Chapter Text
Draco quelled the tremors that shook his hands by sheer force of will. He was accompanying his father to a Death Eater meeting, his very first one this summer, and he was not going to be an embarrassment to the Malfoy name. He simply could not.
They arrived into a sparsely decorated room. The only furniture was a cloak rack and several floor lamps that looked like carved snakes with glowing crystals clutched in their mouths. It was simultaneously very cool and very creepy.
He kept close to his father as they navigated through the strange manor. The aesthetic was unusual to him, plenty of dark wood and paneling, not a lot of stone. It looked like one of the rooms they passed was almost as bare as the one they just left, while another had been stuffed full of plush couches. He didn’t know who was responsible for the decor, but undoubtedly the Dark Lord had a hand in it.
Almost every room and every angle had at least one snake in it. The rug they walked on had snakes, there were statues on the occasional side table, most of the lighting had some sort of snake. It was very Slytherin—which really didn’t surprise him, considering the Dark Lord was the Heir of Slytherin.
Did that make him Lord Slytherin? Or Lord of the Slytherins? Of course, he was the Dark Lord so obviously he was lord of them all but still—
“Draco,” Father spoke in a sharp undertone. Draco halted sharply and rocked back on his heel. He had almost walked past his father into the room! That would’ve been a mistake.
He hurriedly moved back behind him and waited for his father to go in first. They were not the last to arrive, nor were they the first, but that didn’t matter much as the seating was pre-arranged by rank. Father had lost some favor with the mishandling of some artifact of the Dark Lord’s but that hadn’t regulated him to the bottom, only the lowest end of the upper ranking.
Draco sat to his right, eager and anxious at the same time. Severus sat across from them, perhaps one seat closer. Why he wasn’t even closer worried Draco. Was Severus also not favored for some reason?
“Lucius,” Severus greeted softly. His dark eyes flicked to Draco, utterly unreadable, “Draco.”
“Severus,” Father returned.
“Uncle,” Draco replied. He offered a slight smile but it didn’t seem to help. Severus’s gaze darkened and he looked away. Was he not happy to see Draco? Why not? Wasn’t it wonderful to be in service to the Dark Lord?
Nothing much else was said besides greetings. It didn’t seem like the kind of place to make idle chit-chat, really. Draco spent most of his time staring up at the chandelier and trying to count how many snakes were on it.
He got up to twenty-two before the doors opened and the Dark Lord entered the room.
All of the Death Eaters rose at once, Draco only a second behind them, and they all bowed as the Dark Lord came to a stop at the head of the table. He was just as monstrous as Draco remembered seeing on the platform, flat-faced and pale, with red eyes and a bald head. Utterly terrifying.
Draco had had nightmares of looking in the mirror and looking the same way for nights after seeing him for the first time. It was terrible.
He was sure the nightmares would be back, now.
The Dark Lord waved his hand and graciously bade them sit. He also sank down to his chair—three snakes there that Draco could see—and looked over them all.
His blood red eyes moved slowly from face to face. Draco held his chin up and his eyes slightly downcast when it was his turn—Father had told him it was best to be strong but submissive and that it could be a difficult balance to reach. He relaxed a little when the Dark Lord moved onwards, feeling proud of himself for not freaking out at all.
“Welcome, one and all, my dearest friends,” the Dark Lord murmured. His voice was soft, but carried. It was also higher pitched than Draco remembered, making him startle slightly. “It is so good to see you all, to welcome you to my home.”
There was a pause, anticipatory in nature, but silent. Draco squirmed, biting his tongue so he didn’t automatically reply to the unspoken invitation. It was quite a lovely home, though a little heavy handed with the snake decor.
“I’m sure you have all been making use of your time while I was away,” the Dark Lord said, “I would hate to think that you have been wasting these precious summer hours on frivolity.”
Another long pause. Draco felt good about keeping quiet this time as well. He had not been frivolous this summer—at least not entirely. He had nearly totally completed his summer homework and had even gone above and beyond with his potions work. He would have preened, but Father had warned him not to do that either so he kept still.
“I have been most productive myself,” the Dark Lord continued with a gesture. Parchment sprang into existence on the table, “I have met with the ruling lords and ladies of our European cousins and extended a hand of mutual benefits to each one according to their needs. It is somewhat surprising how wary they are of British-born magicals…We have not done ourselves any favors in the eyes of the wider world with our… erratic behavior.”
There was another charged pause. Draco noticed his father squeezed his hand briefly into a fist beneath the tabletop. He wondered who it was that had been so erratic? His aunt, perhaps? Aunt Bella did seem particularly spacy—but even now she kept her mouth shut and was rapturously following along to every word. The summer had been good for her as well—Mother had sent her off to some Caribbean Healing Retreat with her husband and brother-in-law. They had all come back with rosy complexions and slightly more sane minds. Or at least better impulse control.
“There is much to repair, both internally and abroad,” the Dark Lord said. “We shall endeavor to address both simultaneously, but our primary focus will be with what we can do here, on our own soil.” His attention focused on the man two seats to his own left, “Corbin, your report first?”
Now that the Dark Lord’s introduction was done, Draco felt more comfortable to sit back and listen. He wasn’t here to contribute, after all, just to listen and learn. One day he would sit at this table with his Lord’s mark on his arm and do his duty as one of the Inner Circle.
It was perhaps two tedious hours later that something exciting happened—and Draco didn’t mean the Dark Lord flinging any sort of spell. The set of doors at the back end of the room, the same ones that the Dark Lord had gone through earlier, flung open with a loud clatter and a shout. “V!”
The whole table bristled into action, aside from Draco, who merely startled and looked over with wild curiosity. Who would dare burst into a private meeting and shout like that?
Harry Potter. That’s who.
While the contingent of Death Eaters were ready to attack, wands in hands, the Dark Lord put up a hand and ordered them back down. He gave Aunt Bella a particularly sharp look, which cowed her enough to shrink back into her seat.
Potter, of course, had no self-preservation instincts and came sauntering into the room. He looked rather good, Draco thought with some dismay. He had gotten a tan from somewhere, his hair was a wild but fetching mess, his cheeks were windswept red and he had on quidditch leathers that clung snugly to his legs. The oiled Firebolt on his shoulders and leather gloves he wore completed the look.
Draco, never one to support the Gryffindor team no matter what, had to admit that the gold and red did look rather nice on him. Somehow, Potter had become attractive. Draco thought he just might die at the realization.
Potter’s lack of decorum was stunning. Not only did he interrupt them and stride over to the Dark Lord without invitation but he put his broom on the table, on top of some of the parchments that held the Dark Lord’s notes, and then sat on the arm of the Dark Lord’s impressive throne. “Sorry to interrupt your meeting,” Potter said without any hint of true apology, “I just wanted to see you.”
The Dark Lord seemed touched by this sentiment. He gave an amused look and said, “Well here I am, dear brat. Have you come to participate in our work?”
Potter wrinkled his nose, but still asked, “What are you talking about right now?”
“We are discussing the merits of Azkaban,” the Dark Lord said, “And what we must do to deal with the dementors.”
“Deal with them?” Potter repeated, “Like what, how to get rid of them?”
“One thought to parlay with them first,” the Dark Lord said, “But would you have us take another route?”
“I mean, I’m pretty biased because I hate dementors, but surely we don’t need them, do we?”
“What would we do with Azkaban, if we do not have the dementors to monitor it?”
Potter made an even more disgusted face at this. “Ugh. I guess.”
Draco noticed then that the Dark Lord’s hand had settled on Potter’s leg. It wasn’t indecently high, but it was there. The Dark Lord was casually touching another person without hurting them. Merlin, they really did like each other, didn’t they?
“Do you not approve of Azkaban, my dear?” the Dark Lord asked.
“Do I not approve of Azkaban,” Potter mocked, rolling his eyes, “Oh I don’t know, why would I approve of Azkaban? They only sent my godfather there for thirteen years based on a sham confession and no trial. I remember what he looked like coming out of there.” He glanced over at the side of the table where the Lestranges sat. Draco looked as well and winced. Aunt Bella was watching them with a mad gleam in her dark eyes. “I remember what your people looked like coming out of there too. That’s basically a death tower, not a prison. What’s the point of it anyway? Making people rot to death? Making them forget anything good in their lives so they decide to off themselves rather than live?”
“The point of a prison is to punish people who break the law, my dear,” the Dark Lord didn’t seem to take any offense to Potter’s mockery or disrespect. He, in fact, seemed pleased by this discussion if that little smile on his face was anything to go by. “It is for justice.”
“Yeah, sure it is,” Potter scoffed. “I’d rather tear the whole thing down to the ground myself. There are few enough of us already that we don’t need to be sending everyone there for every little misstep. I mean, not even muggle prisons are so terrible that they have guards that suck your literal happy memories away. They’re not great prisons, sure, but they’re better than that.”
The Dark Lord looked delighted. His whole expression lit up as he asked, “One thinks that you would rather we destroy the dementors than work with them, my dear. Are you not so opposed to murder after all?”
Potter glared at him. He stuck his finger out, pointing at the Dark Lord in a motion so rude that Draco had to stifle a gasp of shock. His mother would have given him the iciest stare if she’d seen him do such a thing, and to the Dark Lord no less!
“I see what you’re trying for here, V, you can’t fool me. No. Murder. None. We agreed.”
The Dark Lord snatched Potter’s hand and Draco was certain he was about to cut it off for the offense when, to his utter shock, the Dark Lord instead began to kiss it. He kissed Potter’s knuckles and the back of his hand before turning it around to kiss his palm. Draco had to look away at such a gesture, it felt far too intimate to watch!
“My dear,” the Dark Lord spoke between kisses, his voice slightly muffled with the action, “But does it count as murder when the creature is soulless itself? When it desires to consume souls but provides nothing in return to the world? When it is just a being of utter destruction, without purpose beyond consumption? Even death serves purpose, does it not? As one’s body will rejuvenate the soil. But that which is soulless and living is naught but a vessel of agonies until its very own, tragic, inevitable end.”
Potter gave a deep sigh. “Well, when you put it that way… I suppose it does make sense. Where did dementors come from anyway?”
“They are said to be sourced from a tear between realms, a sentient breath of death given form. They are sexless and ageless and while they form in a colony and work within a unit, they do not procreate or have a familial structure, only a hierarchy like unto a hive.”
“So…flying soul-sucking bugs or something,” Potter murmured.
Draco dared a glance over, devastatingly curious to watch them despite the voyeuristic feeling of it. Potter had turned a little on his perch, one leg stretched out over the Dark Lord’s lap. His hand was still being held, now with the fingers interlocked as the Dark Lord looked up at Potter. His red eyes were glowing with what Draco could only guess passed as affection.
Potter, meanwhile, had a thoughtful frown on his face and was rubbing his chin with his thumb. “I suppose that’s not murder? I mean…if you get rid of dementors, it won’t really disrupt any ecosystem or something? I don’t know, I guess it’s okay.”
The Dark Lord kissed Potter’s inner wrist then, and halfway up his arm, lavishing him with attention. It was enough to break even Potter’s blind self-assurance, as he finally glanced up at them around the table and blushed.
“V,” Potter chided the Dark Lord, but then he carried on his words in Parseltongue, keeping any of them from eavesdropping, much to Draco’s dismay. Inappropriate or not, he was sure his mother would appreciate the gossip such an interaction would become.
The Dark Lord returned in the same tongue. What sounded so harmless in Potter’s mouth made goosebumps rise on Draco’s skin when heard from the Dark Lord himself. He wasn’t the only one who shuddered either—as most of the table shrank back at the sound.
Potter gave the Dark Lord an exasperated look and then bent down and kissed him. On the lips. Right in front of all of them! It was like the train station all over again! But worse because the Dark Lord’s hands on Potter’s hips and legs were very obvious, pale as they were against the dark leathers.
When Potter pulled back, he gave another quicker, more chaste kiss to the Dark Lord’s cheek and then slipped off the throne entirely. He grabbed his broom and shouted a farewell as he trotted back out of the room. The Dark Lord looked after him with what Draco could only describe as a besotted expression.
It was only after the doors had swung shut with a heavy clang that the Dark Lord returned his attention to the table. He plucked up a few of his parchments—the ones he’d been reading over before—and lifted them up. They burst into flames, the parchment turning to ash within seconds.
With a satisfied smile, the Dark Lord said, “We shall tear down Azkaban and destroy every dementor. Fire will be our tactic for the latter, and targeted seismic spells the tactic for the former. Rodolphus, Rabastian, Bella, I do recall that you have a penchant for such ward destruction in the past. You will be the head of the spike for this action.” His gaze flicked over to them, burning red and gleaming. “Do you understand?”
“Yes my lord,” the three of them chorused.
Aunt Bella leaned forward, hands braced on the table as she added with her own brand of maddened fervor, “Congratulations on your well-made match, my lord. Potter is brilliant. We will bring Azkaban down into the depths of the sea, where such a wretched place belongs, just as he wishes.”
The Dark Lord smiled.
Draco swallowed nervously. Next year at Hogwarts would be interesting.
Maybe he should try to get Potter to forgive him? After all, they were on the same side now…
Hermione stood at the corner of the street, between Fortescue’s and Cory's Cobbling, waiting. She regretted now not meeting Harry in a less public place—certainly they would immediately be spotted and approached by people, after all, it was all over the papers how Harry Potter had met a mysterious and monstrous man on the platform at the end of the school year.
With only verbal accounts of the event, half the time the paper said it was Voldemort, and the other half of the time it was some other bald, snake-faced monster that Harry had bewitched with his Boy-Who-Lived charm.
Hermione, like the rest of the Weasleys and, to her dismay, the Malfoys as well, all knew the truth though.
Harry Potter had foolishly fallen in love with the most egregious monster of them all.
“Hey ‘Mione!” Called a somewhat familiar voice. She jolted out of her despairing thoughts and turned, bag clutched in her hands.
A man and boy she’d never seen before approached her. The man was extraordinarily tall with dark brown hair coiffed perfectly in place. He wore a navy blue robe that was fitted akin to a muggle suit—with a waistcoat and everything. She might’ve mistaken him for someone else except for those burning red eyes—whatever glamor he used on his face couldn’t obscure Voldemort’s eyes.
Which meant that the sandy-blonde boy next to him, tanned and freckled and in lighter blue robes, was Harry. He didn’t have glasses, but his eyes were also the same—that brilliant green he shared with his mother.
Hermione’s heart did a sad little twist in her chest—how could Harry do this to the memory of his mother? Didn’t he see how disrespectful it was?
Still, she smiled when she saw him, and she let him pull her into a tight hug, worried all the while about Voldemort practically looming over them. “Harry—” she began.
Harry put a finger over his lips, “Try not to use my name, okay? It’ll be easier for my disguise to take.”
She nodded. “All right… Um.”
“I’ve already ordered a lot of the basic supplies with my fiance while we were abroad,” Harry said, looping his arm in hers as he turned her out to the street. “So we don’t need to hit up the apothecary or anything. I figured we could go right to the bookshop. How does that sound?”
He cast the question over his shoulder, glancing up at the otherwise silent man with them, practically a shadowy escort. “One is aware of perhaps the most prodigious bookshop in the shopping district. It is unlikely your…friend has been there before, my dear.”
“It’ll have our school books?” Harry asked.
“It shall.”
Harry grinned, “Then lead the way!”
Which was how Hermione found herself walking arm in arm as Voldemort led them down Diagon and around the corner into Knockturn. She stumbled a little as the cobbles shifted underfoot and the oppressive magic began to bear down on her.
“I don’t know if I should be going here—” she began, but Harry waved off her concern.
“My fiance will make sure nothing happens to us,” Harry said, “And besides, how else can you broaden your horizons with new information if you just keep going to the same places each time you’re out? I tell you, I never realized how little I actually knew about the world until I was out there in it. You know?” He gave her a bright smile, “My fiance took me out to Italy this summer and we traveled all over central Europe after a trip around Rome. It was amazing. Have you ever been?”
“Er. To some places, yes,” she said. “My parents took me to France before. And the Netherlands this last summer, before now. Um.” She glanced around as they walked. She’d heard countless warnings and stories about the inhabitants of Knockturn, from the hags to the vampires and beyond, but with Voldemort leading them, she had to say that she didn’t notice anyone unsavory approaching them.
Of course, no one approached them at all.
Lowering her voice, she whispered, “Why is everyone keeping their distance if he’s using a glamor?”
Harry blinked a few times and then whispered back, “Can’t you feel it? His magic is pretty obvious. You’d have to be completely magically dull not to.”
Hermione felt her face flush with indignation. “What do you mean by that? I’m not magically dull!”
“I’m not saying you are,” Harry patted her arm in order to try and soothe her, “Only, um, maybe inexperienced? It’s not really something Hogwarts teaches us. V’s been showing me some stuff, of course, but we also had a whole weekend retreat of it in the Alps— um. Can you feel the pressure around us? Like, like the air is really humid except it’s magic?”
Frowning, Hermione nodded, “Well, yes. That’s what Knockturn feels like, isn’t it?”
“No, actually. That’s all, V.” Harry grinned, “He’s pretty powerful though. I’m not surprised you thought it was just the aura of the street. I mean, there’s that too but it’s usually not as strong at this time of day and it has nothing on my fiance’s aura.”
Hermione swallowed nervously. She hadn’t thought that Voldemort was so powerful that he could swamp a whole street with his magic… but then for her to be caught up in it, it didn’t have to be that wide of a broadcast, really. She wasn’t more than ten feet away from the man’s back. Surely, if she moved far enough away, the feeling would recede.
“We’re here, darling,” Voldemort murmured as he came to a stop in front of a narrow doorway. The building had no windows—or rather, what windows it had were boarded up on the inside. “The best bookshop in London.”
“Really? Awesome!” Harry exclaimed.
Hermione gave a sniff. She’d be the judge of that. Harry probably hadn’t been in enough bookshops to make anywhere near an informed decision!
The three of them entered the building and immediately Hermione was almost completely overwhelmed with the smell and sight of the place. It was incredibly cramped, the narrow pathways just barely big enough for two people to squeak past each other. The shelves loomed overhead of them and were stuffed so full of books that they were stacked two deep with the ones in the back of the shelf lifted up by something so they were visible from above the layer in front.
It was a tactic she’d seen in a few second-hand shops before, especially the kinds of places that took in trade value for books or accepted any box of donations. She knew right away that she would be lost within ten minutes here and that there was no way she’d be done looking around for at least a few hours. There were simply too many books to look at to be done so soon!
“V and I will get the school books,” Harry told Hermione, though it took her a great deal of effort to pull her attention from the shelves. “You just look around and get whatever you want, okay? My treat.”
“Har—” she stopped herself mid-sentence, not just for the effort of his disguise but also because he and Voldemort went around a corner and vanished together.
Hermione huffed. Right. His treat, huh? Well, she just might make Harry regret those words. First thing first: she needed a basket.
In a daze, Hermione rounded yet another corner in this rabbit warren masquerading as a bookshop and almost stumbled into a couple snogging in the corner. She was dumbfounded by the discovery, especially since all the books around them weren’t erotic in the least bit—at least, she wasn’t sure what was particularly arousing about arithmancy. She found it to be one of the dryer subjects of magic.
And then she recognized that the two snogging weren’t just some strangers but it was actually Harry in disguise.
Harry and Voldemort.
She gasped loudly and immediately cringed backward, lifting up a book to block her view.
“Oh! ‘Mione!” Harry’s voice was breathless and rough. Hermione turned away, her face aflame.
“What are you doing?” she hissed at him, still not looking. “You’re in a public bookshop! Have some decency!”
“Sorry, sorry,” Harry laughed, breathless and easy, carefree in a way she could not understand. “It’s just when V starts waxing poetic it’s kind of hard to um…well never mind.”
The awkwardness grew to the point where she had to turn around and level him with a glare. It didn’t help at all that Voldemort held Harry close to his chest still, those long fingers of his idly stroking Harry’s fake-blonde hair, and his red eyes focused on him. The man’s single-minded intensity was terrifying. How could Harry stand it?
The temperature dropped around them and Hermione realized rather abruptly that she’d asked that out loud.
Gone was Harry’s casual sheepishness and shy smile. In its place was a cold, hard expression. He pulled himself out of Voldemort’s grip enough to stand between the two of them, as if Hermione were the danger here and not the Dark Lord who loomed at Harry’s shoulder, all blood red eyes and heavy aura of Dark magic.
“I don’t just stand it, I choose it. I want it. I love him, Hermione. I’ve told you this before. And he loves me. There are things that V would do for me that he’d never do for anyone else, just like I would for him. We’re engaged and that isn’t going to change anytime soon.” Harry stuck his chin up, stubborn as ever, “You need to come to terms with that if you’re going to keep being my friend, because that isn’t going to change.”
Hermione made a hurt noise before she covered her mouth with a hand to stifle it. “After everything he’s done, everyone he’s hurt or killed. Harry— I don’t understand how you could love him.”
“You don’t have to understand it,” Harry said, “You just have to accept it. I love him. He loves me. We’re getting married.”
“He’s a killer, a monster.”
“He doesn’t kill anyone anymore,” Harry refuted, “And he’s only allowed to torture his followers because they swore to obey him. Their punishment is his to deal with as he sees fit. We talked about it—I wouldn’t be with him if he was going to run around killing everyone who upset him.” Harry then blushed and glanced up at Voldemort, who had remained watchful, but silent, “Not that he gets as upset these days. He’s really mellowed out, Hermione. I swear.”
She couldn’t understand. How had this happened? How had she missed it? She hadn’t thought those silly letters could turn into this. If she had known… If she had been able to guess… She should’ve put a better charm on Hedwig. She should’ve done better to intercept the letters…
“You have lost your opportunity to wedge yourself between us, little girl,” Voldemort whispered, his voice like a teasing shadow, a cold whisper that made the hair on the back of her neck stand on end. “For once Lord Voldemort has tasted of the eternal fruit of divine love, there was no alternative than to pursue it at its source and cleave it unto oneself. To stand betwixt Lord Voldemort and his little brat would have been to offer oneself up to the sacrifice of inevitability. If one did not tear you asunder in order to reach my darling, then he would have shoved you aside himself in order to be one with Lord Voldemort.”
Harry’s face turned utterly pink, “V!” he scolded, “You don’t have to be so crude.” He took a deep breath and let it out, facing Hermione again, “Look, I know you don’t get it. No one seems to get it and you know what? I’m just going to have to live with that. I can do that. It’s not like I haven’t been an outcasted freak my whole life, but you’re like a sister to me. You’re my best friend. If you can’t be happy for me, if you can’t understand what it means that we love each other and how that changes literally everything about the future, then, I don’t know what to tell you. I wish you’d get it, or at least just support me even if you don’t get it. I want you to be part of my life still. Please?”
Hermione teetered on the edge of—of—of oh she didn’t know what it was, only that it was impossible and improbable and that there would be no do-over, no time turner to go back an hour and fix it all.
Would she stay Harry’s friend, despite his bizarre romance with a megalomaniac monster that the world feared so much they didn’t even dare speak his name?
Or would she turn her back on him now and leave him to navigate that life with Voldemort on his own.
Hermione took a deep breath, counting down from eight and then back up as she let it out.
She opened her eyes and met Harry’s green, green gaze. Despite the glamor he wore, she knew it was him, she could see it in those eyes.
Those honest, sincere, hopeful eyes.
Softening, Hermione finally whispered, “All right. Okay. Fine, Harry Potter. You win. I don’t get it, but I’ll support you.”
The smile he gave was blinding and it assuaged some of her concerns, but not all of them.
But she’d made her choice and she wouldn’t back down now. Harry needed her—even if she couldn’t understand his love for Voldemort, she could tell he needed her. Hopefully, that wouldn’t change.
Harry pushed his eggs around on his plate with a sigh.
He stopped only when a pale hand reached out and laid itself on his. Frowning, he looked up at Voldemort, who sat beside him, red eyes fixed on his face. “You are finished,” he declared.
Hating to waste food, but unable to stomach another bite, Harry answered the non-question. “I guess,” he muttered.
He let go of his fork and let Voldemort take his hand in his own. Voldemort’s fingers were cool to the touch and abnormally long, but Harry liked that about him. He twisted his hand around so he could grip Voldemort’s wrist. His hand was small, but Voldemort’s wrist was surprisingly thin and so he had almost as good a grip on it as Voldemort had on his own. “I guess this is it? If we don’t go soon, I’ll miss the train.”
Voldemort inclined his head slightly. “One would keep you at one’s side for every moment of the day, if it were not true that any moment away from you makes the time in your company all the sweeter.” He lifted Harry’s hand and brushed his lips over his knuckles. “But if you are so inclined to tarry with me longer, my dear, one will not send you away before you wish it.”
Harry leaned closer to the man, looking up into his eyes. “You’ll write to me while I’m gone, right? Just because we’re engaged and all that doesn’t mean you have to stop writing to me, right?”
“One would write in one’s own blood if there was no ink left in all the world,” Voldemort declared. “One would never leave you bereft of one’s loving words, not for any cause.”
Despite how the thought of using a blood quill himself made Harry shudder with remembered pain, he couldn’t help how his heart swelled at the thought of Voldemort using such a cursed item to write to him. He could just picture it, how stoic the man would be, suffering the inscription of words upon his skin just so he could write a proper letter to Harry. It was lucky he didn’t have to use his own blood, though. Some of his letters would have left him woozy from blood loss for sure.
Harry closed the distance between them to kiss Voldemort instead of reply—he found he often didn’t know what to say to Voldemort’s declarations of love. They happened so much and in so many different ways! It was easier to just kiss him and press all his feelings out that way, knowing that Voldemort understood.
Their kiss deepened quickly, the way it tended to do these days, and soon Harry found himself in Voldemort’s lap with his arms around the man’s shoulders and Voldemort’s hands roaming his backside. His vision swam with heat and his breath was hot and wet, especially when he found his mouth at his lord’s neck, teeth digging into pale white skin to leave a purple-red bruise behind.
Gasping for breath, he pulled back and put his forehead against Voldemort’s just to try and keep himself from kissing, or biting, him again.
“I’m going to miss you,” Harry whispered, eyes closed.
“And I you, my little brat,” Voldemort whispered back. “Not one moment will go by that you shall escape my thoughts. One shall be in despair without your presence, now that one has known the pleasure of your company.” His hand slid around to press against Harry’s chest, directly over his heart.
“You take with you one’s own heart, split open and hollowed out, fitted around your own heart as tightly as the flesh of the fruit might cling to the pit within. But there is no fear carried along with it, for one knows that you cherish the heart of Lord Voldemort as you do your own.”
“V,” Harry choked out, his throat tight with emotion and his eyes wet with tears. He cradled Voldemort’s face in his hands and said, “I haven’t taken your heart and left you with nothing. I’ve exchanged them. Mine for yours. You’ll protect my heart as I will protect yours.” He leaned in and pressed a soft, chaste kiss to the man’s lips. “I’ll write to you every week at least and I’ll tell you when the Hogsmeade weekends are so you can come visit me and I’ll be back for the winter holidays for sure. I’ll miss you, but it’ll be so quick—I’ll be back home for the wedding before you know it!”
Voldemort kissed him this time, drawing him in and in, kissing him with such fervor that Harry soon lost his head and all sense of time.
They were only drawn out of it by a popping sound—Pipsky, their house elf—and a squeaking voice, “Master Harry’s lunch for the train ride to Hogwarts! Pipsky has packed it in this bag, sirs, and has brought Master Harry’s trunk from his rooms!”
Harry drew back from Voldemort, panting for breath, dizzy and feeling like his lips were tingling something fierce. He looked dumbly at Pipsky for a whole minute before he said, “Thanks, Pipsky.”
The elf beamed proudly. “Yous is being very welcome, Master Harry!”
Voldemort sighed so deeply that Harry had to give him a sympathetic smile and pat on the cheek. “One shall endeavor to spend the time apart as productively as possible, so that it might move as quickly as possible,” he said, “But for now, it is time to return you to Hogwarts.”
“Yeah, I guess it is.”
Maybe Harry should have anticipated that the platform would be packed, but he honestly had thought that since the train was going to be there in less than ten minutes that everyone would have already gotten on.
He was sorely mistaken.
He arrived with Voldemort’s arm around his shoulder and was immediately glad for the close contact as the place was swarming with people. He’d also forgone his usual glamor, figuring if he was going to wear his actual face anywhere, it would be on the train to Hogwarts. Voldemort had followed suit and though his expression was as blank as possible, Harry could feel that he was surprised by how many people were there.
The journalists were the first people Harry noticed, since they immediately noticed him and began to take pictures. Harry flinched back from the lights and ducked into Voldemort’s side. That was enough for Voldemort to act, drawing his wand and lifting it in one fluid motion. The gasp and shrieks of surprise rose around them like the screeching of birds and Harry winced at the sound.
There was a loud clap of thunder and all at once the flashing lights had vanished.
Harry peeked back out from Voldemort’s side and saw the photographers staring in horror at them and their hands and the air above them. He couldn’t see a single camera anywhere. Relaxing immediately, Harry called out, “No flash photography, thanks.”
Voldemort huffed softly under his breath, as much public laughter as he would permit, and then stepped forward. The crowd surged backward, parting as though Voldemort were enforcing the distance through a spell and not from sheer presence alone. Harry marveled at how they looked at him—how there was awe and fear and wonder and hatred—how none of them dared turn away nor did any of them draw their wands.
Once they were near the doors to the train, Voldemort stopped. He wordlessly put up muffling charms around them and asked, “You have your lunch? Your trunk? And it’s fully packed?”
“I do,” Harry said, patting his pocket, “I’ve got it all right here.” He reached up to tug on Voldemort’s collar, “You’ll send Hedwig along with a letter?”
Voldemort’s lips curled into a thin smirk, “And a gift.”
“You got me something?” Harry gasped in delight, “What is it?”
“It shall be a surprise,” Voldemort said, “You will wear it for me with pride.”
“I swear, if it’s another snake pin, I think my house just might revolt against me.”
“It is not a snake pin,” Voldemort told him. He ran his fingers along Harry’s robe collar, where said pin was clasped. “When have I ever sent you a duplicate of a previous gift?”
“You sent me multiple books by now,” Harry said cheekily, “Two of them bound in human skin, if you'll recall.”
“And were their contents not entirely separate from each other?” Voldemort responded.
“That doesn’t mean anything if they’re both books, V.”
“Do not get smart with me, brat,” Voldemort chided.
“If you insist,” Harry grinned, “Then I’ll just get handsy instead.” He tugged Voldemort down further, closing that little distance between them so he could kiss him one more time and then one more after that.
It was the whistle of the train that interrupted them this time, leaving Harry giddy as he smacked one more kiss to Voldemort’s cheek before dashing onto the train. He had no idea where he was going to sit or with whom, considering Hermione had prefect duties and he was pretty sure no one else would want to sit with him anymore, but what did that matter?
Whether he was ostracized for ‘lying’ about Voldemort or ostracized for being engaged to him, it was all the same to Harry. People would always hate what he did—well, everyone except for Voldemort.
And Harry didn’t need the world to love him, not anymore.
Not ever again.