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The first letter he received had been laced with a tracking potion, realised too late by the recipient. He had since tried to get rid of the spell which had wormed its way deep under his skin, until now he remained unsuccessful in his endeavour.
Even Snape hadn’t been able to get rid of it, which had been highly unusual.
The spell did nothing more than bring an owl to him in regular intervals, though.
A snowy white owl with intelligent, orange eyes. She always regarded him with unfathomable wisdom, yet unwilling to share it, to Voldemorts dismay.
He constantly remembered all the letters, all of them proclaiming insane things. Although if they were to be believed, he could end this sorry excuse of a war and return to a comfortable post as Hogwarts teacher, perhaps even Minister for Magic without exerting any effort.
The first note had simply said ’I AM STILL HERE. I hope you fear me. I hope you can’t sleep as long as I’m alive. I hope you’re tormented by the fact that I’m still writing this, that you can’t control me. I’M STILL ALIVE.’
Of course only the boy could come up with something so stupid, so mind-numbing.
He would not worry about that, not anymore.
The light was defeated forever, without any figurehead to lead them. Harry Potter was solely another issue to deal with and would be caught, sooner or later.
——
Harry was stumbling through the battlefield, frantically searching for a head with bushy, brown hair. A red one, any of them, lying down with blood clawing at their chest.
He doesn’t find any of them, yet there are enough faces he does recognise.
One of his superiors from the Ministry. One that had always nodded at him in greeting, a routine that had been established since he’d been hired two and a half years ago.
The person working in the magical menagerie who told him about the treats Hedwig ended up liking the best. She lies there, lifeless, an empty void in place of her usual, friendly gaze.
Next to her, a partially transformed werewolf under the still glowing moonlight, his teeth buried in the arm of a child that was less than twice his size. Both of their eyes are hollow, never to look at anything ever again.
He stumbles further, toward the lines of the enemy, falling over body parts that leaves are keeping hidden.
The stench is horrible, putrid, and makes his eyes water.
Nothing is as bad as the residual magic, though, still static in the air, alerting anyone of his presence.
He doesn’t care.
He has to find his friends, the ones who left him behind for his sake. His safety. His survival.
In turn, giving up their own, making him feel heartbroken. Unworthy of whatever they saw in him. Because he’s done being the child of prophecy, the one destined to save the wizarding world.
What use is saving any of them when his friends laid here, bloody and frozen in time? When he can never see Ron’s lopsided grin again, hear Hermione lecturing him about his sloppy wandwork?
He goes further and further, disturbing the small animals that have already gathered to eat their fill from the battlefield.
The smell of blood is still wafting around the field, permeating the space and making Harry gag the further he goes.
Then, finally, red hair.
It’s so visible against the dark, cold ground, like a fire that alights even the blackest of nights.
He turns the body around, only to find half a face. The other half is lying a few meters away, still bleeding and twitching slightly, as if still alive.
But the body isn’t. Eyes that are better described as holes stare right through him, unseeing and unaware of the horrible reality they’re all afflicted with.
The ear on either side is missing, as is half the skull. But Harry can still see the innovation light up in those brown eyes, hear the way he finished his twins sentences.
At least George died in battle. He is sure there’s a grin on his face in heaven, happy not to be divided from his brother any longer. He wonders whether they’re still causing havoc together wherever they are.
He hopes so.
He hopes so many things, these days. He prays, even. For more than just his life. For anything other than it.
He had never believed in god, but if god can bring back all the people that died, he might start. He prays anyway, hoping that whatever being there is will grant him mercy.
It never did.
He wants to give a burial to George, at least to him, but he can’t. He’d lost his wand a few hours ago, Dracos wand, which he’d been using after the big battle.
The one that had ended with Voldemort winning, dragging out the losers to be humiliated in front of the entirety of the wizarding world.
Harry is sure some muggles have seen it, too.
His arm is still littered with scars from trying to pry open the door to the dungeons from outside the bars.
They had been magically sealed, of course, but Harry would’ve gone insane from not doing anything. Like so many others without the reprive he’d chosen had.
He could still hear their screams, the mindless numbing of anyone who dared to inflict noise on the sanctity of a home that no longer belonged to the owners.
The casting of a cruciatus had turned from an act of his defiance to quiet acceptance. He had tried to fight, at the start. Biting off whoever dared to come and feed the monster in him, clawing their eyes out with nails that had gotten far too long for his hand.
Nothing ever worked.
So he ignored the screams, the shouts for help, because it was not something he could give any longer. His thoughts had turned to escape, to getting out of the hell he now had to call his home.
When, one day, a warden forgot to close the door, he had taken his chance. Without trying to free anyone else. What would’ve been the use, anyway? More torture for them all?
So he left alone. Stealing a wand had been easy, with all the rebels’ lying around. Several he tried did not work for him, but one did, albeit badly.
He had a managed to disapparate with only splinching himself marginally. He had called it a success.
The prophet spoke of his breakout as a warning, because of some danger he posed toward the rest of the people who ‘betrayed’ him. What bullshit.
All Harry tried to do was finding his friends.
He never knew where they hid, where they would’ve chosen to go.
So he ravaged any battlefield he could find, trying to turn over the right corpses to find the faces of his friends.
Luckily, he had been unsuccessful so far. Either none of them had died, or he’d avoided the right battlefield.
Or they had been hanged in the Ministry, to serve as another warning to the population that still dared to defy Lord Voldemort.
Neville had hung there, once. Harry had seen his picture as a form of torture.
How the once so heroic boy, who had managed to cut Naginis head clean off, looked when under the cruciatus. How he looked with eyes so vacant that he resembled his parents more than ever before.
Harry had begun thrashing violently after that, trying to kick and bite anyone who came too close. Even tying him up with magic only held his body at bay, not the hateful look in his eyes.
He had never managed to starve himself, sadly.
For some sick, perverted reason, Voldemort demanded he’d be left alive. Presumably to watch the rest of his friends die, to show how futile resistance had been in the end.
In the end that inevitably came for all of them except for the mighty, all-knowing Voldemort, who stood above all and knew what they planned at all times.
The man hadn’t visited him in the dungeons, but Harry knew he had watched him. Wanted him to break, to lose the rest of his motivation.
But Harry would never.
What a joyous day it had been when Hedwig came back.
How his familiar had looked at him in another dark, winding forest, with eyes that so resembled his old, already dead owl.
He hadn’t cared who the owl belonged to and named her after the saint that had been mentioned in ‘Hogwarts, a History’.
She hadn’t protested, either. Just stole some parchment for him, which Harry had been endlessly grateful for.
She carried letters to friends and family, always coming back without anything he put on her claws. Never with return letters, though.
He didn’t think they were dumb enough to reply, but was glad to be proven right.
Or perhaps they were already dead.
He didn’t want to think too much about that possibility.
On the night of Samhain, the anniversary of his parents murder, he drunkenly sent a letter to Voldemort, laced with a tracking potion he brewed himself, with ingredients he’d found on his travels through the country.
He had no idea whether it had worked, but at least his owl hadn’t come back with blackened feathers. He took that as the sign that his letter had indeed been delivered.
His letter ranged from wildly political takes to personal inquiries.
His latest one had simply said ’WHERES YOUR HEAD AT’, no further notes needed. The owl would tell Voldemort who it was from, anyway. Or at least Harry hoped so. He hoped Voldemort hated the knowledge that his prophesied enemy not only survived, but still defied him. That he still had the power he knew not, that he was still the one who would eventually kill the man. Probably. Hopefully.
Harry prayed for that as well.
Harry left the graveyard of unanswered prayers, returning to the land of eternal torture. It never does get any better, no matter what place he goes to. He’s constantly terrified of Snatchers catching him, of a Death Eater spotting his scar. Of Voldemort himself coming to finish him off.
It’s not like he’s in any state to resist.
So he keeps writing letters.
‘I KNOW YOU’RE THERE.’
‘Does not writing back make you feel superior, when in reality you’re just pathetic because you can’t find me?’
When he feels particularly bad, he’s nice in the letters. It doesn’t bring relief, either.
‘When I was a child, I was abused by muggles. Just like you. When I saw you in that muggle orphanage, I wanted to hug you.’
Everything he writes is true. His death threats and the well wishes. At one point in his life, he genuinely wanted Voldemort to recover his sanity and gain power by being a law abiding citizen.
But none of that matters now, when all of his family is long gone, his friends far away.
The last time he’s seen them, they were waiting for him to go into the Forbidden Forest, ready to die.
Now he doesn’t even think they know he’s still out here, away from all the fighting.
His only fight is trying to stay alive. He doesn’t quite have the energy for much more.
After what feels like weeks but can at most be days, he arrives… somewhere. A forest. A battlefield. There’s no difference anymore, not really.
Spells are still being shot and he has to squint to see their color, his glasses long lost somewhere he doesn’t remember leaving them at.
He doesn’t see who’s standing on which side. But he does see red.
A glimmering in the air signifies more apparition, more people coming. Harry thinks they might be wearing black robes, but who can tell what side they’re one? Everybody had taken to wearing black, all the time. Who knew when the next funeral would be.
The glimmer of red moves, dodges, slides under a tree. Gets stuck.
Harry runs, to help, to get in the way of the next spell.
He’s slow, so agonisingly slow. It’s painful to watch the red hit his best friend, the one who’d stood by him all throughout their years together.
The screams make it impossible to resist staying away. All he wants is to soothe, to relieve the pain, yet he stands there, frozen, hands pressed over his ears.
He can’t hear the screams anymore. But they’re still there, he knows it, can see them being produced.
Something hits his chest and everything goes black.
He wakes up in the same place, he thinks. He still can’t see.
He can’t hear or see the screams anymore, as if they were never there. He tries to scramble upwards, his ears ringing, head spinning. He can’t get up.
His chest hurts, as if there’s a weight on them he can’t get rid of.
He feels the blood more than he sees it.
There’s a wooden stake inside of him, right where his heart should be. He wants to scream, to get out the piece of wood, but he can’t move his arms. Can’t move at all, anymore.
He remembers more red on the side, sees unblinking eyes. In front of him, around him, everywhere.
Telling him ‘You didn’t protect us. This is your fault.’
They’re right, he thinks, but his mouth won’t move. Will today be the day he dies? Will he finally be rid of this responsibility that is killing him faster than Voldemort ever managed?
Of course the answer is no.
He sees that what is in his chest isn’t really a stake, he isn’t being purified by the church, it’s just a stick. Fallen from a tree, at random. It wasn’t even a hero’s death he’s dying. Just a pointless accident.
He’d laugh if that didn’t make blood spray from his mouth.
And if the dead eyes of his friends weren’t still haunting him.
Nobody else is here but a corpse and a man who wished he was one.
The next time he was able to move, he wrote a letter.
‘Come and kill me
I’m ready’
Nobody ever came.
——
Voldemort thinks the letters have one benefit. They tell him the boy isn’t dead yet, hasn’t died by a hand that isn’t his own. That is the only use he derives from them. Certainly not the heart throbbing screams he hears every night, not the agony that curses through his veins.
He isn’t using the boy to gain back the emotions he’d been missing over the last years. Even if all the boy can feel is pain, he makes Voldemort feel pain as well.
He can’t feel it alone. Always has to use some kind of substitute for it, for everything.
He doesn’t feel fear, pain, happiness, anything. Nothing.
He half hopes for the boy to end up in a better situation, if that makes him feel better as well.
If he can feel pleasure, love through him.
He doesn’t dare hope, can’t. Hope has died in him, as everything did. He’s just as lifeless as all the corpses he left behind.
Maybe it’s a curse haunting those who kill as many as he did, maybe he was just broken from the start.
Maybe eternal life isn’t worth it if this is all he’s ever going to feel.
But that thought is treacherous, even from himself. He can’t even tell if that’s influenced by the boy, as well. As everything these days seems to be.
People are calling out to him, telling him about new legislation he needs to sign, about sightings of rebels, of new battles he never attends anymore.
He doesn’t care.
If it isn’t about the boy, the one whose name he doesn’t dare speak or even think, he doesn’t listen. Never.
Until the next letter comes.
‘I nearly died yesterday. Won’t you do it yourself?’
What a preposterous thought, of course he’d kill the boy himself! It’s only a matter of time until he catches and kills him. Until time spells out an inevitable end for the green eyes that had always been his destiny.
But who would dare kill the boy themselves when he hadn’t allowed it?
He would find out and kill them first, for daring to not bring the boy to him. Only he was allowed to blemish the boy, to give him the scars that already marred his body so.
So he started searching more earnestly, doing the work himself. Searching for any trace of his magic, his body heat, his skin.
And not finding them.
He explored the whole of Britain, every corner there was. He started in forests, continuing in abandoned houses and going so far as populated areas.
He never found him.
Vague figures started appearing in his dreams, making him woozy, taunting him for being a failure. Frolicking their joy at his inattentiveness, haunting his nightmares and daydreams. He couldn’t concentrate anymore, more often than not blowing his Death Eaters off.
He started searching for Potter in his bed, his arms, his soul.
There, at least, were traces. Magical ones that bound the boy to him, included him in the destiny he had always sought.
He followed the binds, the invisible threads of fate that tied them together more thoroughly than any rope could.
He followed them to warehouses, battlefields, family houses.
The boy was always just away, he always missed him. Their game of chase excited him more than anything had in decades, perhaps in forever.
While he chased, his thoughts didn’t stray to torture and bloody murder. While he daydreamed, no Cruiciatus wanted to fall from his hands.
He felt free in a way he’d never felt before, yet so lonely he couldn’t bear it.
He wanted the boy to end up in front of him, cowering and kissing his robes. Licking his shoes like the servant he was. Wanted to scoop him up in a crushing embrace that would kill him.
Yet the boy continued to evade him.
No matter where Voldemort went, it was as if the boy had been warned. Warned of his presence, his search. He fled every time.
So Voldemort reached out to him, extending an olive branch.
Replying to the dreams the boy was giving him, promising vengeance to the boys enemies.
The boy laughed at his proposal, telling him to kill himself first.
He supposed that was fair.
But he never did give up.
——
Harry had fled more times than he could count, always going away just in time to miss the man that haunted his nightmares. To get away from the shocking realisation that he could never escape anywhere, the man would always find him.
Continue to get him, kill him, keep him.
He couldn’t tell what was worse anymore.
But he continued to write, no matter where he went.
In hopeless glee.
‘I’m still out here, untouchable’
Then, in desperation.
‘Is Hermione still alive?’
He knew she wasn’t, couldn’t be. But maybe she was? He was alive as well, after all. Maybe she’d done it. Dying of a broken heart shouldn’t be possible, but Hermione had always made the impossible exist.
Harry didn’t know if Hermione had been there, that night Ron died. He hoped she hadn’t been.
He hoped she didn’t have to see the sight that haunted Harry’s nights, made him more of an insomniac than he had already been.
Any time he did find rest, red eyes managed to come after him, making him miss more precious hours of nothingness.
Many times, he debated just jumping off a cliff. Flying for one last time until it all ended. Making him feel peaceful right before the end.
He was close, twice.
One time in front of the cliff where he and Dumbledore wanted to find the Horcrux. The cave that Regulus Black still haunted. Perhaps.
Harry didn’t intend to find out.
Before stepping off the edge, he felt that red again. He saw the dusk in the sky, the painful aurora that spelled the day to an end.
He couldn’t just jump. If he did, everything, the survival, the pain, would have been a waste.
So he continued on.
The second time, he’d done it.
He’d climbed a mountain, ripping his bare hands in the process, and stepped where there was nothing to step on.
He fell quite far.
He laid at the foot of the mountain, broken, dying, blood flowing out of him.
It hurt more than anything, more than starvation, more than the painful contraction of muscles without sustenance for too long.
He could feel his head being split open, cracked like an egg in a pan.
He saw red again, red like blood. Red like a ruby.
A spell aimed at him. He hoped it was to take the pain away faster, to give him the death he’d so desired.
He felt pain receding, then nothing. He slept for the first time in a while, dreamlessly.
When he woke up, his body was whole and he laid at the same place.
He didn’t jump off anything again.
He started sending longer letters.
‘Why did you do it? Why help me when you dream of killing me?
I’m at the side of the road in Little Whinghing, past the door I was raised in. They no longer live here. I’ve been asked to leave twice. Will you come and be the third?’
Sometimes, after the letters, he came.
Nowhere near, just close enough to watch him. Closer, when the suicidal thoughts struck once more.
He never approached close enough to talk, and Harry was grateful for that. He didn’t want to talk to the man.
But sometimes, he missed it. Companionship. Feelings beyond numbness.
Each time he did, he wrote.
‘What’s your favourite food? I always like Treacle Tart. The house elves of Hogwarts made the best one. I haven’t eaten that in over three years now.’
When he saw Hedwig returning earlier, he knew the man to be close.
So he shouted himself hoarse until Hedwig flew away for longer.
“You’re afraid of me! I knew it! You can’t even kill me now, put me out of this misery… I’m the one who should fear you… But you’re too afraid you won’t kill me in the end, aren’t you?”
That usually did the trick and the man disapparated.
It was always with a loud ’CRACK’, so Harry would know. He appreciated the gesture.
Sometimes, he went weeks without catching a glimpse of him. But he’d always appear again, in the end. As if he was unable to resist the pull of the bond between them, the magnetic connection only the two of them felt.
Harry puked when he saw the remains of Ginny Weasley.
The girl he’d kissed had her lips torn open, ‘SLUT’ written over them with big, red letters, still oozing blood.
Her body was put together on the floor in front of Grimmauld place, yet all of her limbs had been separated.
Her fingers, hands, arms, all of them were severed from each other, yet laid out horrifically as if all of them were still together. As if to mock Harry that she was still here, still breathing, when all he could do was stare at those lifeless eyes once again.
Her red, fiery hair which had reminded him of his mothers now only made him think of dried up blood, of the sights forced upon him.
He puked until he could no longer stand.
He nearly fell on her body.
What stopped him wasn’t his own body, but hands laid upon his shoulders. Hands that belonged to the nightmare haunting him.
The nightmare that had come to life, to torment him endlessly, yet he was the only one who made Harry’s heart calm down.
The one who had always been with him, in a way or another.
The Horcrux in Harry had evaporated when he had been hit with the killing curse, yet their connection persisted. As if forged in hell, unable to forego.
Harry hated and loved it all the same.
Without it, he’d have killed himself.
Without it, he’d be dead right now.
He had no idea if he would like that. If that was the desirable outcome.
So he turns around and looks into those red eyes, the only red that doesn’t make him think of blood.
And kisses those lips until they’re as bloody as Ginnys. Until both of their faces hurt more than they can admit, until they’ve tasted each others blood.
Then he limps away, slowly. Undeterred.
Voldemort doesn’t stop him.
Never.
But he’s there the next time Harry breaks down.
Curiously, it’s as he watches McGonagall die. He hadn’t seen the professor in an eternity and now, it’s only for a few short moment before she collapses from a spell so green it could’ve been Harry’s eyes.
At least she didn’t have to suffer before dying. It’s a small mercy that hadn’t been afforded to many others.
He still falls down, down, down, onto the ground that’s meant to steady him.
Tears stream out of his eyes, tears that should’ve dried up long ago. He always thinks that, yet it never happens.
Warm arms wrap around him, holding him until all that’s left are sniffles.
He stays in the embrace for as long as his dying pride allows him to.
Then he turns away, runs away again, further and further. Where the Ministry can’t reach him. Yet, intrinsically, he knows that the man will always find him, no matter where he hides. He could spell himself invisible, hide under his hallow, and he’d still find him in the end.
It doesn’t make sense, but nothing between them ever did.
At least the man is consistently obsessed with him.
That’s enough. For now.
——
Voldemort hadn’t expected the kiss.
He truly hadn’t, yet that didn’t make it less pleasurable. It had been ravishing, alighting a fire within him that had been doused decades ago.
And now he was unable to put it out again.
He longed to see the boy, to take him into his arms, whisper his name until he looked up at him with no malice left in his eyes.
What a ludicrous thought, yet a true one. One of the only ones he was still able to procure in his head.
He had left politics, left Britain, for a while. It hadn’t worked. All that stayed with him was the vivid, vibrant green he so missed and he had to return.
He had stayed away for a while longer, just to get him out of his head.
The bond pulled him back, back into the boys arms, clashing their teeth together as if it was the most natural thing there was. In a way, it was. It was two halves of a whole coming back together, making them perfect for each other.
But the halves had hated each other, marring their skin with each other’s words and wounds, highlighting their imperfections so much it made them broken. There was no glue, no spell in the world to heal internal damage on an intrinsic level.
Voldemort knew because he searched for them, to mend himself, to make his arms a worthwhile place to escape to.
It did not work.
No force in the world would be able to mend his stolen soul, the one that had perished to the afterlife.
So he didn’t stay away anymore. Supported the boy when he was down, when he lost hope. Never with words, only with gestures. Body warmth.
As a reward, he received letters that contained sweet words, inquiries about his likes and dislikes, stories of the boys own life.
He never responded, yet the boy knew he read them.
As the minx seemed to know every secret of his, every hidden truth nobody else would think to discover. He knew them effortlessly, thought of them before anybody else would think to guess.
They did not move beyond kissing, yet Voldemort was ready to give up everything he’d ever longed for in order for their reality to change. For it to allow them something else, a possibility they’d never been given.
He mourned the life he could’ve had, they could’ve had.
They weren’t meant to be. He knew it, the boy knew it, the world knew it.
But they did not give up. Voldemort continued following the boy, permanently by now, helping him with daily tasks he had always considered himself above of.
Harry still moved to battlefields, looking for a friend that had been one of the first to die. He had personally cut the head off her body, had relished in the sweet sensations the rush of blood had given him.
Now, he had numbed down.
He still felt, felt what his boy was feeling. What he had been tormented with, he felt. When Voldemort hugged him, he felt. Fierce rejection, small pleasure.
The pleasure grew every time he did not see a body he knew.
The raids were becoming less, as the people opposing his reign died. Those who did still oppose hid well and didn’t do it openly. They only voiced their distaste in candlelight, being careful not even to mention his name.
They were fools, yet they called themselves the last resistance, the last fools who would die a painful death.
They would meet their end eventually. If Voldemort was responsible or not, it did not matter.
——
Harry still went around looking for people. He couldn’t do anything else, was numb to any other task he could set for himself.
His steady shadow did not lurk around corners anymore, now openly followed him.
He didn’t mind.
It was a welcome relief, even, having someone with a wand who would make him fire when it was cold, share body warmth and something akin to friendship, yet not quite.
Harry was regaining a semblance of sanity which he hadn’t felt in more than three years.
As much as he loathed to admit it, not talking to himself anymore did a lot for his brain. It repaired itself, imprinted on the man in front of him, made their bond grow stronger.
He started talking to Voldemort.
The man never replied, but Harry kept muttering on. About his life, his once-goals, his trauma. His dreams.
The first time he shared a story from his childhood, he woke up entangled between two strong arms that held him firmly, carefully, as if he could break. As if he wasn’t already broken.
He took it all the same, anyway.
His searching around had become less, lesser as the battles had lessened as well.
Just one more happened. It was even in the prophet, a claim for battle.
A new battle that could rival the battle of Hogwarts.
Harry never knew of it, naturally.
He just smelled the residual magic, wandered toward it in an endless match.
As he arrived, only burning towers were left.
Thousands of them were burning, even though not even a quarter of them held corpses.
On each of the towers, on a cross, was a loved one.
Neville’s body, hammered to the cross. Lifeless eyes staring ahead. His soul no longer with him.
Ron’s pierced head, picked up and eaten away at by the crows. As if his only use was the carrion the animals liked to eat.
Next to Ron, Hermione. The girl he’d searched for tirelessly, the death he hadn’t wanted to see confirmed. Now he did.
Her eyes were wide with terror, a charm prying them open for all eternity. Or at least until her body had burned enough to charr her ashes to oblivion.
The word ‘mudblood’ was written all over her body, was stitched into the seam that held together her head and her body. Was written everywhere with tattoo ink, with a knife.
Harry wandered further, as his tears had finally dried up.
He saw Luna, her mingled body nearly fully eaten by a flock of ravens that picked apart the wide, blue eyes that had always held so much truth.
Each of Ginny’s limbs was placed with a family member of hers. At least they’d have a piece of her with them when they went to the afterlife, could meet and put her back together.
Harry hoped it worked like that, otherwise it would be too painful.
More people.
Remus, just one tower away from Nymphadora.
Another one away from Teddy. All their arms were stretched out toward each other, unable to be together in the end.
It was a pitiful display of broken family bonds.
Harry cried his heart out, at being unable to protect his godson.
He hadn’t spelled the attackers off his godson, hadn’t sacrificed himself in vain.
He wished he had.
The graveyard was eternal, a monument of endless suffering.
Harry wished he was among them, could join their lines as a broken hero.
Instead, he was held by the enemy who had put his family here.
This time, he thrashed in the arms whose comfort he longed for, winded himself out with all remaining power. Screamed until he had no voice left. Hurled obscenities at the man in any manner he knew.
It wasn’t enough, would never be enough.
So he wrote one letter, a last one.
He would never write anything else ever again.
‘Won’t you die tonight for love?’
——
Voldemort knew this would be the last letter he’d receive. Ever. From anyone.
Because whatever the boy wished, he would follow.
So he said his first words to him, since he’d joined him on their unlikely journey.
“Baby, join me in death.”
Their walk to the edge of the astronomy tower was long, longer than anticipated. It was spent in complete silence, never to be disturbed again.
Both of them knew this way would reach their end, joined, entangled beyond hopes of entangling.
At the edge, Harry clasped Voldemorts hands and offered him a smile. The first one, the last one.
He let himself fall, dragging the other man down with him.
“Together, in death.”
Perhaps the next life would hold a new start for them.