Chapter Text
There are four beds in the Room of Requirement, but usually not all four are occupied. Tonight – this early morning – all four of them are piled into Harry’s bed, listening silently as he recounts the dream, and then, hesitantly, the other dream.
He explains what he is.
The air grows colder as he does, but none of his friends are looking at him any differently.
Harry is struck by immense love, then, for his friends. For Neville, who has been as loyal as Ron and Hermione, if not more, and threw his lot in with Harry sooner than Harry knew.
“Okay,” says Hermione, when Harry is at the end of his explanation, and Ron looks drawn, and Neville looks exhausted. “So – what do we do?”
“About which part?” says Harry. He’s missing the dream space already. “The – the Ministry?”
“No,” Hermione frowns, “we’re obviously breaking in. The – the guardian part.”
“I’m gonna say it,” Ron says. He no longer looks drawn. In the faint shaft of moonlight wafting through the window, he looks ashen. “I’m not killing Harry just to kill Voldemort.”
Hermione gasps. “Of course we’re not! Are you mad?”
“I’m just saying!” Ron exclaims. “If – if we gotta kill Harry to get rid of Voldemort, that’s not – that’s not an option! There’s gotta be another option!”
Neville shakes his head. “If there’s a prophecy,” he says, “I want to hear it first.” He smiles, shakily, at them. “I mean – of course Harry isn’t gonna die, that isn’t – that’s not… yeah. But we should hear the prophecy before we start making plans.”
Harry rubs his face. Hermione makes a soft noise, brushing hair behind his shoulder; her fingers linger at his neck, gentle, and Harry leans into her touch and does not wish it was Voldemort’s, not at all. “So we gotta break into the Ministry.”
“Yes,” says Hermione. “It can’t be that hard.”
*
It isn’t.
*
They just – need a little help.
*
Voldemort meets Harry on the streets outside. They’re both in disguise, of course – Harry wears long flowing robes of silver Voldemort had instructed him to pick up within Hogwarts’ walls; how they got there, Harry does not ask – and Voldemort wears a fine, muggle suit. He looks just like himself, to Harry, but judging by the severe lack of screams or cries of terror, he must be wearing some form of glamour.
It is the first time Harry meets him in person without feeling like he ought to strangle himself with pure magic before he can come too close.
“Harry,” Voldemort greets. “Our deal?”
Maybe parseltongue is more difficult to conceal than something visual. Harry buries the pang of loss as deep as he can, swallows, and nods.
From within a pocket, he draws the prophecy. It feels aglow in his palm. It feels so incredibly right.
Heart in his throat, he rasps, “I – I heard it already.”
He hadn’t meant to, it just played right away when he placed his hand upon it; he isn’t sure if he should apologize or not.
Voldemort, who had been about to take the orb – swirling silver tendrils coil about one another within the depths – stops. Red eyes meet Harry’s. There is no white-hot rod poking in his brain now, not like when Snape tries to read his mind, but Harry knows well the gentle touch of Voldemort’s consciousness brushing against his.
“And what does it say?”
Harry lets his eyes drift half-shut. He recites, dutifully, the entirety of the prophecy he had heard: “the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches, born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies – and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not – and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives. The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies.”
The words fill him with some deep sense of something. He’s been too dizzy to think about it for too long, but he thinks it might be a good thing, he’s not sure. He’ll have to ask Hermione. Or Lavender.
There is silence, for a while.
Then Voldemort begins to laugh.
It is not a humorous laugh. Harry shudders, swaying forward, something within wanting out –
“This?” Voldemort says quietly, eyes hard as he takes Harry in. “This is what I risked my empire for? An unfulfilled fairytale?”
Harry speaks from the place where they touch. “Holds it no merit?”
Voldemort leans forward to take Harry’s face in his hands. “It holds merit and more, my dear, worry not. However.” He smiles. It is not a kind smile, and it stretches too far, over too sharp teeth. “It does not say that you will defeat the Dark Lord – only that you have the power to – which I could already have told you, considering the knowledge you safekeep. And you…” Voldemort’s thumbs dig into Harry’s cheeks, fingers splaying out over his cheekbones like bird wings. “…would not do that, would you?”
It isn’t actually a question, of course. Harry thinks it’s awfully forward of him – he’s made no decisions yet, beyond those deepest in his heart – but he realises, face to face with him like this, that – well – maybe – just maybe –
“I’ll let you think that,” he says, the only pushback he can muster.
Voldemort’s smile twitches. Then he laughs again, quiet and dark. “I like your feistiness. You would not be Harry Potter –” He changes his grip on Harry, prodding at his lips until Harry obediently opens his mouth; he thumbs at his canines, stroking spit-slick bone with skin so pale it’s almost blue. “– if there was not venom to your bite.”
Harry considers it.
Then he snaps his jaws.
Voldemort jerks, eyes flashing – power gathers around them, for a moment, heady and intoxicating, before it evaporates and Voldemort chuckles, letting go and stepping back. It is a loss Harry should not feel quite so keenly. “Yes. Just so.” A pause as he lets his gaze touch all the places Harry would not want anyone else to touch. “You have done well. Exceedingly well.”
Harry has not served Voldemort, not today. The prophecy was to serve himself – to make plans – to go against everyone wanting to use him, to try and figure out his own place in this fucked up magical world, to –
“Yes,” says Voldemort, eyes gleaming with something that would on any other be called bloodlust, but on him reads more like humour. “You may continue to believe that. I trust you will not tell anyone uninitiated of this excursion?”
Harry opens his mouth to assure him – and hesitates.
Voldemort arches a hairless brow.
“Not willingly,” Harry allows. “But – the Occlumency lessons –”
“Severus,” says Voldemort flatly. “Mh. Yes. I shall correct that.”
“You – shall?”
“I shall handle it. And,” he says, drawing his wand. Harry only flinches a little. “Hold still, my dear.”
Ice washes over him, then prickling, comforting warmth. It reminds him of stepping into the common room after a long autumn game of Quidditch, or being let into his cupboard after being locked out overnight in December.
“Look at me.”
Uncertainly, Harry lifts his gaze.
Voldemort is – overwhelming, attempting to legilimise him, like he’s pressing a dozen cold hands against sensitive, mental walls that previously had not been there – walls he cannot even feel, unless Voldemort touches them.
It is. Intimate.
“Excellent,” Voldemort hisses quietly, before stepping back. “You are – impenetrable. Your secrets remain safe, now.”
“What if he asks?”
The Dark Lord’s smile grows cold. “He shall not.”
*
The Room is considerably darker, when Harry gathers with his –
Friends. Part of him had thought of the word court, for a moment, but that isn’t right at all, and it comes from the place that echoes with Dark arts and cruelty and earth and rot and buried bones, so he knows whose thought it truly was.
He gathers with his friends to tell them what he’s learned. He recites the prophecy dutifully. Hermione writes it down, and Ron spells it into the air so they may squint at it from – literal – different angles, and Neville suggests a dictionary, which Hermione brilliantly procures.
Dobby pops up, at one point, with hot chocolate – “Dobby,” says Hermione gently, “could you tell me what this is laced with, please? Harry is on potions that interact poorly with Firewhiskey, you see.” – “Oh, not to worries, miss, Dobby knows! It’s only chocolate liqueur, miss.” – and biscuits from the kitchens.
They all shut up when he does, of course, which Dobby wrinkles his nose at after a moment. “Dobby be’s loyal to his friend the great wix Harry Potter. Dobby be’s a free elf. Dumbley’s door does not commands him.”
It’s a relief Harry didn’t know he needed.
“Does Dumbledore know, do you reckon?” says Neville, twirling his father’s wand carefully. Harry eyes it, wondering if Neville would forgive him if he broke it, so he could get a better fit.
“Yeah,” says Harry. “Yeah, the… the prophecy was – the label read S.P.T, that’s Trelawney, to A.P.W.B.D. Albus –”
In a chorus, they all tiredly finish, “Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore.”
Ron drops back into the couch with a groaned, “fuuuck.”
Hermione doesn’t chastise him. She looks righter like she agrees, in fact.
“So Dumbledore knows,” says Harry darkly. “And – he never told me. I don’t even know what he thinks it all means – Voldemort seems to think he can just ignore it. That it’s not actually a problem because it doesn’t say I will vanquish him, just that I have the power to.”
Silence, for a moment.
Tentatively, Ron says, “I think we should ask Lavender.”
It’s Hermione’s turn to groan, now.
*
Ron asks Lavender in the library, under a mild silencing charm, spinning the tale of a book he’d read when he was little, which confused him greatly, because of the contradictory nature.
“Oh, but it’s all in the wording, see?” says Lavender eagerly. “You said it was neither can live while the other survives? Well – to a prophecy, living and surviving isn’t the same thing! What’s the lines around it? Prophecies should always be read in their context, see?”
“Either must die at the hand of the other, for neither can live while the other survives,” Ron dutifully recites. He’s squinted at these words so much, by now, with such a heavy heart, that he’ll remember it to the day he dies.
Lavender leans back, pondering those words with half-lidded, fluttering eyes. “Did you finish the book?” she says. “I don’t want to spoil it for you.”
“Oh, that – er, that doesn’t matter,” says Ron. “Just, er. Just tell me, please.”
Lavender nods. “In that case, they’re probably both immortal! It sounds like they can’t die at anyone’s hand but the other’s, and living without the other is only a half-life, oh, how romantic! Would you let me know if you remember the book, Ron, please? I’d like to give it a read.”
“Sure,” says Ron meekly. “You really think it means – that?”
“Yes – of course, it could also mean either of them is destined to die, one day, at the hand of the other, but that still means they can’t die by any other means, which –” She swoons, a little, hand pressed to her forehead. “Still, so romantic, Ron!”
“Right,” says Ron, “yeah, I – guess it was a love story, I don’t – really remember.”
“Oh, that’s okay, you were probably too young to be reading it anyway,” says Lavender, and giggles. “How’s Harry doing, by the way?”
Ron feels – a little sick. To be honest. But he still manages to say, “oh, he’s – fine. Loved the skirt.”
*
Harry lies face-down in his bed in the Room.
Ron sits on one side of him; Hermione the other. Neville is tending to the plants that he’s placed in the various windowsills, but he’s glancing over, every now and then.
“Harry?” says Hermione quietly. She’s carding through his hair. He looks small, in the bed. Small, and little, and tired.
He shakes his head.
“Harry, we just –”
His magic bucks, violently, without actually doing anything other than ruffle her hair.
Hermione shuts up.
*
Hermione doesn’t hold Harry’s hand while they’re out in the halls, but she wants to.
She wants to say she knew where this was all going, from day one, but that would be a lie. She’s not sure when she realised what was going to happen, but it hasn’t been long. At the same time, it feels inevitable – like she’s waiting, silently and with bated breath, same as Ron and Neville, for Harry to realise, too.
Watching the way he folds in on himself, the way he hisses in his sleep, the edge to his words and the draw to his eyes, it can’t be much longer.
They’re hurrying along between two classes – Charms and Potions; Professor Snape never talks to Harry anymore, and Hermione thinks she might know why – when it happens.
It’s just a whisper. She barely hears it. Someone they pass – she doesn’t know who – says, “watch out, there’s the freak.”
Harry stops, the heels of his shoes clicking with finality against the stone floor. Hermione stops, too, as does Ron and Neville. Ron glares at the person who’d spoken.
Hermione stares at Harry.
He is expressionless. Detached.
Every window in the hallway explodes in a rain of glass. People duck and shriek – judging by the distance of the screams, it isn’t just this hallway that’s been affected – but Hermione remains still, watching Harry with nothing short of despair.
The glass settles like fine powder in her hair.
Harry inhales shakily. He drags his gaze to her, in fits and bursts, as though it’s taking all he has.
Meekly, he says, “I’m going back to bed.”
He turns around and leaves.
*
Neither Ron, nor Hermione nor Neville, make it to Potions class. They’re already unpopular. They can handle detention and loss of house points.
But Harry should not be alone.
He isn’t alone, it turns out. He’s curled up in the Room with all the curtains drawn, yes, but he’s conjured – or maybe his magic has conjured – a little snake, a common adder, Hermione thinks, that lies curled up with him on the bed.
She thinks she can see flashes of Dobby’s eyes, glowing in the shadows, every now and again. He doesn’t make his presence known, otherwise.
Harry lifts the little adder so it can lie on his pillow when Hermione, Ron and Neville settle on his bedside.
“Do you want something to drink?” says Hermione.
“Or distractions?” Neville offers.
Harry makes a quiet sound. It sounds like the glass did, in the split second before it gave in to Harry’s hurt. “What’s the point?”
“…what?”
“What’s the point?” Harry shoves his head further into his arms. “If I’m the only one who can defeat Voldemort – if he’s the only one who – if I’m the only one, but I guard his soul, then – why –” He draws a breath that rattles with unshed tears. “Why. Should. I?”
Ron looks at Hermione. They’d agreed, beforehand, that she would be the best for this.
“There’s a lot of people Voldemort want dead,” she tentatively begins. “Someone has to fight for them.”
Harry makes a miserable sound. “They wouldn’t fight for me. Aren’t fighting for me.”
Neville – keeping his voice gentle, free of judgement – says, “would you condemn the innocent for the sins of the many?”
It’s so very unlike Neville; Harry looks up, blinking. “I – I guess. I just – I don’t – I don’t want to fight. Anymore. I don’t want muggles and muggleborn to die. But – but if I fight, I die. I – I really don’t think we can get the soul-bit outta me without –”
His expression twists.
Hermione knew this was coming, she can admit that. But it hurts. “Where’s the Harry who went to face a basilisk for a girl he barely knew?”
“He died,” says Harry flatly. “He died over the summer, Hermione. I don’t – I don’t want to die. I want to live. And it’s – looking more and more like –”
He falls quiet.
Ron takes Hermione’s hand, squeezing. They’ve talked about this, of course, and at great length.
Harry clears his throat and sits up, looking between them. “I won’t fight for people who won’t fight for me,” he announces, with startling clarity. “Maybe I can – convince Voldemort to – to not be so brutal in – in how he does things, I don’t know, but – but I don’t think I can do anything against him, now.”
(Hermione doesn’t know this, but Harry is ready to show them his scars, the silvery ropes that crawl across his back, from Vernon’s fury and Dudley’s fear)
(Harry doesn’t know this, but Ron already knows them well, and Hermione has seen them in flashes, while washing his hair, and Neville – well, Neville recognizes bits of himself in bits of Harry, and has never needed more than that.)
“Okay, Harry.”
Harry – blinks. “What?”
“Okay,” says Hermione. She reaches out, takes his hand, forming a link from him through her to Ron, to Neville, who’s shoulder is pressed to Ron’s. “What do you want to do, then?”
Harry stares. “…real – really? Just like that?” He looks between them, perplexed. “What if I say I want to be a Death Eater? I don’t! But – if I said that?”
“Then I guess we’d be taking the Dark Mark,” says Neville, as though it means nothing, just discussing the weather, as though it hasn’t been a point of marked, repeated discussion in hushed tones and shadowed corners for the three of them.
“But,” says Harry. “But – your parents?”
“Yeah, well.” Neville looks away, plucking at the bedsheets. “If – if you’re the only one who can – you know – defeat him, and – and you aren’t doing that – then.” He shrugs, dejectedly. “I’m more use to my parents alive. Than – than if not.” He draws a deep breath, fixing Harry with a hard look that makes Hermione almost wince. Harry, though, seems strangely relieved. “I don’t like it. But I will follow you. No hard feelings.”
“We don’t want to die, either,” says Ron, smiling tiredly.
There is quiet, for a while.
Then Harry says, “I guess I’ll – I guess I’ll talk to Voldemort, then.”
*
(Harry is – confused.)
(but fate is as fate does: inevitable.)
*
“What would happen if I joined you?”
Voldemort chuckles. “You already have.”
“Sure,” says Harry. He’s wearing the robes from the Ministry – the ones of silver and starlight that felt divine upon the skin – though the details of the seams are blurring, a little. “But – officially? Publicly?”
A long silence. Voldemort does not react outwardly, but Harry feels the way his emotions curl and pulse and stretch like a writhing eel. “Well,” says Voldemort at last, “the war would cease before it could ever truly begin.”
“What would that mean?”
“Safety for wixenkind.”
“What part of wixenkind?”
Voldemort eyes him. “All.”
Harry has, technically, already made his decision, so – he’ll talk about this in depth later. Later, with Hermione, his anchor, and Ron, his strategist, and Neville, his moral compass. His – not court – friends.
“What about me?”
Voldemort toys with his hair. “Whatever do you mean?”
“What would happen to me?”
At that, Voldemort pushes him away, eyeing him carefully. It is an overlong silence he embarks upon, but Harry lets him think. He has time. “You would be safe,” says Voldemort, at last. “You would have safety.”
Harry exhales slowly. It’s the most important thing, after all. “And – anything – is there anything else?”
“Whatever you desire,” Voldemort declares. “You could leave Hogwarts today, if you wish, to never return. I would get you tutors in whatever subject you want, or you would never have to learn a thing again, if you prefer.”
Jesus. He hadn’t even considered that. “I’m… on some potions, that –”
“You would of course continue them, unless there are other alternatives that would work better,” says Voldemort, dismissing it with a flick of his wrist. “All you need is to whisper, and I shall have it done – procedures too Dark for those cowards at Saint Mungo’s to complete.”
Harry hesitates. “…such as?”
“Runic inscriptions on your very bones to permanently alter structures and distributions and genetic makeup,” Voldemort says at once, “and transfiguration rituals to permanently adjust body parts, above and below, to whatever you desire.” He takes Harry’s chin, tipping his head back. “Permanently altering the coding of your being so this,” – he strokes the fine dusting of hair on Harry’s upper lip – “naturally grows in silver.” A finger, touching Harry’s throat. “I would personally transfigure your vocal chords to the pitch you would like. Daily, if so required, to follow your whims and wants.”
“Stop,” Harry whispers, and Voldemort does, at once, red eyes flicking to Harry’s. He swallows, and blinks away tears, and swallows again. “I – I get it. I –”
Want that.
He pauses, wetting his lips. “What about my –”
“Court?” says Voldemort, amused. “You may reject the title as much as you want, my dear, but it remains the truth. They would have to swear an oath, of course. But they are welcome.”
“All of them?”
Voldemort arches a brow. It’s dusted with scales, Harry thinks. He would reach out and touch, if he was not on his knees. “You truly do not know my policies, do you? I care of power. Loyalty. Strength.” He tips Harry’s head into his hand. Harry lets him, heart racing. “Yes. Your loyal, powerful friends are welcome. They are –”
He doesn’t say it, but Harry feels the word, nonetheless. Impressionable.
Harry doesn’t say anything, either. With the walls Voldemort has built around his thoughts, he isn’t sure it escapes.
So are you.
At least, they seem to think so.
*
“He says you can come.”
“What?”
“You can come,” says Harry. “You’ll take an oath, but – you can come. And you’ll be safe.”
“That’s more than anyone here can offer us,” Ron mutters. “I’ll take it.”
Maybe they can topple the empire from the inside, one day.
Maybe.
*
Harry’s escape is quiet. He shouldn’t be able to get out of the castle, but with the Portkey that has mysteriously found its way to him and his Invisibility Cloak, he is. He says bye to his friends first, of course – Hermione hugs him, long and hard, and Ron follows after. Neville hugs him, too, but not quite as long, and mutters reminders about when to take his potions that Harry already has memorized by heart.
They’ll come along with more finality at a later time. For now, they’ll act as unofficial spies to the inner workings of the castle while Harry gets a lay of Voldemort’s land.
“Owl me tomorrow morning, okay?” says Hermione, wiping tears from her eyes. “As soon as you can. But remember –”
“The mail is being watched, I know,” says Harry, rolling his eyes. “I’ll write all of you. And I’ll be careful.”
Ron nods tightly. “The moment he does anything weird –”
Harry hasn’t told them about the way Voldemort’s gaze sometimes has lingered, in their shared dreams. He hasn’t told them about the way he sometimes wants him to do more. “I run. I know.”
Voldemort might already know about the portkey Hermione has painstakingly made for him, from his little silver earring. If he does, Harry doesn’t think he’ll take it from him – a thought he has not voiced to his friends, because they don’t trust the Dark Lord like Harry does.
Harry understands. He isn’t always sure he trusts the Dark Lord like he does, either.
“Good luck,” says Neville. He smiles, with more confidence and brewing anger and buried strength than he’s ever had before. “We’ll hold the fort while you’re gone.”
Harry nods, tucking hair behind his ear. The portkey gleams. There are matching ones, in Ron’s and Hermione’s ear. Neville doesn’t have one yet, but he’ll take one, when he can visit Grimmauld’s with Ron or Hermione.
He stands there, at the entrance of the Room, watching his stoic friends.
Abruptly, his throat closes up, and he swallows. “Are – am I – making the right decision, here?”
He’ll still go, he thinks, if they say no. But it’ll hurt.
His friends share glances.
“Harry Potter be’s doing right thing for Harry Potter,” says Dobby brusquely, and all four wixen jump. “Harry Potter be’s Dobby’s friend, but Harry Potter also be’s stupid, wix.”
Harry laughs, a little wetly. “Thanks, Dobby. That helps.”
He steps back. And then another step back.
And then out the door, closing it – pulling up the hood of the Cloak so he’s all but gone to the world. It’s past curfew, after all; it wouldn’t do good to be seen.
He makes it to the Chamber, hissing quietly to open the sinks. It is the wisest place for such things, Voldemort had assured; it was beyond the current Hogwarts wards, but cloaked with the heavy magical signature of Hogwarts itself so the Ministry would not pick up on a burst of unauthorized portkey-magic.
The rotting corpse of a basilisk greets him. Harry watches it, an odd sensation of disfigured reverie overcoming him. Perhaps it could have been a friend, in another life.
He doesn’t go near it, now.
Instead he looks at his watch – a fine thing with a silver frame and a soft band that Harry isn’t entirely convinced isn’t unicorn leather – and counts down the minutes, then seconds.
He closes his eyes as the portkey digs its hook behind his navel, and pulls.
*
Harry steps into Voldemort’s waiting arms. There is a promise on the air.
As Harry lets himself soften against the Dark Lord’s chest, he drifts into that space from the dreams, where he knows he will not be hurt. Quietly – though there is none here to hear – he hisses, “thank you.”
Voldemort laughs. High, and cold, and comforting. “Nothing but the best,” he murmurs, stroking gentle hands down Harry’s carefully combed hair, “for my Horcrux.”
(and that, Harry thinks –)
(well, that might just be okay.)