brothers again? Did that suit you? Or perhaps a different relation?” Death’s supercilious sneer is directed at Voldemort, before it bleeds away again into dubious shadowy benignity.

“Wait,” Harry says, and to his own surprise, his word appears to carry the heaviness of a command. Death stills. “What happened to the two Alaries?” he asks sharply. His shoulder flares with stinging cold pain. Harry’s hand flinches towards it. Voldemort’s frown is directed at the movement for longer than Harry is comfortable with. He can feel it burning through his robe.

Under its hood, the shadows that are Death’s face snarl for a moment, then it looks utterly calm again. Maybe, it was a trick of the light. Cold apprehension trickles into his awareness. Death bows slightly, its voice honeyed sweet subservience. Cold laughter shining through. “Why don’t you ask your partner, Harry Potter?” Death answers smugly.

Harry whirls around to face Voldemort, the questions on his tongue dying, as he takes in the older Wizard’s thinning lips and closed-off countenance. “I remember two boys…” the man says evenly. “Never knew their first names. Two utterly unremarkable students. ‘Puffs,” he finishes.

Harry should have known, Voldemort wouldn’t feel remorse over such a thing, but it still stings a little like betrayal. His anger finds Death, again, who makes a good play of being devastated. “You asked for vessels without memories. That, I gave you, Harry Potter.”

For a moment Harry is floored by Death’s wilful obscurity. But that, too, he should have known. This entity imprisoned them in this game, after all. This game whose rules only Death itself knew in their entirety. Anger rips through him, then. “Just put us in Voldemort’s past as we are, then,” he grits out from between clenched teeth. “No other vessels. Don’t steal anyone’s identity!” Cold stings and almost numbs his whole shoulder in rebuke. Harry rotates his shoulder, annoyed. What the hell is happening to him? The pain dims and merely hums angrily.

“Very well,” Death’s tone has noticeably lost some of its silkiness. The drop into time and space is abrupt.

Harry wakes up by literally waking up. The Hogwarts express around him rocks gently, rolling hills of the Scottish Highlands pass outside the window, he has been fogging up by breathing against it. He jerks to straighten his spine. His neck and shoulders complain at him for his previously cramped position. Two younger students sit across from him and examine him not quite unobtrusively, eyebrows raised.

There is drool on his mouth’s left corner. He wipes at it, only marginally mortified, and takes stock of his person.

His Hogwarts robes are brand-new and not yet coloured by any House. He is a transfer student, then. His hand finds his forehead and with it, his familiar scar. Some of the tension drains from him at that – Death at least had been earnest enough to abide his word. There is a chill on his left upper body. Maybe someone left a window open? Harry looks around surreptitiously and despite finding none, burrows deeper in his robes.

Voldemort is nowhere to be found.

A thought like that used to make him feel quite different, he mulls, unsure how to feel about this observation. Mostly, he feels mortified and excited. Maybe, he is mortified at his excitement. His cheeks feel a little warm, and, isn’t this just ridiculous? Harry scolds himself internally and sits up straight in defiant dignity. He spares the two students across from him a more thorough examination, now, that they have abandoned every modicum of obfuscation.

One of them is tall, dark-haired and a little lanky. His friend is as nondescript as possible – small, almost cowering – belying his Gryffindor-coloured robes. Something tugs at the back of Harry’s brain, yet he can’t pinpoint what, precisely.

“Nice to see you are alive, after all. My friend and I have a bet going about whether you’ll wake up before we arrive,” the dark-haired child grins endearingly, if a little roguish. “The name ‘s Black,” he extends his hand in almost a Muggle fashion – his grip just a little too lax to be practised. ‘Another Black’ Harry thinks and hopes the boy is not related to Bellatrix too closely. He really needs to figure out which year he’s landed in.

Harry is about to introduce himself in turn, when two other students, likely the same year as the two across him approach, and fall into the empty seats. “Five Galleons! Pay up, Prongs!” the boy, still holding his hand says before he releases and grins at one of the newly arrived boys. Harry’s breath has never left him as fast as then, as his focus whips to one of the new additions.

Prongs, his father, sighs sufferingly, and then casts around in the depth of his robes for a few golden coins, to pass them to… Sirius Black. He does so with more vitriol than deserved, before his pale, hazel eyes turn on Harry.

James Potter’s eyes search his face, linger on his eyes, and on his half-hidden scar, before he frowns. “I’m sorry, Sirius didn’t tell me what your name was,” the younger Gryffindor half-demands, half-asks. Harry flounders. “It’s just… you look really similar to… my dad, I s’ppose. Are you by any chance related to the Potters?” Harry’s heart is in his throat. “Or the Blacks?” James shoots Sirius a confused stare. Harry breath feels like acid rasping in his throat. “The… Peverells, maybe?”

There is a whole host of feelings inside Harry, warring for dominance. A heartache, that had been old and scabbed-over, ripped open anew. Fear, longing. Almost overwhelming curiosity. His eyes slide over the four Marauders, though he takes care not to linger too long on the fourth – unwilling to cause bloodshed for something that hasn’t happened yet, and might never will.

Harry’s focus is on his father again, who by now has adopted a haughty expression, masking his genuine confusion. Harry gulps on air and promptly hacks out a cough. When he looks up again, James Potter’s face has twisted into amusement with an edge of meanness.

“Yes,” Harry is finally able to choke out. “’m Harry Po… Peverell,” he course-directs last second, glad for his father’s unwitting proposition.

At that, both Sirius’ and James’ eyebrows climb dramatically, and even Remus looks interested. “Peverell?” one of them exclaims, incredulous. Harry feels like his ears are ringing and his shoulder feels as if made of ice.

“I thought their line had long since died out! Why didn’t you attend Hogwarts before?” James states.

“Home-schooled. In… uh, Europe,” says Harry, in weak defence, before he mumbles some pitiful excuses and flees the passenger compartment; the Marauders’ disbelieving stares boring into his back.

They arrive in Hogwarts not long thereafter, and Harry is shuffled into the group of first-years, above whom he towers self-consciously. The gamekeeper – not Hagrid, Harry notes – directs them to the boats and Harry finds himself unable to appreciate his nostalgia, as he still feels like his head is filled with cotton. They’re in the Marauders’ era! Which means his mum is here, and Snape, he supposes. And. He has still not found Voldemort!

The first years and Harry are directed into the Great Hall for the Welcoming feast, after the Head of House Ravenclaw informs them of the following proceedings. By the whispers and badly-disguised stares, Harry divines that knowledge of his supposed last name had spread like fiendfyre. His eyes meet the Headmaster’s, yet instead of his usual twinkle, he finds a deeply ingrained frown on the man’s face, at the sight of him. Harry swallows, uncertain suddenly, but pushes the sentiment away. There is an amused prickle at the edge of his awareness, which dulls the chill he feels. He is unable to investigate the origins, however, caught up in being directed to the Sorting Hat.

“Third time’s a charm, eh, Mr. Potter?” the Hat mumbles in his mind. “The options are still the same as they have always been, but you really ought to choose Slytherin, this time.” The Hat manages to sound both amused and frustrated. Harry thinks about sharing a House with either his parents, as children – they can’t be much older than 12, or maybe 13, if he’s generous – or Snape. He grimaces. The choice is an easy one, really.

“Slytherin!” the Hat exclaims, almost bored. There is a moment of surprised silence followed by enthusiastic clapping from the Slytherins and he feels a press of delighted laughter in his mind. Harry realizes what this means, at once, and casts his gaze around to… find Voldemort sitting at the Professors’ table, hands steepled, gaze dark and bottomless.

Harry stumbles on his way down the steps of the dais and Voldemort’s eyes crinkle at the corners. The man hides his smile behind his now, folded hands. Harry, thoroughly embarrassed, drags his eyes away and focuses on his new House.

He takes a seat as far away from everyone as possible, to their obvious confusion, and tries to be as unobtrusive as he can, willing the heat suffusing in his cheeks to die down.

He fails of course, but it turns out, rebuffing Slytherin advances with monosyllabic answers works eventually and he can eat in peace.

That is, he is in peace until the Welcoming Feast is cleared of the plates and he looks up, a familiar awareness prickling in his nape, and he finds himself in the direct path of Voldemort’s certain steps. Harry stands hastily and wipes his suddenly clammy hands on his robes. “Welcome to the House of Slytherin, Mr. … Peverell,” Voldemort intones in a smooth low baritone without any of the familiarity he’s come to expect from the man.

It catches Harry off-guard. Was this Voldemort? Or was it… Tom Riddle? The man in front of him looked deceivingly like the youth he’d left behind in their last life, maybe a little bit of grey peppering the sides of his annoyingly perfectly coiffed, lush, shiny hair. So shockingly handsome, frankly, it was insulting. Harry feels like the endings of his nerves are raw and tingling. By Merlin’s saggy balls, what was his life?!

Though, to his own surprise, he finds himself searching for signs for the man in front of him not being Tom Riddle, but Voldemort. When he can’t find any definite giveaway, he almost – he almost mourns Voldemort not being there. There is a twitch in his opposite’s mouth.

Harry clears his throat and determinedly pushes away these unwarranted thoughts. “Are you the Head of House? Sir,” Harry adds belatedly. The man’s eyes flash and something like dark satisfaction thrums through the link. Harry’s stomach swoops, and suddenly, he is very certain the man in front of him is Voldemort. He fails to curb the urge to shift his weight from foot to foot.

Voldemort regards him for a long moment, before he tilts his head in a wordless yes, perhaps to hide the smile Harry feels in his mind. He really needs to figure something out to shield his thoughts! The man probably had unfiltered access to his thoughts and feelings…

“Yes. And as Head of House, it is my duty to show you to your Dormitories and such… Follow me, Mr. Peverell,” Voldemort intones and strides away on his unfairly long legs. Harry shoots the prefect student that had been in the process of approaching them, an apologetic glance and follows Voldemort, certain that usually Prefects were assigned these tasks – the student had stared slightly too disbelievingly, for Voldemort’s involvement to have been commonplace.

Said man, of course, does not direct him to the Slytherin Common Room at all. This is not a problem in itself; Harry knows where it is. He directs him into an empty classroom though, which… is a problem. Said problem being, that Harry does not know where to put his hands. The awareness that their bond is alive and very active in their own bodies is… disconcerting.

“Peverell?!” Voldemort asks first, after staring at Harry unnervingly, for what feels like a lifetime. “I thought you might have wanted to lay low. Dumbledore is pathetically interested,” the man says, sitting down and crossing long legs at the ankles primly.

And. Fuck. Now, Harry doesn’t know where to look, either.

He needs to think of something to say, and fast!

“I, er, met my father,” Harry says, a little dumbly, but because it’s Voldemort, the man clearly knows the significance of said event. The man’s eyes widen, before they become unfocused for a moment. “Ah, yes. I met Potter and Evans first… last year?” the man’s statement is a half-question.

Realization cools Harry’s insides with panic, and then heats in indignation and terrible embarrassment. “You have Riddle’s memories?” he chokes out and tries hard not to think about his… rather personal involvement with the person in question, on multiple occasions. Harry directs his emotions towards more fruitful passions, such as his outrage that Death might’ve deceived them, instead.

The man hums lightly before cocking his head in consideration. The link between them buzzes weakly with a mix of indecipherable emotions, when he taps into it, curious what the man might be thinking. Voldemort’s eyes flash to him. A warning.

Harry retreats. “It seems to be so… Though, I’m not certain I would have expected anything but,” the man voices. “We have, after all, gone forward in time, which had so far been unprecedented. And Riddle and I share… if not a body, precisely, a mind, an essence…?”

Harry refuses to be embarrassed any longer. Fake it ‘till you make it, or something. He straightens. “So, er, you have two sets of memories for your whole life until now?” he asks.

Voldemort grimaces, for the first time openly showing his emotion, and rubs his temple. “More than just two, in some cases…” his mouth down-turns displeased. A long finger taps against his newly full lips and the man’s eyes are far away. “How interesting, now that I consider. It seems that both Heraclitus’ theory of time being a river that remains the same in essence, even if obstacles are thrown into it, as well as the butterfly theory, wherein one small change has large rippling effects, are true. I wonder to which extent either concept contributes… Though it certainly falsifies the multiverse theory,” Voldemort trails off in thought.

Harry considers this. It seems like some of Voldemort’s hypothesizing about the nature of time has rubbed off on him, because the man’s words make sense to a frightening degree. “So, some of what we did to Riddle in his earlier life, had effects on how he behaved later, which created alternative versions of the events that we were in? And they converged once more, after?” he asks and is momentarily confused by his own words.

Voldemort, isn’t. “Yes,” the man’s lip curls smugly, his voice velveteen. “It does appear that some of my hypothesizing has had a positive effect on you…” he adds, sounding both gratified and exasperated, but then his brow crinkles. “– I need to teach you Occlumency, you’re giving me a headache with the barrage of your emotions, Harry,” says Voldemort in lieu of explanation and Harry promptly colours in embarrassment, though he refuses to acknowledge it. There is really no point, Voldemort knows it all anyway and really, he, or rather a version of his, was very keen on participating.

Voldemort seems to feel not dissimilar, because he waves away Harry’s discomfort and mumbles something about teenagers and hormones. Right… Harry raises his chin in defiance, he will not allow Voldemort to pin this all on him.

But the way Voldemort’s face is pinched halts his indignant defence. He doesn’t tap into the bond to discern more of Voldemort’s thoughts than bleed through anyway, no matter how tempted he is.

Instead, he simply asks whether they can postpone the first Occlumency lesson to the next day. He is emotionally exhausted by the meeting with his family, and still hasn’t fully digested Voldemort being his professor, yet. The man acquiesces and they stroll towards the Slytherin Common Room.

“Oh, Vee,” he notices suddenly. The man starts at the old nickname, but there is no one around them to notice the overly-familiar way Harry addresses his professor. And, so, Harry ignores the long, pointed glance, Voldemort sends him. He has compartmentalized Riddle and Vee according to these names and he doesn’t particularly plan on conflating the two. “I never asked, which subject are you teaching?”

A sly, yet stunningly earnest-seeming smile spreads over Voldemort’s face. “Divination,” the man states drily.

There is a beat, where Harry thinks he has misheard. Then, he bursts out in laughter.

Voldemort’s mind is pleased. The honesty of it shakes Harry out of his mirth a little. This bond maybe isn’t all bad. “No, seriously. DADA?” he follows up.

Voldemort hums, genuinely delighted, and tells him the password. It’s so utterly pretentious and stiflingly Pure-blooded, Harry cracks up again. “I thought you might like it,” Voldemort’s lips curl in shared mirth. “See you tomorrow, Harry.”

Harry waves a small wave, which he is certain, Voldemort didn’t even see – his back is turned already, hands in his pockets, stride languid yet powerful – before he braces himself for House Slytherin’s reception. The snake, etched into the crudely hewn wall, gives way to a solidifying door, just as it had done in their last life and Harry pushes it open, curious and apprehensive.

Not many people acknowledge his arrival outwardly, but the summative effect of everyone’s disguised interest in his behaviour, causes a hush to fall over the Common Room. Which. Is oddly homey.

Orange firelight, cast from torches and the fireplace, contrasts with the eery green, casting in through the large windows. Right, he remembers from his brief stint in his second year, that the Slytherin Common Room is located underneath the Black Lake, yet the light filtering through the somewhat murky water allows for an interesting sight that, surprisingly, lacks the sense of ominousness he remembers. Then again, he had been twelve back then and had not yet grasped that magic could reinforce structures; that he needn’t fear the window caving in.

There are some more, or less legal books strewn about. He snorts. Harry is certain Voldemort does extraordinarily little, to censor the literature available to the students. There are some wall hangings, and green carpets, as well as some inviting-looking couches and armchairs. He spies a girl, who doesn’t visibly acknowledge him, with partly blonde, partly black hair. From her features, he discerns her to be the future Mrs. Malfoy.

The thought, though, carries little heat. The things that happened in the Second Wizarding War feel like a lifetime away, now. Emotions, he once felt so keenly, have lost their vibrancy. Memories of foes, for whom he once burned with hatred, have now paled. Former schoolboy rivalries have faded to trivialities. Friends, he would have once trusted with his life, would have even given it for, seem less real than the people close to him, now.

He peruses the room, to divert his thoughts from his melancholy.

There is a nervous-looking first year next to her, who looks eerily like young Sirius had – that must be Regulus, then. He remembers that they are distantly related. Cousins of some degree. He is suddenly very glad Narcissa Black is the youngest of three sisters. Though, he might’ve liked getting to know Tonks’ mum. His eyes search for who would later become his potions master, feeling a little conflicted, but he cannot find the young boy.

Someone approaches him then, the student with the prefect’s badge, and Harry struggles to swallow around the lump in his throat. This is bizarrely both very similar and diametrically opposite to his previous attendance… well, attendances in the school. The fox-like-looking student introduces himself with a name he doesn’t recognize from the future and thus doesn’t attempt to memorize, to show Harry around. The dismissal is callous, he chastises himself immediately upon notice, but can’t conjure the energy to ask for the name once more.

The younger boy directs him to his dormitory; is overall perfectly non-sinisterly mundane. Even if the prefects’ curiosity is palpable. Harry excuses himself for an early night, wards his canopied bed with spells far beyond any seven year’s capabilities – Voldemort taught him – and lays awake until far into the night, his thoughts restless.

His dreams, when they finally come, are a confusing blur of images. Impressions from a twin perspective pull him along in a whirl of colours, shapes, sounds and tastes. Wide-blown green eyes consuming; the suggestion of touch, soft at first, and then incendiary; making him burn up with want. He doesn’t know where he starts and where he ends. Underneath it all, an undercurrent of shame. Once Harry’s consciousness deciphers this, it is almost impossible to ignore; the acrid bitterness of it on his tongue, making his teeth ache with it. It diverges then; morphs into two distinct entities. Touches have a hint of nail and kisses a bite of teeth. Punishing. Shame and want.

Harry wakes up hard and aching; unsure about what he has seen; both curious and terrified. His heart racing impossibly loud in the dark solitude of his canopied bed, he wonders which parts of what he has seen are his, and which are Voldemort’s. His hand stays, even though he craves to touch.

The next day, Harry catches almost nothing of Voldemort’s through their bond. It is like walking against a wall. Harry is torn between relief and frustration. Though, he admits, that it’s probably better this way. They have a whole class to focus on, after all.

To Harry’s delight, Voldemort does not besmirch his favourite subject. In fact, the man is an excellent, if strict, teacher, able to adapt the material well according to the student’s level. Having enjoyed real-life application of the taught material, as well as the man’s private tutoring in previous lives, Harry is further advanced than the remaining class. He is challenged to perform the spells taught non-verbally, first, and then wandlessly.

Though he refuses to meet his eyes under the guise of impartiality, Harry, nonetheless, is not left uncertain about Voldemort’s… appreciation of his progress. He can practically taste the man’s proud, and admittedly self-satisfied, gratification thrumming in the back of his mind. This, absurdly, leaves him painfully pleased with himself, which, unfortunately, creates a sort of feedback loop that is very distracting.

At the end of the lesson, there is a frown on Voldemort’s features that seems like it’s been permanently etched there. ‘Come to my office, once the lessons are finished.’ Voldemort murmurs into the recesses of his brain, while the man wraps up the class with a few clipped words. Harry shivers involuntarily.

At the end of the day, Harry is faced with the realization that he doesn’t actually know, where Voldemort’s office is. An idea, born in the spur of the moment, causes him to focus on the part of his brain, that is connected to the man. He trusts his steps to lead him to the source.

Surprisingly, this method is successful. His feet have barely stopped in front of a deceivingly simple door, when said door flies open by virtue of Voldemort’s wandless magic. The office is spartan, yet not lacking personality. While it’s mostly clean and tidy, both the man’s desk and shelf are practically overflowing – stuffed with scrolls of parchments, books and other artefacts assembled in a precariously balanced tower. There is a fireplace, unlit, and Voldemort is sitting in one of the high-backed, plush armchairs.

To Harry’s unending shock, there are faint splotches of pink on the man’s pale, high cheekbones. The man’s gaze is uncharacteristically shifty and his body language curiously restless. “Harry,” he is welcomed rather curtly. “Don’t–. By Salazar, do not do that again.”

A thrill shoots through Harry at the thought that he caused this in Voldemort. But then, the man breathes deeply, the pink fades and their eyes meet head-on to utter a single word, “Occlumency.” There is faint desperation burning in his hindbrain. Harry falls into a seat feeling shaken.

He doesn’t do terrible at Occlumency – much better in fact than he had with Snape – but not great either. Voldemort does not repeatedly ask him to ‘empty your mind, Potter’ while simultaneously invading it painfully. Instead, he asks him to compartmentalize a space inside his mind, which he can design just as he likes, for where their connection tingles. Voldemort tells him, with only a little derision in his smile, that the former approach does not tend to work for individuals who find difficulty in focus and calm.

He does stress, though, that he can neither use memories to construct the space, nor that Harry’s “mind-self” should be allowed to wander there ‘mindlessly’.

Unsurprisingly – Harry giggles when he finds out – Voldemort’s constructed space is a dungeon. Or rather a torture chamber. It’s mercifully void of explicit hardware or individuals, and as such, more amusing than horrifying. Harry can’t help a few comments about Voldemort’s Dark Lordiness, which the man bears with arch superiority. The man’s rebuffs carry little heat, though. Harry can feel the other’s emotions very clearly here, and when he shows him the space he has constructed, he knows the man is pleased with their progress.

The two of them miss dinner, and Harry suggests they go tickle a pear to get some leftovers. Voldemort blinks in lack of understanding, which allows for Harry to be disproportionately smug about lording one of Hogwarts’ secrets over his counterpart, for a change.

“We both know we must be quite close to success,” Harry says around a mouthful of food, taking pleasure in Voldemort’s pinched expression at his ‘severely lacking manners’. He gulps it down pointedly, before continuing. “I mean from what your memories say, this one here–” he touches his scarred forehead. “– is quite possibly the only Horcrux left. That’s not… terribly chaotic, isn’t it? What, in Merlin’s name, does Death still want?” asks Harry, soothing the sting in his shoulder reflexively.

Voldemort is considering him, the man’s intense eyes following every minute fidget of Harry’s, lips pursed. Though Harry is by now fairly used to the overbearing presence Voldemort carries, seeing it on the face of Tom Riddle is unsettling. He gulps, feeling oddly shifty for some reason. Voldemort’s eyes linger.

They both know, Voldemort doesn’t exult at the thought of giving up his last, flimsy connection to immortality. That thought hums in resonance between their minds. Both don’t voice it, don’t have to do so, for different reasons. “I suppose, I could see, how that particular instance could have spiralled into the war anyways, though…” Voldemort’s silence is weighty.

They both know the truth of the statement. “We know, we were sent here for a reason but… how can we prevent something we don’t even know the trigger of,” asks Harry gesturing wildly. The feeling that they are being toyed with, chafes.

Back in the man’s office, Voldemort is leaning back into the couch he is occupying, arm rested on an armrest, propping up his chin. His posture isn’t… loose precisely, Harry would never describe it as such, but he looks comfortable in his pondering. The thought that it is Harry’s presence that allows him to be so, makes Harry’s stomach swoop weirdly. He looks away.

And then, back at the man, because Harry is insanely curious. He taps into their shared mind just lightly, just enough to glean surface level thoughts, but he only finds a swirling of emotions that are perhaps tinted in self-depreciation.

What an odd man he is, Harry thinks. Voldemort seems so outwardly calm, yet his mind is rarely a kind place, not towards others, and occasionally, not even to himself. Suddenly, Harry feels very privileged for being here, being allowed such insight into this man’s life and thoughts.

Voldemort had probably known their connection would persevere if they didn’t use vessels, Harry thinks. Whom is he kidding, of course, the man had known – bloody genius that he was. He could have protested Harry’s overhasty demand, but didn’t. The thought is accompanied by significantly more warmth than Harry should be comfortable with.

Maybe Voldemort felt, similar to Harry, that there was little necessity to hide from the other, after such a long time spent together. Merlin! It must have been years at this point! Somehow his mortal enemy had turned into a–, a trusted friend. Companion.

From the corner of his eye, he can see Voldemort’s posture stiffen briefly, before it turns almost liquid. When Harry is compelled to observe what that might look like, he finds Voldemort’s gaze trained on him once more. Eyes unreadable, and a hint of a smile half-hidden behind his hand on his chin.

Harry feels vaguely unbalanced by the sight of it and so, he quickly leaves the office, even before Voldemort has the chance to remind him of the curfew.

Entering the Common Room, he is suddenly very conscious that his housemates seem very aware that he’s spent the entirety of his first day at Hogwarts at an undisclosed location. Multiple people’s eyes are trained on him from below lashes, though only a few are confrontational enough, to regard him head-on.

In true Slytherin fashion, Harry is left entirely unknowing of their thoughts. He feels himself flush at what he presumes to be curiosity and hurries towards his dormitory. He tells himself that his impromptu quasi-sprint across the Common Room doesn’t resemble him taking refuge in privacy, as much as he feels it to be so.

He breathes calmer only after spelling his bed shut. He supposes his behaviour is very uncommon – for a presumably Pure-blooded wizard with a very famous name, to not even attempt involvement in Slytherin In-House politics is likely unheard of.

He can hear faint steps and murmured conversation from outside of his bed – his Muffliato only goes one way – which silence, once the source is close to where he’s hiding. Merlin, he doesn’t even know his roommate’s names. Harry sighs and flops back into his sheets. It’s all his fault for distracting him so thoroughly, he thinks vindictively.

Unbidden laughter bubbles up his chest. Nothing new, then. He groans.

The next time Harry is challenged with facing Voldemort, is when they meet again in DADA and Voldemort decides to demonstrate different casting styles. Seeing the man, Harry realizes that he is, in fact, not ready. It had been so, so much easier when Voldemort had been less aware, more removed, and less… himself-looking.

Predictably, Harry is granted no reprieve in anonymity within the student body. He is called to the front and asked to exclusively act defensively. Harry is, admittedly, a little unnerved at the thought of staring down the casting end of Voldemort’s familiar yew wand.

After the man erects a protective barrier for the other students, he steps close. “Try and avoid Priori Incantatem, if possible, Harry. It isn’t exactly common, and we don’t want to have to explain it to Dumbledore, do we,” he says under his breath, before he pats Harry’s shoulder, a surprisingly lascivious grin on his face, that looks a little out of place on Voldemort, of all people. “Don’t worry, I won’t go too hard on you.”

Harry gapes incredulously at the obvious innuendo until Voldemort twists fluidly, to face him again, laughter in his eyes. Clicking his mouth shut, Harry defiantly assumes a duelling stance. He ignores his warm ears resolutely.

Voldemort does indeed not go too hard on him, at first, shooting a volley of spells almost lazily that Harry can dodge, if only narrowly. It allows him to preserve his magic, a tactic Harry’s had to learn the hard way, by duelling Voldemort one too many times, back when they were still enemies.

Although Harry’s magical core is not inconsiderable in strength, especially in comparison to his peers, Voldemort has told him that it only grows with age and use. As such, Voldemort simply has the benefit of his age on his side. The sickly yellow of a nasty-looking bone-breaking curse fizzles against the warding, Voldemort has erected around them, just before the man calls for a halt.

Some students sneer and others look at him with badly disguised surprise. Voldemort asks the students whether they noticed anything specific about Harry’s duelling style. One of them, a cocky looking Gryffindor, raises his arm immediately and proceeds to comment on Harry’s lack of casting; the boy’s tone not disguising his disregard for such behaviour when duelling.

Harry bites down his ire at the boy’s stupidity, but that is quickly calmed, when Voldemort steps behind him, placing a grounding Hand on his shoulder. The man’s fingers burn, where they touch the exposed skin at his collar. Harry is absurdly aware of his pulse, close to the man’s warm finger pads.

Voldemort awards the Gryffindor a few points, though likely more to avoid accusations of favouritism. Harry can see the condescension in Voldemort’s fluid stance. He comments idly on Harry’s athletic stature, lending itself to such a style. His eyes are unsettlingly heavy, when they linger on Harry. He gulps down his nervousness.

Merlin! Get a grip, Potter.

Voldemort asks if any can explain why Harry might have done such a thing, but no one has an answer. The professor sighs deeply, obvious in his disappointment, before he offers to demonstrate why. Harry knows that inflexion of tone all too well, having been the target of Voldemort’s condescension more often than he would have liked. He knows the man’s tells, now.

Harry’s heart swoops low at his opponent’s dark, promising glance. The second duel starts just as the first did; a volley of spells that leave Harry panting while dodging before, abruptly, Voldemort’s style shifts.

The man’s casting frequency increases steadily. Harry finds himself more and more stationary, forced to conjure counter-spells and shields when–. There is only a brief tingle of awareness, before–.

Harry can barely cast the Protego, to surround him from every side, Voldemort is attacking him from.

Incredibly, the man has managed to duplicate, no, multiply himself. All five current forms of his cast different, persistent spells. A blinding cacophony of colour surrounds Harry; streams of red and light orange. Expelliarmus and Flipendo, only. By Merlin’s beard!

The man’s face is clearly tight, his brows furrowed, as two versions of his cast particularly strong, enduring Flipendos, that make Harry’s shield whiten with impact. Harry’s grip tightens around his Holly wand. He feels the Protego shiver and tremble under the onslaught. Suddenly, it creaks hair-raisingly and crumbles.

Unexpectedly, Harry is vaulted into the air, the earth’s axis tilting nauseatingly, before his momentum is slowed, and he lands in a tangle of limbs in front of Voldemort softly.

“Not too hard, my arse!” Harry pants indignantly, he feels slightly damp with exertion.

The Voldemort in front of him raises an amused eyebrow, before he disintegrates, and the real Voldemort’s voice sounds from somewhere to his left. “Excellent Protego, Peverell. Fifteen Points to Slytherin!” The authenticity of his pleasure makes Harry preen. Just a little bit.

“Now, while an enemy would likely not duplicate themselves in a real fight, this training duel is aimed at showing how different defensive styles compliment different opponents, or situations.” Voldemort turns towards the remaining class again, long-limbed arms crossed behind his back, white shirt stretching and folding distractingly. “Po–, Peverell knew his raw magical strength would likely not match mine, which is why he abstained from exerting himself too far magically in the first encounter. This only works, of course, if one’s opponent is slow enough in their casting,” Voldemort grins at him darkly as Harry stands and taps off imaginary dust off his robes. He so dislikes being the centre of attention. “If one’s opponent is capable enough, one has to revert to blocking by magic and if – like in this faux-fight – one has multiple enemies, this principle, and being as adept at it as Mr. Peverell is, becomes exceedingly imperative.”

“Now, at last,” Voldemort twist towards him and pushes up his sleeves, an excited thrum bringing the bond alive. Harry groans. He feels exhausted already. “Now, now, Mr. Peverell, you get to enact revenge!” Voldemort grins widely, eyes alight.

The bastard enjoys this far too much, Harry thinks and grips his Holly wand tighter in defiance, ignoring how his own heartbeat rises in anticipation to meet the man’s. “Use creative spells, Harry. Transfigurations,” The man directs at Harry lowly. Harry nods. “Watch how I react,” the man says towards the class. They start.

It’s exhilarating. Harry doesn’t hold back, trusting Voldemort’s abilities. He swirls around the room’s dust to blind Voldemort momentarily, before flinging hexes and spells at him. And maybe one non-verbally cast, only bordering-legal curse. Voldemort laughs at his naughtiness.

The man siphons the dust into a whirl around him and directs it towards Harry, who braces. Before the dust can hit him, its momentum is rapidly drained, and it falls to the ground lifelessly.

A demonstration. A challenge.

Harry bares his teeth, truly determined now. A heartbeat of dark delight to spur him on; parallel to his own.

Harry shatters a glass-wrought sculpture above them – he never knew what this one meant to symbolize precisely, and so he does not care about misusing it, though Voldemort tuts disapprovingly – and directs sharp splinters at Voldemort. The man looks delighted. There is no other descriptor Harry can find in face of the man’s toe-curling, stomach-rolling, dangerous, engaging grin, before he grinds the glass into sand.

It’s in a bizarre approximation of his fight with Dumbledore at the Ministry of Magic in his fifth year. Harry swirls his wand and persuades the glass dust to twist into a tornado shape around Voldemort. Voldemort, who waits in the middle infuriatingly idle, before Harry silences his feet and sprints across the duelling space, casting spells from all different sides.

Voldemort flicks his wand in almost lazy Protegos, serving to annoy Harry greatly, before the man seems to… suck all the glass out of the air into the palm of his hand. This infuriates Harry, even more, he is breathing heavily by now, while the man barely looks as if he has broken a sweat. Creative fighting is not his strength.

As Voldemort had pronounced correctly, a few lives ago, it lies in defence rather than offence. His opponent’s stance is almost indolent and his smirk grating. Harry transfigures the ground on which Voldemort stands into quicksand, which, at least, occupies the man for a second.

This second, Harry uses to Apparate. He casts his own Flipendo at the man’s back, before he has even fully materialized again.

His stomach turns strangely viciously, Apparating, in this instance. Harry has performed this particular magic often enough now, to no longer be as susceptible to its nauseating side-effects. But this time, instead of stepping out smoothly, he staggers out of his Apparition. There is the singing of scorched magic in the air.

Voldemort is able to successfully block Harry’s spell, to his dismay, and Harry quicksand solidifies instantly, too. Harry doesn’t know that there is anything wrong until–.

The man twists, eyes wide in shock. There are floating bits of red-glowing… fabric in the air around him.

Then, a wave of exhaustion crests over Harry, rapidly pulling him under. Confused as to what is happening, Harry is glad, when Voldemort halts the duel and is at his side within a heartbeat.

Strangely, the man’s eyes don’t linger on his eyes, but roam his body searchingly, before he raises his yew wand and casts mumbled spells, that Harry doesn’t know. They tickle. Then, there is a slightly trembling hand on his temple.

The overwhelming connection is instant. Harry’s body goes slack with the pleasure of it. Voldemort doesn’t reciprocate though. The man’s body and mind are coiled tight, focused; tension oozing off him and into Harry’s consciousness.

For a few moments, Harry is drowning in the man’s panic before he notices what Voldemort is doing. He seems to be pressing against the structure, against the confines of Harry’s mindscape, testing their give; their stability?!

There is something utterly unnatural about what the man is doing, something deeply invasive. Something that causes Harry to seize in instinctive terror, before unbridled relief drowns it. Then, fury. The man pulls back abruptly; curses when Harry’s legs give out underneath him. Harry sinks against the man’s chest, unexpectedly exhausted.

“What the literal fuck were you thinking?” the man asks. His expression is atypically unguarded. Caught off guard by the man’s bluntness, Harry blinks away his drowsiness and rights himself, embarrassed at his display of weakness. The room is deafeningly silent.

Later, Harry will learn that he should not have been able to Apparate within Hogwarts’ ancient wards. That the smoky scent was the ripped shreds of what remained of them. That he should have been splinched apart violently upon his rematerialization. That his mind should have been in tatters.

Voldemort swirls his wand in a wide arch, dissolving the barrier separating them from the open-mouthed students, and places the desks and chairs back to their intended space. “Sit,” he directs curtly.

Now, there are ill-veiled glances directed at Harry by some, gaping from others. He hurries to his own seat and sits, confused.

There is a new tension in Voldemort’s shoulder, a tightness in his whitening hand, clutching his wand, that Harry has not ever seen previously. Harry notices the tremor in his hand, when he cards it through his silky, lush hair pushing a lock away from his brow, for it to immediately fall back into his face. The man rubs over his face and Harry is caught in the line of the man’s eyes, yet again. He stands in front of the class, all eyes directed at him, looking absurdly forlorn. Then, Voldemort laughs abortedly, surprisingly, and rips his gaze away to the rest of the students.

“Don’t–,” he says, “Don’t attempt Apparition within Hogwarts, unless you’re keyed into the wards.” There is a creaking in his voice, which reveals how shaken he is. “You won’t survive it.”

Murmurs rise now, ignorant, and indignant. “So that’s it!? He’s a Peverell and, what–, he gets special treatment from Dumbledore?” someone says. “Yeah, why aren’t we keyed in? We’re just as capable as he is,” a Gryffindor.

“He wasn’t,” Voldemort’s voice cuts through the cacophony of students’ voices. Yew wand flicking away a shred of glowing… wards? “He is not keyed into them. This is proof.”

Realization begins to settle coldly into Harry’s gut, just as the door is thrown open with a loud bang, Dumbledore striding through it. The man’s hair and beard fluttering behind him, robes – a nauseating baby pink with dancing carrots – billowing. A crass contrast against the man’s stormy face. The headmaster’s eyes zero in on Harry, his frown deepening further, before he comes to stand next to Voldemort. The two men exchange a few sentences, too lowly, for the students to hear.

Harry observes Voldemort’s stiffening, tempted to listen in through the bond, when the man nods. But before he has the chance to contemplate the ethical integrity of his impulses, Voldemort dismisses the others and bids Harry to follow him.

“Peverell! Did you intentionally weaken Hogwarts’ wards?” Dumbledore grabs Harry roughly by the shoulders and pushes him backwards, even before the three of them are inside the Headmaster’s office fully. Harry feels the cold metal of a mirror frame dig into his shoulder.

“No, Sir!” Dumbledore presses him back a little further, fingers gripping the side of his chin, eyes seeking contact.

“This would be expulsion, Peverell! Are you absolutely sure of your motivations?” Harry is confused. He had surely not–. He hadn’t–.

“Of course, sir!” Harry realizes at once what’s happening, eyes focussing on the furrow of the man’s brow, too late.

“Now, Headmaster–,” Harry’s head snaps to the side, sees Voldemort enter, frowning.

“Do you know of a wizard named Grindelwald?” Harry’s eyes involuntarily meet the Headmaster’s. By Merlin! “Have you been to Nurmengard? Are you in contact with–.”

“–Albus!” Voldemort’s second interjection is much harsher, this time, “Surely you’re not suggesting what I think you are!” Voldemort’s indignation is thinly veiled by customary respect. “I assure you, Albus, that young Mr. Peverell here unintentionally damaged Hogwarts’ wards. I assessed his mind immediately after the incident.” Dumbledore’s grip loosens a fraction. “With all due respect, Headmaster–.”

“–I am not a Dark wizard!” Harry exclaims, disbelieving that this is what his life had come to. Dumbledore seems to catch himself, he steps back, grip letting go of Harry. And, he is still not looking at Harry; fingering the pocket in his robes, as if to reassure himself. The back of Harry’s mind tingles with the want to provoke the man, see him drawing the wand and–. What is he thinking?!

Something, an age-old want to trust and be trusted, perhaps, compels him to add, “I am a new student, here, Sir. I didn’t know that Hogwarts had extensive warding to prevent apparition!” When the man still refuses to look at him, he adds, “I just did it,” willing the man to believe.

Voldemort’s sharp gaze cuts to him in wordless warning and Harry silences immediately.

“You just did it?” Dumbledore’s gaze narrows on him once more, voice hollow in distrust.

“Yeah,” Harry croaks. He hears Voldemort snort indelicately somewhere in his mind.

Dumbledore appears unconvinced. “A student could never muster the might to successfully do what you’ve accomplished, Mr. Peverell. Are you meaning to tell me that you, without guidance–,” Dumbledore’s dubiety is unmistakable.

“–This is ridiculous, Albus.” Voldemort steps in front of him in one smooth movement, shielding Harry from the piercing glare of his former Headmaster.

“Is it?” Dumbledore queries, eyes shrewd. And Harry sees the tremor in the ancient wizard’s fingers, as he grips the wood of his wand through the fabric of his robes. There is a coldness creeping down his spine and he realizes, he has never seen the man act so fearfully, before.

“It most definitely is, Headmaster,” Voldemort’s tone has assumed a glacial quality. Gone is any of the previous levity, Harry felt through the bond. “This accusation is both severe and irrational, Albus! You are being paranoid.” Dumbledore’s gaze tears from Harry for the first time and focuses on Voldemort, instead. “– Fearing students with a special ancestry–,” Voldemort cuts himself off, before continuing much more politely, and Harry realizes at once this is not just about him.

He sees Voldemort clench his fist until it bleeds whitely, but tunes out the remainder of the conversation.

Harry’s mind is numb. Seeing Dumbledore like this, so agitated, this uncontrolled, with this lack of trusting–. It–, it sours the man’s memory. Eventually, he is sent away by Voldemort. The Headmaster does not so much as glance at Harry.

He sneaks into Voldemort’s office, despite not having been permitted to do so, and falls asleep on the man’s couch, unwilling to face the other students yet.

He wakes to Voldemort’s unsettling stare across from him. His face heating under the piercing gaze. The man doesn’t avert his eyes, now that Harry’s regained his consciousness, and takes a sip of something clearly alcoholic. There is something bright in the man’s eyes, something driven, almost feverish. It’s intoxicating.

Harry feels priceless, worth coveting, at the thrum of Voldemort’s mind. And though Harry’s heart double beats at Voldemort’s clear want, it is tainted by the certainty that it’s his power, the man wants.

Just as Tom Riddle had in most of their lives.

Harry looks away, suddenly sick. Yet, like a magnet, his attention snaps back towards the man at the other’s movement. Voldemort crosses his legs, spine straight, appraising Harry with uncanny intensity. Wonderous. The man’s dark gaze tracking every minutia of Harry’s emotions, movements.

Harry feels like he is teetering on a precipice. But he can’t do this, not now, while he’s still so unsettled. So weak.

He will make the jump once he’s certain, he can withstand the fall.

He wrenches himself away and leaves the room, flees the burning behind the man’s eyes.

On the way towards his dormitory, he curses himself for his susceptibility. He knows the man doesn’t see more in him than a necessary tool to end these reincarnations, a power he wants to possess and, maybe, a pretty face. He berates himself for wanting to give in, when he knows he himself wants more. His nails bite into his palms punishingly.

He bemoans the easy distraction that a clear missive and a younger, less aware version of Riddle had posed. Now that they have a more diffuse mission, and there is no one else, it is all too easy to be distracted by that enigma of a man.

Copper floods his mouth and Harry simply doesn’t deal with the few students that dare approach him, and strides towards his Dorm, as he had been doing the past few evenings.

The following day, he doesn’t have DADA, and Professor Riddle is missing from Breakfast at the Great Hall.

Harry feels relieved. Bereft.

He eats his cereal morosely, wanders the corridors, in his free periods. Hasn’t done so, yet, this time around and the nostalgia suffices to drag his thoughts away from a certain Dark Lord.

He groans in defeat; there he goes again. He is such an idiot. No wonder the man isn’t interested in him beyond the superficial.

Wallowing in overly dramatic self-flagellation, he notices the voices of other students belatedly. They are spiteful, demeaning and then, there is a higher voice that is rendered uneven by indignation. Harry rounds the corner in spite of himself, curiosity winning over his wish for solitude, to find two Marauders cornering two other, slighter, students.

An eye-catching head of fiery red peaks through and Harry regrets having abided his curiosity, immediately. He does not wish to get in between his parent’s petty fighting. He’s about to turn, when he hears another, low voice, hissing vitriol. Ah, Snape is here too, then. Cursing his Gryffindor nature for being unable to ignore bullying, he steps closer instead.

Sirius elbows his father in the side quite obviously and James Potter, lacking all cunning, berates Sirius for it quite loudly, before he deigns to look at Harry. Then, his eyes go round, before he puffs his chest and strides towards Harry, as if they knew each other well. James’ eyes linger on the green of Harry’s necktie for a moment, before foolish bullheadedness clearly wins over reason, and he smiles at Harry winningly. Harry can feel his mouth thinning in displeasure.

“Peverell!” the boy says assuming a genial tone.

“Potter,” Harry replies sardonically, stopping his father, before he crosses his arms and leans against the corridor’s wall. Faint laughter plays through his mind. “Do go on,” he gestures at the boy who would later become his father. Lily Evans’ frown deepens, and she stares at Harry with green eyes, not unlike his own.

He pettily enjoys the shared glance between Sirius and James. Their uncertainty is clear. “I’m sure you have nothing to hide…” says Harry suggestively, a smile spreading over his face, pulling on his lips to reveal just a hint of teeth. His wand is in his hand, innocuous. “Though, if you did...” his smile could almost pass as sweet, now. His eyes are sure to betray his anger.

He shifts away from the wall and crosses the space towards the younger versions of his father and godfather, pushing first James and then Sirius a few steps away from the other two students; ignoring their exclamations. “Hush, now,” a little magically-aided push. “Or I might just have to show you, what happens if I catch you bullying a fellow Slytherin ever again,” his menacing smile is evident in his voice as he leans down to whisper that at the two. Mercifully, this is all it takes to make the two scamper away.

He twists. “I didn’t ask for your help, Peverell!” Snape spits, beady dark eyes humiliated. Harry hums noncommittally, choosing instead to focus on Lily, his would-be-mother. She stares back in reluctant approval. “I mean it, I didn’t need you. He–.”

“I’m certain you didn’t,” Harry cuts him off, annoyed now. He’d never gotten along with Snape in his time, and it seems as if the Potions Master isn’t any less dislikeable as a child. “Get a hold of me, if they bother you again,” he directs at Lily, eager to cut the interaction short and leave after her minuscule nod. Snape’s dismayed glare towards his mother makes him snicker as he leaves.

It seems like news of his little stunt as an impromptu Samaritan and his power spread quickly, and, so, Harry finds himself accosted by students of all houses for differing reasons. He tries to keep his acquaintances inconsequential, superficial even, merely significant enough to reap the benefits of a study group or a light distraction. His evenings, he remains spending with Voldemort.

“We know that the actions in the past can influence the future,” Voldemort summarizes, rubbing the bridge of his nose in frustration. “But we also know that the timeline clings to certain events like isles and tries to re-establish the original sequence of events.”

Harry feels a vicious headache building. They’ve been over this too many times with no apparent solution in sight. “So, what in Salazar’s name causes me to eventually create a Horcrux anyway?” Voldemort seethes, staring at Harry’s scar. It stings – a weak echo of how their interactions used to go. Harry rubs it self-consciously.

“Well, are you still afraid of Death? Maybe you should just give up your delusions of eternal grandeur and accept the lifespan all of us are given,” Harry snaps accusingly.

Voldemort sends him a withering glare. “I’m not afraid of anything,” he grits out. Harry raises his eyebrows and buries his nose in the book, lest he focuses even more of the man’s ire on himself. Voldemort continues his agitated pacing before he finally slows. “I grew up during the bombing raids of the Luftwaffe… One winter, a child in the orphanage was forgotten outside. We woke to it frozen on the doormat,” Voldemort’s voice is factual. Almost detached. “I still don’t relish the thought of giving up the last tether to my immortality,” he admits.

Harry feels nauseous. He opens his mouth to find the right words to apologize. But something about Voldemort shuts his mouth. “I’m certain Horcruxes are not the only option to my success, however…” the man concedes.

For a moment, unbearably cold, foreign fury sweeps through Harry, and with it, an almost mindless need for retribution. His shoulder twinges aggravatedly. Then, it passes, nothing but faint empathy in its wake. Harry blinks in confusion.

The man opposite him looks at Harry for a long moment, eyes unreadable. Then, he strides towards where Harry is seated and sits down himself, gracefully. Harry understands it as the offering of a ceasefire, it is.

“Is it the greying hair?” he asks in an attempt at levity. “I happen to think it suits you,” says Harry with a crooked smile to ease the way.

Voldemort’s responding glare would bring lesser men to their knees, Harry thinks, suitably smug. The man crosses his arms in a manner that would look like he was prickly and pouting if he weren’t too elegant for such a plebian gesture. Harry scoots closer in apology and the man accommodates him. “’m sorry, Vee,” he mumbles into Voldemort’s shoulder. Voldemort sighs in acceptance.

A flurry of images flashes through Harry’s consciousness. A high laugh. ‘Step aside girl.’ A flash of green. Harry can practically taste Voldemort’s ire at being unable to control his own future, his fate. They both are sorry.

“Why have I not aged, anyway?” Harry directs the conversation into safer waters, his hand sneaks into the crook of the man’s arm.

Voldemort looks down at where he’s burrowed into the man’s side. His glance is flat. “You never existed in this time, Harry,” he says matter of fact, as if this were obvious.

Which. Harry colours. He supposes it kind of is. He never existed in this time, so Death must have simply sent the physical manifestation of his mind here, while Voldemort’s consciousness was sent into Riddle’s body. But that means…

He pulls away abruptly. “Riddle chose to become a professor?!” He knows surprise colours his words, but the thought that Voldemort had chosen to abandon his plans of world domination to teach at Hogwarts for teaching’s sake, is astounding.

Voldemort’s smile is teasing with just a hint of darkness. “I wouldn’t call it abandoning…” he drawls, and his posture uncoils.

Somehow this looseness strikes Harry as infinitely more dangerous. His heart races all of a sudden. It is a very handsome look on the man’s face. Voldemort’s face loses its smile, as he observes Harry. Only this strange intensity remains that has Harry squirming in his seat. No matter how much their casual intimacy resembles that of their previous life, it certainly never used to have this quality. Well, they also never used to be able to read each other’s minds.

“There must be a good reason for your… his eventual dark descent, then,” Harry deduces excitedly. Unwilling to acknowledge his physical reactions. Harry and Voldemort had already changed so much about the choices Riddle had made… Maybe their mission wasn’t doomed, after all.

Voldemort looks at Harry for a few of his sped-up heartbeats, before he turns away. “Or, perhaps he simply eventually lost the reason that had initially prevented him from it,” Voldemort says quietly. Cryptically. It feels like some grand admission that Harry is too stupid to understand.

Harry’s nose scrunches as his confidence sours. He remembers a conversation shared in the very castle they inhabited now, though they were much younger, then. He remembers Voldemort’s conviction that fate was predestined. And Harry aches for him then. It is not a version of their lives that he is willing to accept any longer. He will make sure that it doesn’t come to that. He will make it so.

“We need to continue training your Occlumency. It’s still shoddy at best… You’re practically shouting your thoughts,” Voldemort says flatly, clearly unwilling to continue the conversation.

The time, Harry unerringly allocates to Voldemort each evening, forces him to conceive of increasingly creative excuses. Having acquaintances within the Hogwarts student body, as necessary as they are to his cover of being a regular student himself, mean their badly concealed nosiness no longer has a reason to be so. Thus, he finds himself interrogated increasingly often.

The trouble the excuses cause, are made up for with the easy closeness Voldemort and he have slipped into. A closeness that almost resembles the casual intimacy of their last life as brothers, though they lack that excuse this time around. Now, that they are in their own bodies, the instinct to touch and be touched is ever-present, their bonding warmth pulling them together.

Harry is certain, the small group of the student populous that is convinced he Apparates to meet with his secret lover would not expect, nor approve, of Harry in his current position – head placed on their professor’s long legs, the man’s hand in Harry’s hair. It would be quite the scandal.

Voldemort, for all that he had sighed and frowned initially, when Harry had wiggled himself into this position, tugs on his hair in absent-minded curiosity. Harry doesn’t disclose the reason for his amusement. Voldemort doesn’t seem to mind, in any case, occupied as he is with his book.

The grandfather clock in the room next to Voldemort’s office – always closed by that mysterious door – startles the two of them out of their respective reading. The sound indicates the time – midnight – to be way past Harry’s curfew. Voldemort groans at the realization that they’ve missed it. He snaps his tome close and rubs the bridge of his nose. “You should probably go back to your dormitory, Harry,” the man says.

And Harry smiles up at him, enjoying his position too much not to–, to roughen the man up. Mess with him, just a little. “I’ll receive detention for an entire month if I’m found strolling through the castle at this hour, Vee,” he says cheekily. Not that he’d ever cared about detention. Voldemort looks down at where he is laid, in his lap, without emotion. Their bond is curiously quiet.

“I’ll accompany you to the Common Room, Potter,” says Voldemort, passionlessly, the epitome of casual cavalier.

Harry’s eyebrows rise of their own volition. “Imagine the scandal of them finding out I spend my evenings here… Sir,” he only half-jokes. He is certain, the Slytherins would catch on immediately. And he knows his relationship with Voldemort is far beyond appropriate to an outside perspective.

“Off,” Voldemort’s nostrils flare in irritation, Harry’s sole warning, and the well-placed stinging-curse vaults him off the man’s lap and thus, the sofa gracelessly.

Harry knows he’s pouting. But he just barely catches the tail end of the sight of Voldemort’s throat bobbing, before the man’s intense eyes flash away from where he’s perched on the ground in front of Voldemort’s sitting figure. Between the man’s slightly spread legs.

Ah.

Harry just… can’t help himself.

At this moment he doesn’t care why Voldemort wants him, it solely matters that he does. And, oh, he does.

Hiding his smile, he places a hand on the man’s thigh – it tenses – and he pushes himself back into a standing position. The man’s attention is on him again, tracking Harry’s movements. He’s looking up now and Harry feels faint with power.

It’s a stupid idea. But this won’t go anywhere, anyway, Harry convinces himself, when he twists on his heel and marches towards the mysterious door with more confidence than he feels. “I guess I’ll just sleep here, then,” Harry says over his shoulder and, ignoring Voldemort’s sigh, pushes open the door to Professor Riddle’s private chambers.

Voldemort is following him, he knows, and so Harry doesn’t waste much time examining the room’s interior. He toes off his shoes immediately, pulls off his robe carelessly. The man has reached the door. His arms are crossed, his expression well controlled. Unreadable. The bond near-silent again, unresponsive to Harry’s nervous probing. Harry turns away as he paws at the back of his shirt to pull it off, suddenly struck with nearly unbearable nerves.

He is certain Voldemort knows of his jitteriness, and of Harry’s ‘plan’, threadbare as it is. Yet he indulges him. Hasn’t yet put a stop to it.

There is a gasp that stops him in his tracks, hands already unbuttoning his jeans. The reaction is utterly unexpected and vaguely ill-timed. He’s revealed his back already, and… Voldemort would never be affected by a mere show of skin, and–.

There are two steps, where Voldemort cuts through the space separating them, and suddenly his heat is a presence at his back. A sharp contrast to the cool dungeon air that manages to pebble his skin. “Harry?” Voldemort asks, his voice coloured with disbelief. “Why do you have a mark of Grindelwald’s allegiance tattooed on your back?!”

The man’s hand touches a space on his left shoulder blade. When he comes in contact with the skin, Voldemort pulls back, hissing. Harry tries to chance a glimpse immediately, but even though his spine smarts with his twisting, he is unable to see what Voldemort focuses so intently on. The man’s eyes snap up, and Harry is momentarily startled by their proximity. Voldemort’s frown deepens, before he raises a brow and gestures to somewhere off to his left – a mirror as it turns out. Harry flushes, he had seen the mirror upon entry into Voldemort’s chambers.

As he faces the full-length mirror, he thinks he may have seen a shadowy figure in the corner of the room. But when he checks, he sees he had been mistaken. He turns towards the mirror, then.

Harry looks. And almost wishes he hadn’t. His mouth feels parched suddenly. The sight of Voldemort behind his halfway undressed body, staring down on his skin intently. Voldemort looks up again and catches Harry’s eyes. There is a twitch in his lips, before he steps a pace away. “Well,” Voldemort prompts. Harry sees his ears pinking in embarrassment and he hurriedly twists his back towards the mirror.

And then, Harry sees. Etched in seeping black against a bed of atypically white skin is the sign of the Deathly Hallows. Harry stares. “I’m not a Grindelwald supporter,” Harry states, dumbly.

Disinterest, like a cool blanket, leaches the speed out of his racing thoughts. Harry shakes his head to clear it.

Voldemort’s frown furrows further, lips pursed. “Of course not,” he waves away Harry, as if irritated and bodily drags his shoulder back towards him for inspection. “It’s ice-cold,” the man says after a beat.

A shadow consolidates. A snarl.

Right, Voldemort doesn’t know that–. Harry’s heavy eyes find the black stone glinting on Voldemort’s elegant fingers.

Longing.

Harry is taken aback by how obvious the answer is–. When, all of a sudden, an acute exhaustion paired with coldly numbing complacency overwhelms Harry.

He almost sags in Voldemort’s hold. He yawns, too cold to be standing in the drafty dungeon air, and fumbles with his pants. The bed has never looked as inviting as it does, now. “We can find out tomorrow, Vee,” he says, voice distorted by yet another yawn. He smiles at the other man’s pinched expression in invitation, pushes his desire for the languid buoyancy of sleep across their bond, and steps out of his trousers; slips underneath the warm covers. Drowsily, he sees Voldemort blink, shake his head and blink again, and the tension drain from his towering body.

A shadow disintegrates.

Voldemort sighs his acquiescence long sufferingly and flicks off the light, before stripping and joining Harry under the cover of the night. Harry yawns contently a last time before he is out like a light.

He awakes to syrupy comfort, an anchoring arm draped across his body, and Voldemort hot and hard against his hip. Well. This is different from when they were Tom’s grandparents.

Through the rather unguarded bond, he can feel the stirring of awareness. The man lying pressed against his side stretches, before the arm is removed, and the skin-to-skin contact is lost. With it, their Occlumency is strong enough to keep the connective pull at bay. The warm lull ebbs away displeasingly. The protections come down like a shutter. The difference is jarring.

Voldemort sits up and rubs his face, sheets pooling in his lap, the hair at the side of his head that had been in contact with the pillows, is flattened to his head charmingly.

Voldemort casts him a long look that Harry cannot decipher, and Harry endures it without fidgeting. He consciously pushes away any thoughts of embarrassment or regret, and confronts the older man’s gaze head-on. He decides he’s past his embarrassment for his attachment towards the man.

Voldemort stands, long limbs in display, as he’s merely clad in a thin undershirt and briefs. Harry tells himself he doesn’t, shouldn’t look. But, alas, he is a teenager.

Voldemort casts a non-verbal Tempus and sighs at them being very late, before he notices Harry’s blatant staring and sends him a pointed glance in rebuttal.

The man doesn’t comment, though Harry feels appropriately chastised, when he sends Harry’s clothes towards his face with a lazy flick of the wrist. “Now that you’re awake. Get out. I need to do research,” Voldemort says clipped.

Harry pouts at the obvious dismissal but bites his tongue as to avoid any comment that would surely further incense the man. He feels like he might’ve pushed him far enough already. And so, while Voldemort occupies the bathroom, Harry puts on rumpled clothing and leaves the professor’s rooms in a frustrating approximation of the walk of shame; questions of the prior night all but forgotten.

During his unofficial study circle, later that day – Hermione would laugh at him for choosing this form to keep up the charade of a normal social life – Harry can barely sit still. Now that Harry is fairly certain the man wouldn’t rebuff his advances, Harry cannot help but fantasize about engaging in a little bit of harmless hedonism. Well, harmless as long as–.

Harry swallows convulsively. He feels a little bit reckless on power; on these possibilities. He has managed to survive previous loose attachments with versions of Tom Riddle, too, so why wouldn’t he be able to have some meaningless fun with Voldemort? The man even wore the face of Riddle. Harry catches himself chewing on the tail-end of his quill and grimaces at the taste.

The girl across from him, Patricia Rakepick, an indubitably brilliant sixth-year, raises her ruddy eyebrow, before her smile turns leering at his fidgeting. Harry feels himself heat at her piercing gaze.

She rolls her eyes dramatically, before she leans in in a crude approximation of privacy. “Just go meet your mystery lover already, Peverell. This impatient energy is distracting me from studying,” Harry’s mouth falls open, indignant, at her not-so-faulty assumptions.

As he tries to formulate a suitable defence, he notices several Slytherins surrounding them, looking up with obvious interest. “Fuck you,” he curses and Rakepick leans back, arms crossed, looking unreasonably smug.

Narcissa Black wrinkles her nose at Harry in obvious distaste. Harry refuses to be chastised for his choice of words simply because they aren’t common use yet, but Rakepick is probably right. He won’t get much studying done, this agitated, anyway, and he is far too curious about the content of Voldemort’s research.

So, he shoots her a withering glare – she laughs gratingly – and packs his things to search for their DADA professor.

“Don’t put out too soon, Peverell!” she hollers after him, causing a scandalized gasp from the librarian.

Voldemort is thumbing through a book on wizarding genealogy, and for some unfathomable reason is particularly tight-lipped about it, too.

The only thing Voldemort does admit to, when Harry’s needling becomes incessant – Harry smiles smugly at the exasperated set of the man’s jaw – is his wondering about whether Harry had ever held the ring Horcrux himself.

The black stone glitters in the warm light of the crackling fire mysteriously and suddenly Harry finds his thoughts sluggish yet again.

Harry wants to tell the man of that night in the forest, but his tongue feels inexplicably leaden. He resigns himself to a quick affirmative nod, before he allows for his conscious to be drawn in by the book he is reading. Looking at the words written, though Harry finds them mind-numbingly antiquated and complex, allows him to focus better than when discussing with Voldemort.

Would Harry look up, he’d see a very pensive slant to the man’s brows and feel his concern through the bond.

But Harry doesn’t look up, and so, Voldemort simply turns to his study of wizarding genealogy with renewed interest.

Eventually, the words lose their hold on Harry, though. ‘Don’t put out too soon!’ he impersonates the words that followed him to the man’s office. ‘If only!’ Harry thinks sulkily. Voldemort shoots him a pointed glance and Harry makes sure to bury his thoughts in the depth of his consciousness.

He knows the man values quiet when he’s reading and so he does his best to keep himself independently occupied. He skims the backs of the sheer endless books that line Voldemort’s office. Tries to contain his amusement at some of their titles’ pretentiousness. Ponders the meaning of some that are written in different languages. Opens a few closes them again, taking meticulous care to return them to their previous spaces exactly.

“Not that one,” Voldemort’s toneless warning cuts through Harry’s mindless exercise. “It’s cursed,” the man elaborates without looking up from his reading. Harry smothers his inquisitiveness and starts investigating the room’s other items. Several of which he remembers from Borgin and Burke’s. He finds the Slytherin locket in a drawer that’s locked with Parselmagic; curbs the instinctive urge to touch.

Harry can tell Voldemort’s patience with his searching of his room runs thin and Harry doesn’t particularly fancy being kicked out by the man just yet. There is an impulse lingering underneath his skin that buzzes along Harry’s nerves.

So, Harry decides to practise behaviour the other man would surely be in favour of. He flops down on the other end of Voldemort’s couch – in a safe distance from the cause of his restlessness – and pushes his feet underneath the man’s thigh. Voldemort abides him without comment, though Harry can tell his irritation through the clenching of the man’s jaw. Harry closes his eyes deliberately, breathes deeply, attempts to reach the emptiness of mind necessary for successful Occlumency. Distantly, Harry hears Voldemort’s hum of approval.

Harry breathes and focuses on all and nothing. He wanders his mindscape lazily. To no one’s surprise, his foray into emptying his mind is short-lived. Voldemort is turning a page, there is a rustle of parchment and the sedulous scratch of his quill. And Harry is drawn to the point of their connection like a moth to a flame. He is endlessly aware of the man beside him. A tensing of the man’s thigh and a deep, sighing breath.

Harry finds a half-buried ache that had first developed when he had been reincarnated as Riddle’s grandmother. A mourning for all the time he missed. For the hours and days and years that shaped Riddle’s character for years to come. Tom Marvolo Riddle had ended up here, in Hogwarts, in this life, hadn’t he? Harry knows Voldemort, well Tom back then, too, had applied for DADA professor right out of schooling. In Harry’s version of the past, he had been rejected by headmaster Dippet on the grounds of him lacking experience. What did Voldemort think about where Riddle had ended up? The man had made sure to stress that he had not given up on his plans for a restructuring of Britain’s wizarding society.

Would Voldemort be content with himself ending as a mere teacher? Would Harry, once he returned to his own life, have a second set of memories of an ageing Tom Riddle teaching a young Harry Potter Defence against the Dark Arts? Somehow this notion does not sit right with Harry.

Would Voldemort remain married to his position here, forever in solitude? Did Tom Riddle ever, did Voldemort ever experience true companionship? Harry remembers a rather solid friendship between a young Riddle and Mulciber, though who is he to know whether that acquaintance lasted, now, that Voldemort no longer obviously pursued being a Dark Lord. Did he ever have a partner, whom he could trust? He shudders, reminded of Bellatrix Lestrange’s heavy-lidded worship.

He could simply ask the man. With a bit of luck and the right questions, Voldemort might even divulge some of his past. Harry feels simultaneously itching curiosity and nauseating apprehension.

The snap of a closing tome cuts through his awareness and Harry’s eyes fly open.

The man’s lips have thinned, and his eyes are narrowed in reprimand. “You started your meditation so well,” Voldemort says drily. Harry feels unbidden heat rush to his cheeks. The man examines him, his eyes liquid with fondness in sharp contrast to his unforthcoming expression. A quirk of his lips, too quick to be truly seen. But enough for Harry to know the man is not truly incensed. He stands and moves to the shelf to sort away his book.

His face is curiously turned away and he sighs again. A quick, unidentifiable glance at Harry, then, he fixes himself a glass of whiskey.

Voldemort sighs once more, defeatedly. “What do you want to know?”

Harry sucks in an involuntary gasp of breath, then puffs his cheeks to relieve some of the tension of his anticipation. He needs to be delicate in approaching the topic, as not to spook the private man away. Harry arranges a few sentences in his head. Ignores the bemused expression in Voldemort’s face as the man sips his drink. A fortifying breath. He knows the man; knows how to do this right.

And then, Harry blows his carefully constructed, leading questions into nirvana. “Did you ever have a relationship?”

There is a beat of awkward silence. Harry is horrified at himself for fucking this up, so spectacularly. He is almost afraid to look at the man, who’ll surely retract his offer to divulge information, now. The silence that ensues is certainly rejection enough. He chances a glance, if only to convey his apology, to find the man’s lips twisted in a sardonic smile. Amusement on Harry’s behalf, obvious in his features. Condescension, too, for sure. But no anger.

Harry feels like his limbs are floating for a moment. “Errr. That’s not what I meant to ask,” amends Harry stupidly.

Voldemort laughs lightly. “Sometimes I think you fit well into Slytherin and then you act like this,” he says mildly.

And Harry isn’t certain how one can possibly feel more humiliated after this, but Harry sets his jaw, crosses his arms and scowls. He’s also been sorted into Gryffindor before, so.

Voldemort’s eyebrows rise and the man takes another sip, leans against the wall next to his fireplace. “So?” Harry challenges.

Voldemort takes his time to answer. “Which version of me?” he says finally.

The question leaves Harry confused. And so, his answer isn’t particularly well-thought-out. “Well, you, you… There is only really one, right, Vee?” To him, this is quite clear cut. The one with whom he had been reincarnated, is Voldemort. And although he had found Riddle… interesting, he doesn’t really know the boy.

The bond flares suddenly, before Voldemort clenches his jaw and it is sealed shut again. The man had felt strangely touched, even though he’s scowling outwardly. Harry bites his lip to kill the smile threatening to breakthrough.

Voldemort’s words, in contrast to Harry’s blundering stumble, are well-curated, deliberate. “The short answer is no,” the man says. “I lost corporeal desires some time between my third and fourth Horcrux. The need to sleep, to eat, drink, lust…” He takes a sip; stares into the flames of his fireplace. “Back then it was a relief.”

The man is half turned away. And now, Harry wants nothing more than to see the man entirely. His pulse races inexplicably and he feels something ache inside him. “I sort of suspected I lost my grasp on humanity at that point, which is also why I initially suggested avoiding the creation of Horcruxes from this point on,” The man rationalizes, voice lacking inflexion.

Then there is a spark of anger dancing through Harry’s brain that is not his. “Had I known Death wanted me to get rid of all Horcruxes, we could have saved much time.”

Harry considers this. It is true. They would have saved much time had they asked to be incarnated with Riddle before he had created any Horcruxes. But by that logic, they would have saved time initially by not attempting to Crucio one another. Yet, it is simply another truth that back then, they hadn’t been able to do that. It had taken time and work and wanting to, to overcome their differences. To build where they were now. With a chance of genuine lasting change for wizarding kind.

And so, Harry shrugs noncommittally. “I don’t mind,” he says. And he doesn’t. For all that he’s ‘wasted’ years of his young adult life trying to forge a new future side by side with Voldemort, he can’t help but think that that particular end justified the means. Even, if the thought of returning and having lost all the shared years of friendship with Ron, Hermione, and whatever had been building with Ginny, hurts.

He’s gained something, too. This. Sitting beside Voldemort and puzzling over their shared goal. An understanding between them, wrought solid by the stark differences of their opinions.

Again, there is that look that has Harry squirming. This situation feels suddenly very dangerous. Harry’s throat is dry. His palms clammy.

“There was also the rather large obstacle of my deeply ingrained homophobia…” Voldemort says, deceptively light, into the flames. Outside, a war could break out and Harry’s attention wouldn’t be drawn away. “Though, I guess, I have you to thank for… so thoroughly eviscerating that notion the second time around.” There is a teasing smile there, somewhere, buried in these words that soothes Harry’s flaming face.

He is infinitely glad that Voldemort has his back turned towards him, then, because he would forever curse himself if he didn’t do this, now. And he’d surely chicken out if Voldemort looked at him.

He steps up to Voldemort, the man’s posture tensing in awareness at Harry’s new proximity. He slings an arm around Voldemort’s middle, fingers playing with one of the buttons on Voldemort’s white shirt.

He notices the very faint tremor in the man’s hand as he sets his glass onto the top of his fireplace, the sound a little louder, the movement a tad less controlled as is usual for Voldemort. Harry hides his smile in the man’s back. The pad of his middle finger just slips into the opening between two of them, dipping in to meet the man’s unobstructed skin. They both hiss at the touch, the bond so much stronger, now, than when they had occupied vessels. Harry almost wishes to return to that time, for it had certainly been easier to be one’s own person, then.

“That explains the dreams,” Harry breathes against the nape of the taller man’s neck. Their height difference makes this endeavour a little awkward, though Harry isn’t deterred. On the contrary, the way the man’s flesh pebbles, spurs him into action. Fingers tasting the novelty of flat planes and hardness. It’s not the first time Harry has had the experience of touching men, or even this man, but it’s startlingly different to soft feminine curves or the give of youthfulness. Harry finds, he likes it all the same. It’s simply different.

Underneath his fingers, Voldemort shudders in silence. “You are still ashamed, aren’t you?” he asks, and he deliberately keeps his tone matter-of-fact rather than accusing. Because, he’s not. Not truly. Regardless of how much he wishes Voldemort weren’t ashamed of this; how he wishes Voldemort could embrace this part of himself, just as easily as Harry finds it to do so.

He taps into the bond and listens to the feel of the man against his front.

A heart is racing too quickly, but the tension he can sense physically and in the back of his mind isn’t in aversion to what he’s doing.

Harry noses the man’s spine through the thinness of his shirt, breathing in a familiar scent. Then, giving the man ample time to refuse him, or to pull away if he so wished, he pulls out the shirt from its confinement in the man’s belted trousers. His other hand finds the newly revealed strip of skin, bisected by a line of soft hair. He allows his fingers to run through them, follow the trail down to where skin meets belt, and dips just a little underneath it.

The sensation is biarticulate and causes both of them to suck in a large breath in surprise. Turns out – having his sight obstructed by pressing his face into Voldemort’s back has rendered them more sensitive to touch.

He feels the play of Voldemort’s muscles against his front as the man moves his arm to help him unbuckle his trousers and Harry hums, pleased by the man’s contribution. His breath heats the skin of Voldemort’s back through his untucked shirt, which calls attention to Voldemort’s sensation of having Harry pressed against his back. It –, he feels grounding. It makes him, them, want.

Voldemort drops forward abruptly, when Harry’s hand finds his path into the man’s briefs.

Harry is jostled for a moment as to how to interpret the man’s movement, before the bond provides the answer easily. Voldemort is leaning against the wall above the fireplace, his face in the crook of his half-bent arm, view partially obstructed. Twin emotions warring against one another.

Mollified, Harry presses once more against the man’s back and traces the man’s outline lightly. Harry thumbs the slit as Voldemort does the edge of pages in books, idly, without hurry.

The man is tensing against him, once more, yet Harry is given very little time to wonder why. An image, this moment viewed from a distinct perspective, from above, is pushed through the bond.

It is soaked with impatience.

Harry hides the huff of amusement in the lines of the man’s back, before he gives in, fist closing around the length of him, nails scraping over skin when he feels Voldemort’s need for–, for punishment. The bond in blissful resonance between them, their minds almost entirely open, warmth coils heavily in Harry’s gut.

Voldemort comes quickly and quietly, almost noiseless and Harry wishes immediately he hadn’t followed the man’s nonverbal instructions too closely. Wishes he had drawn it out longer. Wishes the man had been louder.

Voldemort rights himself and Harry with him, still pressed against his back as he is. His own arousal is trapped in uncomfortable confinements, but he’s content enough to leave it for now, second-hand afterglow slowing his thoughts and smothering his insistence. Voldemort doesn’t languish in the feeling as Harry does, he cleans himself with a methodical twist of his wrist, tugs himself back into his briefs and does up his trousers.

Harry yearns for a few moments longer, but the man seems little intent to indulge him. Their bond muting with increasing speed, now. Harry smothers his disappointment. It’s probably better like this. He makes to pull away.

To both their surprise, Voldemort halts his retreat, by trapping Harry’s withdrawing arms against his middle. There is a moment, where Harry is no longer plastered against the taller man’s back and not yet detached fully, that he feels a tug on his right arm.

The hand on his left loosens and Harry follows the wordless command, and steps underneath the older man’s arm to his front, all while Voldemort keeps his body close to his own. Almost as if maximizing shared body heat. It is somewhat endearing in its gracelessness.

They end up chest to chest, Voldemort tugging on the back of Harry’s hair, to tip it back and allow him to look into his face. The man’s eyes are like molten lava, the colour a dirtied charcoal grey, a product of both his ancestry and his experimentation with magic. It is no longer the unadulterated, almost juvenile grey of Riddle’s in his earlier years, and not yet the inhumane red. Harry finds he likes it rather a lot.

The ability to dissect Harry with just a glance is not lost with their unnatural colour, however. The intensity is scalding. They carry with them a strange vulnerability that makes Harry want to ask whether the man is okay, post-factum, but he refrains from doing so. Not only does the bond tell him that he is, but the man would also greatly despise his ‘weakness’ to be acknowledged.

Hands reach for his fringe then, and the man traces the scar. Touching this spot, it turns out, floods Harry with knee-buckling pleasure, the soul shard feels the pull towards the almost whole soul very strongly. Harry wants to bury himself in Voldemort, become so entirely one, so that he doesn’t know where they begin and where they end and–.

Voldemort pulls away hastily.

Not that he is the epitome of indifference, but… Harry can’t help his smile at Voldemort’s affectedness.

The man scowls in retribution, which is so endearingly typical, Harry is forced to cover his smile by raising himself on the balls of his feet and placing a kiss on the downturn on the corner of the man’s mouth. His scowl softens as predicted, but a reprimanding tug on the hair in Harry’s nape pulls him down onto the flat of his feet. Voldemort sighs with an air of defeat.

His thumb finds his lips then. He presses down on their seam in a less lewd approximation of Harry’s earlier movement, but pulls away to grab his chin instead, when Harry opens his mouth. “Harry Potter. You’re a menace,” says Voldemort, the snub weak in the face of what his mind supplies. ‘You’ll undo me.’ Harry’s lips split into a wide smile the hand on his chin unyieldingly present, to ground him. ‘You’ll be the death of me’

Chapter Text

“Leave,” orders Voldemort, neither gently nor harshly and Harry does so.

On the path into the bowels of the castle, to return to the Common Room, the increasing distance allows for doubt and shame to creep in alongside his vague sense of triumph.

Harry cannot deny that he wants Voldemort. He knows of the man’s genuine propensity for darkness, has been subject to the man’s ire, is intimately aware of his plans for wizarding kind. He knows of the man’s easy willingness to manipulate others when it suits him.  Hell, and probably of Harry, too.

Though their connection through the bond makes deception certainly more difficult. Harry’s mind prods at it for a moment, but it is fused close resolutely. He is under no misconception that Voldemort had less than benign intentions towards him in the past, even after no longer being enemies outright.

Yet, this merely highlights the fact, that he still likes the man. And that is damning in itself. What does that say about him?

And even more pressing than that; the bond between them influenced many of Harry’s decisions ever since they were reincarnated in their own bodies – how is Harry to know, how much of what he wants is his, and how much of his attachment to Voldemort is due to the soul shard lodged inside him?

Voldemort’s somewhat stilted, almost distanced behaviour makes him think that maybe the man knew that this would happen without the vessels. Harry’s ears tint with embarrassment. Maybe he had wanted to prevent Harry from mistaking his draw towards the man for feelings, and thus save them from mutual embarrassment. Though, that would mean that Voldemort wasn’t too willing to use Harry’s affections to manipulate after all…

By Merlin’s beard. Harry’s head hurt. Why couldn’t he simply like a nice, safe person?! Someone like Neville, or Fleur, or even Bill Weasley, should he truly need adventure and excitement.

Harry’s mind crawls back to the ring Voldemort is donning, the heirloom of not only House Gaunt, but House Peverell, too. He imagines calling the spirits of his loved ones, now. Would they forgive him for his association with the man that murdered them?

Harry sighs in admittance that he simply doesn’t know.

The fact is, he doesn’t know their personalities very well, was only regaled of their most memorable deeds by second-hand accounts.

He imagines Sirius would have been seriously appalled; snickers to himself, picturing it.

The man would have eventually understood, though.

Harry gnaws on his lower lip. He is in the right time. He should want to get to know his parents as children, shouldn’t he? He should be desperate to spend any time possible with them, and yet he does so with Voldemort, in pursuit of a seemingly impossible quest.

He resolves to right his behaviour from the next day onwards. There must be a reason, for why Death sent them into this specific time period, mustn’t there?

The next time he knocks on the professor’s door, instead of following the man’s invitation into the privacy of his rooms, Harry asks him to take a walk. Voldemort’s eyes are piercing but neither his expression nor his mind give insight into what he may be thinking.

Harry schools his face into one of innocence. It’s a little too heavy-handed to truly convince Voldemort, Harry knows, but the man abides by his wishes in any case.

While Voldemort is inside his rooms, putting on an appropriate outer robe for the cooling autumnal weather, Harry allows his posture to fall lax with relief.

Facing Voldemort had seemed the lesser of two evils, after all. And, frankly, he doesn’t miss the twelve-year-olds that would later become his parents… For they’re not the people he misses, yet.

He sighs. Though this was by no means a walk in the park. He snickers, taking in Hogwarts’ lands around them, as they step out of the castle. Voldemort hums, mildly curious beside him, but doesn’t press when Harry doesn’t offer.

Damn it, he likes the man. And it’s not like he regrets what he’s done – Merlin, he’d been chasing that particular skirt since… forever. He refuses yet another of Voldemort’s questioning glances at his amusement.

It was just–, it was difficult to separate his own wants and desires from those caused by the bond. And that was probably true for both of them. More than that though, seeing Voldemort brought high in pleasure at his hands made him want more. Made him want to cause, and own, all of the man’s responses. Made him want to be the sole person privileged enough to–.

Harry cuts himself off with brutal finality. ‘See?’ He thinks. ‘These irrational inclinations are exactly why being with someone who shares their soul with you was a bad, a terrible idea.’ He kicks a stone in frustration.

The man beside him is deep in thought, too. Hands shoved into his pockets, face tight in rumination. Harry is suddenly very thankful that the man hasn’t commented on yesterday’s occurrences. In a different life, he can clearly imagine, Voldemort’s face twisting cruelly once he discerned Harry’s affection – an exploitable weakness.

Then again, he remembers their time in Borgin and Burke’s. Maybe the man wouldn’t even have noticed Harry’s attachment, then.

This Voldemort simply draws up his shoulders at a particularly biting gust of wind, before a heating charm ripples over both of them, and allows Harry the privacy of his musings.

Their path circumvents the Black Lake. They are mostly alone. The wind evidently too crisp to tempt many students unto the plains that surround Hogwarts. Curiously though, when they do encounter a few recusants, their gazes sweep over them unseeingly, as if neither of them was worth noting. It happens once too often, for it to have been arbitrary. At Harry’s wordless questioning, a sly smile spreads over Voldemort’s features. “Just a very mild notice-me-not,” the man says nonchalantly.

By the way, the student’s eyes glaze over and some even shake their heads in confusion, Harry is certain there is nothing mild about Voldemort’s spell work. “Exceeding expectations, as always, Vee,” responds Harry, barely mustering up any true chiding. “–Or necessity, I guess.”

Voldemort laughs under his breath. The sound is achingly familiar. It occurs to him at once, that they have spent enough time together to have been able to catalogue one another’s behaviour better, than they likely know anyone else.

Well. Harry, at least, has taken to being so damningly aware of the man. He swallows; doesn’t allow his mind to spin down that path any further.

“It surely wouldn’t do to feed the rumour mill ever more scandalous ideas about how you’re spending your time, Harry,” says Voldemort. Though the way the man’s eyes dance in shared mirth, makes Harry’s mouth run dry and forget his reprimand about Voldemort caring about the opinion of others. It gives the man a very youthful, almost boyish look. And well, Voldemort never claimed to be anything than selfish.

He knows he should be indignant on the student’s behalf – confounding minds so callously is neither safe nor healthy – but he finds he doesn’t care much. In the grand scheme of evil things a Dark Lord could do, this is, indeed, mild.

He glares at Voldemort out of principle. The man’s smile widens, unrepentant.

Harry’s heart beats a little faster, and he feels a little bit sicker with love for Voldemort. The thought is as heady, as it’s scary. And they’ve reached one of the courtyards, and Voldemort is looking at him. His previous mirth gives way to an intensity that has Harry stomach clenching.

“Vee,” says Harry weakly, stopping the man’s stride to a lingering stop, just a pace away, by his hands finding the man’s forearm. The man’s face is guarded, now, his focus only on Harry. And Harry feels… He feels alive at that moment. Recklessly dancing off the cliff.

The grip on the older man’s wrist tightens once more and then, Harry breaches that distance between them, his other hand finding the man’s robe’s collar, using it to pull himself closer to reach–. And then, Harry Potter kisses Voldemort.

There is little decorum to the kiss.

It’s Harry opening his mouth against Voldemort almost immediately, and the hot swipe of the man’s tongue into Harry’s mouth. It lacks refinement – Harry overbalances and his bodyweight presses against the taller man’s frame entirely. It’s their noses bumping against each other. It’s the searing warmth of Voldemort’s splaying hand against his lower back to stabilize Harry. It’s Harry falling back onto the whole of his feet reluctantly, as his mind catches up to where they are; to who might have seen him snogging his professor.

It’s Voldemort’s unwavering, darkly intense eyes.

Voldemort seems to care little for who might have spied them kissing, the man’s attention unerringly on Harry, even while he finds himself looking around nervously. His disregard must either stem from a certainty of them being alone, or from trust in his exceptionally strong Disillusionment charm, Harry muses.

The man’s hand still presses Harry against him, and he thinks the man might also simply not care.

“I could apparate us?” suggests Harry breathier than he’d like.

“No,” the man stiffens against him, instantly, his features pulling tight in anger or maybe concern, but his wide-blown pupils ruin the impression of admonishment slightly.

Either way, he leans down and presses his own close-mouthed, firm kiss against Harry, who feels like his heart is slowing, syrupy heat constricting around the muscle. Then, the man catches the hand around his wrist in his own hand and pulls Harry in the direction of his rooms, all long strides, and Harry’s heart stutters in staccato.

The man has barely pulled him into his rooms, when Harry attaches himself back onto his lips. Throughout their brisk walk, the usually calming, syrupy warmth, had felt like it was snagging on Harry’s chest. An undeniable pull to halt the other man’s stride by a quick tug on their connected hands, and be closer again, now. The man had shot Harry several amused, yet invariably heated glances over his shoulder, quite clearly privy to Harry’s impatient, whiney wants.

And so, Harry re-attaches himself, Voldemort exhales into the kiss, even though he has no right to be surprised, and Harry starts pawing at the man’s buttons. He feels a reprimanding nip against his bottom lip, as Voldemort takes back control of the kiss and crushes Harry’s frantic hands between their bodies, by manhandling Harry closer.

Harry moans, involuntarily rutting up, chasing friction like the eager young adult he is. Voldemort’s responding hiss feels like triumph. Harry leaning back is only acceptable because it means he can free his hands, doing so. He rewards Voldemort’s chasing his mouth, by carding his hands in the man’s hair. Harry presses even closer, the heat of their bond searing now, stronger and less compliant than ever before.

But, although being closer satisfies Harry in a primal way, soothes the desire to crack open the man’s rip-cage and claw out the pieces to make him whole, it is not enough. His cock is very trapped inside his slacks and ever worse, Voldemort’s arousal is inexpediently rutting against his lower stomach, too. And so, Harry abandons his task of mussing up the man’s hair, to wriggle his hands in between their bodies and try to open the man’s fly.

Neither their bodies’ press against one another, nor the little aborted thrusts, which both can’t seem to suppress, make this endeavour at all practical, but Harry is determined to give it his very best.

Eventually, Voldemort relinquishes some of his hands’ insistent splay against Harry’s arse and steps back just a little, just enough for Harry’s hands to move with slightly more ease. Harry’s disappointed sigh morphs into one of elation, when the man uses the newfound distance to bend downwards a little more and press open-mouthed kisses against the column of Harry’s throat. Harry shivers – the hint of teeth is a distraction in itself.

Finally, finally, Harry is successful and the man groans into his skin as his eager hands cup him, thumb spreading the bead of precum forming at the tip. Harry lets his head tip into Voldemort’s neck, unable to withstand the sight of the man’s cock in his fist. It’s… unfairly erotic, and the darkness is grounding against the barrage of impressions between them. He cannot allow himself to be diverted from his task by the man’s splayed fingers, dipping inside his trousers.

Harry, captivated by the feel, pumps the man once, twice, when the man hisses, and annoyance colours their connection. A cool hand stops his wrist. “You’re setting a troubling precedent, Potter,” Voldemort says, voice hoarse. The cup against Harry’s arse becomes insistent for a moment, before the man removes his hand briskly.

Voldemort pulls away and Harry’s head clears a little in confusion and dismay. The man’s bruising grip on his wrist forces Harry to release his cock and he is transfixed by the sight of it, bobbing up crassly against the man’s expensive pullover. It leaves a spot of liquid against the material; makes him want to reach out again, to touch it, to taste it. To make the man writhe under his attentions, the way he hadn’t done before.

“Turn around Harry,” demands the man imperiously and Harry’s breath hitches at that. And, oh–, that shouldn’t do it for Harry. But it very much does.

This is not how Harry usually goes about this. He doesn’t usually turn around and take it, like a good boy. Voldemort’s face is almost uncompromising with intensity, his focus unerringly on Harry. His mouth is dry. “Now,” the man repeats, low, just hinting at the threat and Harry swallows convulsively. It suddenly occurs to him, whom he’s doing this with; that the command excites him.

Pulse racing, he complies.

Uncharted want to–, to submit, races in his veins. He braces himself against the door, and then, looks over his shoulder, because he can’t help himself.

“Look at you,” Voldemort croons, eyes drawn to the line of Harry’s back.

Satisfaction evident. Cock proudly on display. Briefs just underneath his balls.

How the man manages to cut such an imposing figure despite this is incomprehensible.

Harry’s gut clenches in liquid want.

The man steps close and he is once again aware of his warm presence so close to him. The warmth of the man’s hand at his waist, the solidity of it, seeping through thin layer of clothing separating skin. Harry’s head snaps back towards the wall; eyes unseeing.

The hands reaching around him and unbuttoning his trousers have little in common with Harry’s previous fumbling, and so the offending items of clothing are pushed down in one fell swoop, sooner rather than later.

Harry hisses at the cool dungeon air hitting his overheated skin. Wrestling his instinct to twist and take control down, he breathes deeply, frigid air rasping along his throat. A stark contrast to the humid puffs of air beside his head, tickling his neck. “Such a pretty sight,” Voldemort chuckles and Harry feels it reverberate through their shared mind.

The sight of him, on display, at his control, flits through Harry’s consciousness. And–. He bristles, almost like he’s seen Crookshanks do, lives ago. This isn’t–. He doesn’t usually–.

But Voldemort merely tuts.

Then, there is a large hand between his shoulder blades, calming, and another, cool against the heated skin of his hip. One pushing, one pulling, to leverage Harry into a more prone position.

Harry’s breath catches in his throat at the thought of what the brush of Voldemort’s cock against his cheeks implies. It leaves yet another trail of liquid. The man had implied he hadn’t had much experience. Surely, he didn’t mean to–.

He makes to stand straight – a movement that is halted by Voldemort bending over his bent form and sucking a large bruise on Harry’s throat. For all to see. The possessiveness that thrums through the bond, as Voldemort straightens to observe his work, the pleasure the man derives from it, is plenty to make Harry go lax for a moment, to abandon his struggle.

A mild chuckle, just this side of breathy. “Worry not,” Voldemort says, thumbs rubbing reassuring circles just above the swell of Harry’s arse.

Harry is not very reassured at all. He likes a little pain, but this, without any preparation…

Voldemort’s large hand presses him down into his previous position, resolute now. Harry bites his lip, to muffle a moan, because, for all his wrestling for control, he likes this; likes it being taken from him. Not that he’d ever let the man know. He’d never live it down.

“Trust me,” the man says simply, perhaps noticing the genuineness of Harry’s worry. With a shaky intake of breath, Harry feels the hand holding him down, move, and Voldemort guides himself between his thighs.

“Close your legs,” directs the man behind him, but instead of a dry drag, there is a tingle of magic accompanied by a slickness coating the juncture of his legs, once he complies. And when Voldemort starts thrusting, the head catches at Harry just so; presses against his perineum in a way Harry never knew–, never had thought to be pleasurable. Uses him. And Harry loves it.

The bond is unguarded now. Twin impressions envelop Harry in a blurry haze of pleasure. He can no longer distinguish between which sensation is his, and which is Voldemort’s. Which moan is by whom; which expletive. It’s all a haze of sensation and closeness and warmth. And a hand gripping his hip is all that grounds him.

It’s everything.

Harry’s arousal builds uncannily quickly, expectably, what with the way their pleasure loops between them.

When Voldemort’s rhythm turns frenzied, the man makes to reach for Harry’s cock, too. The simple enclosing of the man’s hand, the sight of it, makes Harry come with a hoarse cry even before Voldemort has the chance to jerk him off.

The second-hand sensation is evidently enough for the man to stumble over the edge, too. Because Voldemort curses, stutters before his stills, painting Harry white and leaving him sticky all over his front and between his thighs.

The man sags against him, and Harry dimly, caught in the slowness of his post-orgasmic haze, thinks he would have liked that sensation inside him. This causes a weak, reflexive thrust and a groan, Voldemort’s exhale heating his neck.

Voldemort straightens, before Harry can. His limbs still feel like rubber. There is satisfaction pouring off Voldemort at seeing him so and then, a flash of the man’s perspective – Harry, with his shirt rucked up, nape moist with perspiration and pink with post-orgasmic flush. And pink in other places, too. A large hand-shaped mark of red at his side that is sure to bruise later.

Harry’s cock twitches in a valiant attempt of arousal.

“Did you enjoy that?” asks Voldemort, smugly confident of Harry’s yes, even before he offers the confirmation.

Harry grits his teeth against his shakiness and stands, nodding a little helplessly, wordless in the face of his gratification. Voldemort laughs lightly before he bends back down to get his mouth back on him, and sucks another bruising kiss on Harry’s upper right shoulder. This one, for his own private enjoyment, rather than a staking of claim.

Harry shivers at being so thoroughly made Voldemort’s. This thought, it turns out, the man likes, too. He holds Harry against his front and cleans him of the stickiness, with a mindless display of nonverbal magic. One hand cards through his hair, before steering the both of them towards his private room. Bundled up in dark sheets that smell of Voldemort, Harry feels thoroughly satisfied, fucked-out and taken care of.

It’s almost too good.

And Harry mourns this moment ending, knowing it would have to, because doing this once more brings to the forefront a concern that is niggling his mind incessantly. It’s the unpleasant, uncomfortable realization that Voldemort had almost certainly done this before – or at least far more often than Harry had.

He did not believe in the powers of magical compatibility overcoming any and all possible hick-ups people had during sex – the Tom Riddle who had charmed him in Zacharias’ body, at least, had not shown any disproportionate finesse in leaving Harry incoherent. And, even though Harry doesn’t like it, it is undeniable that the man had significantly improved since then.

Which shouldn’t be a problem in itself, and only bothered a part of Harry that he was neither proud of, nor willing to indulge further. But in the face of the fact that Voldemort had explicitly told him, that he had not had any partners, it, more pressingly, hurt. To have been lied to…

Voldemort, next to him, cocks his head, as if listening to a voice only he could hear – which was likely the case, since only he had access to Harry’s inner turmoil.

Voldemort’s perpetual frown, which had been smoothed over by Harry’s closeness, reappears. “What’re you ruminating over, now?” asks Voldemort, only mildly concerned, before he stills abruptly and turns towards Harry. There is a disbelieving weariness in his features.

Shite.

“You’re jealous?” the man asks, almost confused, before turning decidedly smug at Harry’s non-response.

Harry wants to curse the bond and simultaneously be thankful, for not having to spell out his thoughts.

There is a beat before, “You asked me whether I had had a partner, Harry. And I didn’t lie when I said I hadn’t,” the infuriating man says with frustrating logic. It’s all very condescending.

Harry’s ire rises at the blithely amused timbre he feels tumbling across their bond.

He opens his mouth to say something he’d most likely later regret, when Voldemort intercepts him, laughter colouring his voice. “If it makes you feel any better, Riddle tried searching for you for a very long time, before he finally accepted it.” Voldemort pulls Harry closer.

And. Well. He hadn’t expected that. Allowing himself that moment of weakness, he hides his face in the crook of the man’s arm. And, call him demented, the thought does make him feel better.

Voldemort, smug, but content with Harry’s burrowing, allows it, before spelling out the light.

The next day, Rakepick takes one look at Harry and starts cackling dirtily.

This time, no amount of glaring dissuades his housemates’ curious looks.

Sex with Voldemort, it turned out, was a great way for Harry to distract himself from more complex matters, such as the aimlessness of their incarnation, or facing his would-be parents.

Harry got the feeling, Voldemort agreed with him, when he summoned one of the tomes he had been reading, into bed, right after they had engaged in a thoroughly satisfying bout of fellatio.

He tried not to take it personally.

“By Merlin’s saggy balls, we need to get a handle on this. We’re not a step closer to succeeding in our mission!” Harry gesticulates wildly between them and towards the pile of clothing that had been strewn about Voldemort’s room.

The man in question merely raises a pointed eyebrow, “If my memory doesn’t betray me – and it rarely does – it was you who attacked me upon arrival last evening, deemed it of utmost priority to drag me into my bed, Harry, and haven’t yet let me leave,” is all that he says.

Harry colours. That may not be untrue, but it doesn’t change anything about the fact that they’d been using… well, each other, to distract themselves very effectively from their penultimate goal.

“Don’t pretend you weren’t more than amenable to my suggestions,” Harry says huffily.

Voldemort snorts inelegantly, and looks at him with one of his long, liquid stares.

No, the man really had been more than merely amenable, Harry thinks. The memory makes him feel hot all over. A small smirk and a retreating presence in his mind alert him to Voldemort being well aware of the precise path of his thoughts.

Harry allows himself to fall into the plush pillows once more, exhaling loudly, before he summons his own reading. He is halfway through the mind-numbingly boring biography of Ivan the Great, who had boasted of having been in contact with Death.

It’s all either pure fiction, or the Death the man had encountered was far less antagonistic than the one the two of them did. Harry sighs once more and closes the book, frustrated with his lack of progress.

Next to him, Voldemort reads, unbothered.

“Maybe–,” the man starts abruptly, after staring at the book, unmoving, for longer than it usually took him to read a single page, “Maybe it is the temptation of knowing I could create Horcruxes, which leads me to eventually creating them…” Voldemort says. “Like a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

Harry considers this. It could be true; that the temptation of immortality never fully left Voldemort, or Tom Riddle, for that matter. “But why, after all, you–, or rather this body, knows, why would you make me your Horcrux?” Harry asks and, upon seeing Voldemort’s somewhat blank look, elaborates, “I mean, think about it, Vee. Once we’re done here, you’ll leave this Tom Riddle behind, will you not? But that body you now inhabit has–, will have, all of your thoughts and memories and experiences. So, why go after me?”

Voldemort’s eyes narrow in understanding.

“Whatever will change your mind obviously hasn’t happened yet, right? Or my scar would have disappeared by now…”

Voldemort spends a long time idly tracing nonsensical shapes onto Harry’s shoulder.

“That is a valid consideration, Harry,” Voldemort says in a manner that could almost pass as a full compliment.

Harry hides his smile in the man’s skin.

“If I were in my current frame of mind, not… deranged, I would not make you a Horcrux. For all that I enjoy seeing your misguided righteousness on the battlefield, your mortality makes you vulnerable.” Harry doesn’t even have time to retaliate for the underhanded dig, because the man’s countenance turns bitter. “My fate really must be one of the things, time has set in stone, then.”

Harry winces at the anger and frustration that wells through their connection, at the self-depreciation he feels buried underneath. And Harry can’t help but press his cold nose into the skin of Voldemort’s chest and listen to the fast beating of Voldemort’s heart. “Could you even make me your Horcrux, Vee? Without my mum’s love as protection and such?”

Voldemort snorts at that, but the tenseness that hadn’t previously been in him, tells Harry that there is little genuine amusement the man feels at this.

“Splitting a soul requires an unforgivable crime; remorse makes it knit back together. Yet I never regret any of the deaths I’ve caused, Harry.” Harry shivers at the man’s blunt words. “And even if Tom Riddle never kills anyone, I, for one have killed– plenty. Even if, only the time we’ve been trapped by Death counts, it’s–.”

“– I will always have the ability to make a Horcrux,” says Voldemort in a flat tone. The aching for the man who thinks so little of himself, of his own chance at being better, at making himself better, threatens to choke Harry momentarily. This perhaps foolish, perhaps naïve hope he nurtures for that man, will never be something that Voldemort can see for himself, he realizes.

“There needs to be a reason why Death makes us do this, here,” Harry disagrees and tries to maintain as even a voice as possible. “Maybe there is something in this particular time that allows us–.”

“There is not,” Voldemort interjects. Coldly. Factually. “I know why we were sent here to this time and I promise you, once we leave, Tom Riddle will succumb to his… delusions of grandeur, as you’ve put so eloquently. He–, I, will never find a single lifespan to be enough,” he breathes out and it leaves his chest a little raggedly. “It is inevitable,” he ends with finality.

Harry swallows convulsively. The man stares at him blankly. Unapologetic. And Harry aches and aches and aches. “You weren’t born to do evil things, Vee,” he says finally. A little quiet. A little defeated.

Voldemort huffs a laugh. It’s not a pretty sound. It’s bitter and scathing. Harry can feel Voldemort pulling away, wanting to retract, to shield himself from these thoughts and simply revel in the fated-ness of his downfall. But Harry won’t allow the man to do that.

He cannot allow that.

It’s not for the wizarding world, that he can’t allow that fate – they can crash and burn, for all Harry cares. He’s fought the war once; he can do it again.

No, he can’t allow this to happen, for the man next to him. He won’t allow Voldemort to do this to himself.

“Vee?” Harry half-asks, half-demands, and shuffles closer, once more, tangling his warm feet with the man’s perpetually cooler calves. The furrow in the man’s brow eases and Harry sighs at the soothing warmth that always comes with their touch.

This part of his draw to the man, he knows, is the bond. The thought would cheapen the moment, had Voldemort not chosen that moment to sigh deeply, wrap an arm around Harry’s shoulder and pull him closer. “Fool,” the man mumbles, voice lacking much reprimand.

But, in spite of his stated conviction, Voldemort opens his book once more, trying to find a way out from the future looming over the two of them.

Harry feels something clenching viciously in his stomach, a visceral impulse to keep the man like this; suspended in this particular moment – close and content, with him. And he could be enough, he would be the thing to keep Voldemort from spinning out of control, a thing that made him happy. Because that was what Harry wanted to be for Voldemort.

There is something possessive in that thought, something prideful, and primal, and it almost scares Harry more than any worry over the bond ever could, because he is fairly certain that this… emotional component is all his own.

When he wakes – he does not know how many hours later – he finds Voldemort, no longer reading his piece but rather staring at the wall unseeingly. It’s a little disconcerting, to see him so.

“You’re so certain I can choose my fate,” says Voldemort, tonelessly. Harry rights himself. The man might’ve just said this into the void. He had made no indication of his being aware that Harry is awake. “Why?” asks the man, turning to him.

Oh. There is something strangely… desperate in Voldemort’s gaze. Almost as if he were asking Harry to convince him.

“Bad people are not born evil. It’s what they do that is… evil,” Harry starts, mind whirling as he searches for the words that make sense of what he thinks. “And for some, it’s just more difficult to make good decisions. For example, how should someone who’s never loved anyone, who’s never been loved in return know that lying is bad–,” Voldemort snorts, derisive, but Harry carries on, heart in his throat with the possibilities of that moment. “– if they’ve never hurt someone they loved, when doing it,” Harry concludes his rambling and then there is silence to greet him.

“Love,” the word rings through them. Voldemort’s body tense, his teeth gritted. Emotions unidentifiable. “You’re telling me love will save me, Potter?” he asks, voice incredulous.

And Harry cringes but nods, because that’s it, isn’t it? The man needs to know that he hurts the people who care about him, if he fucks this up.

There is an aborted laugh. “You’re worse than the blasted old codger,” Voldemort states, though his rebuke is feeble, at best, even to Harry’s ears. If he didn’t know better, he would think it was hope that thrummed through their connection.

This is not the sound of Voldemort rejecting the notion outright. This is the sound of Voldemort knowing human connection to have been the key all along, and simply not wanting to accept or acknowledge it.

“The power the Dark Lord knows not, and all…” Harry agrees. “Or, rather–,” he hurries to correct, because in his sleep-addled mind, so close to the other man, he doesn’t think his traitorous heart could bear it if the man flat-out rejected him. “Let’s not call it something as ridiculous as–, as that …”

Voldemort looks at him, gaze unwavering.

“Human connection, in general, Vee. You know me, by now. You know what killing my parents, what making a Horcrux, and starting this war did to me. And that could motivate you to…”

Harry trails off. Courage devoured by Voldemort’s long silence. And then–.

“So, show me love, then, Harry,” Voldemort says somewhat solemnly, gaze holding Harry’s first, before his eyes trail Harry’s contours through the thin sheet that hide his near-nakedness underneath.

As if everything could be solved by them going all the way.

Harry’s mouth falls open disbelievingly, before he catches himself and snorts. Amusement being easier, than hurt.

But Voldemort is not deterred. He leans over to brush his nose first, and then his lips, over the exposed skin of Harry’s shoulder.

Harry shudders. “Vee,” he says weakly. “Physical affection is not love.”

In truth, Harry fears going further, fears he will be ruined. The line between his self-proclaimed hedonism and true emotions are already blurred. And Voldemort knows it. Knows it well.

Which is precisely why he is tempting Harry now. Because of course, Harry wants it. Wants to show the man love.

He fears it comes at the cost of losing himself.

It makes him sick, how strong that want is, nonetheless.

But in the end, the fact that Voldemort doesn’t love Harry, shouldn’t matter, should it? There is a nipping kiss on the juncture of Harry’s shoulder.

Even if the man mistakes Sex and affection, borne of familiarity, for love, it might still be enough, right? The now-familiar weight of Voldemort’s long-limbed body against his own.

And isn’t this what could maybe make all this okay? If he keeps in mind that it’s just this – an error of the man’s judgement, not of his volition – couldn’t he leave this room after, unscathed?

Then, stupid, reckless Harry makes the tactical error, of looking into the man’s face.

Grey eyes take him in, all of him. Everything that is bared, and everything that he covers. Voldemort’s intensity burns Harry as it always does. He feels hot all over.

Shite.

He will never leave this behind, unscathed.

Of course, the man would completely misunderstand Harry. Would try his hardest to make Harry fall in love, all while protecting himself. Would think it sufficient to make Harry fall for him, while he remained untouched by these foolish attachments; Would keep himself apart, while Harry falls, irrevocably.

And damn him! He still wants to give in to what the man offers; wants to give him everything. He’s learned as early as in his childhood that giving is easier, than expecting anything to be returned in kind, after all. And though he knows he’ll hurt because of it, Harry wants to give this man his all.

Not because the man deserves it, or because he hadn’t been loved in the past, but because it’s him. And Harry loves him.

Harry is almost angry when he leans in, finally, and kisses the man feverishly. Bruising. Around the lump in his throat.

Angry at the man having pushed him to this inevitability. Angry for wanting this to an extent, it would feel like dying if he didn’t do it now.

He feels untethered by it.

Surely, he, too, is allowed this modicum of selfishness, sometimes.

When he swallows the man’s surprise and coaxes other sounds from him, with bites and licks, and the pressure of his tongue, he takes all the man can give, and tries to convince himself that it is enough.

The sounds that are his, now.

A hissed breath when Harry presses the man back into his sheets and straddles him, grinds against him, savours his dominance.

A content growl when Voldemort inevitably turns them, warm weight atop Harry.

An appreciative groan, when Harry spreads his legs to give the man more room; when he lifts his hips for better access.

An amused chuckle when Harry begins to whimper and fuck himself mindlessly on the man’s fingers; when Harry is made to beg for more.

A deep reverberating groan as the man lines himself up and pushes in for the first time.

To Harry, it’s a haze of mindless sensations, as it usually is. But it’s more, too.

When he’s breached, when he’s cocooned by the man’s familiar smell, by his warmth – a warmth that spreads deeply, now, too – Harry feels like he’s drowning. When Voldemort is inside him, the line between them blurs. Harry feels his sense of self collapsing.

His emotions – belonging, possessiveness, wonder, avarice, novelty and jealousy – are decidedly shared and it’s too much too soon for the both of them.

And yet, when Harry feels like his hold on reality is about to slip, their minds separate just that tiny bit to be enough for Voldemort to draw it out for a few memorable moments, to fuck him with enviably practised precision.

When Harry finally takes stock of how his body feels, Voldemort is already asleep. Their books are on the bedside table, long forgotten. Harry hisses at the soreness that travels up his spine and touches the bruises on his thighs and hips with stupid reverence.

There is a cooling liquid seeping out of him and his lower back protests when he twists too quickly. He is incredibly glad the man isn’t awake to see his pitiful behaviour.

He should have left minutes ago. Never has his nonverbal casting been as useful as it is in this moment, Harry thinks, as he summons his clothes. Biting his lip to viciously murder the lulling temptation of simply falling asleep next to the man, in the sheets that smell incriminatingly of them.

He doesn’t, of course. He extricates himself from Voldemort’s wayward arm and dresses quickly and quietly; leaves before the other wakes to see him in this state; Leaves to give himself time to recalibrate his sense of self, before he must face himself face the man again.

This had always been an inevitability.

It doesn’t have to mean anything. It means nothing. Nothing but a bit of fun.

This moment doesn’t feel like too much fun, now, but it’s better than the alternative – the man growing sick with Harry’s clinginess and kicking him out.

That too feels like an inevitability.

“You left,” The sentence is a mere statement rather than an accusation or a question. Voldemort had asked him to stay behind, after class, and is currently busy sorting through the stack of essays on his desk, before he looks up and their eyes meet, finally.

Harry sucks in an involuntary breath, strengthening his mental shields before he assumes an expression that could pass for nonchalant. “Yeah… I had things to do, Vee,” he rubs the back of his neck and pretends his nervousness is sheepishness. “You were right we don’t get any research done when we’re together, so…” He laughs awkwardly.

Voldemort nods faintly. His eyes are closed off, his face pensive.

“I thought we might not wake up again this morning…” he sounds ponderous, but also curious. As if there had been a greater significance to the previous evening, than two men getting each other off. As if it had meant anything profound to Voldemort. As if he were baiting Harry in a game, Harry doesn’t yet fully understand.

A shadow consolidates and both of them feel an inexplicable cold creep over them.

A laugh escapes Harry before he can stop it. Voldemort’s furrow-browed eyes snap to him, cataloguing every expression, yet giving little away of himself. Harry crushes the seed of stupid hope with viciousness, it does well to smother his mirth.

“Nah,” Harry disagrees, presenting a confident front. And, truly, he is confident that Voldemort is wrong, even if that hurts, since them ending up in the space in between would entail Voldemort having found something in their love-making worth keeping him from making a Horcrux. Which. Is preposterous.

The shadow disintegrates.

He is too focused on keeping his emotions off his face and safely locked inside his mind, that he fails to prepare for the barrage of input from Voldemort’s side.

The emotions are conflicting, second-hand, and suppressed quickly enough to cause Harry whiplash. Triumph… At an epiphany? And underneath that, a knowing frustration.

Voldemort returns to calmly sorting the parchments in front of him.

“I mean, as… uh great as this was yesterday, it’s definitely… that way, because I’m a Horcrux, wasn’t it?” he smiles up at Voldemort, now, because for all that it twists something inside of him to admit it, the man shouldn’t be burdened by Harry’s lack of self-control.

Voldemort hums, in response, not quite committing to a contradiction or an agreement.

“Regardless… Even if it doesn’t necessarily further our mission, I wouldn’t mind a repeat,” Harry says, aiming for coy.

Voldemort stares at him unblinkingly, maybe a little disbelievingly, and so Harry can’t help but feel like he missed his objective a little. It is all that he can do to keep his smile from sliding off his face.

But that doesn’t matter, because when Voldemort answers the door to his knocks that same evening, he allows him inside.

The experience has lost nothing of its novelty, even if it’s no longer the first time they do it. It gets better actually. They manage to draw it out a little longer than before, since they are more– prepared for the consuming resonance between them. It makes for fewer pre-emptive finishes. Although Harry does in moments like this miss Voldemort’s contrite look from when they had just started this, because, now that he has more control over himself, the man loves to tease Harry. Edge him to the precipice of orgasm before withdrawing. Again, and again.

It would be torture, if it weren’t so, so good.

But Harry can’t help the impression that something is off between them. Nothing necessarily bad, just… tilted, with a different meaning.

Voldemort is clearing the evidence of their previous endeavours with a wave of his hand, as Harry manipulates the cushions into a better sitting position. As he cracks open a book, he knows Voldemort has read back-to-back at least once, hoping against reason for anything the man might’ve missed, he notices the man watching him pensively. A faint murmur of frustration shimmers through their bond once more. “You know I’ve read this already,” Voldemort states flatly.

The frustration flares sharply in resonance between them. “I do,” Harry says sighing. “But we haven’t found any clues yet, of how to win this game, haven’t we? Ergo, I read it again,” he adds, perhaps a little more snappishly than is fair.

Voldemort rolls his eyes and snatches the book out of Harry’s hand. “We’re taking a walk,” he says and lets the book fall back on the bedside table with an audible clonk. “You won’t find the answer in a book.” And at Harry’s incredulous look, “I know what we have to do to finish this, anyway,” adds the man cryptically.

Harry plans to wait for the entire stroll through the cold Hogwarts grounds for Voldemort to tell him what his lead is, as it usually pays to allow the man to offer information on his own premises. Alas, Harry is not a patient man.

“Tell me now, Vee!” he demands, the two of them having barely made it down a level. But seriously! The man couldn’t simply drop this sort of information and expect him to not ask any further questions.

Voldemort looks down at him, eyebrows raised. “Wait at least until we’re out of earshot, Potter?” he suggests, obviously amused at Harry’s gnawing impatience. The use of his surname catches Harry of-guard. Right. They’re in public. The man has a point, Harry sees a few third-year Slytherins watching them curiously. It still stings a little.

“I’ve told you already, in any case. You’re just too stubborn or too wilful to listen,” the man adds, archly.

Harry will admit that he is both, and comes up with precisely nothing reasonable.

Damn that man!

Harry’s fist clenches, more in frustration than anger, but he waits until a moving staircase has led them into an empty corridor somewhere close to where the astronomy tower is. No one is there at this time of day.

“Make it more obvious, Vee. Please.” Harry beseeches, widening his eyes. Voldemort looks down at him, finally. There is something warm and liquid in Voldemort’s gaze that Harry wants desperately. He had known that trick would never work on him. It had been worth a try. In the undercurrent of their bond, there is something vaguely amused, but also tired.

Voldemort sighs, a drawn-out thing. “As a matter of fact, I am making it exceedingly obvious,” the man says, but waves away Harry’s complaint. “But there are a few more things I have to be certain of, before we can take action.”

Harry’s eyes narrow. This seems a little too convenient. “Are you sure you actually want me to know what to do, Vee?” he asks, annoyed. Voldemort’s jaw clenches. He no longer meets Harry’s gaze.

After a moment, Harry brushes against the other man’s hand. It’s fleeting, merely a press against the wand-made callouses of his palm; comforting. An arbitrary movement to any unknowing onlookers.

There is a flash of guilt and hesitation through the bond at the touch. Too quick to analyse.

“Fine,” he says, “don’t tell me. I can figure it out on my own. This time isn’t too bad, after all.”

He shoves his hands in his robe’s pockets. Voldemort will have his reasons. He tries to push down his curiosity and steers them towards the Astronomy tower.

The man’s shoulders are less stiff already.

A small infinity later, “All the professors are subjected to bimonthly conferences with the headmaster, did you know?” asks Voldemort out of the blue. They have by now returned to the relative warmth of Hogwarts’ corridors again, but the man doesn’t seem much inclined to separate just yet. His gaze is calculating. Inquisitive.

Harry hums, unsure as to the statement’s significance.

“Dumbledore–,” the name is still spoken with veritable amounts of distaste. “–is very preoccupied with you, in particular. He has taken to questioning the other professors to any signs of you engaging in the Dark Arts.”

Harry laughs at that, surprised. He knows a fair amount of barely legal spells, now – well, to be honest, there are quite a few firmly illegal curses in his repertoire, too, but he hasn’t shown off his abilities.

There is a beat of silence; a tension rising, almost as if the previous morsel of information had merely been the entrée to the main issue. “He… has taken to wearing a hazel wand. One that he hasn’t used since the mid-forties – I remember it from my time here as a student.”

Silence, once more, that Harry feels invited to fill, though he doesn’t know with what he would do so. This information is certainly nothing of note, right?

“Isn’t it curious? He claims the Elder Wand has gone missing.”

Voldemort’s tone is lazy, but his eyes belie that notion. They are goading and bright.

The walls between them are curiously lowered, with a strange sense of caution, almost as if he were waiting for a reaction, but was afraid of it spilling over to his side of the bond.

Harry blinks in confusion. The shadows in the corridor feel longer, now. The sun must be sinking, quickly, without Harry noticing. He looks up at Voldemort’s face. Voldemort, who looks predatory, almost. Harry is confused. “Umm sure, Vee. Dumbledore has lost the most powerful wand known to wizarding kind,” his tone is patronizing and accompanied by an exaggerated eye-roll.

A sudden, fierce annoyance burns through him, effacing any of his previous sluggish exhaustion. It is strong enough to make him stumble, caught unawares by its ferocity.

It takes Harry a few stuttering breaths to realize it doesn’t originate from his scar, which is how Voldemort’s bouts of vesuvian rage used to manifest. The bond is, in fact, sealed tight. And Voldemort’s face shows none of the rage, Harry half-expects. Instead, the man looks utterly triumphant, before the overtness of his fascination dims.

And although Harry is certain the man’s disinterest is false, he strangely cannot bring himself to muster the energy needed to fuel his inquisitiveness.

The conversation between them dies and they stroll along abandoned corridors in companionable silence.

It is, a little later, broken by a high-pitched screech and very creative cursing a few doors away.

Harry and Voldemort share a glance, before they hurry to enter one of the sheer endless unused classrooms. Said room is dusty and empty save for two very guilty-looking students and a dangerously hissing cauldron.

The female student swivels towards them as they enter, eyes wide in surprise and fear. Meanwhile, the other student, clad in black from head to toe, seems undeterred by the intruders and remains deeply bowed over the cauldron. He is stirring furiously, adjusts the temperature and casts another weary glance at the popping and gurgling mixture.

“Sev!” Lily hisses and elbows the preoccupied boy anxiously.

“What’s going on here?” Voldemort asks sharply. Snape promptly flinches and chances a glance over top his shoulder. The boy pales, but a threatening hiss from the cauldron catches his attention yet again.

Then, several things happen at once.

The boy curses darkly and jumps backwards, while Lily Evans raises a shaking wand. The cauldron groans with rapidly building pressure, dangerously, as Voldemort whips out his wand and casts a stasis charm on the concoction. Harry stares. Caught in his surprise.

Now that the immediate crisis is adverted, Severus Snape turns towards his Head of House and looks both mortified and terribly self-conscious.

The boy does not look at his friend.

She, in sharp contrast, is frowning at him before she crosses her arms and juts her chin defiantly in a manner faintly familiar to Harry.

Voldemort steps closer to the cauldron and examines the innards with a vaguely disapproving expression. Sniffs the air with a deep frown. “Armadillo Bile Mixture?” he asks incredulous, “Why in Salazar’s name would you try to brew that?” Harry has never even heard of that particular potion.

Silence fills the space between the two younger students and the two of them. Harry can tell, even though Voldemort’s posture is loose and almost lazy, that the man’s patience is running thin. “Mr. Snape? Ms. Evans?” he inquires for what surely is a final time.

Snape’s eyes remain fastidiously trained on the ground. Lily is shooting her friend another concerned say something-look.

Voldemort twists, looking at Harry. His nostrils are flaring, and his jaw is set. He breathes once more, deeply. Harry feels some of the anger simmer down.

Harry buries the urge to shoot the man a thumbs-up for excellent anger management.

The man turns back towards the two students.

He clicks his tongue. “Mr. Snape, while I usually do not make a habit to discourage extracurricular academic pursuits, I will see my hand forced to prohibit such efforts of yours and your friends–,” At that Snape flinches. “–should you not provide me with ample reason not to,” Voldemort says deceptively collected.

Lily shoots her friend a betrayed look.

Ah. This is the reason for Snape’s uncharacteristic silence, Harry realizes. He fears censure due to his friendship with a Muggleborn.

His to-be-mother, in sharp contrast to her stubbornly silent friend balls her hands then, lifts her chin and stares at their professor head-on.

Voldemort seems surprised at being confronted by her.

“We were wanting to figure out whether we could brew the mixture without having to make use of Amortentia as one of its key ingredients,” she says. “Sir.”

Voldemort raises his eyebrows and even Harry isn’t certain whether it is in surprise or condescension. The man sits onto one of the dusty desks, one long leg folded over the other, arms crossed. “And why is that?” he asks with an even voice.

Lily wrings her hand around the wand she still clutches, then. “Amortentia is highly illegal, sir,” she says. The man inclines his head.

“And so, you used–” he closes his eyes and sniffs once more “–Laverne’s brew?”

Harry has never heard of any of these potions.

“Yes, sir,” Snape grinds out quietly from where he is still standing, staring at the ground furiously.

“Sir,” Lily cuts through sharply, looking nervous but furious all of a sudden. She shoots her friend a very indiscreetly flinty-eyed look, before she returns her resolute stare at Voldemort once more. “I, eh, forced him to help me. He didn’t… spend time with me of his own volition.” The last words come ground-out through gritted teeth.

Snape stares at her briefly, a curious mix of gratefulness and shame on his features before he looks down again.

Lily doesn’t return the boy’s glance.

Harry feels a confusing swirl of admiration and indignation in the face of Lily’s obvious lie. But mostly, his chest feels curiously tight and warm at the sight of his mother defending her friend, even if the occasion is dubious.

“Is that so?” Voldemort asks lightly, before lazily flicking his wand at the cauldron. The potion disintegrates. Snape gasps almost inaudibly. Harry looks at Voldemort then, curious as to what his reaction is.

The man looks at him from where he’s seated, lips curled in near imperceptible amusement, eyes light. The man is looking at Harry, too, muddied grey eyes surrounded by sooty lashes that faintly curl. The liquid warmth is there, once more.

“The first thing you two clearly need to learn is the stasis charm.”

All sets of eyes snap towards him.

“To be frank, though as said before, I encourage all academic endeavours–,”

“– Seriously, did you swallow a dictionary to make these speeches?” Harry interjects.

Voldemort glowers at him, the two other students stare in slack-jawed disbelief.

“– I will not abide foolish carelessness that could cause students to be hurt in the process,” the man continues with a little more force.

Then a contemplative look crosses his face before it twists into a smile that Harry knows spells doom for him. “I will assist you two, while Harry Peverell, here, will chaperone, of course. Shadowing them will only aid you in filling some of the deplorable gaps your frightful education has left you with,” the man says with just enough vindictive glee in his voice, Harry finds it endearing instead of mean.

He opens his mouth in an objection on principle, but finally simply groans his defeat. In the end, he spends the next hour sitting and observing a slightly blunt, yet witty Lily and a shy and somewhat rough-around-the-edges Snape bow their heads over the cauldron under Voldemort’s surprisingly helpful supervision.

And. It’s not actually half bad. He still cannot look at Lily for long before an old ache pulls in his chest. Snape is as mistrusting and grouchy as ever. But he sees how they could have been friends. He sees how well they work with one another, interaction made smooth by years together. Most surprising, though, is Voldemort.

Voldemort is snappy and derisive when he feels the younger students are asking offensively stupid questions. Which–, honestly, Harry took potions in his NEWTs, and even he didn’t know that Aconite and Lavender petals made for an explosive mixture – which is why, it turns out, Amortentia is usually used in the Armadillo Bile mixture in the first place.

Though, while Voldemort sighs dramatically, he answers all of their questions succinctly without revealing too much, which allows the two for enough room to hypothesize rather passionately.

Harry wonders then, whether Dumbledore had been correct after all, in believing Riddle’s motivation for applying to teach in Hogwarts had been for the purpose of collecting ever more followers. The man was a true academic and a rather good teacher, after all. The sight is strangely heart-warming.

They are cleaning up the remnants of the impromptu brewing session, Voldemort had already directed Lily and Snape to leave first, when Harry voices his thoughts.

Something like discomfort has gathered in the pit of his stomach, as he thinks about his resolve to spend time with what would later become his parents after the first time he had made Voldemort come.

“Did you, er, did you arrange this, so that I could spend time with my mum, Vee?” he asks, half-afraid of the answer. Was this part of what they needed to do, to get through their game with Death? That seemed unlikely. So, then, why?

Kindness? An attempt at righting something that couldn’t truly be made so?

He hadn’t ever thought this possible. He hadn’t predicted Voldemort would put himself willingly into a shared space with Lily Evans, whom he would later, or at least had once killed, and him. His stomach twists and Harry cannot decide how to feel about it.

“Don’t be silly Harry,” Voldemort says blankly looking at him, “I simply can’t have my future potioneer make such elemental mistakes as he displayed today,”

There is very little bleed-through seeping through their bond. He feels like he should understand everything. But he doesn’t.

He decides that that’s good. He doesn’t want this irritating, damnable warmth in his chest to seep through to the man either. Harry feels like he’s swallowing around a lump in his throat.

Then, it happens again, and Harry decides that enough is enough. Voldemort should no longer hide behind his farce. If there is a reason for Voldemort’s strange behaviour, Harry deserves to know.

At the very least such that he doesn’t misinterpret this for kindness without ulterior motive; at least to discourage his traitorous, stupid heart.

Harry stumbles across his future godfather and his–, well his father on his way back from Hogsmeade. This alone is suspicious, as he’s pretty certain even in the 70’s students weren’t allowed into the nearby village before they attended their third year at Hogwarts.

He wants to stay away – he hasn’t had a great impression of either of them so far, and he doesn’t particularly enjoy confronting his confusing emotions regarding this.

But, he has seen Bellatrix and the two Lestrange brothers leave the village just minutes before, young still, barely graduated – not Death Eaters in this time – but cackling about some undoubtedly sick joke of theirs, and the two boys are huddling suspiciously in a less-frequented side-street.

As Harry draws closer, he can see that James has his wand trained on something that might be a gash on Sirius’ side, mumbling spell after spell with a look of utmost concentration. The boy is gasping shallow breaths, his face is pale and slightly sweaty.

Sirius makes James aware of Harry’s approaching form in between what must be painful breaths and the boy that will later be his father turns to fix Harry with a hard glare.

James Potter steps in between them, half-shielding Sirius from Harry’s view. The set of the boy’ jaw is mulish and his crossed arms are antagonistic. “Go away, Peverell. We don’t need the help of a snake. We’re fine, here.”

Sirius groans softly in the background, calling out James’ obvious lie.

“I can see that,” Harry mutters, exasperated, and side-steps the younger Gryffindor. “What the fuck happened?” asks Harry, crouching down to examine the side of his body, Sirius is clutching. James shoots him a wary look as he settles back down, next to the two of them, and now Harry sees that the boy’s hand is shaking. Whether in badly suppressed rage or fear, Harry does not know.

Nonetheless, the boy opens his mouth to answer but an unforgiving glance of Sirius’ clearly cuts him off before he’s looking at Harry in silent challenge.

“Fine,” Harry mutters. “Don’t tell me,” Sirius sags a little in relief, and promptly hisses, because the boy lacks common sense.

“What hurts? And where?” asks Harry, truly concerned, now.

Sirius groans while he’s doing so, but he shifts his cloak and tattered uniform and moves slightly to show a big, mottled bruise decorating the side of his body. It stretches from hipbone to just below his ribs and seems to be rather fresh, and still developing.

“It was some Dark curse,” James grits out, fiery anger in his eyes. Though, at Harry’s questioning eyebrow, James admits that he doesn’t actually know the nature of the spell.

Harry starts casting several diagnostic spells – a rib seems to be broken and threatening to puncture the lung. A painful injury, but ultimately easily curable with magic.

“I can mend the broken bone or vanish it and allow it to regrow,” Harry offers Sirius clinically.

“Pros and cons?” Sirius grits out, wisely.

The mending is prone to errors, and just because he knows the spell doesn’t mean he has the finesse to control it perfectly; while vanishing and using Skele-grow is painful at best.

Sirius pale face whitens further, and Harry gains the distinct impression he has not inspired much faith in the boy with his explanations.

The two boys share a glance. James bites his lip and fixes Harry with an eery Gryffindor look. “Mend it, Peverell.”

Harry acquiesces with raised eyebrows and breathes deeply, concentrating on feeling the damage with his magic. He’s experienced this spell go wrong himself and isn’t keen on having Sirius follow him in this. “Brackium Emendo,” he whispers finally, when he’s certain that his spell is neither overpowered nor too weak, and the bone knits accordingly.

Sirius sucks in a breath, and no longer clutches his side, his pants no longer looking as painful as before. He stretches experimentally, before a half-grimace, half-smile breaks out on his face. “Wow! Thanks, I feel great,” the rash boy says and makes to stand.

“Hold on,” Harry interjects the boy’s hasty movement, “You probably have some internal bleeding, and this is far beyond my healing capabilities, Black. You need a visit at the hospital wing!”

At this, Sirius’ movements abort almost comically.

“Ah, see that’s the thing,” James starts hesitantly.

A look of desperation has stolen on Sirius' face. “Please don’t make me go there, Peverell. I feel fine, really. I’m sure it’s nothing,” the younger black-haired boy tries to convince Harry and makes to stand once more.

He watches pointedly, as the boy’s skin around his mouth blanches as he does so. “I can tell,” Harry says, somewhat condescendingly.

James, too, looks concerned now. Sirius starts mildly swaying and his friend cries out in alarm, as Harry catches the boy once more. He considers the two of them, for a moment, takes in the earnest desperation in Sirius’ face, and James’ contrite but determined look.

“Fucking idiots,” he curses and pinches the bridge of his nose, a move he doesn’t want to acknowledge the person from whom he’s copied it. “Fine. We’ll go to someone else that is good at healing, that won’t betray your confidence,” Harry grits out.

Vee will kill him for this.

Harry grabs hold of James unceremoniously, ignoring their cries of disagreement and disapparates right up to the border of Hogwarts’ wards.

“What? No!” Sirius cries, while James’ “A bloody teacher. What the hell, Peverell!” is similar in outrage.

Harry stuns Sirius, to avoid him jostling his wound, and after but a moment of deliberation, silences and disillusions the two boys. He levitates Sirius’ immobile body along and James hurries after them, following them voluntarily.

Halfway to their destination, James Potter has finally managed the counter-spell to Harry’s relatively mild Silencio. But instead of more dreaded objections to Harry’s way of dealing with Sirius’ injury, the boy stomps along with Harry in mulish silence. Finally, after shooting him a dozen angry, then contemplative and finally even grateful glances, the boy breaks his silence. “I closed the wound with a Vulnera Sanentur and tried an Episkey, but it didn’t seem to be working.”

Harry looks at the boy sharply, impressed by his father’s knowledge of healing spells. “My uh, mum is a healer,” the boy says with a face that makes it clear that he wishes in this precise moment, he had listened more to his mother’s teachings.

“You did as well as you could,” Harry offers, finally, unable to condole the boy any further.

They draw to a stop in front of Voldemort’s private rooms, the Horcrux in Harry assuring him that the man in question resides inside them.

James’ expression is drawn and dark ever since he realized their goal was the dungeons.

Harry knocks curtly, which is more for the sake of the two boys than for Voldemort, and Vee’s expression is suitably surprised when he opens the door. Usually, Harry is known to make a habit of simply barging in. Then, Voldemort’s eyes trail away from Harry’s face to the two boys in tow. James clearly starts at their professor’s evident ability to see through Harry’s disillusionment charm, while the eyes of all other people, students and teachers, alike, had previously glid over them.

“Why is it, that recently, I’ve been in contact with a surplus of second years, every time you are with me?” Voldemort bites out disdainfully, but without much sting, and moves to the side to allow Harry entry. Harry shoots him a quick, thankful smile and levitates Sirius onto their–, well, the couch. “What happened?” Voldemort asks defeatedly, as Harry undoes his stunner and the silencing and disillusionment charms.

James’ face is drawn, his lips tight, posture distrusting.

“I’m not certain…” Harry says, as Sirius gasps in his first heaving breath, struggles onto his elbows and glares at Harry betrayed, “But he’s been hit with a good bone-breaker by Bellatrix or her–, uh, one of the Lestranges.”

Sirius is slack-jawed and James sucks in a surprised gasp.

“It probably only grazed him… I knitted the bone, but there might be internal damage.”

Voldemort hums noncommittally in response, perhaps even faintly amused, as he starts casting his diagnostic charms, which… that does annoy Harry. Though it does so far less, then it evidently grates on James. “You find that funny, professor?” he roars and both Harry and Voldemort turn around to see the boy red-faced, with righteous fury.

Harry had almost forgotten of his presence.

There is pearling laughter in the recess of his mind, and Voldemort turns towards him, a quirk in his mouth. Harry finds two superimposed impressions of himself and James. Voldemort evidently finds the similarities hilarious.

“Oh, sod off, Vee,” Harry grouses.

“I don’t, of course, Mr. Potter,” Voldemort says, placatingly, his back to James once more, wand trained at Sirius as he wordlessly heals whatever damage remained. The appeasement sounds almost genuine, but Harry feels the man’s mirth and almost fond condescension clearly through their bond.

“Git,” says Harry under his breath. Voldemort’s shoulders shake a little, before his liquid eyes find Harry’s. Sirius’ eyes skit between the two of them, he looks utterly confused.

Harry feels like there is something very obvious–.

“So,” says Voldemort almost merrily. “A little more numbing cream–” Harry chokes. They’d been using that for other purposes. “–and Mr. Black will be right back on his feet. You can already leave, Harry, I shall have a few words with Mr. Potter and Mr. Black,” Voldemort says carelessly. Harry can see Sirius’ brows drawing to a furrow behind the man’s back. Voldemort gifts him with his trademark charming smile that looks so artificial, it sets Harry on edge.

There definitely is a reason Voldemort wants Harry gone.

But Voldemort is already busy searching for the cream, studiously avoiding Harry’s gaze, and Harry catches sight of his father’s expression. He is certain, the boy would defend Sirius to his death – one of his few admirable qualities, as far as Harry can tell – and besides, Voldemort has given no indication of any less than favourable motives.

And so, he does leave, insanely curious, of course, but he leaves the three of them be, and trusts Voldemort’s judgement.

A few hours later, he comes across his father and his godfather again, and is given a slightly considering but notably more respecting look that Harry doesn’t know how he’s earned, precisely.

But regardless, he waits in Vee’s office until the man comes in, furious, robes billowing. Voldemort rants and pours himself a few drinks, and eventually, Harry deciphers that Voldemort had lobbied for better protection of Sirius’ from his family, which Dumbledore had, predictably, declined – “I don’t know if the old coot isn’t doing worse things to children, than I have in the past. At least I merely offed their parents and didn’t force them back into abusive homes!” he had bellowed, the logic of which Harry found a little flawed – and then single-handedly orchestrated the premature quasi-adoption of Sirius by the Potters.

Harry knows Voldemort must’ve plucked that piece of history from Harry’s mind without him knowing.

He opens his mouth to admonish the man for keeping this a secret, or to berate him for stealing Harry’s memories without consent, or to thank him, but it is in this moment that his stupid hormonal brain decides it’s time to produce tears of gratefulness. Voldemort’s vicious glare cuts off any possible comment of his, the effectiveness of which is enhanced even further when the man strides up to him, clutches his face, angrily, and proceeds to kiss him into silence.

“I know what your game is,” declares Harry.

As he said, this little stint with Sirius had been the second time Voldemort had actively engaged with people besides himself and Harry and had done something… irrefutably nice. If Harry didn’t know the man better, he would have called Voldemort’s recent actions selfless.

Harry is perched nudely atop Voldemort’s middle, having lifted himself from where he’d been resting, pliantly, since finishing their bout of fucking.

A very satisfying bout of fucking. It had been, perhaps, a little on the rough side. Ruthless. Not that Harry complained.

Voldemort had carried a quality of barely restrained anger with him. Trying to divine the cause of which, Harry had spent the last few minutes of post-orgasmic haze, musing. He hadn’t come to a satisfying conclusion. He raises an accusatory finger at the man’s nonplussed expression.

Maybe it had been a mix of multiple factors – anger at Dumbledore, or at Harry finding out about his dubiously altruistic behaviour, or perhaps even at having to spell out what he had done for Harry to have him understand. Because Voldemort always had a motive.

“You are using them to manipulate me,” he states, because that part is not a question. “Why?” That is, though.

Voldemort doesn’t look particularly caught out, but his eyebrows draw close in frustration, displeasure? And the man scoffs and pushes him off him surly; sits up, a hand raking through his sex-mussed curls. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Voldemort grouses. There is an irritation to his anger, though he’s clearly unwilling to divulge his motivations, as he busies himself on his side of his bed.

Harry, lying on top of cool sheets, now, instead of buried into the pleasant warmth that is Voldemort, twists to look at the man beside him. “No, I think I do,” Harry insists. “You don’t like my– parents. You don’t care for children, in general, apart from correcting their wrongs by teaching them what, in your opinion, they should already know, that is,” Harry surmises.

Voldemort doesn’t bother to correct the notion, not that Harry would have expected him to. He knows this about the man.

“You don’t care for them, you have, and perhaps will kill them and yet, you still–, you help them,” The words taste strange in his mouth, as he spells them out, but that doesn’t detract from their validity. Voldemort glares at him darkly. “While I am present,” Harry amends. “You are manipulating me!”

The darkness in Voldemort’s gaze, which spoke of his discomfiture while had been Harry pointing out this, has given way to a flat stare. “You’re right. I don’t care about Lily and James Potter.” His tone is just as flat. Even. Voldemort looks utterly unapologetic.

Then, there is a moment where the man’s eyes skirt away.

“Beyond the fact, that you do.” The sentiment is spoken very quietly. There is something wild in that liquid warmth, something discomposed that makes Harry think that Voldemort is at the end of his tether, as if he were at his wit’s end.

Harry’s body is tense; coiled and ready to burst at the seams. This–.

Voldemort sighs, as if the next sentiment were voiced at a great cost, and their eyes meet again. “And, for the record, if it is at all in my control, they won’t die this time around.”

Huh, that was almost... romantic.

Harry questions his sanity. He is utterly tongue-tied.

Voldemort looks him over, huffs, lies back down, only to twist away, clearly deeming this discussion over. He reaches out to a book that he calls an easy read and Harry… Harry just can’t have that. Can’t leave it at that.

He scoots close and slings his arms around the older man, traps his arms by pinning them to his side, one hand still clutching the book, immobilizes them. Harry realizes that his own arms too are preoccupied with doing so, but. Oh, well.

He prods at the man’s chest with his chin instead. “And Snape?” Harry asks, aware that his voice is softer than it usually is. Voldemort looks down at him with a look that tries to be too many things at once. His expression morphs from condescension at Harry’s questionable tactic, to dismissal of the boy’s name, frustration with Harry’s obliviousness, derision at him foolishly still holding out hope for–.

Underneath it all, Harry can feel fear. A vulnerability that Voldemort desperately doesn’t want to unearth.

“I have it on good authority that it is better for your health to stop this line of questioning, Potter.”

Harry, as he is wont to do, ignores the threat. “Shouldn’t you be fuming at the seams at him having betrayed you? I mean, he was Dumbledore’s spy all along.”

Ah, that elicits an expected reaction.

A slight widening of the man’s eyes, before “Of course,” Voldemort says, sounding taken aback, but not truly astonished.

Harry supposes it shouldn’t surprise him that Voldemort had never deigned to review the motivations of other people in the distant past. It shouldn’t surprise him, that Voldemort missed this – Snape’s love for Lily eclipsing his loyalty.

There is a beat of silence.

Harry questions for a second, whether he has made a terrible mistake, but the concern passes just as quickly as it had arisen.

“Well, he was an excellent asset and an exemplary Death Eater until I… split his loyalties... And, since that likely won’t happen, I don’t see a point in prematurely punishing him for it. I always quite enjoyed his spell-making and potion experimentation.”

Harry is shell shocked for but a moment.

Voldemort’s rationalizing his lack of vindictive rage is good.

The man still knows how to cast a brilliant deception. Harry would have taken these reasons at face value in a different life.

But now, he sees more, feels deeper, knows the man better.

Maybe he’d even believe it now, if he weren’t so tightly pressed against the man, who had deliberately relaxed the nervous tension in his body, prior to lying.

And so, the words, although they certainly contain facets of the truth are far from everything that motivated Voldemort.

Voldemort is still beneath him. Waiting to see if Harry falls for his words.

“Mellowing with age, Vee, I like it,” Harry doesn’t allow the revelation to choke him up and tries instead for cheek. The sentiment is punished by a vicious pinch in his side. Harry yelps, but the sound dissolves in a smile that he presses into Voldemort’s skin, partly to hide the fondness of it and partly because it’s his.

“Are you going to refrain from smothering me like a Python, now?” Vee asks a few breaths later.

Harry hums in response. “I like it here.”

Voldemort sighs his burden theatrically once more but then extricates one long limb against little resistance, and the hand falls onto Harry's exposed mid-back. “You’re infuriating,” The man says, quietly, resignedly.

And Harry is happy.

He must've let his shields down because he feels Voldemort’s surprise and marvel at the genuine nature of the sentiment. It makes Harry a little uncomfortable to reveal because he doesn’t like exposing his vulnerability any more than Voldemort likes exposing his, but at the same time, it’s a sentiment owed. It is true. He loves the man, and he has made him happy. And Voldemort should know that he can make Harry feel such. The man’s responding disbelieving awe is more than proof of that.

He nuzzles into the skin of the man’s chest and thinks, that maybe it all doesn't matter – what part of his affection is due to his being a Horcrux and what part isn’t, the wrongs that lie in the past, the hurt that he used to cause. It all doesn’t matter because he’s had years of experience alongside the man by now and those showed him more than anything that while the man is not good by any stretch of the imagination, he is trying to correct the pain he’s caused Harry as best he can. Years that have shown him the man’s character inside and out, and they all result in the fact that he does like Voldemort. And yes, his soul wants that too, but he himself, Harry Potter, does too.

Distantly Harry feels Voldemort’s hand, just a few fractions of a degree cooler than his torso, follow the slope of Harry’s spine. The movement isn’t purposeful, doesn’t follow the trail further down, when the hand is at height of the dimples just above Harry’s arse. Instead, the hand trails back up until it can briefly card in Harry’s hair, and then leaves that too, to trail back down again. Belatedly, Harry realizes that the man is petting him, almost carefully.

Then, there is a deliberate pushing of another mind against his, and flashes of memories. Many of them, in fact. Predominantly memories of the time they inhabited Tom Riddle’s grandparents.

It takes Harry a moment to divine what Voldemort wants him to understand but cannot put into words. He is showing him instances where Harry himself had shown compassion, acceptance, forgiveness. The memories are invariably tinged with Voldemort’s past dismissal of such behaviour as weak, exploitable.

But there is another layer to these memories now – Voldemort allowing such notions for himself, too. He’s trying them out, testing the waters, if you will.

Curiously, the attempt at these behaviours is motivated by jealousy and greed. By a wish for Harry to continuously extend these weaknesses towards him. To focus them all on him, to monopolize Harry’s susceptibility for them.

It’s a sentiment so quintessentially Voldemort, Harry can’t muster any indignation at Voldemort’s uncharacteristically heavy-handed manipulation, his almost juvenile instinct to hoard.

Many would contend that Voldemort trying to do good, motivated by the wrong reasons, didn’t suffice. In fact, Harry can quite clearly envision his friend Hermione berating him for his leniency. He hasn’t thought of her in such a long time, had at some point accepted that even if they returned, everything would be different. Their friendship, if it persisted in spite of the different circumstances Ron, Hermione and he would meet, would never again be shaped by the same experiences of fighting Voldemort.

Harry looks at him, really looks at him.

Oh. Oh.  Because–, and Harry’s breath catches in his throat at the realization, because Voldemort wouldn’t be the same anymore. Because Voldemort did this for him. The only way, Voldemort could bring himself to care for individuals besides himself, the only access Voldemort had to something resembling altruism, was Harry.

Because the man loved him.

“You’re a sap,” says Harry, but he knows the man isn’t the only one – there are, in fact, tears wetting Voldemort’s skin, where Harry buries his face.

The man chuckles, pleased, but Harry feels the honesty underneath it all. “And you’re an idiot of the grandest proportions,” says Voldemort blithely, though that doesn’t quite manage to cover the frustration the man had felt at Harry’s continued obliviousness. Wilful obliviousness at that.

Harry laughs a little wetly. And Voldemort’s long cool hand leaves the skin at Harry’s back to cradle his face, a thumb skirting over a cheekbone, gathering a trace of Harry’s tears and examines it, cautious. Wonderous.

Then, there is a brief flash of a thought, that had seeped through the connection, clearly unauthorized, Harry thinks, from the way Voldemort snatches it back, silences it viciously. Though Harry only caught the tail-end of the worry, it had been enough to understand the general gist.

He wipes the wetness on his face away, confused, now, pushes against the solid chest beneath him to look the man in his eyes. “You’re worried…” Voldemort’s hand falls away and Harry can feel a wave of the man’s unwillingness to discuss this, now.

Harry scrunches his nose, regardless, attempting to put the puzzle together from what little information he’d garnered. “You feel like you’re completely distinct from Riddle…” he says, unsure whether he understands.

Voldemort grimaces. He’s on the right track, then.

Harry cocks his head, thinks very deeply, feeling Voldemort tense below him. “And you’re worried that my– compassion is limited to Riddle?” he asks.

An utterly atypical look of self-consciousness crosses Voldemort’s expression. Maybe he’s hoping for Harry to back down, but Harry, of course, thinks of doing everything but that.

“You like his face,” Voldemort says finally.

Harry is taken aback but doesn’t deny the claim.

“So much so that you felt that way – compassionate – called him handsome, even when we were mortal enemies,” Voldemort presses.

“Well–,” Harry says, not fully understanding. “– He’s got a pretty face.”

Voldemort’s expression morphs into a scowl, before, “Well, it doesn’t matter. It’s my face once more,” he says, his hands finding the backs of Harry’s thighs possessively.

But Harry still doesn’t understand. “Tell me, Vee.”

Voldemort looks at the ceiling in an obvious attempt not to succumb to a plebian gesture such as rolling his eyes. “By Salazar, you are being deliberately obtuse... Isn’t it obvious?” he asks, when their eyes meet again.

Harry digs his thighs into the man’s flank. “Make it more so.”

“You’ve always shown great... compassion to the person wearing this face,” Voldemort starts, as if that served at all to make the issue more obvious.

Was it truly that, which he was worried about?

“As much as I liked the way you looked in your memories, I privately always thought you were pretty hot… Even, uh, snake-faced,” Harry says a little embarrassed, a little dubious.

He can tell Voldemort doesn’t quite believe him.

That can’t be it, can it? “If I like your looks now, it is because they represent your– humanity.” There is a beat of silence, then it comes to him.

Voldemort looks up at him, now. His expression is a little too open, not as guarded as it usually is.

“You know that my compassion for Tom Riddle always stemmed from my, uh–,” he squirms. Voldemort’s eyes are bright, ravenous. “– love for you, don’t you?” Harry puts his emotions into words.

There is momentary softness in the man’s face before it draws tight again. Voldemort scoffs.

“Surely in Borgin and Burke’s… in the beginning, when we–. You didn’t love me when I hunted you, tortured you,” the man states.

And that’s true. “No,” Harry agrees easily enough. He considers how he wants to say this. “I didn’t love you, then. Even before the war... my greatest fear was becoming like you. I always felt... maybe it was because of your soul inside me, but maybe not just that... I felt so alike you.”

The silence that ensues makes Harry reconsider how he can rephrase his ever-present source of compassion, in a manner that Voldemort would understand. Understands, that while he has compassion for all incarnations of Voldemort, he only feels this for the man beneath him, now. Because they’d been on this journey together, and they’d changed, together. That he doesn’t love or want Tom Riddle.

But maybe he doesn’t need to put it into words at all. Voldemort’s face smooths and softens. They share a soul, after all. The man’s large hands follow the contour of Harry’s exposed form up to his middle back and press softly. Harry lays back down, head pillowed on the man’s chest once more, straddling the man’s middle. Only a thin sheet separates them at hip height.

“There is a joke there, somewhere in the things you said – where I offer up more of me inside you,” says Voldemort, the man’s voice reverberating in his chest. “That offer always stands.”

Harry worries for his sanity that this is endearing to him. He cuddles close, content, for now, to be encased in the man’s warmth and scent. Unwilling to pursue what he can feel pressed against him from underneath that thin sheet.

Voldemort grins in that familiar roguish way, he knows, but instead of persuading Harry into something, Harry is positive won’t require much persuasion at all, the man tugs another sheet over Harry’s form.

“Vee?” he clears his throat awkwardly. “If I could, uh, choose between you and young Tom Riddle, I’d choose you, any day,” Voldemort tugs him closer, in wordless response.

Smug, triumphant satisfaction simmering quite palpably through their bond.

“As you well should,” Voldemort says haughtily. Then, softer, “You did quite a number on me, after all, binding me so thoroughly to you in any form you took throughout my past. The Tom Riddle, we’ll leave behind, will be sexually and emotionally very confused.”

Harry ignores that, it’s too difficult to think about, and seeks more of the warmth seeping through skin and mind, nuzzles closer. “You love me too, don’t you?” Harry wants to hear it. Feels gluttonous.

He can feel Voldemort discomfort in the silence between the synchronised resonance of their minds. “I don’t… detest being with you,” the older wizard allows.

The sentiment startles a laugh from Harry. He can hear the smile in his voice.

And Harry hides his answering smile. This is enough for now. He’ll have many more opportunities to ambush the man and achieve his goal.

“Though you could say, I’ve never felt that for any other individual.” It’s a quiet follow-up. One with less laughter, and more honesty.

“You have a gift of making the most mundane sentiments sound terribly romantic,” Harry quips, no longer bothering to hide his large smile.

“I shall try again then–,” Voldemort says evenly, “– both my unnatural obsession with you, when I was least myself and most insane, as well as my subsequent favouring of you in any time we met, points to the certainty that there is no version of me, in any time that can resist you. Frankly, so do, my willingness to indulge your misguided notions of kindness and my resistance to your harrowing obtuseness. Logic demands, I conclude that I do love you.”

Harry doesn’t know where to start. And so, he doesn’t even attempt to refute the claims.

“Why is it that I get saddled with an emotionally stunted, mean old bastard?” he laughs, aiming for levity, but instead is met with quiet.

“You did not get saddled with me, Harry…” There is an uncanny amount of reluctance pouring through the bond. This goes against Voldemort’s very grain. “I could… understand if it was too much, if you were too hurt to allow you to be with me… I’ve killed your parents and made it my mission to do the same to you, and when I failed, I made your youth as terrible as I could make it. I would understand… if it was not enough,”

Harry sits up, Voldemort’s sheets clutched to him.

Apparently, Voldemort has decided to set Harry up for an emotional rollercoaster today, because Harry is angry, now, and perhaps a little insulted. “You are a bloody idiot, Vee. What do you think I’ve been doing these past few months, huh? I love you. Even if I get nothing back in this future we create, as long as you’re there, it’s enough... You make me happy in other ways.”

The man beneath him looks up at him with wonder and disbelief, with want and coveting.

He moves to touch Voldemort’s brow, skirts to feel the strength of his forearms, the silkiness of his tresses, presses the pads of his fingers into the unnatural paleness of his skin that reveals the man’s immortality.

It’s maybe not perfect, nor morally clean-cut. But it’s theirs. Their version of happiness.

In the end, Voldemort does come through on his offer of ‘more of his, in Harry’. As they lie side by side in rumpled sheets, sweat cooling on their bodies, pressed close, Harry realizes with startling clarity, that if he joins Voldemort in falling asleep, they’ll wake up in the space in between. The mark on his shoulder tweaks. The shadows lengthen and he drifts off.

When they wake up, Harry notes, they are both mercifully dressed. The second thing, Harry notes, due to Vee’s eyes searching and finding it, is that his scar is still on his forehead. He is still a Horcrux.

Voldemort looks surprisingly dismayed.

And Harry feels–, not disappointment necessarily, but a wistfulness. And dread – at all the explaining they’ll have to do, for Death to let them go and to accept that this last Horcrux as a fixture in time and space.

As he thinks that, before he has time to assure Voldemort that it is okay, that he has long forgiven him, the shadows in the unending white draw to a single focal point and consolidate.

“You failed. There is still a Horcrux left,” the being snarls, this time, unmistakably furious.

Voldemort and Harry share a look.

Of course, they had speculated that Death took issue with Voldemort cheating ever being forced to come into its dominion, but now that they have confirmation–. Voldemort’s eyes flash in triumph.

The bond between them flares alive suddenly, brightly, consumingly, as Voldemort tears down his own barriers and eviscerates Harry’s flimsy ones.

And. It’s all there. With certainty.

The Peverell line that leads to both the Gaunts and the Potters; the Elder Wand resisting Voldemort the last time he’d fought Harry. Dumbledore no longer able to use it, ever since he and Harry had incarnated in their last life – a sharp discrepancy to Riddle’s reluctantly awed memories.

The two of them not leaving that last life behind, even as Voldemort had known of his emotional attachment for the boy long before Harry had acknowledged it in turn. Harry’s queer bouts of disinterest, every time he approached the topic of the Hallows, or the bizarre tattoo marring his shoulder.

Oh, it is all so obvious!

This is a sentiment Voldemort can empathize with, certainly.

Harry is the–.

“But that’s not all the chaos you wanted to undo, correct?” Harry hears. Voldemort’s voice is unclear, as though filtering through water.

The man’s assuredness is absolute, all-around Harry.

Voldemort pulls him further into his mind, shielding him from the far-away burst of disinterest that Harry recognizes as originating from his own mind.

“Not that I blame you, of course.” There is vindictive triumph, impudent condescension and a little bit of envy in Voldemort’s mind.

Harry feels another distant roaring attack on his own body, before it ebbs away, finally, and he is dragged back into his own conscious.

Harry feels like he’s breaking through the water surface, voices increasingly louder, his eyes watching from his own perspective once more, a feeling for his limbs returning.

“The Hallows were never meant to be united. Not by a human, much less someone who has bound himself to someone who violates the sanctity of the cycle,” Death spits. It’s terrifying.

Unlike Harry, Voldemort doesn’t cower at all, there is a manic, goading grin splitting his face and his eyes are all power. He looks alive. Which. That’s a pretty good look on him.

Voldemort looks back at him and the grin loses some of its madness, is softer now, his eyes crinkle at the sides.

Ah. He’s heard him.

‘Well, you were shouting your thoughts… And I may or may not have been a little overzealous when I pulled you in my head, love.’ The sentiment is enunciated loud and clear in Harry’s mind. It’s utterly fond.

Then, the man pulls back again, with some difficulty, and Harry is able to form his own thoughts once more.

“I’m the Master of Death,” Harry says quietly.

Death’s raging tirade breaks off abruptly and Voldemort looks at him with an encouraging smile.

“And–, I knew that… For quite some time, I think?” He looks at Death now, “You tempered with my mind!”

To Harry’s utter surprise, Death doesn’t even contest the accusation and instead grits its teeth and lowers its head in a not-quite deferential bow. “I am yours to command, Master.”

And suddenly, Harry knows this place with every fibre of his being. Knows he is in power, here. And knows, that Death can’t do anything against his wishes, maybe isn’t even able to do anything without Harry’s consent.

“So, what do my powers entail?” he asks and Voldemort’s grin widens. The man had always inveterately appreciated power.

“I’m pretty sure, you could summon the Elder Wand right out of Dumbledore’s undeserving hands,” Voldemort coaxes.

Harry raises an unimpressed eyebrow.

“That piece of wood would probably only be useful against you. And I have no desire to fight you.”

Voldemort inclines his head in acceptance.

“Death? Tell me! What are my powers?” Harry insists on an answer.

The hooded shadow straightens again, reluctance obvious. Harry can feel its every fibre! “As much or as little as you want, Master,” it says. “This is your dominion, obviously. You can control my actions… Though I’d advise you against stopping me in my work. The mortals would still die, their souls and their bodies ever separate, their shells never cease to disintegrate with time, but the former would stroll endlessly in the deserted wasteland between life and death. If I don’t come to collect them, they will never find peace.”

Harry shivers at the statement. He has little desire to interrupt the natural cycle of life in death.

“Okay. Good. Uh, I have no intention of keeping you from it,” he says, less suavely than the Master of Death maybe should. Voldemort certainly thinks so, if his expression is anything to judge by.

But he does have a few desires – like going back to their time, and finishing this game they have going on with Death.

“So, uh, I have a few demands though,” he says, “First, and arguably most important, is that you stop meddling with my mind!”

Death bows its head again, teeth almost audibly grinding. “Your wish is my command.” Harry notices that he can feel flares of its strongest emotions in that perpetually cold spot in his shoulder, where his tattoo sits, even when he doesn’t actively listen in.

“And, uh,” Harry turns a little helplessly towards Voldemort, whose eyes are on him already. Bright with intent. This is a lot of pressure on his shoulders. Harry feels incomparably unfit to bear the weight of his new role.

But Voldemort doesn’t push, just waits, though Harry already knows Voldemort’s wish on the matter. And the intensity with which the man feels it.

Maybe everyone should die eventually.

He could ensure Voldemort had an extended, utterly fulfilled lifetime with him.

Maybe it could be enough.

He turns back at Death, certain, now in his choice, “I’m making an executive decision, Death–.”

If Harry’s taught Voldemort compassion, he, in turn, has been taught that sometimes, it’s okay to say ‘fuck you’ to space and time and other powers that be, and to be a little selfish.

“– I think we’ve deserved this,” he says and stares a bristling Death right in his face as he voices his demand. Batters down the figure’s arguments, grabs hold of Voldemort’s solid hand and concentrates.

Chapter Text

Harry awakes in a strange house, ‘home’ his mind supplies, and with a second set of memories.

Vee had been right; the adjusting is uncomfortable.

He spends a good few minutes staring at the ceiling of his bedroom and sorting through memories, old and new, impressions of his parents, alive, loving, maybe a little overbearing, especially in comparison to the self-sufficiency he’d been forced to learn in his initial timeline.

He reviews his friendships, his bond with Sirius is uncannily tight – the man had divined more of the truth than his parents – with Ron, Hermione and him no longer the golden trio, but close.

There are new faces there, and concomitant feelings, he will have to adjust to, and a few losses that ache. The threads of these connections will never be the same, but it’s okay, he thinks as he sits up, he has time to make new ones.

The Harry he’s woken up into had apparently been peripherally aware of the occurrences of the past – Voldemort would have a field day theorizing on the implications – but circumstance had forged him a different path in spite of him trying to match it to what he had instinctively known was right, what should have happened. Harry finds he can’t fault his past self for it.

The scar on his forehead twinges, the bump raw and fresh, but the bond familiar. It’s dulled now, by distance. He wonders where he is, currently.

Harry will admit that it is discomfiting to wake up alone, in this foreign timeline, with a role and expectations to fulfil. He hasn’t yet decided to which extent he’s willing to fit himself into the life that had been begun by that other version of him.

He understands more fully now Voldemort’s insistence of being understood as separate from Tom Riddle.

Harry dresses quickly and quietly. It’s the weekend. His memories tell him that his parents expect him to sleep in. And it’s tempting to draw out having to face the world. His parents wouldn’t know he was awake, yet.

But he doesn’t. There is something insistent in his brain. Past Harry had been strangely nervously excited for this day. He doesn’t know what this day was supposed to be, though. The memory is currently still buried in a mess of muddled impressions he hasn’t sifted through, and his head hurts enough already.

He reluctantly steps down the steps to the kitchen and connected living room. His soundless stride falters. James is in the kitchen, preparing food that smells utterly delicious – brunch it seems like. His face is strangely pensive and Lily is seated, the Daily Prophet clutched in bloodless hands. Harry remains standing on the staircase for a moment, taking in the first real impression of his parents in his life.

His parents.

They both look a little older than Harry had ever seen them in second-hand memories.

Of course. His parents had died at the age of 21, in the initial timeline. Now they were alive. And breathing. And there for him.

He had a whole lifetime worth of memories to look back on of his parents having been there for him every step of the way. They weren’t renowned war heroes in this life, they were merely his parents.

Flawed individuals with thoughts and opinions and emotions–. He notices the tense silence in the room.

His memories confirm that this is not common.

Lily Potter turns a page of the paper she’s reading, and Harry sees a headline concerning the Minister of Magic, and a brief glance of a moving photograph below, camera lights flashing, obscuring the person it depicts.

Something itches at the back of Harry’s brain. He must’ve made a sound because he catches James’ attention. The man opens his mouth to say something, whether to wish him a good morning or to apologize – Harry isn’t certain why precisely he would expect an apology, he just knows he does – he will never know because right at that moment the doorbell rings. Lily flinches and James sighs, drawn out.

And suddenly, Harry remembers.

He stumbles over his feet twice, before he’s reached and wrenched open the door. In front of him stands Voldemort, pleasantly charming expression dropping, as he takes in Harry. And Harry–, Harry promptly shuts the door to his house, because he needs a second to drink in the sight of this man in privacy.

“Vee,” he breathes, dumbly, because either of them knows Voldemort’s identity, of course. The man’s expression softens slightly, warmth in the crinkling around his charcoal grey eyes.

Almost all the same signs of slight aging in the man’s face are present, as there had been in their past incarnation, giving the man the slightly ambiguous adult, not yet middle-aged, certainly not a teenager look that was typical of wizards of particularly strong magical prowess.

“Why is it that you have made yourself return to your seventeen-year-old self, even though I know you are a different age, yet I still look like this?” Voldemort asks, scowling.

Harry furrows his brow. Right. He probably could have changed Voldemort’s appearance. But his own? Would he eternally look the age he had when he united the Hallows? And, at Harry’s lack of answering, “Well this certainly doesn’t make this any easier…” Voldemort sighs. He plasters his practised look of veritable charm back onto his face, a mere second before Harry hears the door being opened.

“Oh, thank god,” Lily looks relieved.

What had she been expecting to be interrupting? Harry flushes as one very notable memory comes rushing in.

“Uh, Harry dear, Mister Riddle,” His mother looks distinctly uncomfortable. That’s the moment, Harry notices the slightly oversized bouquet of flowers in Voldemort’s hand.

“This is for you Mrs. Potter, I wasn’t sure which kind of flowers you liked…” Harry observes Voldemort oozing sleek charm out of every pore. The statement is a blatant lie, of course. Voldemort had known precisely that Lily Potter loved tulips and preferred more green, than colour in her bouquets.

Lily takes the flowers, somewhat pink-faced at Voldemort’s beautiful, if slightly insincere smile, leaves for the inside of the house to put them in a vase.

Voldemort shoots Harry a bemused look. “It’s not okay to flirt with my mum,” Harry says, dead serious.

“You’re cute,” Voldemort drawls, his insouciance marred by a slight quirking around his lips. His large hand finds the place where Harry’s neck meets his shoulder. The warmth of the touch is grounding. “Usually, guests are invited inside for brunch, rather than having it on the porch in front of a house… While defying expectations usually works in your favour, Harry, I can’t say I approve in this instance.”

Harry rolls his eyes and steps aside to allow Voldemort to step in first, suddenly nervous, now. His father is in the process of setting a few final dishes onto the already packed table, looking somewhat harried.

Well. Harry supposes Minister Riddle kind of is his father’s boss. Lily is wringing her hands near the counter and shooting the man looks that convey both her apprehension and displeasure. Voldemort bears both with effortless grace.

Lily’s lips thin as she observes how Harry gravitates towards the man as they make rather unnecessary introductions.

‘Maybe we did have children too young, James,’ she had bemoaned yesterday. Harry remembers, unsure whether he truly wants to, now.

James pales first, then goes bright red, when he sees Voldemort’s possessive hand on Harry’s lower back, too low for propriety.

‘Do you remember that kid that always hung around him back then? What if…’ Harry had overheard him speculating with Sirius and Remus on ideas he simply couldn’t share with his wife; neither being able to acknowledge the distinct possibility that the most unlikely theory was probably the truth – a truth that had become undeniable ever since Harry had grown into himself, and Voldemort’s concomitant interest had become obvious.

“So,” begins Lily after a few minutes of somewhat tense silence by the three Potters, while Voldemort does an impeccable job at pretending the awkward atmosphere does not exist.

“Your looks didn’t change at all from the time you were a professor, Riddle,” she says, her dismayed expression shouting out the fact that she had wanted to say something entirely different.

Harry’s father’s eyes are wide as he glances between Riddle’s placid expression and his wife, aghast. “What Lily meant to say, Minister Riddle, is that… you’re quite a bit older than our son,” he finishes meekly.

Lily’s shoulders roll back as her spine straightens. Her eyes turn frighteningly flinty. “No, dear. That’s not what I wanted to say at all,” her lips press against one another, bloodless. “Though that is quite the issue, too.” Harry takes a rather large bite of his marmalade covered Croissant and Riddle takes an unconcerned sip of his tea.

What is Voldemort supposed to say? Harry wonders. Do they want him to admit that he dabbles in the Dark Arts? Half of wizarding Britain was convinced of that particular truth already, anyway, and well… the age thing is rather irrefutable.

It’s a mere press of their minds against one another, just a quick exchange of ideas, an assurance they are both okay with it.

“Well–” James sits up, too now, a serious expression on his face. “The truth is, we have some–”

“Many!”

“–many concerns. And while we have absolutely no issue with Harry liking boys –,” He looks at Harry meaningfully.

“– We do want to know why you are dating our barely-of-age son!” Lily finishes.

“Oh!” says Voldemort softly. He sets down his cup unto his saucer. Convincingly earnest faux-surprise in his features. Long legs folded over one another, the picture of absolute ease. “Dating?” the older wizard asks.

Harry grins at the man cheekily, enjoying how his eyes crinkle ever so slightly in response. “Vee’s courting me,” Harry places one hand over the other and reveals the rather large ring adorning his ring finger that is the third Hallow-turned-Gaunt-heirloom.

The room around them explodes.